Religion and Its Monsters

Publisher description: Timothy K. Beal writes about the monsters that lurk in our religious texts, and reveals how monsters and religion are irrevocably entwined. According to Beal, we can learn something about religion by getting to know its monsters, and we can learn something about monsters by investigating their religious roots. As Timothy Beal follows monsters throughout religious texts and traditions, he also discovers religion lurking in the modern horror genre, from classics like Frankenstein and Dracula to the contemporary spookiness of H.P. Lovecraft's short stories and the Hellraiser films. Drawing upon a broad range of ancient texts and popular culture, from rabbinic lore to Goth counterculture, he explores the fascinating and often disturbing ways in which monsters haunt religion and religion haunts the monstrous.