• Home
• Study
• Study Information
• Modules
• Module Information

Monsters in the Bible and Beyond

Module description

In this module you will use Monster Theory to interpret and analyse monsters and images of the monstrous in biblical texts. Understandings of these biblical monsters will allow you to assess how biblical writers conveyed their cultural concerns and challenges via the monstrous. Additionally, you will interrogate the use of biblical texts and motifs alongside representations of the monstrous in television, films, and video games. You will examine some of the most salient challenges we face in contemporary society that intersect with shifting attitudes towards the Bible. You will be introduced to approaches to the study of biblical reception history alongside the use of Monster Theory in order to develop liberative critiques of biblical texts in relation to social justice issues.

Being an interdisciplinary module, this module is recommended for students on MA Theology and Religion, MA Film and Screen Studies, MA Magic and Occult Science. There are no module pre-requisites.  

Module aims - intentions of the module

This module introduces you to interdisciplinary ways of studying biblical texts (Hebrew Bible & New Testament) by focusing on Monster Theory as a hermeneutic approach to biblical texts. You will also learn to utilise methods from television, film and video game studies scholarship, reception history scholarship, and broader Horror Theory scholarship. This module will examine the relationship between the use and influence of biblical texts in relation to issues such as colonial legacies, sexual politics & gender, climate change, the hegemony of religious institutions, class disparity, and constructions of ‘Otherness’. You will assess the impact of ‘monstrous’ popular culture retellings in their attempts to critique and reframe the status of the Bible for massive global audiences. You will analyse the impact of medium on the reception of biblical retellings. You will prepare an oral presentation which can be delivered either in-person or as a recorded film, each of which implement skills for future employment. This module is informed by the convenor’s current research project.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 1. Identify, analyse and interpret monsters in biblical texts using critical approaches.
• 2. Interrogate and contextualise the use of monsters and the monstrous alongside biblical receptions in digital visual media.
• 3. Implement interdisciplinary approaches such as Monster Theory, theories from Film Studies, Video Games Studies and Reception History Studies.

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 4. Engage in close analytical readings of biblical texts.
• 5. Engage in close analysis of biblical receptions in digital visual media.
• 6. Demonstrate awareness of the ways in which biblical texts and their interpretations have influenced social justice issues positively and negatively.

ILO: Personal and key skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 7. Reflect critically on one’s own and others’ positions as interpreters of biblical texts.
• 8. Coherently communicate critical and persuasive arguments in written and verbal forms.

Syllabus plan

Whilst the content may vary from year to year, it is envisioned that it will cover some or all of the following topics:

• What is a monster?
• Biblical monstrosities: sea monsters, seraphim and Satan
• God as monster
• Witches, vampires and blood beyond the Bible
• The monstrous feminine
• Religion, zombies, and capitalism
• The monstrous Other: The Shape of Water and Venom

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Formative assessment

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Details of summative assessment

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Re-assessment notes

Deferral – if you miss an assessment for certificated reasons judged acceptable by the Mitigation Committee, you will normally be either deferred in the assessment or an extension may be granted. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of deferral will not be capped and will be treated as it would be if it were your first attempt at the assessment.

Referral – if you have failed the module overall (i.e. a final overall module mark of less than 50%) you will be required to submit a further assessment as necessary. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of referral will be capped at 50%.

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

• James Aston and John Walliss, Small Screen Revelations: Apocalypse in Contemporary Television (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2013).
• Timothy Beal, Religion and its Monsters (New York: Routledge, 2002).
• Frank Bosman, Gaming and the Divine: A New Systematic Theology of Video Games (Abingdon: Routledge, 2019).
• Frank G. Bosman and Archibald L.H.M. van Wieringen, Video Games as Art (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2022).
• Dan W. Clanton Jr. and Terry R. Clark eds., The Oxford Handbook of the Bible and American Popular Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020).
• Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, ‘Monster Culture (Seven Theses)’ in J. J. Cohen. (ed.) Monster Theory (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996) 3–25.
• Brandon Grafius (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Monsters (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2024).
• Brandon Grafius, Lurking under the Surface?: Horror, Religion, and the Questions That Haunt Us. (Minneapolis, Minnesota: 1517 Media, 2022).
• Brandon Grafius ‘Horror and Bible (Six Theses)’ in Natasha L. Mikles and Joseph P. Laycock (Eds.), Religion, Culture, and the Monstrous: Of Gods and Monsters (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2021), 29 – 39.
• Brandon Grafius, ‘Text and Terror: Monster Theory and the Hebrew Bible’ Currents in Biblical Research 16 (2017), 34-49.

Indicative learning resources - Other resources

• Heather Macumber, Recovering the Monstrous in Revelation. 1st edn. (Lanham: Lexington Books/Fortress Academic, 2021).
• Esther Hamori, God’s Monsters: Vengeful Spirits, Deadly Angels, Hybrid Creatures, and Divine Hitmen of the Bible (Minneapolis, Minnesota: Broadleaf Books, 2023).
• Natasha L. Mikles and Joseph P. Laycock (eds.), Religion, Culture, and the Monstrous: Of Gods and Monsters (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2021).
• Kelly J. Murphy, ‘Leviathan to Lucifer: What Biblical Monsters (Still) Reveal’ Interpretation 74 (2020), 146-15.
• Bernard Perron, Mark J.P. Wolf (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Video Game Studies (United Kingdom: Taylor & Francis, 2014).
• W. Scott Poole, Monsters in America: our historical obsession with the hideous and the haunting (Waco, Texas: Baylor University Press, 2011).
• Linda S. Schearing, ‘The Bible, Women, and Video Games’ in Susanne Scholz ed., The Oxford Handbook of Feminist Approaches to the Hebrew Bible (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020).
• Yvonne Sherwood, A Biblical Text and its Afterlives (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).
• Yvonne Sherwood, Biblical Blaspheming: Trials of the Sacred for a Secular Age (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2014).
• Lesleigh Cushing Stahlberg, Sustaining fictions: Intertextuality, Midrash, Translation, and the Literary Afterlife of the Bible (New York: T&T Clark, 2008).
• Richard Walsh ed., T&T Clark Companion to the Bible and Film (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2018).
• Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock (ed.), The Monster Theory Reader (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2020).
• Rebekah Welton, ‘Isaac Rebounds: A Video Game Retelling of the Aqedah’, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 44 (2019), 293-314.

Key words search

Bible, monsters, monster theory, film, television, video games, social justice