Reading the Bible with Horror [Hardcover]

In Reading the Bible with Horror, Brandon R. Grafius takes the reader on a whirlwind tour through the dark corners of the Hebrew Bible. Along the way, he stops to place the monstrous Leviathan in conversation with contemporary monster theory, uses Derrida to help explore the ghosts that haunt the biblical landscape, and reads the House of David as a haunted house. Conversations arise between unexpected sources, such as the Pentateuch legal texts dealing with female sexuality and Carrie. Throughout the book, Grafius asks how the Hebrew Bible can be both sacred text and tome of fright, and he explores the numerous ways in which the worlds of religion and horror share uncomfortable spaces.Brandon R. Grafius is assistant professor of biblical studies at Ecumenical Theological Seminary.

This interesting, provocative, and well-documented volume makes a strong case for reading relevant biblical passages on the background of modern horror theory. . . . Overall, this volume is an excellent and important contribution to biblical scholarship. Review of Biblical Literature

There are seldom books you can recommend to both biblical scholars and horror film fans but Grafius new work offers intellectual fireworks for both. In thoughtful and often engaging personal prose, he confronts the darkest shadows of the Hebrew scriptures, indeed of the God they present. Perhaps most important of all, the author, brilliantly, and passionately, uses both the Bible and horror film to explore the problems of building community, making this book especially significant in our troubled political moment. W. Scott Poole, author of Wasteland: The Great War and the Origins of Modern Horror, College of Charleston

Brandon Grafius' Reading the Bible with Horror is as academically adept as it is movingly personal. This is a book that can be profitably used by biblical scholars and their students but also, much more broadly, by those exploring cultural theory and the way religl“c