Richey employs a school of literary criticism known as 'monster theory,' applying techniques other scholars have used to analyze horror movies and Gothic novels.Įxamining the Bible’s monsters offers a new way of exploring the culture of ancient Israel and the texts it produced as well as approaching the idea of God, Richey said. In Babylon, Assyria, Persia, Egypt, Canaan and elsewhere, monsters expressed differing views of the cosmos and the divine order.

Her research focuses on how the writers of the Hebrew Bible interpreted and reinterpreted supernatural creatures found in other cultures throughout the region. 'They were trying to think about them and think with them,' she said. Richey said monsters have traditionally gotten short shrift from Biblical scholars, who have dismissed them as incidental or irrelevant or explained them away as antiquated descriptions of real animals such as crocodiles and bison.īut ancient peoples attached huge significance to monsters, Richey said. She finds them everywhere - in the Book of Numbers, where God sends snakes to punish the Israelites to the mysterious nephilim, sons of God, in Genesis who cohabitate with human women to the more well-known ones such as the Leviathan, the giant fish in Jonah, and the demoness Lilith. People read the Hebrew Bible for all sorts of things - spiritual guidance, literary inspiration, moral enlightenment.Īssistant professor of Hebrew Bible Madadh Richey looks for monsters. Graduate Professional Studies (Online Programs) Rabb School: Graduate Professional Studies

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