Scared by the Bible: The Roots of Horror in Scripture

Horror serves as an unlikely but helpful lens through which to examine scripture, in this enlightening analysis from Grafius (Reading the Bible with Horror), a biblical studies professor at the Ecumenical Theological Seminary in Detroit. According to the author, horror engages with deep anxieties that lie at the heart of faith, and links between horror films and biblical stories illuminate key scriptural concerns anew. For example, he compares the apostle Paul’s struggle between spirit and flesh in Romans to the good versus evil battle between Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, underscoring how the “self... contains the monstrous” and the challenges of living in inherently inconvenient, impure bodies. Horror can also reckon with societal concerns; for instance, exorcism movies illustrate how evil warps individuals as well as their families and communities, and highlights “how important the work of healing those breaches can be.” Grafius’s comparisons are revealing and creative, and he makes a convincing case that horror-inflected passages in the Bible are intended not merely to terrify but to construct new realities and raise important questions. (He also tackles some of the Bible’s most troubling passages, including “Happy shall they be who take your little ones and dash them against the rock!” a prayer of revenge against the Babylonian conquerors of Jerusalem.) The result is a wide-ranging exploration of the Bible’s strangest, scariest corners. (Oct.)