Hello, and welcome to The Monster & The Child, where childhood studies and monster studies collide! I am Dr. Kathleen Kellett, and this video is actually going to be quite light on the childhood studies side of things, because this is the first in a new feature on the channel where I review and recommend some of the nonfiction works that I have on my bookshelf. So I’ve got my monster shelf up there, and then my childhood studies, children’s literature, literature in general, some broader theory texts, and I figured I would share some of them with you in between video essays. So this first review is of an excellent book that I read last year by Dr. Esther J. Hamori, and it is called God’s Monsters: Vengeful Spirits, Deadly Angels, Hybrid Creatures, and Divine Hitmen of the Bible.
So one thing you may not know about me is that I love learning about ancient religions and religious history. These are absolutely not my areas of scholarly expertise, so like definitely don’t come to me with serious questions about those topics, but as an amateur, in all senses of the word – inexpert but someone who just loves this stuff – these topics are some of my favorite to just explore. I love a good Wikipedia black hole, and ancient Southwest Asian religions, Abrahamic and otherwise, are my favorite and most frequent means of opening like 97 tabs at once. Also, the YouTube channels Esoterica and Religion for Breakfast are two of my all-time public scholarship inspirations. So my wife really knocked it out of the park when she got God’s Monsters for me as a gift. Religious history and monster studies? A blessing from the universe for me personally.
This book is a work of extremely well-researched scholarship, but it is written for a popular audience, and it is highly accessible to people who’ve never studied religion or monsters a day in their life. Some of my favorite works of scholarship have been published outside of academic publishing and intended for broader, non-academic audiences, and that shouldn’t be surprising, given the kind of work I’ve pursued here on YouTube. I’ve always been most inspired by scholars who are able to communicate beyond the halls of academia and introduce their rigorous work to the wider world. Dr. Hamori accomplishes that task very well, with her engaging, often very humorous writing style and her clear explanations of thorny issues of translation and cultural context. Now, I will say that my only like personal quibble with this book is that it did occasionally leave me wanting a little more. I wanted to get further into the weeds of the history and theology, but that isn’t necessarily a fault of the book itself. In fact, it may be another benefit of popular scholarship, as it can act as an accessible entry point for readers, who can then pursue more research on the topic now armed with some initial context.
So let’s get into what God’s Monsters is all about. Dr. Hamori begins by laying the groundwork of her research in a brief introduction entitled “Monster Heaven.” She explains that, despite centuries of careful cultural taming, the texts that comprise the Bible – both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament – are absolutely chock full of monsters. Not only that, but these monstrous figures – hybrid, dangerous, category-transgressing, and frequently violent – are often working for the God of the Bible, not against him. She also writes very movingly about how she came to be interested in this topic through grappling with the death of her brother. Hamori is Jewish by heritage, and she writes that she found her way back to this tradition after “a long period of religious exploration” propelled by her grief (9). Part of what she connected with coming back to Judaism and coming back to the Hebrew Bible was the darkness within the biblical texts. She writes, “Along the way, I tried focusing on the many biblical passages of comfort and hope, but taken alone, they fell short. Maybe that’s why they’re not alone. The Bible is rich with comfort, but also chock full of macabre stories, and with their recognition of a troubled reality, they offer something that the safer, prettier texts can’t. Hope is all well and good, but acknowledgement of the grim has a comfort all its own” (9). I really appreciated that she included this vulnerable personal information in her intro, because it contextualizes the rest of the book not as some kind of attack on the historical religious texts by pointing out all the ways in which the God within them can be shockingly violent, but rather as a reclamation of the complexity inherent in the way that people, since ancient times, have grappled with their place within an often frightening cosmos. Hamori writes of the biblical monsters, “Monsters have meaning; monsters raise questions; monsters make us think” (9). All of that is pretty much the thesis statement of my entire life, so I really went into this book knowing that I was going to vibe with it. Also, I really believe in keeping oneself as a writer and a person present and reflexive within scholarship – pretending that scholarly work is objective is so 19th-century patriarchal and white supremacist – and I think that popular scholarship like this book gives authors a lot of freedom, often more freedom, to do so, as opposed to the more formal requirements of academic publication. So that is one more reason to appreciate works for public audiences.
The body of the book is separated into three parts: God’s Entourage, The Monsters Beneath, and The God-Monster. God’s Entourage is the longest part, with six chapters that cover seraphim, cherubim, and angels, as well as the demons and spirits who also work for God, including the Adversary, which is the origins of the name and being “Satan.” Far from being enemies of God, as these latter figures are most frequently perceived today, various texts within the Bible describe spiritual beings of all varieties doing the Lord’s bidding. I particularly enjoyed Chapter 4, “The Destroyer and Other Angels,” which describes how some of the angelic figures have these single-function identities that they execute (literally) to their fullest extent. She discusses how in the cultural context in which these texts were written, often the “goodness” of God was more beside the point. Instead, often the most important thing within the ancient Southwest Asian context was having a powerful God. Is your God going to be able to beat all the surrounding national Gods of your enemies? Is he able to keep his law and the cosmological and social order in line? That’s what these writers of these texts were often looking for, and how better to demonstrate those abilities than by detailing the extremely powerful spiritual entities that God has under his control, and all of the mighty destruction they can cause at his bidding?
One detail that Hamori repeatedly emphasizes in this section is the ways in which translation can downplay or outright change the implications of the original text. She provides her own translation for the passages she quotes, and it’s really striking I think for anyone who was raised with any part of the Bible as a religious text to see how different the language is from the way these texts are communicated to religious communities today. The most striking example is the way she renders the phrase that is usually translated into English as “the Lord of hosts.” This phrase is probably familiar to most people who, like myself, grew up in a Christian context, and it was always sort of one of the more opaque titles. I remember assuming that the “heavenly hosts” were just kind of a name for a group of angels. Like a collective noun, like flock or herd. But Hamori explains that this is a “sanitized translation” of a word that more simply just means “armies” (62). So each time she quotes a passage that in most English-language Bibles today contains the phrase “Lord of hosts,” she renders it “Lord of armies,” which really reorients the reader to a different historical perspective of God, without the subsequent centuries of translational PR.
Part 2, “The Monsters Beneath,” contains three chapters that talk about Leviathan, then ghosts and the undead, and then giants. These chapters demonstrate how, even when certain monsters are framed as the enemies of God in various biblical texts, they still function according to the Lord’s own design to sort of prove his might. The final section about the God-Monster only has one chapter, but it serves as the work’s conclusion, where Hamori discusses the overlap between categories of divinity and monstrosity, as well as wonder and terror. She also writes about how dismissing the violence of the biblical God makes both the Bible and God too simple, too easy, when really the beauty of the text, as she sees it, and one of the beauties of humanity is the struggle with the complexities and darkness of human existence and what that darkness may mean about whatever underlies that existence.
If you are watching this channel, I know that monster studies is of interest to you, so I would heartily recommend checking out this book, especially if you’re also a nerd for religious history like me. I have links to where you can purchase God’s Monsters and also learn more about Dr. Hamori in the description. Also in the description, I have a link to my website, themonsterandthechild.com, where you can check out my various educational monster programs, including Monster Book Clubs for both teens and adults. I would love to see you in these monster communities! I’ve also got a link to a version of my Youth Monsterology program, which is a lit discussion and writing skills mentorship program for teenagers, that I have modified to work as a class for Outschool.com, which is an online educational platform. I would greatly appreciate it if you could click that link, demonstrate engagement with the class, and also to share it with any teens or just people who have teens in their life. Also, specific to Philly and Philly-adjacent folks, I’ve got another monster story workshop class with Mt. Airy Learning Tree that you can also find in the description. So a lot of irons in the fire over here at The Monster & The Child, and if you enjoy my work over here, then the absolute most helpful thing you can do to support it would be to share those links. If you would like to support my work further, I also have my Patreon linked down below, where you can join yet another monster community and get a chance to vote on future video topics and watch additional reaction videos. Meanwhile, if you enjoyed this video, please give it a like and a share, and remember to subscribe to the channel so you never miss a monstrous conversation. I will be back here next week with a new video essay about The Iron Giant and The Wild Robot, which I am very excited to share with you! Until then, take care, and I will see you soon for more monstrous food for thought.
Link to purchase: https://www.broadleafbooks.com/store/product/9781506486321/Gods-Monsters
More about Dr. Hamori: https://utsnyc.edu/blog/faculty/esther-j-hamori/
Want more scholarship about religious history? Check out @TheEsotericaChannel and @ReligionForBreakfast
Want more monster education and community? Check out my programs at https://themonsterandthechild.com/
Youth Monsterology: Literature and Writing for 14-18yo students is now available on Outschool: https://outschool.com/classes/youth-monsterology-literature-and-writing-ulae9sPa
For Philly folks, I’m offering a teen monster story writing workshop with Mt. Airy Learning Tree: https://aceweb.mtairylearningtree.org/wconnect/ace/CourseStatus.awp?course=26FKD02
Kathleen Kellett 