Wiggins helps readers track the demonic in the Hebrew Bible, Second Temple Judaism, New Testament, and the Middle Ages, before showing how they jumped straight into our modern world. This well-researched, but pointedly non-academic book helps readers identify demons and sort out possession and what they may have heard from history and Hollywood. He pays attention to the way that women are often at the center of this site of disorder. He walks his readers down the dark and winding path of demonic forces in a variety of world traditions before settling in to focus on the Bible. national stage, so Wiggins explores the timely topic by using the evidence of their activity in popular movies. Perhaps we live in evil times, but Wiggins is always determined to make the best of it. Finally there is a book that allows the reader to understand how the demonic has evolved across millennia in a way that is smart, accessible, and complete. Wiggins is a rare scholar who walks in both worlds. Most scholars who delve into Ugaritic texts and pseudepigrapha won’t even admit to having seen a horror movie. Scholars who study popular culture typically know nothing of biblical studies. A diabolical delight for horror lovers, scholars, and casual movie viewers alike. This book is smart, analytical, wide-ranging, and hard to shake- not unlike demons themselves. From the first murmurings of demons in the ancient Near East to classics such as The Exorcist and Rosemary's Baby to Paranormal Activity and other contemporary demon films, Wiggins unpacks the significance of demons, the gender politics of possession, and the manifold ways the Bible haunts us even today. In Nightmares with the Bible: The Good Book and Cinematic Demons, Wiggins invites us to peer into the Bible's dark corners and follow its demons from the pages of the Good Book to the movie theater. Cowan, Renison University College, University of Waterloo A pleasure to read, and another fine example illustrating how horror cinema not only helps us explore those religious worlds, but reminds us how closely our faith and our fears are related. Wiggins brings together the careful attention of a trained biblical scholar with the delight of an unabashed fan to take his readers on journey through some of the darkest spaces in their religious worlds.
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