Biblical Giants as Monsters

Abstract This chapter discusses the Giant in biblical literature, primarily focusing on the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament but also tracing motifs of monstrous gigantism in the reception history of the post-biblical world. First, the definition of the giant is situated within a context of moralizing spatial imagery that views large things generally as potentially threatening to the primacy of Israel’s God. The chapter further seeks to define giants as “monsters,” focusing primarily on how the giant may be viewed in terms of transgressed boundaries, hybrid identity, and a threat to the “home.” After this, giants in the Bible are considered under the categories of primordial and nonhuman (or semi-human) beings, followed by a review of human giants during the conquest of Joshua and the reign of King David. Various ways of explaining the appearance of giants in the Bible are considered, such as straightforward historical explanations, theories based on ancient observation of giant bones or ruins, and other proposals based on the development of myth, symbol, and literature in the ancient world. The chapter concludes by tracing how the Bible’s story of giants continued into early Jewish literature and beyond.