The Return of the Chaos Monsters
Gregory Mobley’s The Return of the Chaos Monsters: And Other Backstories of the Bible (2012) packs an ambitious and interesting perspective on the Hebrew Bible into a slim volume. What the book calls “backstories” are overarching themes that inform the Biblical narrative, and according to Mobley, most have to do with how God and humans manage chaos in order to maintain a livable, orderly universe. The backstory to creation is that God has subdued the chaos, sometimes personified as monsters like Leviathan, allowing the creation of the cosmos, but the chaos can and will return. The other backstories describe how God has partnered with humans and given them laws to promote the maintenance of an orderly universe; actions like murder that are contrary to the laws invite chaos and threaten the health of creation. While most of the book tells a fairly coherent story about chaos management, I did think that the final section on the apocalypticism, which frames apocalyptic thinkers as the world’s first “conspiracy theorists,” sidetracked the argument, although this may reflect how apocalyptic writing, with its Christian flavor, differs from earlier Israelite writing. But overall, Mobley provides a comprehensive, fresh look at most of the Hebrew Bible, which is no mean feat.
I was frustrated, however, that Mobley seems to skirt what to me is the most obvious question arising from his analysis: when God is angry that human sin is damaging the world by letting chaos in, is it because he is genuinely worried that creation won’t hold and everything will be destroyed, or just annoyed that we’ve made a mess in his nice cosmos? Does he just want us to feel involved in chaos management, like a parent with a preschooler, or can he really not pick up our slack? And if God does truly need human help, not just want it, what does that mean for the conception of God’s omnipotence? Haven’t we strayed into a dualist system, where chaos itself is an equally powerful being locked in a perpetual duel with God, rather than an instrument of God’s will? I suspect the Bible holds no clear answer to this question because the people behind the biblical texts had differing beliefs about Yahweh’s relative power and place in the cosmos. Mobley does touch on this issue in his discussion of the Kabbalistic and Hasidic concept of tzimtzum, the purposeful contraction of God that allowed the world to contain many beings. This line of thought suggests that God decided to reduce himself and disperse his power into his creations, and now requires humans to willingly lend it back to him in order for him to wield it. But I wished the book had grappled with this fascinating problem in clearer, less abstract terms (and without so much use of the term “love-energy,” but that is just a personal preference).
Mobley writes in a personable, conversational tone that in general makes the book very easy to read. He does stray into some aggrandizing language about stories in the introduction, and I am baffled by the decision to use a long and rather upsetting personal story about a dead horse to explain a very simple literary concept, but overall his writing is engaging. In particular, I loved his phrase “a savvy madam’s mendacious affirmation of male performance” in reference to the sex worker Rahab stroking the egos of the Israelite soldiers she saves; the playful suggestion that Lucifer volunteered to serve as the Adversary and take the fall for evil in the universe because he had better “dramatic range” than Michael or Gabriel; and the idea that the Book of Job presented a system of “quantum morality,” where the normal ethical rules break down and bad things happen to good people, compared to the simple Newtonian morality of cause and effect that operates in most of the Bible, where good things happen to good people.
Admittedly, I was a little apprehensive when I read that Mobley was an ordained American Baptist minister; I’ve been burned before by sermons masquerading as scholarship. His personal religious leanings do bleed through a few times, especially when he suggests following the discussion of the Book of Job that God allows bad things to happen because of love, or when he fills the conclusion with discussion of a few minor biblical stories involving windows to expound on the importance of grace. But for the most part, Mobley seems to let the text and historical scholarship, rather than preconceived religious notions, guide his analysis.
In summary, some minor issues aside, this book is entertaining, covers a wide swath of the Bible, and offers an interesting perspective. And even better, it’s short and well-written enough that you can polish it off in a few sittings.
The accompanying image is a print (1825-1826) by artist William Blake, depicting Behemoth and Leviathan as described in the Book of Job. The Metropolitan Museum of Art released this image into the public domain.
A print (1825-1826) by artist William Blake, depicting Behemoth and Leviathan as described in the Book of Job