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Gift of the Grotesque: A Christological Companion to the Book of Judges
“No other book of the Bible is quite so R-rated. No other book is quite so ugly or grotesque. Judges offers its reader not a roster of angelic saints, but an astonishing tempest of brutality, feces, slaughter, assassinations, conspiracy, genocide, child sacrifice, rage, betrayal, mass graves, gang-rape, corpse mutilation, kidnapping, and civil war.” Gift of the Grotesque offers readers a series of seven theological essays focused on one of the most confusing and challenging books in the biblical canon. Stulac’s captivating style combines sensitive exegesis with broadly accessible meditations on culture, art, music, literature, memoir, theology, and spirituality. Better understood as a companion rather than a biblical commentary, this unusual resource will kickstart the theological imagination of anyone who struggles to understand how the book of Judges points forward to the life and work of Jesus Christ. Dare to follow an experienced biblical scholar into the heart of Israel’s theological Dark Age, and you will encounter there the transformative Word of God in ways you do not expect. The prophetic book of Judges, writes Stulac, “wants to gut you like a fish, because on the far side of that unenviable prospect, it wants you alive like you’ve never lived before.”
119 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
October 5, 2022
Stu's "Gift of the Grotesque" is one of the most challenging, beautiful, insightful things I've read in a long time. This is definitely my favorite book I've read recently. But it's hard to describe exactly what it is.
- It's not a commentary, although it's clear that Stu has read deeply and thought carefully about Judges.
- It's not a monograph, although there is a consistent through line to the narrative that makes it compelling to read.
- It's not a practical guide or a workbook for churches, although there is much that is personally compelling about it.
It's literary, theological, Christological, and exegetical. If Flannery O'Conner wrote biblical theology and an exegesis of Judges, this would be it (and you can feel O'Conner's influence deeply as you read it, both implicitly and explicitly). It's dense; I read many chapters twice; and many paragraphs thrice. It rewards knowing your Bible well. It rewards seeing Jesus in the Old Testament even more. It's haunting and Christ Haunted. But it's also intensely spirit filled.
The way Stu wrote this is what makes it wonderful, but also not something I'd recommend for everyone. This isn't the first thing that you should read on Judges; there's no hand-holding, here, and if you don't know the story of Judges very well (and not merely from a casual read), this probably will leave you scratching your head. Additionally, if you don't accept the validity of Christological exegesis in particular or literary-canonical-theological readings, you'll hate this. It's probably not something I'd recommend to someone who wasn't a confessional Christian, *even though* I think it stands alone as a solid literary reading of Judges (apart from its Christological emphasis), but there's a lot of that to work through.
But if you check those boxes, prepare to be haunted. I slowly digested this and I've thought about it constantly. Every chapter--and nearly every page--had something that I wanted to excerpt. I'm actually angry at how good this is, because it's exactly the kind of thing that I wish I could have written on Judges, and now nothing I ever write on Judges will compare.
Get it. Read it. Let the sword pierce you as you get down in the grime and the muck and the blood of judges. And let it save you.
- It's not a commentary, although it's clear that Stu has read deeply and thought carefully about Judges.
- It's not a monograph, although there is a consistent through line to the narrative that makes it compelling to read.
- It's not a practical guide or a workbook for churches, although there is much that is personally compelling about it.
It's literary, theological, Christological, and exegetical. If Flannery O'Conner wrote biblical theology and an exegesis of Judges, this would be it (and you can feel O'Conner's influence deeply as you read it, both implicitly and explicitly). It's dense; I read many chapters twice; and many paragraphs thrice. It rewards knowing your Bible well. It rewards seeing Jesus in the Old Testament even more. It's haunting and Christ Haunted. But it's also intensely spirit filled.
The way Stu wrote this is what makes it wonderful, but also not something I'd recommend for everyone. This isn't the first thing that you should read on Judges; there's no hand-holding, here, and if you don't know the story of Judges very well (and not merely from a casual read), this probably will leave you scratching your head. Additionally, if you don't accept the validity of Christological exegesis in particular or literary-canonical-theological readings, you'll hate this. It's probably not something I'd recommend to someone who wasn't a confessional Christian, *even though* I think it stands alone as a solid literary reading of Judges (apart from its Christological emphasis), but there's a lot of that to work through.
But if you check those boxes, prepare to be haunted. I slowly digested this and I've thought about it constantly. Every chapter--and nearly every page--had something that I wanted to excerpt. I'm actually angry at how good this is, because it's exactly the kind of thing that I wish I could have written on Judges, and now nothing I ever write on Judges will compare.
Get it. Read it. Let the sword pierce you as you get down in the grime and the muck and the blood of judges. And let it save you.
June 26, 2025
I think Stulac is a little fed up with the limited array of trite and moralizing Bible studies available to help people wade through literary enigmas like Judges, but if the goal of this book is to be communicative, it largely fails. GotG is best read as an experimental journal through Judges. Stulac wants to upend the reader's tidy "good guy/bad guy" categories and replace it with an awestruck sense of Judges as "Prophetic liturgy" in which in which everyone including you is "bad" and God the Savior acts through the grotesque for the good of His people nonetheless - a laudable goal.
Regrettably, if poetry is found in the balance between sound and sense, sound has overwhelmingly triumphed here. Important substantives go undefined, the elastic band of already inelegant metaphors is stretched beyond capacity, and thoughts that start to make sense waft away in curlicues of smoke by the end of the paragraph. A forest of images does not constitute good writing (no matter how ineffable the subject matter and how limited our powers of language), but I do hope more authors take up the challenge to engage the Poetics of Scripture.
Regrettably, if poetry is found in the balance between sound and sense, sound has overwhelmingly triumphed here. Important substantives go undefined, the elastic band of already inelegant metaphors is stretched beyond capacity, and thoughts that start to make sense waft away in curlicues of smoke by the end of the paragraph. A forest of images does not constitute good writing (no matter how ineffable the subject matter and how limited our powers of language), but I do hope more authors take up the challenge to engage the Poetics of Scripture.
December 19, 2022
I’m not sure why GR hasn’t yet merged this with the paperback version that I read, but here’s my review from 11/12/22:
This slim “companion” is remarkably dense with analysis that provides a view substantially different from what a superficial reading of the Book of Judges may lead us to believe— one that often simply reminds us of the usual Sunday School morality tales and hero stories. But Judges does not provide heroes to emulate. It does not delineate the proper rules to live by.
There is a great deal of violence on display in Judges, and this may easily obscure the underlying message. Stulac shows us that while using brushstrokes that may strike us as gory and grotesque, God still paints a picture that points to the good the beautiful and the true.
While reading this book I couldn’t help but wonder how steeped in Ancient Near East culture a person must be, how fluent in OT Hebrew, and how many rereadings of the books of the OT would be required in order to be able to bring so much understanding and fresh insight to the otherwise troublesome Book of Judges.
Although rigorous and scholarly, Stulac’s “Gift” is at times surprisingly personal and poetic. Indeed, it often seems less a commentary than a work of art.
Highly recommended!
This slim “companion” is remarkably dense with analysis that provides a view substantially different from what a superficial reading of the Book of Judges may lead us to believe— one that often simply reminds us of the usual Sunday School morality tales and hero stories. But Judges does not provide heroes to emulate. It does not delineate the proper rules to live by.
“The failure that began as a faint whisper in Joshua‘s day but which develops here into a full-throated roar, never was a failure to perform. It was always a failure to receive.”
There is a great deal of violence on display in Judges, and this may easily obscure the underlying message. Stulac shows us that while using brushstrokes that may strike us as gory and grotesque, God still paints a picture that points to the good the beautiful and the true.
While reading this book I couldn’t help but wonder how steeped in Ancient Near East culture a person must be, how fluent in OT Hebrew, and how many rereadings of the books of the OT would be required in order to be able to bring so much understanding and fresh insight to the otherwise troublesome Book of Judges.
Although rigorous and scholarly, Stulac’s “Gift” is at times surprisingly personal and poetic. Indeed, it often seems less a commentary than a work of art.
Highly recommended!
November 12, 2022
This slim “companion” is remarkably dense with analysis that provides a view substantially different from what a superficial reading of the Book of Judges may lead us to believe— one that often simply reminds us of the usual Sunday School morality tales and hero stories. But Judges does not provide heroes to emulate. It does not delineate the proper rules to live by.
There is a great deal of violence on display in Judges, and this may easily obscure the underlying message. Stulac shows us that while using brushstrokes that may strike us as gory and grotesque, God still paints a picture that points to the good the beautiful and the true.
While reading this book I couldn’t help but wonder how steeped in Ancient Near East culture a person must be, how fluent in OT Hebrew, and how many rereadings of the books of the OT would be required in order to be able to bring so much understanding and fresh insight to the otherwise troublesome Book of Judges.
Although rigorous and scholarly, Stulac’s “Gift” is at times surprisingly personal and poetic. Indeed, it often seems less a commentary than a work of art.
Highly recommended!
“The failure that began as a faint whisper in Joshua‘s day but which develops here into a full-throated roar, never was a failure to perform. It was always a failure to receive.”
There is a great deal of violence on display in Judges, and this may easily obscure the underlying message. Stulac shows us that while using brushstrokes that may strike us as gory and grotesque, God still paints a picture that points to the good the beautiful and the true.
While reading this book I couldn’t help but wonder how steeped in Ancient Near East culture a person must be, how fluent in OT Hebrew, and how many rereadings of the books of the OT would be required in order to be able to bring so much understanding and fresh insight to the otherwise troublesome Book of Judges.
Although rigorous and scholarly, Stulac’s “Gift” is at times surprisingly personal and poetic. Indeed, it often seems less a commentary than a work of art.
Highly recommended!
July 18, 2025
“I fear that I have smothered my reader in too many metaphors…” — yeah, probably so. Not my style.
October 13, 2022
3.5/5
"In all of their multitudinous forms, idols' eduring attraction was and remains visceral, not intellectual. Idols appeal to the gut, to the appetites, to the affections. They satisfy the human longing for control, for safety, and for predictability in a bleeding world. They promise to alleviate our natural anxieties by making us masters of our own creativity. They put divinity into a person's physical hands, right there in his or her grasp, just as an Apple's ergonomic shape and pleasant heft suit the curve of one's fingers. An idol fits in your pocket; you can wrap it up for lunch. You can manage an idol, trade an idol, engineer an idol, fashion an idol into the likeness of the thing that excites or troubles you most--and so reduce your creatureliness to a commodity bought and sold" (6).
"Salvation is a promise, not a deal" (52)
"children make excellent examples of what it means to be 'great' in God's Economy (Matt 18:1-5): not because they are brave, successful, or knowledgeable, theologically sophisticated, doctrinally correct, or especially moral (most are thieves and liars, truth be told), but because they have not yet forgotten how to receive. They spend their days full to the brim in ways they cannot possibly yet comprehend, living life under the naive assumption that everything they need will appear before them as a function of providence. In this respect children are uniquely qualified teachers" (65).
"sacrifice in the biblical imagination is not about coughing up what God wants (Ps 51:16-17), but about God’s choice to supply us with what we need in order to experience God as God really is--and God is love" (66).
"The nonexistent king translates, rather, into inconsistency and confusion regarding the Law's application in daily life. Everyone simply deploys Moses (does what-is-right) as he or she sees fit (in his own eyes). A king, by contrasting implication, would provide the necessary filter or hermeneutic lens that Israel requires in order to understand Moses and live as he commanded (and thus, to do what-is-right in God's eyes). In short, his absence functions less as an indicator of insufficient Law enforcement, and more as the missing element in Israel's struggle to actualize its God-given vocation. In those days there was no king in Israel; God's people could not remember their task. In those days there was no king in Israel; no one could imagine what a holy priesthood might be or what purpose it might serve" (97).
"A god you own is a god that can be taken away. Such gods make no promises, for if they cannot look after themselves, they are even less capable of shoring up the wellbeing of their pastors and congregations" (102).
"In all of their multitudinous forms, idols' eduring attraction was and remains visceral, not intellectual. Idols appeal to the gut, to the appetites, to the affections. They satisfy the human longing for control, for safety, and for predictability in a bleeding world. They promise to alleviate our natural anxieties by making us masters of our own creativity. They put divinity into a person's physical hands, right there in his or her grasp, just as an Apple's ergonomic shape and pleasant heft suit the curve of one's fingers. An idol fits in your pocket; you can wrap it up for lunch. You can manage an idol, trade an idol, engineer an idol, fashion an idol into the likeness of the thing that excites or troubles you most--and so reduce your creatureliness to a commodity bought and sold" (6).
"Salvation is a promise, not a deal" (52)
"children make excellent examples of what it means to be 'great' in God's Economy (Matt 18:1-5): not because they are brave, successful, or knowledgeable, theologically sophisticated, doctrinally correct, or especially moral (most are thieves and liars, truth be told), but because they have not yet forgotten how to receive. They spend their days full to the brim in ways they cannot possibly yet comprehend, living life under the naive assumption that everything they need will appear before them as a function of providence. In this respect children are uniquely qualified teachers" (65).
"sacrifice in the biblical imagination is not about coughing up what God wants (Ps 51:16-17), but about God’s choice to supply us with what we need in order to experience God as God really is--and God is love" (66).
"The nonexistent king translates, rather, into inconsistency and confusion regarding the Law's application in daily life. Everyone simply deploys Moses (does what-is-right) as he or she sees fit (in his own eyes). A king, by contrasting implication, would provide the necessary filter or hermeneutic lens that Israel requires in order to understand Moses and live as he commanded (and thus, to do what-is-right in God's eyes). In short, his absence functions less as an indicator of insufficient Law enforcement, and more as the missing element in Israel's struggle to actualize its God-given vocation. In those days there was no king in Israel; God's people could not remember their task. In those days there was no king in Israel; no one could imagine what a holy priesthood might be or what purpose it might serve" (97).
"A god you own is a god that can be taken away. Such gods make no promises, for if they cannot look after themselves, they are even less capable of shoring up the wellbeing of their pastors and congregations" (102).
December 31, 2023
Anne Shirley of Green Gables would adore Stulac's "romantical" style. Being more like Marilla than Anne, I found myself wondering why all the "stuff and nonsense" wasn't edited out to make this short book half as long. I was a bit confused as to the intended audience, since Stulac transliterates the Hebrew words (which this uneducated stay-at-home-mom appreciates!), but at the same time drops references and vocabulary that assumes the reader has successfully passed the GRE. (How nice that e-books have a "Look Up" button!)
I occasionally wondered if drawing so many connections from simply a Hebrew root was valid, but I'd reach the end of each chapter and be so blown away by the gospel-rich conclusions that I was all in on his reading of the book. As a children's Bible class teacher who has gleefully mocked Eglon and Sisera, Jephthah and Samson, preaching the "downward spiral" of the book of Judges and illustrating for the class just how foolish "they" were, I felt the sting of conviction to realize that the Judges "narrator's worm has been swallowed and the parable's hook, set."
-"Evacuated of the scorn you prepared for Israel's enemy, it is finally your feces that spill out onto the Stable floor, cut loose by the Savior's double-mouthed blade. The Gift is a bloodbath. Are you laughing now?"
-"Victor and vanquished alike, woman and man, raped and rapist, mother and child. No monsters here. No demons or devils, no orcs or witches, no Bolsheviks or Nazis. Only people, only us."
-"Hope in Judges lies not with the savvy critic... but in the book's inspired and authoritative capacity to undermine that critic's good taste. Ever the literary gargoyle, Judges wants you (yes, you) dead on a plate."
-"Israel's true enemy--and the book's real villain all along--appears only in the sheen of a silver ephod held up to the reader's streaked and salty face. The Canaanite goblin lies within. Male or female, black or white, rich or poor, he makes a dirty joke of us all."
Thankfully, the terrifying news that I "crucified this Jesus whom God has made both Lord and Christ" is followed by very Good News.
-"Jesus does descend, as the voiceless least of these, as a freak-show jester and a Canaanite king, broken for you."
-"Who would guess that from a deadly lion, unclean yet cloven, comes food? Hidden on this story's underbelly hangs a honeycomb, redemptive and good."
After bringing such a powerful reminder of the beautiful gospel, and self-deprecatingly acknowledging that he has "smothered [his] reader in too many metaphors," Stulac's humility and love of Christ has endeared him to me like Anne to Marilla. I will certainly be reading more from him.
I occasionally wondered if drawing so many connections from simply a Hebrew root was valid, but I'd reach the end of each chapter and be so blown away by the gospel-rich conclusions that I was all in on his reading of the book. As a children's Bible class teacher who has gleefully mocked Eglon and Sisera, Jephthah and Samson, preaching the "downward spiral" of the book of Judges and illustrating for the class just how foolish "they" were, I felt the sting of conviction to realize that the Judges "narrator's worm has been swallowed and the parable's hook, set."
-"Evacuated of the scorn you prepared for Israel's enemy, it is finally your feces that spill out onto the Stable floor, cut loose by the Savior's double-mouthed blade. The Gift is a bloodbath. Are you laughing now?"
-"Victor and vanquished alike, woman and man, raped and rapist, mother and child. No monsters here. No demons or devils, no orcs or witches, no Bolsheviks or Nazis. Only people, only us."
-"Hope in Judges lies not with the savvy critic... but in the book's inspired and authoritative capacity to undermine that critic's good taste. Ever the literary gargoyle, Judges wants you (yes, you) dead on a plate."
-"Israel's true enemy--and the book's real villain all along--appears only in the sheen of a silver ephod held up to the reader's streaked and salty face. The Canaanite goblin lies within. Male or female, black or white, rich or poor, he makes a dirty joke of us all."
Thankfully, the terrifying news that I "crucified this Jesus whom God has made both Lord and Christ" is followed by very Good News.
-"Jesus does descend, as the voiceless least of these, as a freak-show jester and a Canaanite king, broken for you."
-"Who would guess that from a deadly lion, unclean yet cloven, comes food? Hidden on this story's underbelly hangs a honeycomb, redemptive and good."
After bringing such a powerful reminder of the beautiful gospel, and self-deprecatingly acknowledging that he has "smothered [his] reader in too many metaphors," Stulac's humility and love of Christ has endeared him to me like Anne to Marilla. I will certainly be reading more from him.
June 21, 2023
At least, read the chapter on Ehud. It will open your eyes to fruitful reading of Judges in light of our sin and our Christ. The whole thing is worth reading, but that chapter is especially good and gets you on board with his reading of Judges.
April 29, 2024
My takeaways
1. Work is worship. The Israelites (and me?) try to bring about peace without completing the work and ironically end up in a cycle of continual violence.
2. God gives gifts, but Israel(and me too?) has always wanted contracts. Then they can feel as though they are "doing their part." But God just wants us to receive. Any success in the book of Judges belongs go God.
3. Judges shows us that we must all journey on this cycle through the mud and blood, with the damned to admit God's desire to save.
4. We want faith to be part of our own religious ambition. Something that comes from inside us and we express outwardly, but it is when all the saviors in judges start to see themselves this way that things fall apart.
5. God's Economy of Gift has the reader see biblical victory--not to savor the enemy's deserved punishment, but to witness it and remove all our idolatrous pretenses and replace it all with God's Economy of Gift.
6. Children are great because they have not forgotten how to receive. As they learn more they need to learn that love is not transactional, but that it is relational. We don't barter with our parents...and God certainly can't be bought.
7. The Israelites create self-inflicted wounds(they throw tantrums), God, as the loving parent, waits while they(and I) yell, scream, hit and damage all around them. Just as I would take all the pain and suffering for my child God wants to do that for us (spoiler He will with Jesus), God is always there waiting for the tantrum to end because his love is not a deal but a Gift.
1. Work is worship. The Israelites (and me?) try to bring about peace without completing the work and ironically end up in a cycle of continual violence.
2. God gives gifts, but Israel(and me too?) has always wanted contracts. Then they can feel as though they are "doing their part." But God just wants us to receive. Any success in the book of Judges belongs go God.
3. Judges shows us that we must all journey on this cycle through the mud and blood, with the damned to admit God's desire to save.
4. We want faith to be part of our own religious ambition. Something that comes from inside us and we express outwardly, but it is when all the saviors in judges start to see themselves this way that things fall apart.
5. God's Economy of Gift has the reader see biblical victory--not to savor the enemy's deserved punishment, but to witness it and remove all our idolatrous pretenses and replace it all with God's Economy of Gift.
6. Children are great because they have not forgotten how to receive. As they learn more they need to learn that love is not transactional, but that it is relational. We don't barter with our parents...and God certainly can't be bought.
7. The Israelites create self-inflicted wounds(they throw tantrums), God, as the loving parent, waits while they(and I) yell, scream, hit and damage all around them. Just as I would take all the pain and suffering for my child God wants to do that for us (spoiler He will with Jesus), God is always there waiting for the tantrum to end because his love is not a deal but a Gift.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 30, 2024
This book has a fabulous point but is written in a maddening way. I agree with the author that the book of Judges should not be sanitized into moralistic tidbits for Bible class. It is a book of sickening thought, behavior, and outcomes. And in that regard, Stulac helps one to understand what is really happening in the text and what the author intended. It is meant to make us uneasy and uncomfortable - sin does that!
However, there are numerous times when the author fancies himself too much as a poet and dramatist. Many times I thought "WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?" Many of his Christological connections were almost too subtle to notice, like when you miss the exit on the highway. He admits that he waterboards the reader with metaphor.
I feel like the same goals could have been accomplished with an easier to read style that felt (at times) like he was trying to show his brilliance. But given all the top-notch reviews, maybe I'm just too thick to "get it." Or does it have something to do with the emperor's clothes?
However, there are numerous times when the author fancies himself too much as a poet and dramatist. Many times I thought "WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?" Many of his Christological connections were almost too subtle to notice, like when you miss the exit on the highway. He admits that he waterboards the reader with metaphor.
I feel like the same goals could have been accomplished with an easier to read style that felt (at times) like he was trying to show his brilliance. But given all the top-notch reviews, maybe I'm just too thick to "get it." Or does it have something to do with the emperor's clothes?
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