Leo Lin, Period 1, 3/5/2024

Leo Lin, Period 1, 3/4/24

Modern Mythology 2024,

Research Paper

Biblical Allusions In Beowulf

Beowulf was heavily influenced by Christianity as seen with various references to events in the bible. I found it interesting and wanted to explore the biblical elements referenced in the story. When we first started reading Grendel in class, the first thing I learned was that Grendel is a “Descendant of Cain''. In Beowulf, all evil things were considered descendants of Cain, such as Grendel, his mother, and the Dragon. In the bible, Cain was the first murderer. Cain and his brother Abel both gave offerings to God. God favored Abel’s offering over Cain’s and out of jealousy, Cain killed his brother. With the land cursed with drinking Abel’s blood, Cain could never harvest the land ever again and was branded with the mark of Cain preventing anyone from exacting vengeance upon him. Much like Cain, Grendel was cursed to be an outcast. At the beginning of Gardner’s book, Grendel tries to communicate with the people of Heorot but is unable to communicate with the humans despite speaking the same language and is driven out.

Another allusion in this story is Noah’s Ark. The story goes that God saw the wickedness of man and was moved to blot out man from the face of the Earth. He told Noah to build an arc to survive the flood and repopulate the Earth. The evil that was wiped away from the flood could refer to the descendants of Cain. Heorot in a sense could be a representation of what seems to be an ideal society or world until Grendel(Cain) introduced the sin of murder upon it. Beowulf in this case came to Heorot to get rid of the evil much like the flood. Another way I interpreted this is that Beowulf came to finish what the flood couldn’t. In the original Beowulf, the author wrote that Grendel’s mother was forced down into fearful waters after Cain killed his brother. We know that Grendel and his mother live underwater which could mean they’ve survived the flood. The hilt of the ancient sword which Beowulf killed Grendel’s mother with was “engraved all over and showed how war first came into the world and the flood destroyed the tribe of giants.”

Beowulf could also be an allusion to Jesus Christ. Beowulf brought along eleven men during his last task to slay the dragon. However, all of them but Wiglaf deserted Beowulf when the fight started. Jesus had 12 disciples, however, one of them Judas killed himself out of remorse for betraying Jesus. During Jesus’s crucifixion, Peter said “Lord, to whom shall we go. You have the message of eternal life and we believe that You are the Son of God”. However, he and the rest of the disciples lost faith in Jesus and left him. The only disciple that remained was John. Beowulf also said that fighting the dragon was inappropriate for anyone but himself, much like how it was only Christ’s job to die for man's salvation.

There are many more elements in Beowulf that reflect part of the bible, here are just some of them that stood out to me. While looking into this, I found that there are subtle differences between the bible and the events in the story. For example, Christ was ultimately able to achieve his goal of saving humanity. Beowulf on the other hand failed, the one who slayed the dragon was Wiglaf. Maybe the Anglo-Saxon author was trying to say that the Paganistic Beowulf was a failure. However, this is merely speculation, one could only wonder about the true purpose behind the imperfect allusions.



Jude Burkett, "Beowulf: Biblical Allusions and Anglo-Saxon Society." Clarifying Catholicism, Clarifying Catholicism, November 17, 2022

https://clarifyingcatholicism.org/uncategorized/beowulf-biblical-allusions-and-anglo-saxon-society/

Bonds, Nick. "Biblical Allusion: Beowulf’s Grendel in Relation to Cain." Nick Bonds' Blog, (n.d.)

Accessed 3/5/24

https://nickbonds.wordpress.com/biblical-allusion-beowulfs-grendel-in-relation-to-cain/

"Curse and Mark of Cain." Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 4 March 2024,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_and_mark_of_Cain

Wyatt Graham, "Only One Apostle Stood at the Cross—Can You Guess Who It Is?" The Gospel Coalition, The Gospel Coalition, 12 April 2019,

https://ca.thegospelcoalition.org/columns/detrinitate/only-one-apostle-stood-at-the-cross-can-you-guess-who-it-is/