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* A new film version of ''Beowulf'', directed by Robert Zemeckis using the "motion capture" technique and starring Ray Winstone as Beowulf, Crispin Glover as Grendel, and Angelina Jolie as Grendel's mother, was released in 2007.
* A new film version of ''Beowulf'', directed by Robert Zemeckis using the "motion capture" technique and starring Ray Winstone as Beowulf, Crispin Glover as Grendel, and Angelina Jolie as Grendel's mother, was released in 2007.
== Creationist Implications==
Lorella Rouster has pointed out a number of creationist implications in the Beowulf epic. She recognizes that Beowulf has long been recognized as a paradox and puzzle. The Old English tale is recognized by many as "the earliest and greatest epic in our literature.<ref>William J. Long, Ph.D., English literature, its history and its significance for the life of the English-speaking world, Boston, Ginn & Co., 1909, p. 10</ref> Yet one of its translators admits that "no one knows when Beowulf was composed, or by whom, or why."<ref>Burton Raffel, Beowulf, Mentor Books, NY, 1963, p. ix</ref> Only one manuscript exists, now in the British Museum Library, and it is a copy written in two distinct handwritings.<ref>Raffel, p. 18</ref> This manuscript is the sole survivor of Henry VIII's war on monasteries and their libraries. It is in poor and ever-deteriorating condition due to careless binding having gone through a fire in 1731. Some words are known only through ultraviolet photography, some through transcripts made in 1786-87 by the Danish scholar Thorkelin.<ref>Donald K Frey, The Beowulf Poet, Prentiss Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1968, p. 75</ref> Rouster points out that Beowulf is of great interest from a creationist perspective, for it contains a myriad of Biblical references to Genesis chapters 1 thru 6, with an abrupt cut-off at that point. Most critics have called it an odd mixture of Christianity and paganism. Bloomfield, fore example, calls it "an old Scandanavian tale...changed into a Christian poem"<ref>Long, p. 10</ref> Garnett and Gosse say that "traces of Christianity--perhaps interpolated--are not absent from it. They claim it is and is not pre-Christian.<ref>"Richard C. Garnett and Edmund Gosse, English Literature, An Illustrated Reocrd, Vol. I, Grosset & Dunlap, NY, 1903, p. 6.</ref> Rouster feels certain that the oral traditions Beowulf reflects are not only pre-Christian, but pre-Judaic and pre-Abrahamic as well.<ref>Lorella Rouster, Beowulf, Creationist Implications in our Earliest English Epic, Creation Research Society Quarterly, 1977, p. 222</ref> Long says, "there existed, at the time the poem was composed, various northern legends of Beowa, a half divine hero, and the monser Grendel.<ref>Long, p. 17</ref> Most critics recognize that it represents an oral tradition earlier than its writing. Rouster notes that the epic frequently refers to God, the Lord of Life, the Ruler of Heaven, the Lord, the Judge of Deeds, the Lord God, the Protector of Heaven, the glorious King, the Father, Holy Lord, the King of Glory, the Guardian of Heaven, the wise Lor, and eternal Prince. These are all in harmony with Christianity, but none are distinctively Christian. Rouster also points out that the epic makes frequent reference to Cain. A race of monsters is said to have been kin to him and condemned by God, a seeming allusion to Genesis 6:1-4. Cain's slaying of his brother Abel is mentioned in several places. From Cain is said to have descended "all bad breeds, trolls and elves and monsters--likewise the giants." Cain's exile is mentioned twice.<ref>Lorella Rouster, Beowulf, Creationist Implications in our Earliest English Epic, Creation Research Society Quarterly, 1977, p. 222</ref>
The monster Grendel seems to be equated with the devil, called "the fierce spirit," "he who dwelt in the darkness," "a hellish enemy," "the creature of evil," "the enemy of mankind," "dark doer of hateful deeds in the black nights," "the demon," "the wild ravager," "fosterer of crimes." It is said that he was "at war with God" and surrounded by a host of invisible hell demons. Giants are also described. They are reported to have been destroyed by the Flood. The golden hilt (sword) is said to be the ancient work of giants; on it was supposed to have been written "the origin of ancient strife, when the flood, rushing water, slew the race of giants--they suffered terribly; that was a people alien to the everlasting Lord."
Reference is also made to creation itself. The scop, the Anglo-Saxon minstrel who recited poetic stories to the accompaniment of a harp, relatged "the beginning of men far back in time," said the Almighty made earth, a bright field fair in the water that surrounds it" (Genesis 1:6?). He set up the lights of sun and moon to lighten land-dwellers (Genesis 1:6?) and adorned the surfaces of the earth with branches and leaves, created also life for each of the kinds that move and breath ("after its kind"?). Thus most of the major events of Genesis 1-6 are alluded to, many in striking detail.
Another striking reference in Beowulf is the description of the dragon. Many creationists have expressed the viewpoint that the almost universal tales of dragons in early literature represent remembrances or traditions of actual encounters of humans with dinosaurs. God, Creation, Cain, Abel, Giants, Dragons, Demons, and the Flood--the pic is full of Genesis 1-6 imagery. Rouster asks, why the abrupt break? If the Beowulf epic represents Christian teaching of even the most elementary type, why is there not one reference to Christ or the New Testament? For that matter, why is there no reference to any of the later Old Testament history after the Flood? Why such an obsession with antediluvian themes and characters?<ref>Rouster, p. 222</ref>
Most conservative Bible scholars consider the Germanic peoples, along with other Europeans, to be the descendants of Noah's son Japheth. Rouster proposes that perhaps that remnants of the stories of creation, other antediluvian events, and the Flood itself, with its giants and dinosaurs (dragons) were preserved among these northward migrating peoples even before the coming of Christianity. Cut off from the influence of Judaism to the south, the stories undoubtedly were embellished through continual retelling. Yet as they were set down in Beowulf, at least a partially historical poem, they are amazingly accurate, as judged by the Biblical account.<ref>Rouster, p. 222</ref>
==See Also==
==See Also==