Talk:Beowulf

Bill Cooper's monumental research, published in AFTER THE FLOOD (Chichester, West Sussex, England: New Wine Press, 1995; 256 pages, especially at pages 146-161 & 238-240), provides historic and philological analysis of BEOWULF that has not yet been answered, much less refuted. In sum, Cooper documents that there is no distinctively Christian aspect to the BEOWULF epic, because no words, phrases, or concepts unique to the Holy Bible's NEW TESTAMENT appear anywhere in BEOWULF's 3182 lines of text. Rather, BEOWULF preserves vestiges of ancient history (e.g., creation and other events recounted in Genesis 1-11) which are independently reported in extra-Biblical literature, displaying a cultural history memory of these historic accounts, obviously known to both Geats (a/k/a "Goths") and Danes, wholly apart from any later encounter with Christianity's New Testament. Also, Dr. Cooper shows that Grendel is not symbolic, nor an "ogre" or "troll" or "giant" -- Grendel is an animal (now extinct or extirpated) -- specifically, a particular type of amphibious biped, somewhat like a T. Rex -- effectively killed, due to bleeding to death, after Beowulf yanked one of Grendels' puny forearms out of its socket. (FYI, this is the same Dr. William R. Cooper who has published watershed historic books through The British Library.)