This book is largely based on my Habilitationsschrift at the Theological Faculty of the University of Heidelberg, defended in December 2007. My interest in the grotesque started when I came into contact with Mikhail Bakhtin's writings a decade and a half ago, and my fascination with the subject grew continuously as I worked on different areas of the New Testament and early Christianity and discovered how widespread and constitutive the grotesque representation of the human body was in ancient Christian discourse. Eventually, it came to me as a surprise that despite the ongoing interest in the grotesque in literary criticism and the never-ceasing popularity of Jewish and Christian apocalyptic texts in theology, exegesis, and art, no monographic treatment had been yet written on the use of the grotesque in early Christian literature. After touching on many different aspects of the subject in articles and lectures, the plan of writing this book was a natural step.

The VENI fellowship of the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research enabled me to carry out much of the research. For providing me with most exciting and pleasant research environments, I am thankful to the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Groningen, the Centre for Advanced Study at the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters (where I was member of the group “Metamorphoses: Resurrection, Taxonomies and Transformative Practices in Early Christianity,” directed by Turid Karlsen Seim), the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, the Department of Biblical Studies at the University of Helsinki, and the Faculty of Theology at the University of Heidelberg.