Moby Dick.
Author: Herman Melville (1819-1891)
Religious Belief of Author: Agnostic
Published: 1851
Genre: Theological Fiction
*Herman Melville was not a Christian, and Moby Dick should be read with that in mind. It is a valuable read for the Christian for its “unparalleled theological symbolism,” as R.C. Sproul has commented. This novel has to do with things universal, which pertain to the heart and destiny of all humanity, exploring some of the most profound human questions about life. Keep in mind the resources below are not meant to relay or teach Christian theology but to present background on Melville and the writing of Moby Dick.
Herman Melville was born in New York City. He worked as a crew member on several ships beginning in 1839. He wrote about his experiences in some of his early novels, Typee (1846) and Omoo (1847). Subsequent books, including his masterpiece Moby Dick (1851), sold poorly, and by the 1860s Melville had turned to poetry. It wasn’t until after his death that he came to be regarded as one of the great American writers.
Melville’s novel, Moby Dick, is the account of sailor Ishmael's narrative of the obsessive Captain Ahab's pursuit of a great white sperm whale that had bitten off his leg. Captain Ahab risks his life and that of his crew by seeking unhinged revenge on the whale Moby Dick. This book has it all: revenge vs. forgiveness, free will vs. fate, relationships, crazy obsession, suffering, endurance, and perseverance. You even get a glimpse of what America was like in the late 1800s. And if you ever want to know about whale anatomy and behavior, this book is for you! This novel is known as the most extraordinary sea story ever told and one of the great classics of literature. It is based on a true story! Moby Dick was published 33 years after Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Still, Shelley’s novel so affected Melville that he describes Captain Ahab’s obsessive revenge thus, “God help thee, old man, thy thoughts have created a creature in thee, and he whose intense thinking, therefore, makes him a Prometheus; a vulture feeds upon that heart forever; that vulture the very creature he creates.”
But, the real reason for reading it is that more than 600 references to biblical characters, places, and events are scattered throughout. Although Melville is probably considered agnostic, he had a firm grasp of the Bible. Nathaniel Hawthorne said of him, “Herman Melville can neither believe nor be comfortable in his unbelief, and he is too honest and courageous not to try to do one or the other. He would be among the most religious and reverential if he were a religious man.” Knowing the Bible and believing its truths are two separate things. Hawthore's observation hits the nail on the head. Martyn Lloyd-Jones teaches that...it is easy to read the Scriptures and give a nominal assent to the truth and never to appropriate what it tells us. And in John Calvin's teaching, that...God’s Word should be enough to engender faith in us if our blindness and stubbornness do not prevent it. But ... the bare Word profits nothing without the illumination of the Holy Spirit. Melville knew the Word but was not a Christian believer.
Read this novel! You’ll need patience, but you won’t be sorry. It will stick in your soul and never leave you. And that’s a good thing!
Articles
Herman Melville Biography (article) - Herman Melville wrote 'Moby-Dick' and several other sea-adventure novels before turning to poetry later in his career.
Herman Melville: Obsessed by Good, Evil, and Moby Dick by Christopher Sandford (article) - A look at Melville’s religious views - he worked progressively from the inherited faith of his childhood to take what might be called a socialistic humanitarian view of the world. There are ambiguities in both his printed words and his private remarks.
Moby Dick–Father Mapple’s Sermon by Joel Anderson (article) - In his highly complex and profound novel, Herman Melville ingeniously weaves together countless biblical allusions and themes.
Captain Ahab, the Diabolical Antithesis of Jonah by Joel Anderson (article) - One of the main questions concerning Moby Dick is the exact identity of the white whale: is Moby Dick symbolic of God himself, or just symbolic of nature, or just a mighty whale? The identity of Moby Dick, though, does have a specific effect on how one sees Captain Ahab.
Melville’s Marginalia (website) - a virtual archive of books owned and borrowed by Herman Melville, including the actual markings in The New Testament and Psalms, that could indicate how his religious thought is integrated with his writings.
Melville's Religious Thought by William Braswell (free pdf download) - an essay in the interpretation of Herman Melville’s religious leanings: Religious Background and Influences, Voyager into the World of Mind, Lay Preacher and Friend of Hawthorne, Accuser of the Deity Critic of Christianity.
The Role of Pagans and Pagan Gods in Moby Dick (free pdf download) - an examination of the role of some of the influential pagans and pagan gods presented in the book with particular emphasis on their relation to the two dominant characters, Ishmael and Captain Ahab. This will serve to illustrate at least one of the pagan aspects of this book and of its author, who admitted the wickedness that it implied.
The Great American Novel: Moby-Dick and Unparalleled Theological Symbolism by Jason Duesing (article) - Melville’s experience and knowledge of the world about which he writes point to much that is good, authentic, and beautiful. Whether it is the depiction of the relationship between friends and shipmates, the telling of the intricacies of biology and the effects of the fall on creation, or the sublime portrait of a beautiful sea, Moby-Dick resonates because it echoes much of what the reader knows is good, trustworthy, and beautiful.
The Unholy Pursuit of God in Moby Dick by R.C. Sproul (article) - scholars have been convinced that the whale is a symbol of God Himself. Ahab's pursuit of the whale is not a righteous pursuit of God but natural man's futile attempt in his hatred of God to destroy the omnipotent deity. The most significant chapter ever written in the English language is the chapter of Moby Dick titled "The Whiteness of the Whale. If the whale embodies everything that is symbolized by whiteness—that which is terrifying, that which is pure, that which is excellent, that which is horrible and ghastly, that which is mysterious and incomprehensible—does he not embody those traits that are found in the fullness of the perfections in the being of God Himself?
A Review of Moby Dick by John Henry III (article) - some things, the secrets of the whale’s nature and dwelling, are too deep for man to fathom. No matter how many angles, the better part of the monster remains submerged from sight. And even when men capture, kill, and cut apart—analyze—things, even then, the essence of the mystery eludes us beyond the sum of its dissected and processed parts. For all of Ishmael’s research, powers of perception, poetry, and philosophy, the whale is no more captured in the pages of Moby Dick than Captain Ahab conquers him.
Moby Dick Chapter Eight by Steven Nichols (article + audio) - in chapter 8, Melville describes a pulpit of a fabled New England church: the pulpit is ever this earth’s foremost part; all the rest comes in its rear; the pulpit leads the world. The storm of God’s quick wrath is first decried from thence, and the bow must bear the earliest brunt.
11 Things You Might Not Know About Moby Dick by Mark Mancini (article) - Moby Dick is considered a classic, but neither the genius of Herman Melville nor his grand masterpiece were fully recognized until well after the author’s death.
Herman Melville’s Visit to Nantucket by Mary K. Bercaw Edwards (article) - Herman Melville wrote Moby Dick without having visited the island of Nantucket. The island and its whaling history form the backbone of his novel and, indeed, are central symbols in the epic journey of the Pequod in its hunt for Moby Dick, the white whale. After the publication of Moby Dick, Melville finally visited the island and met face-to-face with Captain George Pollard Jr., the captain who survived one of the most harrowing ordeals at sea in human history.
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Moby Dick; or The Whale by Herman Melville (free ebook)
Moby Dick Online Annotation (webpage) - included are definitions of words and explanations and analysis of references laid out by chapter. A remarkable website of information! Example:
Historical Context - America in the mid-19th Century
A dive into Herman Melville's literary leviathan, Moby-Dick. For this installment, we provide historical context for the novel.
Part 2 of the historical and literary context to better understand how Melville crafted his magnum opus and the people who influenced its creation.
This is a deeper dive into and unveiling of the biblical symbolism and philosophical themes that lay beneath the novel's surface.
Brief Summary of Moby Dick
Dive deep into the oceanic world of Captain Ahab, Ishmael, and the elusive white whale in our book summary of Herman Melville's timeless classic Moby Dick. In this video, we unravel the layers of symbolism, profound themes, and enduring lessons that have captivated readers for generations.
Moby Dick is a complex metaphysical novel that looks for philosophy in whales, and for poetry in blubber.
The Ambroise Louis Garneray Paintings Described in Chapter 56
In this engraving, the boat is in the act of drawing alongside the barnacled flank of a large running Right Whale that rolls his black weedy bulk in the sea like some mossy rockslide from the Patagonian cliffs. His jets are erect, full, and black like soot so that from so abounding a smoke in the chimney. You would think there must be a brave supper cooking in the great bowels below. Sea fowls are pecking at the small crabs, shellfish, and other sea candies and macaroni, which the Right Whale sometimes carries on his pestilent back. And all the while, the thick-lipped leviathan is rushing through the deep, leaving tons of tumultuous white curds in his wake and causing the slight boat to rock in the swells like a skiff caught nigh the paddle wheels of an ocean steamer. Thus, the foreground is all raging commotion, but behind, in admirable artistic contrast, is the glassy level of a sea becalmed, the drooping unstarched sails of the powerless ship, and the inert mass of a dead whale, a conquered fortress, with the flag of capture lazily hanging from the whale-pole inserted into his spout-hole.
In this engraving, a noble Sperm Whale is depicted in the full majesty of might, having just risen beneath the boat from the profundities of the ocean and bearing high in the air upon his back the terrific wreck of the stolen planks. The prow of the ship is partially unbroken and is drawn just balancing upon the monster's spine, and standing in that prow, for that one single incomputable flash of time, you behold an oarsman, half shrouded by the incensed boiling spout of the whale, and in the act of leaping, as if from a precipice. The action of the whole thing is wonderfully good and true. The half-emptied line tub floats on the whitened sea; the wooden poles of the spilled harpoons obliquely bob in it; the heads of the swimming crew are scattered about the whale in contrasting expressions of affright; while in the black stormy distance, the ship is bearing down upon the scene. Serious fault might be found with the anatomical details of this whale, but let that pass since, for my life, I could not draw so good a one.
Moby Dick Book Study Quotes
Moby Dick Book Study Resources
This is the story of an eerily compelling madman pursuing an unholy war against a creature as vast, dangerous, and unknowable as the sea itself. But more than just a novel of adventure, more than an encyclopedia of whaling lore and legend, Moby-Dick is a haunting, mesmerizing, and critical social commentary populated with several unforgettable and enduring literary characters.
Philbrick brings a sailor’s eye and an adventurer’s passion to unfold the story behind an epic American journey. He skillfully navigates Melville’s world and illuminates the book’s humor and unforgettable characters—finding the thread that binds Ishmael and Ahab to our own time and, indeed, to all times. An ideal match between author and subject, Why Read Moby-Dick? will start conversations, inspire arguments, and make a robust case that this classic tale waits to be discovered anew.
With a historian’s perspective and a critic’s insight, award-winning author Andrew Delbanco demonstrates that Melville was very much a man of his era and that he recorded — in his books, letters, and marginalia and conversations with friends like Nathaniel Hawthorne and with his literary cronies in Manhattan — an incomparable chapter of American history.
Free audio book on Spotify.
Melville experienced ups and downs, from a fancy Manhattan childhood to financial ruin and back again. Once a literary celebrity heralded for his early novels based on his experiences living on tropical islands with cannibals, he was nearly forgotten at his death, only to be rediscovered a few decades afterward - and to become a household name for more than a hundred years.
This episode focuses on the novel branded more than any other as the Great American Epic Novel: Herman Melville’s classic 1851 novel Moby Dick. We delve into such essential questions as, why was the whale white? What does it mean that Ahab leaves behind wife and child? Is he thwarting the will of God? Is Gregory Peck better in the film role than Patrick Stewart? Why chapters about ropes and squeezing sperm? Why is this the most canonical of all canonical novels?
Moby Dick is rich in theology. On this episode of Open Book, Stephen Nichols and R.C. Sproul discuss shark attacks, the whiteness of the whale, and our shallow view of God.
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