The Old Testament and Popular Media

While in Boston this year, at the Society of Biblical Literature conference, I attended a session titled, "Bible and America Popular Culture Section;" and, though not specifically dedicated to matters of pedagogy, I found it to be (perhaps) the most useful, in terms of my own situation as a teacher in a college classroom. The presenter, Karl Jacobson (Prof. of Religion - Augsburg College) made a presentation titled "Through the Pistol Smoke: Psalm 23 in Contemporary Film and Song." The presentation essentially examined the manifold ways in which Psalm 23 has seeped into the American popular consciousness, and, as a result, makes its way(fragmentarily in most cases) onto platinum selling albums of silver screen movies. After returning from the conference, I just happened to give two lectures on the Psalms, and decided to integrate music/video into the lecture. I chose a Psalm that I knew was both beautiful and horrible (Ps 145), and a music group with a history of doing Psalms well (Shane and Shane). Psalm 145 is beautiful in its praise of God, and horrible in its desire for the "gracious" and "merciful" God to bring about destruction on the Psalms's enemies ("all the wicked he will destroy" (v 20). Interestingly, though, the particular artists (Shane and Shane), who often draw from the Psalter, conveniently excise v 20 from their version. This opened wide the class time to a discussion about the role of hatred in the Psalms, and in the place of worship.