I love teaching my course on the Bible and music! In the class period dedicated to the Exodus, we ranged through so many subjects, across thousands of years.<\/p>\n
We started off in Exodus 15, thinking about the \u201cSong of the Sea\u201d and the way music was used in times before widespread literacy and writing technology to convey information and pass it on from one generation to the next. (Schoolhouse Rock got a shout-out in that context). It is quite possible that the \u201cSong of the Sea\u201d represents a very old piece of tradition embedded in the narrative. Notice for instance how it envisages horses and their riders being thrown into the sea \u2013 not a natural way of referring to the sea being thrown upon them, as happens in the Exodus narrative in its present form.<\/p>\n
We then proceeded to African-American spirituals, focusing on the example of \u201cWade in the Water.\u201d That song allowed me to make a connection to the first concrete example of the intersection of the Bible and music that I highlighted on the first day of class, \u201cDry Bones,\u201d which many of them know as a children\u2019s song about anatomy, missing in that form the fact that the imagery comes from Ezekiel. In that song as in \u201cWade in the Water,\u201d imagery about the rescuing or restoration of the people of Israel is in view, but takes on an element of slow progress in the place of miraculous divine intervention. The bones connect one by one, step by step. The water does not part, but wading through it you might be able to cause those pursuing runaway slaves to lose your scent.<\/p>\n