For anyone who has ever tried to dramatize Bible stories, especially for movies, the first and often most important challenge is how to fill in gaps from the text so it makes sense to modern audiences. Usually these are narrative gaps, but certainly as ancient bits of myth making, the psychologies of its characters are rarely, if ever explored. This practice of using, as Wil Gafney calls it, “sanctified imagination” goes back more than a thousand years to the rabbinic tradition of midrash. But what happens when the stories we explore are violent, unstable and predatory? Well, you get Bible Songs 1 from The Austerity Program.   Continue reading →