David Kelly is an instructor of literature and writing at several community colleges in Illinois, as well as a fiction writer and playwright. In the following essay, he considers the structure of "Psalm 8 " to see what it can tell us about the values of the people who wrote it.

Like much great writing of ancient times, from the epic of Gilgameshto the Old Testament, "Psalm 8" can be read as serving dual religious and social functions. It can be seen as a prayer, and there is no doubt that it is this function that has enabled it to survive throughout the generations. Even readers who lack religious sentiment, though—who take the "God" that prayers refer to as a personification of humanity's greatest fears and ambitions— can see in "Psalm 8" a snapshot of the human psyche as it was in the process of developing, and compare it to...