From rap artists to Hollywood greats: why a 3,000-year-old poem still speaks today

Psalm 23, 'The Lord is my shepherd' has always seized the imagination of film-makers, musicians and poets. Its images of green pastures and dark valleys are  everywhere in our culture. Even in a relatively unchurched age, it's instantly recognisable. 

It's recited in the film The Elephant Man by John Merrick in a scene that left cinema audiences in pieces.

It's the psalm read by a priest as the Titanic sinks in the James Cameron film.

In an even darker scene, Edward Woodward's character Howie recites it as he burns to death in The Wicker Man.

Katherine Hepburn's character Eula Goodnight recites it in the face of danger in Rooster Cogburn (1975), and Sydney Penny's character Meghan Wheeler speaks it over her dead dog in another Western, Pale Rider. 

It's there in songs by Pink Floyd ('Sheep'), the Grateful Dead ('Ripple') and U2 ('Love Rescue Me'). Rappers like Kanye West ('Jesus Walks'), Coolio ('Gangsta's Paradise') talk about the valley of the shadow of death. Eminem's 'cup runneth over' ('Rabbit Run'). And classical composers from Bach to Vaughan Williams have set it to music too. 
Three thousand years after they were first committed to parchment, these are phrases and images that still speak today. Psalm 23 is still embedded in our culture. A garden is only the latest incarnation of an inspired piece of sacred literature.