Many critics have commented on the relationships among man, God, and nature in "Psalm 8." Lynn Harold Hough argues that the psalm's depiction of man as sovereign over nature demonstrates a "humanism gloriously free from the tendency to sink into the life of the beast which is below man or to try to be the God who is above him." Hough writes that this psalm is an articulate example of a view of man "from which Old Testament writings never deviate." In his discussion of this psalm, John Patterson brings a scientific perspective to bear. Humans, he argues, have always been terrified by the seemingly infinite cosmos, but never more so than in modern times: "Has not the astronomer told us that he has searched the skies and finds no need of the 'God-hypothesis'?" Patterson contends that the psalmist took a more peaceful view toward the stars...