Page - 55 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 06/01

Introduction Although scholarly literature debates the defining characteristics of Western cul- ture, it forms a consensus with regard to the institutions, beliefs, and major customs which can be legitimately deemed to compose its beating heart. The political sci- entist Karl Deutsch exposits eight main components of Western civilization, which include both Catholicism and Protestantism.1 Western Christianity (beginning with Catholicism and later branching off to include Protestantism) is historically the most important defining component of Western civilization. The Christian faith and cul- ture of the West were in turn based upon the holy scriptures of the Jews,2 which were disseminated around the Roman Empire.3 Both the Christian and the Jewish religions ergo view the Hebrew Bible as a holy text – as absolute truth and the prod- uct of divine revelation – and it is still possible to recognize the imprint of myths and narratives originating in the biblical text, as well as other religious Christian sources, in many Western cultural productions. Religion is an essential marker of culture, for its doctrines reflect the systems of thought and values of any given civilization.4 Every human society or culture has its own mythology, and that mythological heritage constitutes an indivisible part of religion,5 since some aspects of reality require mythical conceptualization, such as the domain of values and ideals. The myth reflects the organic and holistic aspect of life which we cannot understand using reason or pure scientific method alone. It is a way of imposing order on a world that does not make sense.6 Mircea Eliade maintained that religious myths not only provide a framework for explaining the cultural behavior of human beings and attest to past experience, but also construct the paradigm for future endeavors and aspirations. In fact, in Eliade’s eyes, myth can be considered more “real” than “historical truth” in that it has deeper, richer, and longer-lasting implications.7 This article examines the presence of biblical narratives and myths in contempo- rary cultural productions based on an analysis of the science fiction film Interstel- lar (Christopher Nolan, US/GB 2014). The film clearly belongs in the science fiction genre and is mainly based on scientific ideas, which I will present in the course of this article. As I will go on to show, however, it also contains religious motifs cen- 1 Deutsch 1981, 51–93. 2 Hacohen 2006, 23. 3 Malkin 2007, 44. 4 Durkheim 1971, 418–421. 5 Niebuhr 2011, 125. 6 May 1991, 21. 7 Eliade 1959, 42–43. 54 | Bina Nir www.jrfm.eu 2020, 6/1, 53–69