The Bible and Music

Reviewed by Adrian Guiu, instructor, City Colleges of Chicago on 3/8/23

Comprehensiveness rating: 3 see less

The author seems to have a very general knowledge of the subject; although he is a scholar of religion, it seems he is not a scholar of music; his approach to music is rather general and amateurish. He seems to rely on secondary sources a lot: the book does a good job of sending students to these.
It skips Eastern Christianity almost completely and overall it stays at a very general/superficial level.
There is no glossary or index provided.

Content Accuracy rating: 3

Yes the content is overall accurate and unbiased but I am not sure how informative is it given that it is so general and paints in such broad strokes.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 4

The content is relevant but it stays at a very superficial level: it offers generalizations and broad observations about the influence of the Bible in music.
I do not believe this is enough for a textbook.
The content is up to date and does connect to a variety of resources; in many ways this is what this book does best; it provides a plethora of resources in various formats.

Clarity rating: 4

The text is written lucidly and clearly; it is easy to follow but it does not go into too much depth.

Consistency rating: 3

The book is not very consistent, rather it appears more random: it seems the author collects his ideas and comments about the subject. Some of these are interesting but it is not enough for a text book.
A constant refrain of the book is ‘this is complex and we cannot do it justice.’ Thus the book stays at an overall superficial level.

Modularity rating: 5

The text provides very good modularity; it uses a variety of divisions in order to enhance organization and clarity.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 3

It is overall good with one proviso: it skips from early Christianity and Judaism to Protestantism; this hiatus is between chapters 3 and 4. This historical gap breaks the narrative; it will be hard for students to see the continuity.
Generally the organization seems a little random: e.g. part III, People and Genre: why not have separate chapters? As it is this part seems random and confusing. It talks about people and suddenly it goes into genres.

Interface rating: 4

The interface of the text is excellent; it makes very good use of technology and of graphic features to enhance the accessibility; it includes many hyperlinks [maybe too many].

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

The text contains no grammatical errors.

Cultural Relevance rating: 4

The text is not culturally insensitive...to the contrary! Nevertheless it is focused on Western religion; one wished a little more branching out and discussions of Eastern forms of Christianity or Christianity in other parts of the world.

Comments

To have a textbook connecting the study of the Bible and its influence is a great idea and this textbook is a very nice beginning; however it needs improvement: especially the first and third part of the book; in the first part, the historical continuity has to be developed a little more.
Besides the part which focuses on people, a part which could focus on genre could be added.
One option is to have two authors: the current one as scholar of the Bible and a scholar of music who is aware of the historical, stylistic and genre complexities and is able to convey this to the audience.