How The Bible Influenced Western Music

The Bible’s Influence on Western Music
Abstract: The Voice, one of the America’s most-watched TV shows, exhibits distinctly different styles of music by different color., including American country music, Latin music, R&B, Jazz, Gospel music, etc. However, it’s tough to distinguish which style a certain song belongs to. It arouses my interest to find out what impacted western music during its long-term development and what the western music derived from. This article provides brief introductions of the origin of western music, the Bible, and its influence on western music.

Keywords: Western music, the Bible, Christianity, origin, influence

I. Introduction
As one saying goes, if you can understand music, you’re close to the god. Western culture is inseparable to the Bible. Western music, as a crucial section of western culture, also expresses faith of Christianity. Over the long history, western music undergo the important period of
The origin of western music
In terms of the relationship between western music and the Bible, it could date back to the age of Hebrew. According to the Old Testament, in Genesis, “Jabal was the father of all who play stringed instruments and pipes.” [1] In addition, in Chronicles, “All the Levites who were musicians stood on the east side of the altar, playing cymbals, harps and lyres. They were accompanied by 120 priests sounding trumpets. The trumpeters and musicians joined in unison to give praise and thanks to the LORD.” [2] Thus it can be seen that, at the age of Hebrew, music existed and was exerted in large sacrifices.
Hebrew was nation which fascinated music. Christianity inherited the musical tradition of Hebrew, becoming “Singing Religion”. Western classical music, to some extent, originated from Christian music. [11] In consequence, Christian music, influenced by Hebrew, paid a lot attention to music. With the establishment of Christianity, western music flourished and stepped into a new era, the Middle