Introduction

I don't remember when I first noticed the Bible verses listed underneath each hymn in the Lutheran Service Book, but I've been thinking about them for at least the last six months.  I haven't been able to find any information about whether they directly inspire the words and phrases in the text of the hymn or whether they're merely thematically related.  Over the last couple months, I had the notion that I should go through every hymn and look up each Biblical text listed in order to see the extent to which the Biblical texts relate to the hymns.

Since I started paying more attention to those cited texts, I found a few that are missing.  In a couple hymns, I found phrases that come from the Bible, but the chapter and verse for those phrases aren't listed at the bottom of the page.  I've been making notes about those for a few months, but I haven't been very organized about it.  Since the church year starts over with Advent next week (and because the hymnal starts with the Advent hymns), I thought it would be the perfect time to finally start the project I've been considering for such a long time.

My endeavor, as I mentioned above, is to go through the hymns, look up the Bible verses cited at the bottom of the page, and see how those Biblical texts relate to the text of the hymn.  I'll also make note of any Biblical texts used in the hymn that aren't cited in the hymnal.

I plan to do a hymn a week (posted on Wednesdays), and while I'll be starting with the Advent hymns in Advent, I'll quickly get off-season, just because of the sheer number of hymns.  There are 635, and at the rate of a hymn a week, this project will take me over twelve years.  This isn't the only project I have with that sort of time-frame though, and I fully intend to complete this project.

Aside from examining the texts, I'll also occasionally write about other aspects of the hymns.  I've already been writing musicological analyses (for lack of a better and simpler term) of hymns and other classical sacred music (primarily Bach's cantatas) for almost a year, and I've found some really interesting features.

Additionally, I plan on recording a hymn tune every week (posted on Sundays).  I did this every week from November 2012 to January 2015 with the aim of improving my notation reading.  I restarted the project at the beginning of this year, and since July, I've been combining the arrangements from Lutheran Worship (which is the hymnal I grew up with and which I'll probably pull into a few posts for the sake of lyrical comparison) and the Lutheran Service Book.  If the tunes are in the same key, I play one verse of the Lutheran Worship arrangement and one verse of the Lutheran Service Book arrangement.