Review of Tim Fisher’s The Battle for Christian Music

 

Review of Tim Fisher’s The Battle for Christian Music

          This book is an excellent discussion about Cristian music.  Although his work has been wrongly accused by Mitch Nichols of being biased eisegesis, this accusation was made without scholarly basis.   The main argument presented has been that Fisher considers classical music to be God honoring and that such an argument is unfounded since such music was completely “completely foreign” to the Old and New Testament eras. 

          Although musicologists are aware that classical music was not yet developed in ancient Israel, recent deciphering of the te’amim above and below the Hebrew and Aramaic texts of the entire OT have proven that the six and seven note diatonic scale did exist.  Furthermore, the deciphering of the ancient Hurrian song found in the ruins of Ugarit has been deciphered by Dr. Anne Kilmer et.al. has revealed a seven-note diatonic scale with half steps between 3^rd an4th and 7^th and 8^th degrees of the scale. This music also had a harmony part and a sound quite like what we have in our hymn books. So, Fisher’s accusers, being evidently unaware of current scholarship, are incorrect in considering Fischer’s conclusions to be eisegesis. 

          Every author writes from some philosophical viewpoint and from personal music perspective and preference. After all this is Fisher’s work so one should expect his work to be written from a personal perspective. I suggest that you give Fisher’s The Battle for Christian music a fair read rather than taking his accuser’s word which was given without scholarly support.   Garen L Wolf