Pentatonix
2 songs checked against the passages they lean on. Each one was graded on its own, against what that song does with the text.
How the 2 checks landed
- ~ FAITHFUL 1
- NOT A QUOTE 1
This is a count, not a verdict. We grade songs, one at a time, against what each one does with the text. A tally of those checks describes a catalogue. It is not a judgment of the people who wrote or sang it, and no number here puts anyone on or off The List. Most drift is craft pressure, not deception. Read the proofs, not the arithmetic.
The songs
NOT A QUOTE
“Mary, Did You Know?”
Pentatonix
Sing it. It quotes nothing and says nothing false about Christ. Just know that Luke 1 records what Mary was told, and her answer to it is in the same chapter.✓ Never says it is quoting, anywhere: no verse cited, no scripture framing, nothing offered as the Bible's own words
⚠ The scene is Luke 1 and the content is not. Sung often enough, the questions can become the remembered tone of a chapter that Luke wrote as an announcement
~ FAITHFUL
“Joy to the World”
Pentatonix
Sing it. It is the second half of Psalm 98 in Watts’ own words, and it said so at publication in 1719. Know two things the words never say: which psalm this is, and anything about Christmas.✓ Published from the first as a rendering of Psalm 98, in a collection whose own title announces the method
⚠ The paraphrase label is real but remote. It sits in a 1719 book title and heading, and nothing at the point of singing repeats it