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John Wesley Work, Jr. can be credited for the fact that we still sing "Go Tell It On the Mountain" every Christmas, although he may not have originally created the Negro spiritual. Work grew up in Nashville loving music as the son of a church choir director. Even though he earned his Master’s in Latin and went on to teach ancient Latin and Greek, his first love continued to be music, and he went on to become the first African-American collector of Negro spirituals. This actually was a difficult task for Work as they were passed down verbally, from plantation to plantation; very few were ever written down. But Work proved up to the challenge, publishing his first book, New Jubilee Songs as Sung by the Fisk Jubilee Singers, in Songs of the American Negro, six years later. It was in this second volume that “Go, Tell It on the Mountain” first appeared. The original singers of the song accomplished the same valued task the angels gave the shepherds on the first Christmas night outside of Bethlehem, proclaiming, “that Jesus Christ is born!” And now, thanks to publishings of John Wesley Work, so can we. The phrase "Go tell it on the mountain" does not have a direct biblical quote, but is inspired by Luke 2:17-18, where shepherds spread the news of Jesus' birth. Another related verse is Mark 11:23, which speaks of having the faith to tell a mountain to move, with the phrase often being associated with the idea of proclaiming something with great conviction. Luke 2:17-18 (Inspiration for the phrase) "When the shepherds had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them". The song's chorus, "Go, Tell It On The Mountain, that Jesus Christ is born," directly echoes this New Testament story of the shepherds proclaiming the birth of Jesus. Mark 11:23 (Mountain-related faith verse) "Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them". This verse is often cited as a parallel, as it uses the metaphor of a mountain to illustrate the power of faith.