Missing in this thread is the info from Barton about the song:
But there is one hymn which I used often to hear which speaks the freedman's joy in his new manhood. I have heard it sung sometimes in the North by companies of educated jubilee singers, who introduce it with the lines,
"Holy Bible! Holy Bible! Holy Bible, Book Divine, Book Divine!" But I never heard these words sung as a verse of this or any native plantation hymn in the South. Their references to the Bible are few, and such as are given in the songs of this series, namely, allusions to wellknown narrative portions of Scripture. The "Holy Bible" stanza was probably the addition of some "reading preacher." It is quite as appropriate, however, as those which are sung to the song in the South; for the freedman, preferring death to slavery, and singing his solemn joy in a strong and stirring strain, comforts himself in the thought of the possibility of death, with the details of the first-class funeral, in which he is to play the chief role. Such a funeral as is described in this hymn is, next to heaven, the desire of the average colored man even in a state of grace. But apart from all this, which may provoke a smile, there is something that thrills one in the words:
"Before I'd be a slave,
I'd be buried in my grave,
And go home to my Lord and be saved!"
There's a version of this called: Holy Bible! The lyrics are found on-line. Perhaps thsi is the source song,