Monday, November 11, 2019

Shakespeare and the Geneva Bible - Re-Blog

Shakespeare and the Geneva Bible
ARTICLE BY LELAND RYKEN  JULY 2009

Shakespeare's indebtedness to the Bible is a subject of neglect in mainstream Shakespeare scholarship.  This is surprising, inasmuch as the relevant data has been compiled by a coterie of Shakespeare scholars, most notably Naseeb Shaheen in his book Biblical References in Shakespeare's Plays. [1]  The story of Shakespeare and the Bible is partly the story of Protestant English Bible translation in the sixteenth century.  Shakespeare was the beneficiary of a movement in which English Reformers poured their energies into translating the Bible.  In fact, English Bible translation in the sixteenth century galvanized a society in a manner that invites comparison with the building of cathedrals in the Catholic Middle Ages.  The Protestant Reformation also created an edifice--an edifice of the Word.