Shakespeare and the Bible

There has been considerable debate around the idea that William Shakepspeare in some minor way
helped to translate for the 1611 version of the King James Bible.  Regardless of the veracity of this claim, there is far more, and safer, evidence to suggest that he certainly would've known the Bible narrative very well, as would all of his educated contemporaries.

Several years ago, I decided to read the Bible in a year.  It occurred to me somewhere around the story of Samuel, Saul and David that a lot of biblical narrative, some incredibly similar, had managed to make its way into the Bard's tales.  I started keeping a chart.  Below are my findings (unfortunately rather sketchy, in no particular order and having no particular method of organization):


                        Bible
Shakespeare
Esther 1:10-12 – King Xerxex beckons for his wife to come to him and she refuses
Taming of the Shrew Act 5:2 – all the husbands ask the wives to come to them on a wager.  All wives refuse their husbands except Kate.
Luke 20:46 They like to walk around in flowing robes and love to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets.
 (Ironically, Shylock speaking of Antonio in the marketplace; part of the same "I hate him for he is a Christian speech.") 

 How like a fawning publican he looks! (MoV 1:3)
KJV, 2 Corinthians 3:6 - Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.
When Shylock, in Act 4, wants the letter of the law – his pound of flesh – and doesn’t show mercy, it ironically gets turned on him
The controversy in the new testament over Jews eating unclean foods. Act & I Corinthians
Shylock not wanting to eat w Christians
Elisha and Job are mocked by children (2 Kings 23-24 & Job?)
Shylock MOV Act 3:?
Job on darkness and evil (Job?) & Isaiah 5
Macbeth
Deuteronomy 23
Shylock and Antonio on interest
Deuteronomy 23
On making an vow/oath
King Nebecunnzer “connects” w nature/goes insane (Daniel 4)
King Lear: Lear goes insane and by the end of the play is in the elements wearing flowers in his hair and eating mice
Saul is feeling threatened by David who has been proclaimed as the next King and insecure about his future.  He consults a medium  (I Samuel 28)
Macbeth: Macbeth who is insecure about the tenuousness of his position – the fact that his line will get no kings but Banquo’s will – consults the witches because he wants to no more
Balaam and his donkey (Number 22)
Bottom Midsummer
Judges 9; I Sam 31; I Chron 10 Falling on your own sword
Julius Caesar
Acts 22 – Paul the Jew being abused (scourged) by Romans
M.O.V. Shylock Act 1
Acts 22:3 “I am a Jew”
M.O.V. Acts 3
Deuteronomy 25
Hamlet – marrying your dead bro’s wife
Leviticus 25
Shylock’s rant in court about slavery
Zedekiah gets his eyes gouged out (Jer 39:7)                  
Gloucester in King Lear
2 Samuel 12 David and Bethsheba
Hamlet: Hamlet Sr and Claudius
2 Samuel ? Nathan tells David a story (allegory of him and Bethsheba)
Hamlet: Hamlet's players “catch the conscience of the King”
David and too much blood (2 hSamuel 7)
Macbeth: Macbeth says“I am charged with too much of thine blood already”
1 Samuel 31:9 And they cut off Saul’s head, and stripped off his weapons, and sent them throughout the land of the Philistines, to carry the good news to the house of their idols and to the people.
Macbeth gets his head cut off at the end of the play
1 Samuel 20:20-22 – boys and arrows and where is that arrow
Merchant of Venice 1:1:42-54  Bassanio trying to talk Antonio into lending him more money
1 Samuel 21:10-15 – David on the run from Saul, afraid of Achish, King of Gath, decides to act insane
King Lear: Edgar, after being disowned by his father, decides to stick around and disguises himself as a beggarly insane mane to escape notice
Matthew 11 – No man born of woman is greater than John the Baptist
Macbeth: Equivocation.  Macbeth who hears that no one born of woman shall harm Macbeth doesn’t realized that – like Jesus who born of the Holy Spirit – there is another possibility. Macduff was untimely ripped from his mother’s womb…
Mark ?
Herod asking his daughter to dance and then offering anything she asks up to half his kingdom
King Lear asks his daughters to declare his love to him for his kingdom
2 Kings 9 – a prophet tells Jehu that he will become the next king, so Jehu kills Joram (and others) and becomes king
Macbeth: Witches Tell Macbeth that he’ll be the king; he kills Duncan and others to secure his power
Laban replied, “It is not our custom here to give the younger daughter in marriage before the older one. (Genesis 29:26 TNIV)
Taming of the Shrew
Psalm 137:9
Macbeth: Lady Macbeth says if she said she’d go through with something, she’d even dash her own baby
Proverbs 6:
A troublemaker and a villain,
    who goes about with a corrupt mouth,
13     who winks maliciously with his eye,
    signals with his feet
    and motions with his fingers,
14     who plots evil with deceit in his heart—
    he always stirs up conflict.
Othello: Iagao

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