CHAPTER 8.
Before examining some of the myriad details which support the proposition of a non-random
association between the de Vere Bible annotations and "Shakespeare" we may wish to consider
the logical types into which such evidence might be classified. Unlike truth, which
is a moral
absolute, evidence exists in several shades of grey, some of which are more convincing than
others. In this instance, these levels are: Verification, Verification with Extension, Convergence,
Prediction and Correction.
Verification
is the first of five levels of evidence for the identity of the annotator and
Shakespeare. The studies of Carter, Noble, Milward and Shaheen implicitly predict that if
Shakespeare's Bible were discovered and was annotated, it should contain some subset of the
Biblical verses favored by Shakespeare. As it turns out, approximately one hundred and forty-one
of the verses marked in the De Vere
Bible (about fourteen percent), plus
ten marked psalms, have previously
been identified, by Carter (1905),
Noble (1935), Milward (1974, 1987)
or Shaheen (1987, 1989, 1993) for
their influence in the Shakespeare
canon (see appendix D, table A for
details). Another eighteen verses
contain wording which is, for all practical purposes, indistinguishable from the wording of verses
cited in these previous studies (Table B). One hundred and thirty-seven more marked verses
exhibit an influence previously undocumented by scholars of Shakespeare's Bible knowledge
(Table C).
One particularly impressive instance of verification is the marking (VN) of Numbers 20.7-8
in the de Vere Bible (figure thirteen). As Peter Milward (1973 93) and Nasseb Shaheen (1993
Figure Thirteen: Numbers 20.7-8 in De Vere STC 2106.
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