and with sustained attention even to such obscure chapters --
in which he has marked verses or made
corrections – as the apocryphal books of Tobit, Judith, II Esdras, II Macabees, the later prophets Daniel,
Hosea, Malachi, Joel, Amos, Esther, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zechariah, and Zephaniah and James in
the New Testament, as well as many more familiar books. Those books not marked in the De Vere Bible
seem to be peripheral to Shakespeare's
pattern of Biblical reference: Ruth, Song of Solomon,
Lamentations, Obadiah, Jonah and Haggai
in the Old Testament, Song of the Three Children, Susanna,
and I Macabees in the Apocrypha, and Galatians, I Timothy, Philemon, James, II Peter and Jude in the
New Testament
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.
Questions might well be raised about the sparsity of marked verses in books such as Genesis (one),
Job (eleven) or Proverbs (one) in the Old Testament, or Luke (2) and Acts (1) in the New Testament, all
of which are significant books of the Bible for Shakespeare. It is at this extremely abstract level of
analysis, making copious appeal to the
a priori presumptions of readers, that David Kathman, in his
Shakespeare Authorship Page (SAP) article criticizing my work, takes up the case for the alleged misfit
between the de Vere Bible and the Shakespeare: "Shakespeare drew very heavily on all four Gospels,
especially Matthew (arguably his most-used book), but the annotator has left the Gospels almost alone:
23 verses marked in Matthew
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, 2 in Luke, 1 in Mark, and none in John…Shakespeare also drew heavily
on Genesis, Proverbs and Acts, in each of which the annotator has marked only one verse."
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In
considering such questions of "negative evidence," I shall maintain that the relative sparsity of
annotations in these books is far less significant than it might otherwise seem, for the following reasons.
First, we must consider the quality of evidence as well as its quantity. Many references to Genesis,
for example, are as a class over-represented in a study such as Shaheen's, which systematically favors
empirical and lexical indices over ideas or themes. Overt references to Adam (13X), Eve (7X) (Genesis
2-3) or Cain (7X) and Abel (2X) (Gen. 4) are all too easy to detect; their frequency of citation, however,
says almost nothing about Shakespeare's own underlying theological principles --
i.e. those which
distinguish his theology from that of any other Elizabethan mind. These often depend on Bible references
of more subtle but ultimately of far greater significance, very many of which are marked in the de Vere
Bible. Of like kind are references to Satan (8X) (1 Chron.
21.1; Job 1-2; Matt.
4.10, Prayer book
reading for Lent) or Lucifer (6X) (Isaiah 14.12).
By contrast, many of the verses marked in the de Vere Bible, as appendix B reveals, are actually
under-represented in the studies of Carter, Noble or Shaheen, despite their profound philosophical and
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In addition, the marks in Joshua, John and James are of such a nature or in such condition as to be, for all practical purposes, valueless as
evidence.
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How Kathman arrives at the conclusion that the annotator has “left the Gospels almost alone” when, in fact, of almost two dozen verses marked
in the book of Matthew, most show a correspondence to Shakespeare, is a question which may give rise to certain doubts about the lack of
precision with which Kathman characteristically considers propositions with which he does not agree.
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http://www.bcpl.lib.md.us/~tross/ws/ox5.html 2 of 3, 1/11/98 7:45 p.m.
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