A Small group of Bible references account for over three-hundred of Shakespeare’s ~1500 allusions to the Bible. For one example, the graphic (Figure 1) illustrates seven allusions/echoes of Romans 7.20 in Shakespeare.

Figure one: Seven Shakespeare allusions to the concept of Romans 7.20, showing original correction in de Vere Geneva Bible.
Image courtesy Andrew Meit.

“Diagnostic” refers to the relevant methodology of the distinction between a “screening test” and a “test for specificity.” It’s been well established for over a century now that Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, passes the “screening test” for Shakespeare in multiple independent ways: known as the “best for comedy” in his own lifetime, a patron of players and poet who visited Italy, etc.

And, surprise, surprise, he owned a Geneva Bible – surviving today in the archives of the Folger Shakespeare Library – among other significant Shakespeare sources.

And, we know that many of the annotations and underlined passages in his Bible point in highly specific ways toward Shakespeare’s Bible allusions as documented in books by Richmond Noble, Naseeb Shaheen, and others.

But this still understates the weight and significance of the evidence in this book.

Not all Shakespeare’s bible allusions are equal. Some 81 of them account for as many as 20% of the total references to the Bible in Shakespeare, and many of these are marked in the de Vere Bible.

In fact, 49 of 81 Shakespeare “Bible Diagnostics” are found in the material record of de Vere’s writing, either in the Bible or – in three cases – in references in his surviving letters. As shown below (Figure two), these include thirty in the annotations of his Geneva Bible, three from his letters, and 16 more either through parallelism, adjacent location, or cross referencing (see dissertation).

Graphic courtesy Andrew Meit.

Details forthcoming.