Biblical allusions in Shakespeare
According to Dr. Naseeb Shaheen, Shakespeare, in writing his plays, "seldom borrows biblical references from his sources, even when those sources contain many references." Roy Battenhouse notes that the Shakespearean tragedy "frequently echoes Bible language or paradigm, even when the play's setting is pagan." Similarly, Peter Milward notes that despite their secular appearance, Shakespeare's plays "conceal an undercurrent of religious meaning which belongs to their deepest essence." Further, Milward maintains that although Shakespeare "may have felt obliged by the circumstances of the Elizabethan stage to avoid Biblical or other religious subjects for his plays ," such obligation "did not prevent him from making full use of the Bible in dramatizing his secular sources and thus infusing into them a Biblical meaning." Milward continues that, in writing his plays (in particular, the tragedies), Shakespeare "shows the universal relevance of the Bible both to the reality of human life 'in this harsh world' and to its ideal in the heart of God." Steven Marx suggests "a thorough familiarity with the Scriptures" is a prerequisite to understanding the Biblical references in the plays, and that the plays' references to the Bible "illuminate fresh and surprising meanings in the  biblical text." Marx further notes that "it is possible that Shakespeare sometimes regarded his own role of playwright and performer as godlike, his own book as potent and capacious as 'The Book'." It is important to note, as a recent study points out “The diversity of versions reflected in Shakespeare’s writing indicates that ‘Shakespeare’s Bible’ cannot be taken for granted as unitary, since it consists of a network of different translations” Specific examples. All of the foregoing examples as provided by Shaheen suggest that Shakespeare was well-acquainted with the Bible and its various themes via individual  verses spread throughout its various chapters enough so that he could easily expand upon any said theme with his own continuation of such verses. Versions of the Bible used by Shakespeare. Geneva Bible. R. A. L. Burnet states: “[A]s Professor E. P. Dickie has pointed out to me, words found in the margin [of the Geneva Bible] will not have circulated very readily nor become proverbial sayings. Shakespeare would not have heard these words either in church or in conversation; he could only have read them." Rheims New Testament. Although Naseeb Shaheen's important study calls attention to three references  to the Rheims translation of the New Testament, it overlooks a number of other allusions or correspondences. For example, Matthew 3.2 is translated in the Tyndale, Geneva, Great and Bishops’ translations as “Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand,” but in the Rheims translation it is “Do penance: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” This significant difference in translation, of importance for the Catholic sacrament of penance and the theological notion of satisfaction for sins, occurs numerous times in the Rheims New Testament and nineteen times in Shakespeare's plays. There are some seventy other possible  references, according to David Beauregard Zinman,Ira, ed. (2009).Shakespeare's Sonnets and the Bible. foreword by HRH Charles Prince of Wales. Bloomington. World Wisdom.