Reading the Bible
Summary
Shakespeare knew the Bible with an understanding that is in most ways strange to us. So did his first audiences and readers. His knowledge can be seen most obviously as he quotes, often from unfamiliar places. In The Merchant of Venice, I . iii, he makes Shylock, in his first scene, recount an incident in the story of Laban from Genesis 30. To tell a story from the Hebrew Scriptures (to Christians, the Old Testament) is a natural thing for a Jew to do: yet Shakespeare has the confidence that his hearers and readers (quite unlike modern audiences and readers) will not only know the strange tale, but ask themselves why Shylock is telling it here.