Paul Adrian Fried / HAMLET'S BIBLE

In Shakespeare’s lifetime (as in ours for some), there was an anti-Semitic tendency among Christians to view Judaism as an inferior faith and to view Jesus, Son-figure of a Trinitarian God, as Judaism’s promised messiah sent to redeem humanity from their sins, establishing a "one true faith." An alternative view: Jesus was a Jew, and a reformer, who lived and preached at a time when Judaism had been corrupted in large part by the Roman occupation. Reformers like Jan Hus, Luther and Calvin may have thought it too proud to consider their own reformer-roles analogous to that of Jesus (Luther once referred to tales of medieval monks, including one about a monk who destroyed a chair he had made because he believed he had become too proud of it). But in fact we might consider that they attempted to do for Christianity something analogous to what Jesus attempted to do for Judaism. Hamlet contains references to many reformers: - St. Gis (Jesus). - Wittenberg, where Luthe...

HAMLET, WITTENBERG, & . . . FAUST? A trend among scholars of Shakespeare & Religion is to view Hamlet as a Protestant v. Catholic play: The ghost regrets not receiving Catholic sacraments before death, and the prince goes to school in Wittenberg (of Luther fame). But Marlowe's Wittenbergian, Faust, is not so often cited by scholars seeking hints of Catholic or Protestant ideas in the play. If we expand the Catholic-Protestant binary at least to three (Wittenberg-Luther-Faust), then Wittenberg points not only to Luther, but to temptation. Hamlet is tempted to revenge and madness, but perhaps (according to some) recovers a bit after his sea voyage. Luther questioned how literally Catholics should take Jesus' words over the break and wine, "This is my body/blood." A good question. But this opens a can of worms (no Diet of Worms pun intended, but—OK). If we don't take eucharist literally as a "real presence," then why should we ta...