In Milton's Languages: The Impact of Multilingualism on Style, John K. Hale speaks exclusively of Milton's use of Latin and relegates his Hebrew studies to an insignificant breakfast choice (1997). Therefore, it is refreshing to read Chanita Goodblatt's deeply sourced study of the impact of biblical references on three categories of Reformation drama: plays covering the book of Esther, those dramatizing the rivalry of Jacob and Esau, and, finally, treatments of the romance of David and Bathsheba. When explicating the story of Jacob and Esau, Goodblatt credits Luther's use of Rashi's “performative” characterization of Esau's desperate grubbing. She cites Reuchlin's gloss of Rabbi David Kimchi. Later in this analysis, Goodblatt refers to Calvin's gloss of Ibn Ezra's characterization of Jacob as one who hesitated to heed his mother, preferring a “secret mysterie” (85), a deception later argued by Ibn Ezra to have caused a greater good. Goodblatt's multilingual journey is dazzling if, at times, biblically confusing. For example, Goodblatt lists the Geneva Bible as a source for “Godly Queene Hester composed in 1529 and published in 1561” (9). However, the Geneva Bible was published in 1561 and was not widely available in England until 1576.

Puzzling as well is Goodblatt's use of the Bomberg Biblia Rabbinica (1525) as the source for her Hebrew citations. She characterizes this text as a Judeo-Christian effort, when it is “a traditional rabbinic bible,” as Frank Manuel notes (The Broken Staff: Judaism through Christian Eyes [1992], 84). The 1524–25 edition was revised by Elias Levitas in 1538 to reflect Masoretic vowel pointing. Yet the publication by Bomberg, a Christian printer, is undoubtedly ecumenical. All early rabbinic bibles are essentially similar, with the Bomberg using the earlier Soncino Rabbinic Bible (1488) as a text and the Buxtorf Biblia Sacra (1617) using the text of the Bomberg Biblia Rabbinica. Also, tying an English text to a specific Hebrew Bible has been difficult, as persistent criticism of Harris Francis Fletcher's 1929 connection of Milton to the Buxtorf Biblia Sacra has shown (George Conklin [1949], Kitty Cohen [1970], et al.)

Clearly, however, familial, monarchical, and Carnivalesque contexts, central to Goodblatt's analysis, are initially part of Hebrew biblical stories. Goodblatt, however, synthesizes original Hebrew and later Christian texts. To do so, she uses hermeneutic recognition of parallelism in the pleas of Esther, connecting “my soul” with “my life,” and the subsequent elucidation of root words—“nafshi-soul” to explicate Isaac's blessings. Moving from exegesis to synthesis, Goodblatt analyzes the German Comedy of Queen Esther and Haughty Haman (1620) and its anti-Semitic themes, depicting Jewish congregants as “murmuring … figures that could be perceived as Catholic monks” (37), as a connection between Jewish separatism and Roman Catholicism (36). Thematic to this inclusive text is the petitioning woman. Goodblatt categorizes Rebecca's difficult pregnancy as “annunciation type scenes,” recognized by Robert Alter (75). Rebecca's Christian annunciation “places [her] before the audience” (81). Annunciation, as Alter has noted, is one of the prominent biblical typologies, along with “the encounter of the future betrothed at the well; the epiphany in the field; the initial trial; danger in the desert and the discovery of a well” (The Art of Biblical Narrative [2011], 90). The beauty of Goodblatt's analysis is that she reenacts these typologies through biblical drama.

These interwoven voices sound in the story of Bathsheba, as Goodblatt recognizes both the inherent love story and the fact that, in The Love of King David and Fair Bathsabe, With the Tragedie of Absolom (1594), love and victimization intermingle, as the title suggests. David's epithelium to his bride, “Now comes my lover tripping like a Roe” (cited 196), depicts both a lovely and a threatening pastoral, with Bathsheba regarded as a stolen sheep. Here again, the dramas depicted by Goodblatt enact the subtleties of the Hebrew text, a portrayal of a good and bad king. As Meir Steinberg notes in The Poetics of Biblical Narrative (1984), the biblical story describes David “staying in Jerusalem” even though his troops “go forth to battle” (2 Samuel 11:1).

In this fluid and engaging text, the play's the thing to catch our consciences. Accordingly, Goodblatt quotes the modern director of The Love of King David, who recalls “fantastic fights” (175). Appearing everywhere, from puppet shows to modern student performances, “Jewish and Christian voices” resound throughout the text.