David as Subject and Sovereign in Peele’s Love of David and Fair Bethsabe

• In Event: Early Modern Christian Readings of the Hebrew Bible III: George Peele and Aphra Behn

Abstract

In The Love of David and Fair Bethsabe (1594), George Peele translates biblical narrative into theatrical spectacle when he takes half a verse from the Hebrew bible— “David sent messengers, and toke [Bathshebe] away: And she came unto him, and he lay with her” (2 Samuel 11:4)— and expands it into over seven hundred lines of dialogue for the Elizabethan stage. While theological discourse of the period celebrates David as a paradigm for sinner turned saint, this uniquely Christian perspective controverts the rabbinic claim that “[w]hoever says that David sinned is surely in error”(Babylonian Talmud, Shabbath 56a). Peele also breaks with Christian tradition in his reimagining of Bethsabe. Traditionally depicted as a mute temptress, Peele’s Bethsabe speaks in eloquent verse when she interrogates the King of Israel’s motives and his right to the throne. I argue Peele’s hermeneutically charged play examines how biblical interpretation is verified and legitimized.

Author

• Shaina Trapedo, Touro College