quarto — title: “Top 100 Most Referenced Bible Verses” format: html: engine: knitr code-fold: true page-layout: full
The table below ranks every Bible verse by the total number of times it appears across Shaheen’s references, Stritmatter’s additions, and Folger Bible marks combined. The Folger mark column shows whether the annotator physically marked that verse — the critical test for the Oxfordian argument.
Of the top 100 most-referenced verses, only 14 carry a Folger mark. The most-referenced verse of all — Genesis 3:19, “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread”, cited in 13 Shakespeare plays — has no mark. The pattern throughout is the same: the verses Shakespeare used most are not the verses the annotator marked.
12 of the top 100 most-referenced verses carry a Folger Bible mark — 88 do not. The marks column shows where the annotator’s attention fell; the Shaheen column shows where Shakespeare’s did. The two lists do not coincide.