The Drama of Jesus

There's no doubt about it. The life of Jesus is intensely dramatic. I doubt if there has been a more dramatic life in the history of man, whether in the real lives of Alexander and Julius Caesar or in the fictitious ones of Hamlet and King Lear. In the four gospels it has been told with dramatic intensity both in the narrative style of the first three and in the discursive style of the fourth. Shakespeare himself drew deep inspiration from these four sources, as appears in all his plays and particularly in his tragedies from Romeo and Juliet to King Lear.