Humor in the Bible

If you have ever seen Godspell, you know that many of Jesus' parables can be taken as jokes. I dare say, if you read through the Bible with a sense of humor, you will find a number of jokes. Maybe we should not take the Bible so seriously. Easter falls on April 1. Jesus is Risen! And that's no joke!
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  • Gramps49Gramps49 Shipmate
    What are some of the jokes you have heard that are in the Bible?
  • AnnAnn Shipmate Posts: 36
    Camel through the eye of a needle. I've heard this explained away as a mistranslation as the word for camel and the word for rope are similar and obviously rope is what was meant. But camel is a pretty good pun!
  • MooMoo Kerygmania Host
    One of my favorites is when Jesus talks about people straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel. Try to visualize someone swallowing a camel. That is so absurd on the face of it that it was obviously meant to be funny.
  • tclunetclune Shipmate
    edited March 2018
    Ann wrote: »
    Camel through the eye of a needle. I've heard this explained away as a mistranslation as the word for camel and the word for rope are similar and obviously rope is what was meant.
    [Tangent] This traces back to George Lamsa AIUI. Mr. Lamsa argued that the Peshitta, which he translated into English some time around 1930 if memory serves, was the "best" text of the NT available. One of his arguments was that the camel through the eye of a needle was a mistranslation. Apparently, when you only use the consonants of "camel" and "rope" (as was the practice until the Masoretes added vowels and cantillation marks in the 8th-10th century), the two words are identical in Hebrew. The Syriac NT apparently chose "rope" for its rendering, which Lamsa saw as proof of its superiority. The actual Syriac Bible used the diatessaron instead of the Gospels until the time of Constantine, however, when the Church insisted that the Syriac Bible conform to standard practice and the diatessaron Bibles were removed from the Syriac churches. So the current Peshitta is actually more recent than some of the uncial codices that we still have. And, BTW, Matthew uses the same basic joke a couple of chapters later when Jesus accuses the Pharisees of straining out gnats and swallowing a camel (Matt 23:24)-- a usage that even Lamsa doesn't replace with "rope!" Of course, all this hnges on Matthew originally having been written in Hebrew -- a notion that is at best controversial. [/Tangent]
  • A certain man made a great supper, and bade many: And sent his servant at supper time to say to them that were bidden, Come; for all things are now ready. And they all with one consent began to make excuse. The first said unto him, I have bought a piece of ground, and I must needs go and see it: I pray thee have me excused. And another said, I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to prove them: I pray thee have me excused. And another said, I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.

    Go and see a piece of ground. Bought 5 yoke of oxen, must try them out. Married a wife. I wonder why HE counln't come. Or then again perhaps he did, enjoyably many times.
  • Re camel/gate:

    The interpretation I've run into most often is that there was a "Needle" gate into Jerusalem that was so narrow that a laden camel couldn't get through, and the rider had to get down and walk it through. (Details may be slightly fuzzy.)
  • Gramps49Gramps49 Shipmate
    Good ones
  • MooMoo Kerygmania Host
    My favorite OT humorous passage is Numbers 10:11-15. It should be read aloud in a tone of very great self-pity.
  • tclunetclune Shipmate
    Since no-one else has claimed it yet, let me vote for the book of Jonah, which seems to me like slapstick from start to finish.
  • EnochEnoch Shipmate
    edited March 2018
    I'm slightly surprised nobody has mentioned St Paul's trenchant exasperation at those who insist on circumcision at Gal 5:11-12 yet. I suspect most people assume that he did not have a sense of humour.
  • tclune wrote: »
    Since no-one else has claimed it yet, let me vote for the book of Jonah, which seems to me like slapstick from start to finish.

    You got there just before me. My Hebrew professor was never tired of chortling over Jonah. Her favourite bit was the very last few words "....and also much cattle." She said this showed God being pragmatic and business like. Why slaughter so many valuable beasts just because the humans had messed up?
  • LeoLeo Shipmate
    Golden Key wrote: »
    Re camel/gate:

    The interpretation I've run into most often is that there was a "Needle" gate into Jerusalem that was so narrow that a laden camel couldn't get through, and the rider had to get down and walk it through. (Details may be slightly fuzzy.)

    kamelon = rope
  • Enoch wrote: »
    I'm slightly surprised nobody has mentioned St Paul's trenchant exasperation at those who insist on circumcision at Gal 5:11-12 yet. I suspect most people assume that he did not have a sense of humour.

    Apparently that is a reference to Deut.23v1. All a bit brutal!

  • LydaLyda Shipmate
    Not exactly a joke but a nicely sarky reply. “Then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.”
  • Mr SmiffMr Smiff Shipmate
    Golden Key wrote: »
    Re camel/gate:

    The interpretation I've run into most often is that there was a "Needle" gate into Jerusalem that was so narrow that a laden camel couldn't get through, and the rider had to get down and walk it through. (Details may be slightly fuzzy.)
    I’ve heard that before, but apparently it’s not true.

    I’ve always thought Peter’s line at Pentecost about how they couldn’t possibly be drunk because it’s still early - with the implication that if it had been later in the day his detractors might have had a point- quite amusing.
  • I love the rather basic humour in parts of Judges. In particular, I love the story of Ehud killing King Eglon of Moab. First of all, you have the gory details of "Ehud reached with his left hand, took the sword from his right thigh, and thrust it into Eglon’s belly; the hilt also went in after the blade, and the fat closed over the blade, for he did not draw the sword out of his belly; and the dirt came out."

    But then you have the really great part: After he (Ehud) had gone, the servants came. When they saw that the doors of the roof-chamber were locked, they thought, ‘He must be relieving himself in the cool chamber.’ So they waited until they were embarrassed. When he still did not open the doors of the roof-chamber, they took the key and opened them. There was their lord lying dead on the floor.

    I love the image of the servants standing around, getting more and more embarrassed, thinking "just how long should we wait for our King to take a dump?" And I can easily imagine people roaring with laughter at this point, when the story was being told around the fire.
  • LydaLyda Shipmate
    And it was interesting that "the dirt came out" so the servants could smell something happening in the head on the roof, but now the stench was coming from from a newly made exit from the bowels. Damn! This is like a comedic action pic such as "Dead Pool".
  • Jonah is my wife's favorite book of the Bible, and she too finds much humor in it. One thing that most people do not know, I learned from my Hebrew teacher at university. He was an amazing scholar of middle-eastern languages, and a font of bizarre trivia. In Akkadian, the cuneiform "words" for "Ninevah" and "vomit" are different only by a single stroke. So when the fish vomits Jonah up near Ninevah (ch2v10), it's essentially a pun. (Maybe accidental, if the story was not originally in Akkadian.)
  • And yes the story of Eglon the Left-Handed is one of my absolute favorites. Potty humor in the Word of God!
  • RdrEmCofERdrEmCofE Shipmate
    edited April 2018
    "One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said, The Cretians are alway liars, evil beasts, slow bellies. This witness is true. Wherefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith;" Tit.1:12-13

    I cite the above NT verse to illustrate the fact that either the author is being very tongue in cheek or he has completely missed the joke through total lack of a sense of humour.

    He seems to be unaware of the inescapable dichotomy and paradox set up by the assertion that a Cretian himself said that "All Cretians are liars". If this is indeed true as stated then logically there must have been at least one Cretian who told the truth, i.e. that "ALL Cretians are liars", but of course if indeed that were the truth then that would make him truthful, but that then logically means that not ALL Cretians can be liars after all, because HE told the truth. Which then makes the statement that ALL Cretians are liars, a lie or untruthful.

    One of our lesson readers once had to read this passage from Titus and unfortunately misread the word 'Cretians' i.e inhabitants of Crete. He said "All cretins are liars. Which I think was probably a gross exaggeration and very unfair to cretins.

  • mousethief wrote: »
    Jonah is my wife's favorite book of the Bible, and she too finds much humor in it. One thing that most people do not know, I learned from my Hebrew teacher at university. He was an amazing scholar of middle-eastern languages, and a font of bizarre trivia. In Akkadian, the cuneiform "words" for "Ninevah" and "vomit" are different only by a single stroke. So when the fish vomits Jonah up near Ninevah (ch2v10), it's essentially a pun. (Maybe accidental, if the story was not originally in Akkadian.)

    The book of Jonah is indeed a remarkable book in many ways, not least because it runs a coach and horses through arrogant Jewish nationalism and one-up-man-ship over the Gentiles with their notion that they were God's 'favorites'.

    Sections of the chapters where Jonah is thrown into the sea and survives in the great fish are deliberately constructed as a series of mirror image picture sentences, just like nested subroutines in a computer program. Clearly the author intended the reader to get far more out of the narrative than would be implied by merely giving an historical account. The whole thing seems to be a carefully constructed critique of Jewish Nationalism. The Ninivites being their primary enemy at the time, yet God spared them, and their cattle, much to Jonah's disgust.
  • Her favorite line is, "Yes, I do well to be angry, even angry unto death." You have to read it with a taught voice that punches the key words.
  • Gramps49Gramps49 Shipmate
    A number of years ago Hallmark Cards did a movie on Sampson (in the Bible). It was hilarious up to the last scene. Anytime Sampson was about to do something, the reaction of his followers was the rolling of their eyes as if to say "Here we go again!"
  • EnochEnoch Shipmate
    RdrEmCofE wrote: »
    "One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said, The Cretans are alway liars, evil beasts, slow bellies. This witness is true. Wherefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith;" Tit.1:12-13

    I cite the above NT verse to illustrate the fact that either the author is being very tongue in cheek or he has completely missed the joke through total lack of a sense of humour.

    He seems to be unaware of the inescapable dichotomy and paradox set up by the assertion that a Cretan himself said that "All Cretans are liars". If this is indeed true as stated then logically there must have been at least one Cretan who told the truth, i.e. that "ALL Cretans are liars", but of course if indeed that were the truth then that would make him truthful, but that then logically means that not ALL Cretans can be liars after all, because HE told the truth. Which then makes the statement that ALL Cretans are liars, a lie or untruthful.

    One of our lesson readers once had to read this passage from Titus and unfortunately misread the word 'Cretans' i.e inhabitants of Crete. He said "All cretins are liars. Which I think was probably a gross exaggeration and very unfair to cretins.
    Apparently, it goes back to Epimenides, sometime around 600 BC. So the joke in Titus is on the legendary personal failings of 'all Cretans'.
  • HedgehogHedgehog Shipmate
    mousethief wrote: »
    And yes the story of Eglon the Left-Handed is one of my absolute favorites.
    [tangent] This reminds me of Livy's history of Rome when he discusses the case of Gaius Mucius, who was captured by the Clusians. To demonstrate Roman bravery, Gaius shoves his right hand into a fire and lets it burn him without showing pain. This impresses the Clusians, who decide to seek peace with Rome. At which point, Livy comments that, from that day on, Gaius was known as "Lefty"...[/tangent]

  • :killingme:
  • RdrEmCofERdrEmCofE Shipmate
    edited April 2018
    [Enoch] Apparently, it goes back to Epimenides, sometime around 600 BC. So the joke in Titus is on the legendary personal failings of 'all Cretans'.

    A very discerning non-generalisation I'm sure. :wink:

    Which unfortunately falls flat in Titus due to the fact that he apparently seems to actually believe it, rather than understand the contradiction.

    I just love pointing this out to those inerrantists who insist that "There are no contradictions in The Bible". If this is not a contradiction and a joke, then it can only be a downright generalist, racist lie.
  • Penny SPenny S Shipmate
    In the Odyssey, Odysseus introduces at least one of his lying tales with "I am a Cretan", and I have wondered if the tale of the islanders' attitude to the truth goes back that far.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    I confess I'm not exactly stifling a giggle here. It's hardly Blackadder, is it?
  • balaambalaam Shipmate
    Genesis 3.

    Fig sap is very caustic causing burns, boils and other nasty things beginning with b when it gets on the skin and is exposed to sunlight; fig leaves are full of sap. That Adam and Eve chose fig leaves to cover their most sensitive parts has to be a joke, hasn't it?
  • wabalewabale Shipmate
    There’s loads of situation comedy! Max McLean’s dramatised Mark’s Gospel (on Youtube) for example brings out a surprising number of laughs. My favourite line in Chapter 8 is ‘But where in this remote place can anyone get enough bread to feed them?’ and the pause that follows. Clearly the disciples had not been paying attention when the 5000 were fed!
  • Penny S wrote: »
    In the Odyssey, Odysseus introduces at least one of his lying tales with "I am a Cretan", and I have wondered if the tale of the islanders' attitude to the truth goes back that far.

    My understanding has been that "cretin" comes from "Cretan", as yet another insult to Cretans.

    What did those folks do to piss everyone off, anyway??? Or were they simply a target for bullies? Or both?
  • Gramps49 wrote: »
    If you have ever seen Godspell, you know that many of Jesus' parables can be taken as jokes. I dare say, if you read through the Bible with a sense of humor, you will find a number of jokes. Maybe we should not take the Bible so seriously. Easter falls on April 1. Jesus is Risen! And that's no joke!

    I love "Godspell"! However, my impression is that they were joking around with the stories, as opposed to the stories being jokes. Fine line, and doesn't matter much in the scheme of things. Just FWIW.

  • Golden Key wrote: »
    My understanding has been that "cretin" comes from "Cretan", as yet another insult to Cretans.
    1779, from French crétin (18c.), from Alpine dialect crestin, "a dwarfed and deformed idiot" of a type formerly found in families in the Alpine lands, a condition caused by a congenital deficiency of thyroid hormones, from Vulgar Latin *christianus "a Christian," a generic term for "anyone," but often with a sense of "poor fellow." Related: Cretinism (1801).
  • It's not quite humour, but I like the odd bits of Paul losing his temper and speaking like a man in a pub. And then the translator's reticence to join him at the bar, and rowing back on the spirit of the thing, makes it funny. Can you imagine - I dunno, Billy Connolly in his stand-up prime - saying through pursed lips 'I do count them but dung' or 'I wish they would proceed to emasculate themselves' :smile:

    In my mind I hear Paul crying 'what a load of shite!' and 'let the fuckers chop their own cocks off!'
  • oh - and this one is funny for me. I'd never heard it, and my Anglican lay-reader mate was incredulous. He knows I sleep badly, me and the missus generally sleep apart, and for a long time I've had a quiet wreck of a hideout on a pile of foam sheets in the attic eaves:

    Prov 21 v9
  • Golden KeyGolden Key Shipmate
    edited April 2018
    mt--

    .
    mousethief wrote: »
    Golden Key wrote: »
    My understanding has been that "cretin" comes from "Cretan", as yet another insult to Cretans.
    1779, from French crétin (18c.), from Alpine dialect crestin, "a dwarfed and deformed idiot" of a type formerly found in families in the Alpine lands, a condition caused by a congenital deficiency of thyroid hormones, from Vulgar Latin *christianus "a Christian," a generic term for "anyone," but often with a sense of "poor fellow." Related: Cretinism (1801).

    Belated thanks for this. :) I'm aware of the medical meaning. But they look related--they evidently aren't, so they're "false cognates". I did some poking around in searchland. Beside the kind of info you found, there are some Christian site that are at pains to clarify this. Grace Community Church did a very nice job, including an interesting take on the "cretin"/"Christian" connection.

    .I'm pretty sure the connection was asserted at my childhood church. I'm guessing people have been mistakenly making that connection for a long time. Given the insults to Cretans, it just seemed like more of the same.

    FWIW.

  • Gramps49Gramps49 Shipmate
    Proverbs doe have a lot of one-liners.
  • MooMoo Kerygmania Host
    Somewhere in Proverbs there is a verse expressing a very negative opinion of someone who blesses his neighbor very loudly very early in the morning. I have seen it, but right now I can't find it.
  • Gramps49 wrote: »
    Proverbs doe have a lot of one-liners.
    Most of them wrong.
  • Gramps49Gramps49 Shipmate
    If anyone loudly blesses their neighbor early in the morning, it will be taken as a curse. Prov 27:14
  • MooMoo Kerygmania Host
    Thanks, Gramps.
  • LeoLeo Shipmate
    Where Elijas suggests that Ba'al must be on the toilet (2 Kgs. 18)
  • Gramps49Gramps49 Shipmate
    This is from Genesis 2

    22 Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib[h] he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.

    23 The man said,

    “This is now bone of my bones
    and flesh of my flesh;
    she shall be called ‘woman,’
    for she was taken out of man.”

    There is actually a word that the man said that is untranslatable and not in any English Bible. Some say it is the equivalent of "Hubba, Hubba" or, simply "Wow!"
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    Hilarious... I don't know, drawing attention to the humour in the Bible seems a bit like drawing attention to my football prowess. I mean, I can run around on a pitch and kick a ball, so to a first approximation I can play football, but I'm not going to get signed up for Milan any time soon.

    Put it another way, none of it's raised even a smile yet.
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host
    Gramps49 wrote: »
    This is from Genesis 2
    22 Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib[h] he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.
    23 The man said,
    “This is now bone of my bones
    and flesh of my flesh;
    she shall be called ‘woman,’
    for she was taken out of man.”
    There is actually a word that the man said that is untranslatable and not in any English Bible. Some say it is the equivalent of "Hubba, Hubba" or, simply "Wow!"
    I can't find the untranslatable word. The Hebrew is
    וַיֹּאמֶר֮ הָֽאָדָם֒ זֹ֣את הַפַּ֗עַם עֶ֚צֶם מֵֽעֲצָמַ֔י וּבָשָׂ֖ר מִבְּשָׂרִ֑י לְזֹאת֙ יִקָּרֵ֣א אִשָּׁ֔ה כִּ֥י מֵאִ֖ישׁ לֻֽקֳחָה־זֹּֽאת׃
    Literally it is
    he_said - the_man - this - time - bone - from_my_bone - and_flesh - from_my_flesh - this_one - she_is_called - woman - for - from_man - she_was_taken - this_one
    The repeated use of the demonstrative pronoun זה (zeh), however, is striking and certainly suggests a 'Wow' reaction in Adam.
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host
    I like Jesus reaction to Peter at the foot washing when Peter says words to the effect of "In that case, Lord, wash all of me." and Jesus replies "If you've had a bath you're clean - its only your feet need washing." I hear a tone of mild and jokey exasperation.
  • RdrEmCofERdrEmCofE Shipmate
    edited April 2018
    balaam wrote: »
    Genesis 3.

    Fig sap is very caustic causing burns, boils and other nasty things beginning with b when it gets on the skin and is exposed to sunlight; fig leaves are full of sap. That Adam and Eve chose fig leaves to cover their most sensitive parts has to be a joke, hasn't it?

    Probably, but it might also be illustrative of Adam and Eve's stupidity, (ironic since the fruit was supposed to make them 'wise'), and indicative of God's loving concern for their welfare and future pleasure, by providing them with fur clothing at something elses expense.

    Interesting the first actual death in the story was whatever owned the fur fanny covering that Eve and Adam got from God. Or was the fur coat a metaphor for pubic hair? Now that might be a joke, I think.
  • Gramps49Gramps49 Shipmate
    Now, this will take some thinking, but it is a play on words.

    Genesis 2:25 “The man and his wife were both naked, yet they felt no shame.”
    Genesis 3:1 “Now the serpent was the most cunning of all the animals that the LORD God had made”.

    The word “cunning,” in Hebrew ‘arum, echoes and puns on ‘arumim, “naked,”. The root sense of ‘erum, “naked,” is “smooth”: someone who is naked is hairless, clothesless, smooth of skin. But as the pun suggests, someone who is clever is also smooth, a facile thinker and talker whose surface speech is beguiling and flawless, hiding well his rough ulteriour purposes.
  • HedgehogHedgehog Shipmate
    KarlLB wrote: »
    Hilarious... I don't know, drawing attention to the humour in the Bible seems a bit like drawing attention to my football prowess. I mean, I can run around on a pitch and kick a ball, so to a first approximation I can play football, but I'm not going to get signed up for Milan any time soon.

    Put it another way, none of it's raised even a smile yet.
    Humor, of course, has always been highly subjective, and trying to discern what was meant as a joke when reading a document that is a couple thousand years (and more) older and coming from a different culture and in a different language is bound to be difficult. But that does not mean the humor isn't there.

    Take, for example, the case of Balaam and his prophesizing for Balak. Balak takes him to a high place where he can see all the Israelites, builds 7 altars, points him in the direction of the Israelites and waits for Balaam to pronounce a curse. Balaam blesses them. Balak then takes him to another spot--where he can only see a portion of the Israelites--builds another 7 altars, asks for the cursing, Another blessing. Balak moves Balaam to where he can be behind a wall and just look out through a hole...and the whole process is repeated.

    To me, that is clearly meant to be funny: it is as if Balak is thinking that Balaam has stage fright. First see all the people. No good? Come here where you can only see a portion of them. No good? Here hide behind this wall and look through a hole... Now that might not raise a smile on a modern-day reader, but when you consider that it is an Israelite story about an enemy, it is meant to be mocking in nature and refusing to see the humor misses (at least in part) the point of story.
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