ahdenai

Here is perhaps the biggest joke in all of history: "You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church..."

The Greek word for rock is Petros. Thus the origin of the apostolic succession lies in JC's urge to tell bad puns.

No Robots

The man's name was Simon. Christ gives him the nickname of "the Rock," Cephas or Kepha in Aramaic. There is irony here in that this man did waver, but it is unclear whether Christ intended any irony.

EffBeeEye

Good point No Robots - much of the humor in the Bible is very likely tongue in cheek as that ancient Scottish idiom. Not to mention as others have - lost in translations throuhg multiple languages, oral tradition being put into written - something always gets lost - and so many other reasons.

As I said before - any guy who would travel the world with twelve other guys, from all walks of life, probably smelly as all get-out, eating terribly and the likes, MUST have had some times where they would just sit around the camppfire in the desert and cut loose (ala the Campfire scene in Blazing Saddles.)

I could just see the 13 of them ripping one after the other and falling over laughing,

Helpmabob

I don’t think there is any humour in the Bible (although I’m prepared to be proved wrong). Its main purpose is to inform. Laughter tends to derive from abnormal situations and accidental happenings. But the bible records divinely planned events and occurrences that are, on a deep level, entirely normal. It is a signpost to, inter alia, perfect joy a deeper experience than happiness and not really related to laughter.

Keith&Co.

The two are not mutually exclusive.
Look at political cartoons, where a significant portion of America gets all they know about current politics.

haight

Humor in the Bible? Absurd! I've never found a single instance of humor in it.

mountainman

Yes. Well that's a standard response to this thread.

Would anyone who has read the text of the non canonical christian literature The stories that were not bound in the canon) like to make a comment as to whether the same can be said of it.

Thanks and best wishes


Pete

Cyberia

Humour is often in the eye of the beholder. To me, the funniest bit is when Moses comes down off of the mountain after a week and finds the Israelites worshipping a golden calf. You have to imagine John Cleese as Basil Fawlty (of Fawlty Towers) in the role of Moses.

Moses breaks the tablets he just got from God and does an angry dance.
Moses: What are you lot doing?
Israelite: We got bored while you were away so knocked up a false god to worship.
Moses, ranting some: You bunch of ungrateful B's, etc.
Moses then notices that they are naked.
Moses: Alright! That's it. Those of you who are on my side come over here.
Many of the people reluctantly do so.
Moses: Alright, kill them B's.
Israelites: But, but....
Moses: You heard me, kill them.
Israelites: But, but....
Moses: Do you want me to get my mate God onto you.
Moses' Israelites kill the others. Satisfied, Moses goes back up the mountain to the burning bush.
Moses: God. You know those tablets you gave me? There's been an accident and I need another two.

Helpmabob

I agree that there was probably some (fairly clean) hilarity as they went. But we also can be sure that not everything was recorded: Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written. [John 21:25] It seems therefore that any jokes told etc. have been omitted from the bible along with a complete record of toilet visits and the like.

Agreed. Also agree if you imply that humour is a poor quality mode of transmitting important information. (Although it can be useful to have a smattering of jokes framing important but dull information in order to keep the audience alert and interested). So I would be disappointed to find much of it in the Bible which I find absorbing.

Keith&Co.

Framing important and terribly dry information with jokes is crucial.

I'd need a lot of humor to make a presenation of Leviticus. Or any of the geneologies.