Originally Posted by PREVIEW

... in the non canonical gospels ... there are several instances where Jesus laughs. And (Professor) Levine said the early church fathers ... were, in general, more focussed on combatting heresy, which was seen as no laughing matter. Thus these early theologians would probably have seen the genre of humor as inappropriate for their times.

Originally Posted by Toto

Periodically, someone asks about humor in the Bible.

Stephen Colbert tonight interviewed James Martin, SJ, author of Between Heaven and Mirth (or via: amazon.co.uk).

Originally Posted by dalehileman

Man, my reaction too. Martin seems to be stretching, valiantly though

Seems religion, at least "our" kinds, is determined to be grim

Originally Posted by Solo

On successive parsing of the text, Mark’s paradoxical Jesus pearls have a way to change colours. On one such pass I suddenly realized as I read through the story of the paralytic being lowered through the roof, that I have seen this story somewhere before, either as a rewrite of Mark or an improvisation on Mark, or a ripoff of Mark, or just maybe similar style of narration.

And they came, bringing to him a paralytic carried by four men. And when they could not get near him because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him; and when they had made an opening, they let down the pallet on which the paralytic lay. And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, "My son, your sins are forgiven."

The point of the transfer of the stretcher bearers’ faith onto the patient was not hard to read . He, like Jairus’ daughter, after him were in a state of acute depression, temporarily beyond reach. The act of removing the roof bespeaks of the man’s friends’ determination get him into Jesus’ presence. No problem there, this is Sunday school stuff (which is better curiculum by the way, then teaching toddlers America is the big Satan, and the Jews are apes and pigs). But what most people don’t get is the comical aspect in the quartet having to go to the lengths of dismantling the roof of a house to get to Jesus. Why would not people in line yield to a patient who clearly needed help more than they ?

Yes, I am talking about the absurdly exaggerated overcrowding of the house, the desperate clinging, the utter dependence, the self-obssessed hypochondria, the maniacal passivity, the suffocating neediness of the people around Jesus that fills the place grotesquely……I have seen that sort of mocking somewhere before. I saw Mark some place as a modernist. I could not find the parallel but I knew I read it and it was impressing. I was getting frustrated: I knew I had seen elsewhere also the constant Markan talking past the point, his perverse preaching of nonsense, his bold, shameless worship of travesty, the blasphemous mocking of everything including Jesus’ selfless nature (5:30-31), yet a gripping and mesmerizing incantation, beyond sensible, aesthetic, meaningful discourse, yet through all the rant and humbug, engaged in solemn detachment, determined and focused in pointing at something in the deepest depths of all, an incurable malady in the soul’s darkest corner.

Big bell rang. But of course, this is Kafka’s Angst and Mark’s therapy for it. I grabbed The Trial from the shelf. Yes, yes: here it is, the yearning of the soul to be loved, recognized, received, to have the undivided attention of Grace. It would do anything for a chance to be in the presence of Grace ! But there is the deadening sense of one’s inadequacy, the sense one cannot reach it, the desperate need to find some way to Milena, which seems so near and within reach yet so far removed , so busy with other people, and when standing before Grace, the fear of being judged as ugly, stupid, unworthy, weak, wicked, and fit to be rejected, overthrown in dirty suburbs and condemned to ever-lasting shame. In a key scene of Kafka’s hero K. attends the first session of the court of inquiry that is to look into his case. He was summoned to appear before the Magistrate on Sunday. Sunday, or night for that matter, is another way to say, the time of rest for all but the good guys with overbearing Dads. After a frantic search for the hall of the Court (which is situated among ordinary apartments in a residential building), K. is shown into the Court hall through a laundry room:

K. felt as though he was entering a meeting hall. A crowd of people of all shapes and ages – they did not seem to bother about the newcomer – filled a middle-sized room with two windows, which just below the roof was surrounded by a gallery, also quite packed where the people were able to stand only in a bent posture with their heads and backs knocking against the ceiling…some had brought cushions with them to keep their heads from getting bruised.

Max Brod wrote in his biography of Kafka that Franz thought of his novels as private literature. He told Max – his best friend - that the stories and novels had no meaning to anyone who did not know him personally. He asked Max to destroy the manuscripts after he died. Brod relates how during his private readings from his exquisitely morbid imagination Franz occasionally broke down laughing, and as others joined, tears were streaming down his cheeks.

Mark and Kafka both knew the limits of intellect because they were both familiar with the big helpless babe that lives inside the skull next to it. But Mark’s manic defense was stronger than Franz’es; it would break Paul’s injunction on telling stories about the paradoxical abasement of God in human existence. He would dare to write up Jesus Christ, him crucified but also him inter faeces et urinam natus – after he was crucified and in the cycle again ! This was the Jesus that Paul did not want to know anything about ! Mark would rewrite Paul’s gospel as a story that would shame God if he were to deny it is true. The story had to be absurd; it had to be unbelievable (even to those ready to believe anything) to be meaningful.

He will tell his story through facile exaggerations, and foolish self-contradictions, the forging of failed fantasies as the fulfilment of divine plan, claptrap about a god who nobody listens to, about a god who is defied by everyone, a god who will not be acknowledged when he descends among the pitiful creatures of flesh like dove, heavenly Messiah who looks like a lunatic to everyone on earth, one who arrives to do good and to answer everyone’s prayers but when he does good and answers everyone’s prayers, he is senselessly accused of being the superman that he is and they have all been waiting for to deliver them and who for this deliverance must be spat upon, tortured and nailed by them to crude carpentry. This is madness : a cathartic release and breaking free from the paralysing stare of the mongoose, the silencing of the devil’s whisper that appears as reasoned sanity and insists there will be no relief from the approaching stench of death that surely comes after the last drop of the bitter drink in the cup of meaningless existence. If one does not see Mark’s resurrection as raucous comedy, then one’s Christ will be an empty, pathetic peddling of need to the needy and a false promise of salvation to the humourless.

Originally Posted by Sheshbazzar

Thought provoking jiri.
Really. Also consistent with Pete's suggestion that the apocryphal gospels extreme 'over the top' portrayals were originally composed by christianities opposition, to subtly direct, mock, and lampoon christian beliefs.

What if all along, the gospel story, -was- composed as an elaborate mockery of that form of religion instituted by Paul? And his followers -were- deluded enough to select four of these deliberately mocking religious parodies as being the absolute 'Gospel Truth' ^TM ?

That they would fall for it and suck it up, would be the biggest prank and practical joke that has ever been pulled off.
Utterly gut bustingly hilarious to those at the time who were 'in the know'.

EVERY christian that ever 'bought it', would be to be pitied and laughed at, for as long as the religion of Paul survived.


I LIKE it! :devil1: