No Robots

One day, when I was working as an usher at the local theatre, the front-of-house manager suggested that I get a haircut. When I asked him if he was joking, he replied, "Well, as the Scottish say, I spoke half in jest and wholly in earnest." I think you find a similar spirit in the words of Christ.

ChuckE99

I like to think that when the rich man asked Jesus how to get into Heaven, and Jesus replied "sell everything and give it to the poor" he was waiting for the blood to run from the fellow's face before adding, "JUST KIDDING! You're already in Heaven!" And then slapping the guy on the back. Only the oral tradition left that part out.

No Robots

Yeah, like in "Blade Runner" when Deckard says to Rachael, "O.K., bad joke... I made a bad joke. You're not a replicant. Go home, O.K.? No, really - I'm sorry, go home." But she really is a replicant, and the man really must sell his stuff.

Toto

Previous attempts to find humor in the Bible have also beeen a little thin

Are there any funny bits in the Bible?

Did Jesus use jokes and sarcasm? (Ann Coulter claim)

Does God ever laugh in the Bible?

funniest quote in the Bible

Jeffrey Gibson

There have, however, been at least one previous book on the subject. The Quaker scholar Elton Trueblood produced one called The Humor of Christ (or via: amazon.co.uk) back in 1964.

Jeffrey

No Robots

Humour is, of course, culturally dependent. There is a great scene in the movie "Ridicule" where a Frenchman tries to describe English humour to his friends.

– Baron, how did you find the English?

– Droll. They have a way of speaking they call ''hew-mah.'' It makes them laugh enormously.

– Is it like wit?

– Not really, no.

– What is it in French?

– It's untranslatable.

– Don't tease. Tell us! Any talk that causes laughter must be a form of wit.

– It's not exactly ''wit.'' We've no word for it.

– Then give us an example.

– I asked Twickenham how many mistresses he had. He answered impassively: ''How many constitute several?'' It's the only example that comes to mind.

Everyone looks mystified. At the end of the movie, one of the Frenchmen is in England, fleeing the Revolution. He is with an English friend looking over the Channel when his hat flies off.

– My hat! I've lost my hat!

– Better your hat than your head.

– Ah, humor! It's wonderful. I used to keep a list of witty remarks. I filed them by category:Repartees, Quips, Paradoxes.

Zeichman

However, the humor in various biblical passages is pretty self-evident at other times. Numbers 22-25 is one obvious example, as is Judges 3; I always laugh out loud every time I read the latter, and often with the former. Beyond that, the humor of a lot of biblical passages have been lost for a number of reasons. The first ones to come to mind would be a) the subsequent opinion of the bible as inherently "serious" literature, b) change in cultural context, c) change in linguistic context, etc.

OF COURSE there is humor in the New Testament, but much of it isn't particularly funny by today's standards. Leif Vaage makes a compelling case for the woes of Q/Luke 11 to have been "more sardonic than serious," though no one alive today would even emit a chuckle from them.

Ben C Smith

The KJV verses that literalistically translate the Hebrew as one that pisseth against a wall are pretty funny to modern ears, but I am not as sure the original Hebrew idiom was supposed to be funny.

I have for a long time thought that Paul was having a little joke in 2 Corinthians 13.1, where his third visit to Corinth is supposed to count as the two or three witnesses of Deuteronomy 19.15.

Ben.

ETA: See 1 Kings 16.11 for an example of the Hebrew idiom. Read it in the King James.

Ben C Smith

I always laugh when Jesus blesses the cheesemakers.

Oh, wait....

Ben.

No Robots

There is a witticism ascribed to Christ in the Talmud. When asked what should be done with the temple donations of prostitutes, Christ suggests using them for the priests' privy: "they came from a place of filth, let them go to a place of filth."