There was the time Jesus was throwing the moneychangers out of the temple and he asked one of them “Hey buddy, got two tens for a five?”
(That was from an SCTV skit about humor in the Bible.)
Aw crap, i missed that, though I confess all the due diligence I did was checking that the “similar questions” panel did not actually have a similar question, At least when I plagiarize I use good sources 
Lots of great answers, thanks!
Yeah, no, Jesus was a straight-up smartass.
It never ceases to amaze me what a complete bullying petty psychopath Old Testament God is portrayed as. If I was treated by a supernatural entity the way He treated the Jews, I would assume I was dealing with a trickster demon, not the Lord of All Creation.
Yes, I’m aware of the prophecies. I still find it ironically funny that the Messiah shows up riding into town on a little donkey, where a Roman general would ride in on a decorated, armored warhorse.
I find it funny that Genesis claims the whole universe was created in seven days, when we know it was magnitudes down from pico-seconds. Hey, that Yahweh dude needed seven full days to create everything. What a slowpoke :guffaw:/s
That doesn’t make the seven day claim in the Bible a joke. And neither was JC riding into Jerusalem on a donkey a joke.
AIUI this thread is about jokes the writers intended to make, not what we think is funny.
That one scene where the kid with the sling pops a rock right into the big guy’s face, I mean, that had to be comical to watch.
Also, there was a line in, I think KJV, Song of Horniness in which the woman says “I move my bowels for my lover”. That is a pretty hilarious translation, and also kinda, ick.
Yes. Salt cannot lose its flavor. You cannot hide a light under a bushel. There are more. They often loose a lot of humor like old coins lose their details.
Those two aren’t really comparable. You can hide a light under a bushel. You probably wouldn’t, because it defeats the whole purpose of having a light, but you could do it. But there really isn’t any way for salt to lose its flavor.
OP actually asked for humor in the Bible, not exclusively jokes.
Hard to guess intent after a few thousand years and various translations. Aaron throws down his staff and it becomes a snake. Pharaoh’s wizards do the same thing and so Aaron’s snake promptly eats all of theirs . Someone might view that as a staid commentary on the power of God, someone else might view it as a humorous “Yeah, well, eff you guys” regarding the power of God. I’m more in the second camp; Aaron’s snake responding by just eating all the wizards’ snakes strikes me as pretty funny.
The entire Book of Job is funny if read in the voice of Mel Brooks.
One Jewish YouTube I follow says that Esther is a humorous, satirical story. He cites the stuff like how Esther having to bathe for a year to see the king or how he dumps the previous queen for not being a stripper for his guests. Then he points out the whole “Purim Torah” thing (where you make scriptural arguments for silly ideas for fun).
He seems to indicate this is a fairly common understanding of Esther. Have any Jewish Dopers heard of it?
(Edit: not intended to be a reply to Chronos.)
Maybe not “humor” per se, but there was certainly sarcasm.
John 3: 3-4
Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again[b] he cannot see the kingdom of God.” 4 Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?”
ETA: Some of the newer versions of the Bible omit that last sentence.
There is if you are using natural dehydrated salt that is mixed with lots of other materials. A lump of “salt” can get wet, the soluble actual salt washed away, and you still have the insoluble impurities, which also counted as part of the salt. Which is how it worked in those times.
There’s a great story in Judges about Ehud, a left-handed man, (this was looked down upon) and King Eglon. Eglon is apparently a hugely obese man. Ehud is able to sneak a sword into his throne room because he has it strapped to his opposite thigh (left-handed) and hidden. Then he stabs the king in the belly, and he’s so fat, the sword is completely swallowed up in the folds, so the cause of death is not readily apparent to his guards. There’s a bit also about how King Eglon is delayed to the point of embarrassment, because they assume he’s stuck in the “inner room” i.e. the toilet.
There’s also a pun with the names Jacob and Israel that’s a little hard to parse in English, but basically the name Jacob translates to trickster. And Jacob was often referred to as “Israel” since all the Israelites were descended from him. So when Jesus meets Nathanael in the book of John he exclaims, “Here comes an Israelite in which there is no guile!” In other words, here comes a trickster who is always honest!
As told by The Colorblind James Experience
I always found this humorous:
Matthew 5:22 (NIV) Jesus says: “But anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.”
Then a some chapters later (23:17) Jesus tells a group: “You blind fools!”
Oops.
TBF, it is generally reckoned that the ~36 hours Jesus spent being dead were spent in the bad place, arguing with the bad dude.
I always thought that the parts after “Woman, it is not yet my time” were completely made up because in reality Jesus was unconscious for 5 days after talking back to his mama like that, and to the disciples quietly agreed to just make up a happy ending.
That must have been a harrowing journey.
You mean, like, that was one bad trip, man?