Humor in the Bible?

So I’m looking at the LBMB, and someone starts a thread asking about humor in the Bible.

I immediately go to the search engine, because I know that Cecil answered this one. Can’t find it.

So I go to the books, of which I own four. No dice. I check every archive I can online too. Nada.

Okay, I’m stumped… If Cecil did indeed write an answer to this question, it would have to have been when I was reading it in newspapers, BIC (Before Internet Connected).

So can someone tell me please, DID Cecil indeed answer this question, and it just hasn’t been put in a book or put online yet? Or am I just another guy who KNOWS that I saw a contestant on The Newlywed Game say, “Up the butt?”


Yer pal,
Satan

Satan -

Yup Cecil answered this one. I don’t think it’s online yey but it can be found in ** Triumph of the Straight Dope** on page 244


“My mind reels with sarcastic replies!” - Snoopy

Great… The one book I don’t have…

grumble grumble

Note to whichever moderator or administrator adds the classic columns to the archives: If you can add this soon, I’ll be able to cite it, and possibly erradicate some ignorance on a message board that is TEEMING with it!

Thank you…


Yer pal,
Satan

You admit right here on the board that there is a Straight Dope book that you don’t own? Now somebody knows what to get Satan for his birthday.

I’ve passed this onto the Master - maybe he’ll add it to the archives if it isn’t there.

Jill

Let me get this straight: Satans birthday present is going to be a book on (among other things) humour in the Bible ?

And people wonder why I keep coming back to this board.

Norman

What?? You’re saying you don’t have one of Cecil’s books?

Bad Satan!


“My mind reels with sarcastic replies!” - Snoopy

Woohoo! We caught a mod double-posting! Yeah! :slight_smile:

Say, I didn’t know the Prince of Darkness had a birthday. Next you’ll tell me he has a mother.


“Living in this complex world of the future is not unlike having bees live inside your head.” - F. Scott Firesign

Here’s one that won’t be showing up in your favorite Sunday School class any time soon

Exodus 33:23
And I will take away mine hand, and thou shalt see my back parts: but my face shall not be seen.

Yes, God threatens to moon Moses…the mind reels…

Hometownboy

For slapstick in the Bible, check out I Samuel 17:38-40, when David is about to go out and face Goliath, and they put heavy armour on him to protect him, but it’s so heavy, he falls over.

How about Acts 20:7ff? A guy named Eutychus falls asleep during a long sermon, falls out the window where he is sitting, and falls to his death. Fortunately Paul is handy to raise him from the dead.

There are also quite a few places that are intentionally ironic. The conversation between Balaam and his donkey (Numbers) and the conversations in the book of Jonah have quite a bit irony, if the cultural background is considered.


What I think is funny is the number of people who think that a donkey could talk.

No, I take that back: That’s frightening.


Sig Alert!

You mean to say the story of Balaam’s ass isn’t about a guy who can talk with his butt?

I’ll have to find a new role model.


What game are YOU playing?

OH GOD! This message board cracks me up. Who needs cable when i got u people. Thnx for making my life a lil bit brighter.

(Cecil has books for sell?)


Remember Franklin Osis,
Father of his Clan.
Three Strengths he gave us:
The jaguar’s spring that brings an enemy down,
The jaguar’s claw’s that rend the enemy’s heart,
The jaguar’s taste for the enemy’s hot blood.

-“The Remembrance” (Clan Smoke Jaguar), Passage 104, Verse 18, Lines 5-10

Satan.
this is my second corrospondece to you.
You never replyed on the first. (nevermind someone else gave me a good deal on my soul)
If you are looking for humor in the bible also check out the book “Prostitute in the family tree.” By none other than Douglas Adams


Destroyer of grammar
matser or typos.
Typo artist fo the world Untie!

I like that bit He did where he told a group of people leaving a city being destroyed, “Whatever you do, don’t look back at your home being destroyed by the hosts of heaven!”, knowing full well that this would cause someone to look back. He sure pulled one over on Lot’s wife, didn’t he!


Eagles may soar free and proud, but weasels never get sucked into jet engines.

Speaking of Sodom, I like the part where Abraham makes a deal with God:
Abraham says, well you want to distroy Sodom. Understandable. But you don’t want to kill good people, do you? That’s not very God-like is it? You should be setting an example. So what if there’s, oh I dunno, fifty good people in the city? You would spare the city for them wouldn’t you?
And god says Yeah, ok, fifty people.
And Abraham says Hey, I’m just worm-food, and you’re God and all, and what do I know, really, but…what if there’s only forty-five rightous people? You, being God, you wouldn’t distroy a whole town for the lack of five people?
And God says ok, forty-five.
And Abraham says now don’t go getting angry or anything, but just for the sake of argument, what if there’s only forty good people? I mean five people, c’mon!
And God says Fine, forty people.
Eventually he gets him down to ten people. He (this is just a joke ok?) he Jewed him down!

But I guess the punch line still belonged to God.

and as such, at my home there is an entire book of Bible humor. Sadly, I am right now 3 hours from my home. If you never get enough answers, email me this summer, Satan, and I’ll send you some of the highlights.

–John

If it’s humor you’re after, you should read some of the classical Chinese philosophers, such as Confucius, Lao Zi and Wang Yangming. The Analects of Confucius actually pack a fairly sizable number of puns! For example, a disciple named Zai Wo – sort of lazy, sort of a wiseass – asks Confucius, “If a noble person were told that there’s supreme virtue in a well, would he jump in after it?” A double joke, based in part on the maxim that noble people go wherever virtue is to be found, and in part on a pun: “There’s supreme virtue in the well” sounds the same as “There’s a person in the well.” Confucius comes back at him: “Why should he do that? Noble people may be willing to die, but they can’t be entrapped.” Another double joke: His words sound the same as “can be broken but can’t be marred,” a proverbial description of jade – and noble people are often compared to jade, their process of self-cultivation being compared to the grinding and polishing of jade jewelry.

On occasion, Confucius is caught violating one of his principles in pursuit of another. One of his friends informs him of such an instance, to which he responds: “Lucky me! Whenever I make a mistake, everyone’s sure to find out about it.” And in one instance when Confucius criticizes a disciple’s actions only to have the disciple justify them with one of Confucius’ own maxims, he sardonically replies, “This is why I hate smooth talkers.”

An aristocrat once told Wang Yangming, a neo-Confucian philosopher during the Middle Ages, that he was having trouble eliminating his selfish desires. Wang told him, “Tell you what – why don’t you give me your selfish desires, and I’ll eliminate them for you.”

What cheek. I love it.

Well, you’ve got to have an appreciation for potty humor, but I thought the images in the following passage were pretty comical Imagine Eglon’s servants hanging around outside the john, shuffling their feet, waiting for the King to finish up when he’s actually got a blade stuck in his fat folds. I found it funny, but I found the syringe scene from Pulp Fiction hilarious. YMMV

This is Judges 3:16-26 from the New American Standard translation. KJV has Eglon washing his feet or some such thing. The paragraph breaks are mine.

16 Ehud made himself a sword which had two edges, a cubit in length, and he bound it on his right thigh under his cloak. 17 He presented the tribute to Eglon king of Moab. Now Eglon was a very fat man 18 It came about when he had finished presenting the tribute, that he sent away the people who had carried the tribute 19 But he himself turned back from the idols which were at Gilgal, and said, “I have a secret message for you, O king.” And he said, “Keep silence.” And all who attended him left him.

20 Ehud came to him while he was sitting alone in his cool roof chamber. And Ehud said, “I have a message from God for you.” And he arose from his seat. 21 Ehud stretched out his left hand, took the sword from his right thigh and thrust it into his belly. 22 The handle 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 refuse came out.

23 Then Ehud went out into the vestibule and shut the doors of the roof chamber behind him, and locked them. 24 When he had gone out, his servants came and looked, and behold, the doors of the roof chamber were locked; and they said, “He is only relieving himself in the cool room.” 25 They waited until they became anxious; but behold, he did not open the doors of the roof chamber. Therefore they took the key and opened them, and behold, their master had fallen to the floor dead.26 Now Ehud escaped while they were delaying, and he passed by the idols and escaped to Seirah.

My favorite is in the episode of speaking in tongues - someone accuses them of being drunk, to which the response is something like “they can’t be - it’s only 9 in the morning.”

Well it worked for me…