Entered into the archives and posted as today’s classic column is Cecil Adams on Is there humor in the Bible?
According to Harold Bloom in The Creators Jesus uses a pun as the foundation of the Catholic Church. (Whether or not this means Church is basically a joke is left as a decision for the reader.)
Jesus says more or less:
And I tell you that you are Peter and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. -
Matthew 16:18 NIV
Peter means “Rock” get it?
Maybe its funnier in Greek.
skooby
Martin Gardner touches on humor in the KJV in chapter 18 of The Magic Numbers of Dr. Matrix, which contains reprints of his Scientific American columns.
Gardner also mentions the Peter/rock pun, which is pretty well known.
David Steinberg used to do biblical humor. He is currently a Hollywood producer and played the quirky rabbi at the funeral in the “hoo moos” episode of Mad About You. During the credits for this episode he delivers a short, odd biblical anecdote. In the 60’s he was stand-up comedian and had an album titled The Incredible Shrinking God which contained biblical humor he used in his act. Toned-down versions of his routines on the Smothers Brothers show caused its cancellation!
The only part of this I remember goes something like this.
One day, Moses was tending his sheep in the desert, and suddenly he heard his name “Moses” spoken by a voice that sounded a lot like Charlton Heston (imagine God as a Northwestern graduate).
So he turned towards the voice and saw a bush that was burning and yet did not consume itself! How about that, folks!
Then the voice said “Moses, take thy sandals from off thy feet for the land you are standing on is holy land.”
Moses took off his sandals, approached the bush and burned his feet!
And God said “Aha, third one today!”
Moses swore. We do not know exactly Moses said, but some biblical scholars contend this is the first mention of Christ in the Bible.
I don’t remember which comedian said this, but he claimed that the first joke was made by Cain: “Am I my brother’s keeper?”
IMHO, Balaam’s donkey speaking (Numbers 22:23) is an example of absurdity. That is, God uses an absurd situation to make a strong point.
One of the funniest passages in the Bible is a prank. 1 Samuel 24:3-4 " He [Saul] came to the sheep pens along the way; a cave was there, and Saul went in to relieve himself. David and his men were far back in the cave. [David’s boasting] … Then David crept up unnoticed and cut off a corner of Saul’s robe."
Another prank: Jacob’s brother Esau is quite hairy, and the boys’ father is blind. So Jacob puts goat fur all over his body to scam their father into believing that Jacob is really Esau. Maybe you had to be there. Genesis 27
Another prank: Jacob wants to marry this girl named Rachel. Her father, Laban, tells him “She’s yours if you’ll be my slave for 7 years.” Jacob says, “OK” and works for him for the appointed 7 years. So, they have the big wedding feast, Jacob gets liquored up, and then goes into his tent to make sweet love to his new wife. He does the job and then he wakes up and… there’s Leah, Rachel’s older sister! Genesis 29
Teasing: (David shows up to fight Goliath with nothing but a couple of rocks) GOLIATH: “Am I a dog, that you come at me with sticks?” DAVID: “Today I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth.”
More teasing: “We have a young sister, and her breasts are not yet grown.” Song of Songs 8:8
That’s all I could come up with for now.
If sarcasm counts as humor, then the bible’s full of it from front to back. Jesus calls his deciples numbskulls about every third page through Mark and Luke. My favorite little dig comes from Elijah in 1 Kings 18 when he was trying to get the priests of Baal to prove that Baal really existed (Living Bible translation):
(27)About noontime, Elijah began mocking them. “You’ll have to shout louder than that,” he scoffed, “to catch the attention of your god! Perhaps he is talking to someone, or is out sitting on the toilet…”
In other words, “Gee guys, looks like your god’s not answering. Maybe he’s busy taking a dump.”
My favorite joke in the New Testament is in Galatians 8:1-12 where Paul gets totally hacked when he learns that the church at Galatia is still performing the bris. He ask, “why not go the whole way and emasculate yourselves?” (NIV version) That’s one that always gets me tickled.
My favorite snippet of the bible is in Mark 14. Right after Jesus is arrested, the following anecdote is related (verses 51-52):
And a young man followed him, with nothing but a linen cloth about his body; and they seized him, but he left the linen cloth and ran away naked.
I just think the image of some poor soul running off buck nacked through Jerusalem is hilarious.
(By the way, I was first clued into this verse by a college professor, who related the intriguing hypothesis that the reason this event was included in Mark was because the young man in question was Mark. Pretty intriguing.)
Well, now I am confused. Either I misread the thing , or Satan only owns a total of four books ( of any sort), ORRR the only book he does not own is the Bible. the only instance of huours in the Bible I can find is in one version I have where in john 19:34 a centurian stabs Jesus in the side and " the blood and bile ran out."
I totally screwed that up , it should be " huMours in the Bible". Told you I was confused. And it was so darned clever too, aw, what’s the point?
Cecil’s column is now online:
My favorite joke is when God tells Abraham to sacrifice his one and only son, and at the very last minute, just as Abraham is raising the dagger high, an angel jumps out of the bushes and says, “Just kidding!”
Of course, I just now noticed that my colleague manhattan had previously posted the link to Cecil’s column. :o
Hello! First time poster, long time reader, yada yada yada.
I’m not sure if it’s really humor, but I have to say, I’ve always gotten a kick out of 2 Kings 2:23-24. It’s part of a story about Elisha, who was hanging out with Elijah.
From my RSV: He went up from there to Bethel; and while he was going up on the way, some small boys came out of the city and jeered at him, saying, “Go up, you baldhead! Go up, you baldhead!” And he turned around, and when he saw them, he cursed them in the name of the Lord. And two she-bears came out of the woods and tore forty-two of the boys.
Well, what can you say? Firstly, small boys back in the day were less than creative in their jeers, obviously. Beyond that, well, I’d say more, but I think I just heard something in the woods behind my house . . .
And my dad’s got a shocker too:
[bad pun]
When was the first appearance of a motorcycle in cultural history?
In the bible, where it says “And his triumph was heard across the land”
[/bad pun]
If anyone knows the exact bible quote, let me know, so I can correct him next time 
HenrySpencer
Not mentioned here yet is the example when the Israelites are leaving Egypt, and the Egyptian army pursues them, and they whine to Moses, “Were there not enough graves in Egypt that you brought us here to die in the wilderness?”
The joke here is that Egypt was full of graves, top to bottom, most of the cities were necropolises; the Egyptian obsession with the dead (pyramids, mummification, etc) was a joke even back then.
It’s probably unintended, but Paul’s convoluted logic re the Cretans (he disapproves of Cretans, surprise!)in Titus I, 12-13, seems quite funny to me:
“One of themselves, a prophet of their own, said, “Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.” This testimony is true.”
Can you trust a Cretan when he says Cretans alwas lie ?