Jokes in the Bible

Jokes in the Bible

Depending on how broadly you want to define “Jokes,” there are a few in the Bible that Cecil missed:

Teasing

Song of Songs 8:8 (NIV): “We have a little sister; her breasts are not yet grown.”

1 Samuel 17:41-44 (NIV) (David is approaching Goliath with his primitive weapons): "Meanwhile, the Philistine, with his shield bearer in front of him, kept coming closer to David. He looked over David and saw that he was little more than a boy, handsome and glowing with health, and he despised him. And he said to David, “Am I a dog, that you come at me with sticks?” And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. “Come here,” he said, “and I’ll give your flesh to the birds and the wild animals!”

1 Kings 18:27 (NIV) (Elijah, the prophet of God, has challenged the prophets of the pagan god Baal to see whose god will reveal himself. He lets Baal’s people go first, and Baal is not responding.) "At noon Elijah began to taunt them. “Shout louder!” he said. “Surely he is a god! Perhaps he is deep in thought, or busy, or travelling.* Perhaps he is sleeping and must be awakened!” *Some interpretations of this passage postulate that Elijah may have been employing a euphemism for “on the pooper,” which would make the passage even funnier.

2 Kings 2:23 (NIV) "As [Elisha] was walking along the road, some boys came out of the town and jeered at him. “Get out of here, baldy!” they said. “Get out of here, baldy!”

Hyperbole

Galatians 5:12 (NIV): (Paul is discussing the problem of Jews who insist that new Christians must be circumcised.) “As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves!”

Galatians 6:11 (NIV) (Paul is trying to drive home a point.) “See what large letters I use as I write with my own hand!” *It’s likely that many, nay most, of Paul’s writings were dictated to a scribe. Some New Testament scholars have speculated that Paul’s vision was bad; ergo, if he were writing with his own hand, the letters would be big so he could read them.

Absurdity

Numbers 22:27-30 (NIV) (Balaam is riding his donkey; God sends an angel to block his path.) "When the donkey saw the angel of the Lord, it lay down under Balaam, and he was angry and beat it with his staff. Then the Lord opened the donkey’s mouth, and it said to Balaam, “What have I done to you to make you beat me these three times?” Balaam answered the donkey, “You have made a fool of me! If only I had a sword in my hand, I would kill you right now.” The donkey said to Balaam, “Am I not your own donkey, which you have always ridden, to this day? Have I been in the habit of doing this to you?” “No,” he said.

Prank

1 Samuel 24:3-4 (NIV) “He 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. The men said, “This is the day the Lord spoke of when he said to you, ‘I will give your enemy into your hands for you to deal with as you wish.’” Then David crept up unnoticed and cut off a corner of Saul’s robe.”

Personally I’ve always loved the “joke” play by God on Nebuchadnezzar.

"The king reflected and said, ‘Is this not Babylon the great, which I myself have built as a royal residence by the might of my power and for the glory of my majesty?’ 31"While the word was in the king’s mouth, a voice came from heaven, saying, ‘King Nebuchadnezzar, to you it is declared: sovereignty has been removed from you, 32and you will be driven away from mankind, and your dwelling place will be with the beasts of the field. You will be given grass to eat like cattle, and seven periods of time will pass over you until you recognize that the Most High is ruler over the realm of mankind and bestows it on whomever He wishes.’…

Talk about eating humble pie (or humble grass) for 7 years! Who says God doesn’t have a sense of humor!

And then they were mauled by a she-bear. Ha ha! Good times.
Powers &8^]

“Abraham, I want you to sacrifice your son, Isaac, to Me.”

“Psych!!!”

Pun:
Matthew 16:18
And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

Rock in Latin is Petra. Hilarious isn’t it?:dubious:

A few that come to mind:

Matthew 7:5, is actually kind of funny:

“You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye”

Also there’s the guys who blindfold and hit Jesus saying something along the lines of “you’re a prophet, prophesize who hit you”.

More situational comedy than a joke, but I seem to remember when Jesus is telling his disciples that he has to go deal with Lazarus, he tries using a euphemism. His disciples don’t get it and think Lazarus is literally sleeping, and they don’t see why that’s Jesus’ problem. Jesus finally has to just say “Lazarus is dead”.

How about the part where Jesus says to Simon I’m gonna call you Petros [small rock] and on this petra [big rock] I will build my church? I was taught that this is a pun and Jesus was being funny. But I was also told that there’s a debate about whether this is really a pun being told by Jesus or if it’s a pun which was inserted by the unnamed scholar who translated the text from Aramaic into Greek.

Puns are very popular in the Bible. If you look at the names of the places that the Jews passed by as they left Egypt, they are names such as Baal Peor which means Master of Poo and Baal Zibob which means Master of Flies (this is where the name Bezel-bob comes from). These were supposed to be names of Egyptian deities, but it’s very likely that the writers of the Bible merely punned on the name in order not to write the name of the actual deity.

The Rabbis had a lot of fun with the name Baal Pior. They said the name came from how people would worship this particular god. The first worshipers were got so excited by the mere site of this idol, they literally went in their pants. Later on, their children figured the way to worship this god was to relieve yourself in its presence.

The Rabbis relate a story about one Jew who was so upset by this idol, he decided to desecrate the idol by taking a dump right in front of it. The Rabbis said that the worshipers were so impressed by this Jew’s display of piety that they proclaimed no one had ever done a better job worshiping their idol.

Another place where there was humor (or at least sarcasm) was Elijah challenge to the worshipers of Asherah and Baal. He told them to setup an alter and make a offering to their gods and he would make an alter and make an offering to God, and they will see whose offering would be accepted.

The priests of Asherah and Baal went first. They cried, danced and sang all day, but to no avail. Elijah mocked their unsuccessful efforts. He said cry louder! Perhaps your god is musing. Maybe he’s taking a walk or is sleeping. He needs to be awaken.

Musing is a hint of some sort of sexual liaison. That is maybe their god was busy and didn’t want to be disturbed

HeyHomie mentioned this in the first post, though he posited that the euphemism was for taking a dump, not making sweet sweet love.
Powers &8^]

I’m surprised nobody mentioned the biblical story of Ehud, which is hilarious throughout reads a lot like a modern comical action movie. Judges 3:12-25:

I can imagine this story had Israelite teenagers laughing and high-fiving for centuries. Ha ha, stupid Moabites!

Well, I found the story of Eutychus rather amusing when I heard it on Sunday. Haven’t heard a sermon quite as boring as Paul’s must have been (and in any case I’ve never heard a sermon while on the third floor of a building), but I can relate!

Yeah … laugh it up. :rolleyes:

Did you get better?