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Absolutely!
Robin Gallaher Branch on the lighter side
of the Bible
“The
heart knows its own bitterness, and no stranger shares its joy.” —
Proverbs 14:10
“A
cheerful heart is a good medicine.” —
Proverbs 17:22
Studiously plowing through the reigns of Solomon through Jehoshaphat,
I came to 2 Chronicles 21:20 and laughed outright.
The text reads, “Jehoram was thirty-two years old when he
became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem eight years. He passed away, to no
one’s regret, and was buried in the City of David, but not in the tombs of the
kings” (italics added).
Being a wordsmith myself, I smiled at this bygone scribe relieved at
this monarch’s death.
Evidently Jehoram was not well liked. The editorial statement provides
a light touch — comic relief, if you will — to the Chronicler’s usually routine
kingship formula.
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| Lighten up! Laughter is an important, and often overlooked, literary element in the Bible. Perhaps Vincent Van Gogh’s Still Life with Bible could have used more pigments from his floral paintings? |
I listen for its humor. My emotions span sorrow, understanding or joy
as I empathize with the characters who cross its pages.
I chuckle at many passages, even while acknowledging the sadness they
may contain.
Consequently, I believe it’s possible to read many verses, stories and
even books through the lens of humor, indeed to see portions of the Bible as
intended to be very funny.
An appropriate response is laughter. I’ve come to this conclusion:
Humor is a fundamental sub-theme in both testaments.
Laughter in the Hebrew Bible
Let’s start with an umbrella verse, Ecclesiastes 3:4: “A time
to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance.”
The Biblical text, always practical, acknowledges human emotions and
makes boundaries for their proper use.
God’s Laughter in the Hebrew Bible
Let’s look at God’s laughter. After all, he’s the creator.
Consider Psalm 37:12-13: “The wicked plot against the
righteous, and gnash their teeth at them; but the Lord laughs at the wicked,
for he sees that their day is coming.”
Laughter here shows the impotence of the wicked and the futility of
their plots and gnashings against the righteous.
Why? Because, as the psalm answers, those who hope in the Lord will
inherit the land and the Lord knows the wicked face a reckoning.
God directs the same kind of laughter toward earthly hotshots who
think their power exceeds his.
Psalm 2:2, 4 declares that when “the kings of the earth take
their stand,” marshalling themselves “against the Lord … and
against his Anointed One,” then “the One enthroned in heaven
laughs.”
But Zephaniah 3:17 illustrates joy, a different aspect of God’s
laughter and character, one more consistently expressed throughout the Biblical
text: “He will take great delight in you … he will rejoice over you
with singing.”
My students often are amazed that the idea of rejoicing carries with
it the idea of physical activity.
The verse presents this possibility: God’s delight can entail joyful
songs and public dancing.
Who Is Responsible?
One story that makes me laugh is the conversation taking place
somewhere on Mt. Sinai between God and Moses.
The recently-released Hebrew slaves are sinning by worshipping a calf
made of gold and declaring that it, not the Lord, led them out of Egypt (Exodus 32:4-6).
Neither God nor Moses wants these rowdies at this moment. Like a hot
potato, responsibility for the former slaves passes back and forth between
them.
The Lord swaps first, telling Moses the reveling Israelites are “your
people” (verse 7) (italics added).
But Moses quickly catches on. He declines association with them.
As far as Moses is concerned, these people are not his!
Morphing into intercession mode and speaking in what no doubt is a
respectful tone, Moses rejoins, “O, Lord, why should your anger burn
against your people, whom you brought out of Egypt with great power and a
mighty hand?” (verse 11) (italics added).
He reminds the Lord of his promise to his servants Abraham, Isaac, and
Israel to make their descendants “as numerous as the stars in the sky” (verse 13).
This scene’s humor softens the chapter, which ends sorrowfully.
The Israelites’ sin leads quickly to the deaths of many by plague, and
thus the chapter ends (Exodus 32:35).
The chapter’s structure incorporates dialogue, rebellion, crisis, and
punishment.
Biblical Humor Through Innuendo
Consider Genesis 18:10-15, wherein God informs Abraham and Sarah they
will have a son by “this time next year” (verse 10).
Sarah openly laughs, thinking she is worn out and now will have sexual
pleasure again (verse 11).
After all, she is about 89! We learn later that Abraham, probably about
99, also thought along sexual lines.
He believed God could give him and Sarah descendants and make them
parents even though he — as a man — was “as good as dead” (Hebrews 11:11-12).
The idea of fathering a child at his age struck him as funny.
Humorous Books in the Hebrew Bible
Whole books in the Hebrew Bible have strong elements of humor.
An ongoing humorous element in the Book of Esther is the number of
banquets it mentions.
There number at least 10, thereby forming the book’s structure and
carrying much of its action.
One wonders: Do these rulers do anything except dine and wine and plot
and whine?
We are meant to laugh and learn throughout the Book of Jonah.
Yes, we can laugh
at Jonah’s open disobedience of going west to Tarshish when God
commands him to go northeast to Nineveh (Jonah 1:1-3);
at Jonah’s “time out” to think about things in the belly of the great
fish (Jonah 1:17a);
at his pouting, obstinate silence for three days while being
digested (Jonah 1:17b);
at his being vomited by the great fish on dry land — somewhere
probably in the Mediterranean world (Jonah
2:10);
at his terse, seven-word sermon to Nineveh (Jonah 3:4);
at his anger over the success of this sermon, the repentance of the
entire city (Jonah 4:1).
Indeed everything in the Book of Jonah — the sailors, sea, big fish,
gourd vine, hot wind and the Ninevites — obeys God. Everything and everybody
except one: Jonah.
God shows his colors of compassion and mercy — and Jonah disdains
them.
Humor in the New Testament
The New Testament, similarly, abounds with laughter.
Jesus must have been a compelling personality to keep the attention of
crowds for days and the steadfast loyalty of at least twelve disciples for
three years.
In addition to being a riveting teacher whose words brought life, he
was likely the kind of personality that was just fun to be around.
For example, a crowd numbering about 5,000 men followed him to a
solitary place (Mark 6:30-44).
Jesus’ teaching evidently made people forget to eat, bring food or
worry about work.
In his classic work The Humor of Christ, Elton Trueblood lists thirty
humorous passages in the Synopic Gospels.
In one way or another, they’re all one liners, parables or stories
Jesus told.
Trueblood thinks Jesus’ audience would have laughed at the image of
those who loudly proclaim their righteous actions to others (Matthew 6:2) because it was all too prevalent.
An audience would have found the idea of rulers calling themselves
benefactors ludicrous (Luke 22:25) — because the working folks knew all too well it wasn’t so.
No doubt the audience chuckled when Jesus commended the vociferous,
obstreperous widow for her persistent pestering of the unjust judge and cited
her as a successful model of prayer (Luke
18:1-8).
Paul employs humor in his letter to the new church in Corinth (1 Corinthians 12:12-27).
He addresses several problems reported to him. The problems — pride,
exclusivity and attitudes of “I don’t need or want you” —
could destroy the new church, for they counter the love Jesus taught.
Instead of singling out by name troublemakers in Corinth, he
allegorizes the situation in a humorous, non-threatening, open way: “The
eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I don’t need you!’ And the head cannot say to the
feet, I don’t need you’” (verse
12:21).
Paul affirms the need of all parts, and their need to function in
unity, in the Body of Christ.
In the home of Jairus, a synagogue ruler, Jesus uses practical
knowledge to break a tense situation.
Jairus’ twelve-year-old daughter just died. Jesus, three of his
disciples and the child’s parents fill the room (Mark 5:40).
Jesus goes to the body, picks up the girl’s hand, says to her, “Talitha
koum!” which means, “Little girl, I say to you, get up!” (verse 41).
The girl immediately gets up and walks around the room (verse 42a).
Mark records the reaction of those in the room as “completely
astonished” (verse 42b); in
other words, they’re probably stunned and silent.
Jesus responds with something practical: He tells them to give her
something to eat (verse 43).
A natural human reaction — when grief is turned to unexpected joy as
when a dead girl is brought back to life — is something loud like laughter or
shouting.
Here, Jesus cracks a joke by reminding everybody that a girl who has
been sick, experienced death, and is now alive is hungry!
Of course, she needs to eat! All twelve-year-olds have ravenous
appetites!
This practical, timely and kind statement from Jesus breaks all the
tension, pent-up grief and amazement present in the room among the girl’s
parents and Jesus’ three disciples.
I read this scene as Jesus’ cracking a joke. And the proper
appreciation of a joke is laughter.
Robin Gallaher Branch received her Ph.D. in
Hebrew Studies from the University of Texas in Austin in 2000. She was awarded
a Fulbright Fellowship for the 2002–2003 academic year to the Faculty of
Theology at North-West University. Her most recent book is Jereboam’s Wife: The
Enduring Contributions of the Old Testament’s Least-Known Women (Hendrickson,
2009).
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