[soc.religion.christian] Humour in the bible

mshobohm@immd4.informatik.uni-erlangen.de (Matthias Hobohm) (05/26/91)

I found a special sense of humour in the bible: the relationship
between visions and language One Example is jeremiah 1,11 & 12 were
the prophet "sees" a rod of an almond tree.  This is a hebrew language
game.  Or Isiah 28:10 which is normally untranslated "zaw la zaw kaw
la kaw" . some versions translate it somehow, which makes it less
funny.  Or acts 2,4 : when the holy spirit came people had a vision of
"cloven tongues like fire" . The tongues symbolizes the new languages
in which they began to speak, they had the same word for it.  Other
forms of humour in the bible: Matthew 22:20 where Jesus decided from
the image of the coin, to whom it belongs.  Or as a bad example: Rev
10:4 where the prophet gets a great revelation of 7 thunders, but was
not allowed to write down what they said.

Funny also the idea to eat a book or a roll instead of reading it.
(Rev 10:9,Ez 3,2+3 )

Or Ez 3,14 where the prophet was flying by the spirit, but did not
feel very well, and said " the hand of th LORD was strong upon him"


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| Matthias Hobohm (Universitaet Erlangen, Informatik, Germany)        |
| mshobohm@immd3.informatik.uni-erlangen.de                           |
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dhosek@euler.claremont.edu (Don Hosek) (05/27/91)

Another way that I sometimes see humor in the Bible is in
retelling the story and imagining the details which were left
out. For example, Hosea:

Hi God. What's that, you've got something for me to do? Sure,
what's up? Excuse me, I'm not sure I got that. You want me to
marry a ... You're smiling, sir. I really don't like it when you
smile like that. 

-dh

Don Hosek                  
dhosek@ymir.claremont.edu  
Quixote Digital Typography 
714-625-0147               

xerox@cs.vu.nl (J. A. Durieux) (06/03/91)

In article <May.26.23.21.23.1991.24728@athos.rutgers.edu> dhosek@euler.claremont.edu (Don Hosek) writes:
>Another way that I sometimes see humor in the Bible is in
>retelling the story and imagining the details which were left
>out. (...)

Or the ones that were left *in*!  Ezechiel 4.

Here God order Ezechiel to lay down for more than a year, looking
standfastly to a maquette of Jerusalem, during which he was allowed to turn
on his other side only once (God roped him up to make this "easier"),
eating only some enriched bread and drinking water, baking that bread on
human excrements.

Of course Ezechiel gets quite upset at the prospect, and starts pleading,
after which God makes the burden lighter: he is allowed to use cattle
manure instead of human excrements!

Boy will Ezechiel have been happy at the prospect now!