jesus christ humor

THE LINEUP•HOW DO WE KNOW JESUS WAS FUNNY?

•WHY DON’T WE GET THE JOKE?

•WHAT KINDS OF HUMOR DO WE SEE IN THE NEW TESTAMENT?

•FUNNY OR NOT FUNNY?

HOW DO WE KNOW JESUS WAS FUNNY?

JESUS WAS AN ITINERANT PREACHER

Jesus would journey to a town, teach for a

while, and then move on.

He would have needed to speak in ways

that were easily understood and retained

by common people.

HE DREW LARGE CROWDS

MATTHEW 8:1, “ When Jesus had come down

from the mountain, great crowds followed him…”

MARK 3:7, “… a great multitude from Galilee

followed him…”

MARK 5:24, “… a large crowd followed him and

pressed in on him.”

LUKE 5:1, “…the crowd was pressing in on him

to hear the word of God…”

JOHN 6:2, “a large crowd kept following him,

because they saw the signs that he was doing for

the sick.”

HE WAS CRITICIZED FOR IT

MATTHEW 11:18, “For John (the Baptist) came neither eating

nor drinking, and they say, „He has a demon‟; the Son of Man

came eating and drinking, and they say, „Look, a glutton and

a drunkard..!‟”

(Also recounted in Luke 7:33-34)

HUMAN BEINGS HAVE MORE THAN ONE DIMENSION

WHY DON’T WE GET THE JOKE?

TRANSLATION ISSUES: Some of Jesus’ humor as

recorded in the Gospels is reflected in plays on words that do

not transition from the original Aramaic into “the recipient

language”

TRANSMISSION ISSUES: Most scholars agree the

Gospels were first communicated orally and were not written

down until at least one generation after Jesus’ earthly

ministry.

UNKNOWN DELIVERY

THE MOST COMMON TYPE OF HUMOR EVIDENCED IN THE

GOSPELS IS IRONY WHICH IS DIFFICULT TO DISCERN IN THE

WRITTEN WORD

• 60% - 90% OF COMMUNICATION IS NON-VERBAL

• VOCAL ELEMENTS: TONE, INFLECTION, RATE, PITCH, VOLUME, RHYTHM,

INTONATION, STRESS, ETC.

• NON-VERBAL ELEMENTS: FACIAL EXPRESSION, BODY POSTURE, HAND

GESTURES, PHYSICAL DISTANCE, TOUCH, AND SO ON

FAMILIARITY BLINDNESS

EXTREME FAMILIARITY PREVENTS US

FROM TRULY SEEING SOMETHING

CLEARLY

SO MUCH OF OUR FOCUS IS THE PASSION AND CRUCIFIXION OF CHRIST

“

”

A misguided piety has made us fear that acceptance of His obvious wit and humor would

somehow be mildly blasphemous or sacrilegious. Religion, we think, is serious business, and

serious business is incompatible with banter.

ELTON TRUEBLOOD: THE HUMOR OF CHRIST

BUT WE ALSO FOCUS ON THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST

WHAT KINDS OF HUMOR DO WE SEE IN THE NEW TESTAMENT?

PUNS OR WORD-PLAY

NOUN

A JOKE EXPLOITING THE DIFFERENT POSSIBLE

MEANINGS OF A WORD OR THE FACT THAT

THERE ARE WORDS THAT SOUND ALIKE BUT

HAVE DIFFERENT MEANINGS.

MATTHEW 23:24, “You strain

out a gnat (qalma) but swallow

a camel (gamla)!”

MATTHEW 16:18, “And I tell you, you are Peter (Petros), and on this rock (petra) I will

build my church...”

MARK 4:26, “And he said, „The kingdom of God is as if a man (adam) should scatter

(zara) seed (zera) on the ground (adama).‟”

MATTHEW 15:35-37, “Then ordering the crowd to sit (yashav) down on the ground

(esev), he took the seven (sheva) loaves and the fish; and after giving thanks he broke

(shavar) them and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the

crowds. And all of them ate and were filled (seva); and they took up the broken pieces

left over, seven (sheva) baskets full.”

JOHN 3:8, “The wind (Greek, pneuma; Aramaic, ruha) blows where it chooses, and you

hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes; so it is

with everyone who is born of the Spirit (Greek, pneuma; Aramaic, ruha).”

HUMOROUS ANECDOTES

STORIES RETAINED IN THE GOSPELS THAT

HAVE A HUMOROUS TWIST

MARK 15:17, “And he cautioned

them, saying, „Watch out—beware of

the yeast of the Pharisees and the

yeast of Herod.‟ They said to one

another, „It is because we have no

bread.‟ And becoming aware of it,

Jesus said to them, „Why are you

talking about having no bread?‟”

JOHN 1:35-37, “Philip found Nathanael and said to him, „We have found him about whom

Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.‟

Nathanael said to him, „Can anything good come out of Nazareth?‟… When Jesus saw

Nathanael coming toward him, he said of him, „Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no

deceit!‟”

MARK 7:18, “Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from the outside cannot defile,

since it enters, not the heart but the stomach, and goes out into the sewer?”

IRONY

NOUN

THE EXPRESSION OF ONE’S MEANING BY

USING LANGUAGE THAT NORMALLY SIGNIFIES

THE OPPOSITE, TYPICALLY TO HUMOROUS OR

EMPHATIC EFFECT.

MATTHEW 16:18, “And I tell

you, you are Peter, and on this

rock I will build my church...”

MATTHEW 7:16, “Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles?”

MATTHEW 24:28, (referring to false prophets) “Wherever the corpse is, there the

vultures will gather.”

MATTHEW 23:2-3, “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses‟ seat; therefore, do

whatever they teach you and follow it; but do not do as they do, for they do not

practice what they teach.”

HUMOROUS PARABLES

EDIFYING STORIES JESUS TELLS THAT

HAVE A HUMOROUS TWIST

LUKE 18:2-5, “In a certain city

there was a judge who neither

feared God nor had respect for

people. In that city there was a

widow who kept coming to him

and saying, „Grant me justice

against my opponent.‟ For a

while he refused; but later he

said to himself… „Because this

widow keeps bothering me, I

will grant her justice, so that

she may not wear me out by

continually coming.‟”

HYPERBOLE

The use of exaggeration as a

rhetorical device or figure of

speech for the purpose of

creating a strong impression.

LUKE 14:26, “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and

children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.”

MATTHEW 5:29-30, “If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away;

it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown

into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is

better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to go into hell.”

FUNNY OR NOT FUNNY?

LUKE 5:37-39, “And no one

puts new wine into old

wineskins; otherwise the

new wine will burst the

skins and will be spilled, and

the skins will be destroyed.

But new wine must be put

into fresh wineskins. And no

one after drinking old wine

desires new wine, but says,

‘The old is good.‟”

LUKE 16:16-17, “The law

and the prophets were in

effect until John came; since

then the good news of the

kingdom of God is

proclaimed, and everyone

tries to enter it by force. But

it is easier for heaven and

earth to pass away, than for

one stroke of a letter in the

law to be dropped.”

MATTHEW 25:14-30, A master, before

leaving his home to travel, entrusted his

property to his servants. One servant

received five talents, the second two

talents, and the third one talent, according

to their respective abilities. Returning after

a long absence, the master asked his

servants for an accounting. The first two

servants explain that they have each put

their money to work and doubled the value

of the property they were entrusted with,

and so they are each rewarded. The third

servant, however, has merely hidden his

talent in a hole in the ground, and is

punished.

Mark 7:24-30, “He entered a house and

did not want anyone to know he was

there. Yet he could not escape notice, but

a woman whose little daughter had an

unclean spirit immediately heard about

him, and she came and bowed down at

his feet. Now the woman was a Gentile, of

Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to

cast the demon our of her daughter. He

said to her, „Let the children be fed first,

for it is not fair to take the children‟s food

and throw it to the dogs.‟ But she

answered him, „Sir, even the dogs under

the table eat the children‟s crumbs.‟ Then

he said to her, „For saying that, you may

go—the demon has left your daughter.‟”

RESOURCES

(1964) New York: Harper Collins Publishers

(1991) pp. 397-400. New York: Oxford University Press