The Divine Comedian?

strobe

(I was so proud of myself after coming up with that thread title I made myself a cup of Earl Grey tea and ate a Walnut Whip. )

Hey, so I was just wondering what people here think God/Jesus's sense of humour would be like, or if He'd have one even? Is there any reference in the Bible to Jesus or God cracking a joke or acting in a humourous manner? Have any theologians put out any material on the question? Would He be up for the craic do you reckon or is He more of a serious sort?

{Not sure what got me thinking about this, but I don't think I've ever heard the topic being discussed here (or anywhere) before so thought I might as well throw it out there as there can't be many topics contemplating the nature of God that are still relatively fresh.}

PDN

Some of the stuff that Jesus taught would have almost certainly have seemed funny to his hearers.

For example, “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel." (Matthew 23:23-24)

I can just see the working folk who listened to him laughing out loud at the idea of a haughty Pharisee daintily picking a little gnat out of his cup of water - and then choking as he swallowed a camel!

Benny_Cake

I think anyone whose first miracle was to turn water into wine would definitely be up for the craic!

Actually, I've seen people ask whether Jesus laughed or had a sense of humour quite a bit. The problem is - what did people find funny 2000 years ago?

Doc Farrell

Finally a thread with a bit of life!
Fr. James Martin SJ has written a lot on humour and mirth and Joy and his videos on YouTube are certainly worth watching.

Here's a written interview with him with a great joke at the end.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/episodes/november-18-2011/spirituality-and-humor/9931/

I've found that nearly every real spiritual teacher has a lightness of spirit to them.

MARTIN: A guy goes to a Franciscan church, knocks on the door, a Franciscan opens, the guy says, “Will you say a rosary for me for my intention?” Franciscan says “Sure, what’s your intention?”  Guy says, “I want a Lexus.” And the Franciscan says, “What’s a Lexus?” And the guy says, “Well forget it, I’ll go to another church.”  Goes to the Jesuit church, knocks on the door, a Jesuit opens up and he says, “Father before I ask you something, can you tell me, do you know what a Lexus is?”  And the Jesuit says “Sure, top of the line car. A lot of my parishioners drive it.”  He says “I want one.”  Jesuit says, “I don’t blame you.”  He says, “Will you say a rosary that I get one?”  The Jesuit says, “Sure…what’s a rosary?”

Plowman

This post has been deleted.

Peregrinus

The gospels do record that Jesus was constantly criticized for his prediction for partying and drinking, and a surprising amount of his teachings are recorded as being delivered at parties and social gatherings. So it’s a reasonable inference that, yes, he liked a good time, and presumably this involved a bit of craic.

Actual jokes attributed to Jesus are not recorded in the gospels, but this could tell us more about the evangelists’ sense of humour - or their agenda, or priorities - than about Jesus’s.

Another possibility - and this is perhaps more relevant to the Old Testament - is that in fact it’s full of passages that the orginal audience would have found hilarious, but we mostly miss this because humour is culturally-bound. Plowman isn’t the first to note that the Book of Jonah can be read in a humorous way - Jonah’s attempt to escape his destiny is frustrated by his being swallowed by a whale. And the story of Abraham constantly going back and badgering God to spare Sodom and Gomorrah for the sake of fewer and fewer just men may have had them rolling in the aisles, back in the day.

And, of course, parts of the Old Testament are full of crudities, and who doesn’t laugh at crudities? We sit rigidly upright in church and listen po-faced, having been taught to do so by our parents, but these stories were originally told around campfires. I can’t imagine the comments about the men of Egypt in Ezekiel 23:20 passing without a lewd snicker.

ISAW

http://www.amazon.com/Laughing-Christ-Reverend-Wallace-Douglas/dp/1553696190/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1330593013&sr=8-1

"The Laughing Christ" (Chapter 7, page 78):

"From the apocryphal books to the agesless wisdom of Beloved Archangel Gabriel, the Announcer of the Ages in the late twentieth century, Jesus emerges as a man of joy and love, not a man of sorrows as the centuries have taught us. He came not to perfomr miracles but to teach all humans that what he did we can do. The light that was in him is in all of us."

prinz

Every sense of humour I suppose. As mentioned before Jesus seems to have spend his time visiting friends, attending weddings, being a guest in people's homes etc. The original couch-surfer. I have a feeling His sense of humour would have been a bit naughty. Seems to me like He enjoyed making certain people very uncomfortable like putting the Pharisee's etc on the spot, associating Himself with the sick, tax collectors and the likes. I'd say He had many a hidden chuckle watching other people's reactions to the things he did.

He could have spent all day every day in some synagogue or other arguing over the exact placement of a comma, or whatever the Hebrew/Aramaic equivalent was.

PDN

prinz wrote: »

He could have spent all day every day in some synagogue or other arguing over the exact placement of a comma, or whatever the Hebrew/Aramaic equivalent was.

Jots and tittles, according to Matthew 5:18

marty1985

I think the gnostic Gospel of Judas is the only one to actually mention Jesus laughing.

I'd be surprised though if he didn't find this amusing:


(from The Onion, just saw this on Facebook)

ARABAH VALLEY, ISRAEL—In a discovery that biblical scholars say could alter our most fundamental understanding of Christianity, recently unearthed manuscripts suggest that in addition to His Son, Jesus Christ, God also had a daughter with absolutely humongous breasts.

The documents, found in a cave near the Jordanian- Israeli border and estimated to have been composed circa A.D. 200, recount the life, teachings, and death of Jesus' well-endowed twin sister, Tammi of Nazareth. According to experts, the revelation points to a more dualistic conception of the divine, one with the male principle embodied in Jesus and the female principle represented by Tammi and her giant, heaving bazoingas.

"It's a monumental shift," said Boston College religion professor Paul Ferber, claiming that the newly discovered texts are more significant than the Gospel of Judas or the Dead Sea Scrolls.

"Also, the various sources are in clear agreement that Tammi had the most enormous jugs in all of Galilee," added Ferber, gesturing with his hands."Seriously. Like, out to here."

The existence of Tammi has caused scholars to reexamine the Trinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and replace it with a Quadrinity that includes the Daughter figure—though some, including Ferber, argue it should actually be reconstrued as "a five-way Quintinity, counting as two separate divine powers both of Tammi's bodacious watermelons."

According to the manuscripts, written in Greek on papyrus scrolls, Tammi led a ministry contemporaneously with her brother's. Although she promulgated similar ideas concerning faith, humility, and forgiveness, and appeared to possess the same miraculous powers, Tammi seems to have had more difficulty communicating her message. In one passage, for example, her disciples repeatedly coax her into washing their feet, apparently for a better vantage point from which to observe her "heavenly radiance." And while she, like Jesus, walks on water, the feat is described as almost disappointing to many onlookers, who had apparently hoped to see her run.

Professor Ned McCormick of Duke Divinity School said a complete understanding of Tammi's teachings will require decades of research, with particularly close scrutiny given to the dozens of detailed illustrations.

Explaining the difficulty of interpreting the texts, McCormick cited a passage that reads: "Saith Tammi, 'Consider ye this on the forgiveness of one's enemies: Let he who would slander you sup at your table, let he who would inflict…I saith unto thee: Look upon mine eyes, which dwell within mine head, and not upon mine bosom, wherein no wisdom dwells.' And then did Tammi snappeth her fingers together, saying, 'Seriously; I doth mean it. Up here.'"

"In all fairness to her disciples, it must have been impossible to concentrate with a couple of cannons like those in your face," McCormick said. "Especially in that desert heat, with nothing but a thin linen vestment between you and two of the most succulent milk-makers you've ever laid eyes on, beads of sweat slowly making their way down from her throat and running along the swells before descending into that perfect cleft between…oh my Lord."

The circumstances surrounding Tammi's death are unclear, but the texts seem to suggest that while she was not crucified, she did, like her brother, die in Judaea, rise from the dead, and ascend bodily into heaven in her early 30s, well before her breasts would have begun to sag.

While the documents make no direct mention of Tammi's participation in the Second Coming, Ferber said he would not be surprised if her followers held similar eschatological views and worshipped her as a kind of tandem messiah who would one day return to earth along with her brother, "her ginormous gazongas defying gravity as she descended bodily in glory from heaven" to establish the Kingdom of God.

"Maybe I'm just being hopeful," Ferber said, "but I'd sure love to see those holy ta-tas with my own eyes."