Introduction to Humor in the Bible

The purpose of this is to set an introduction for interpreting humor in the Bible:

Before attempting to interpret humor from the Bible, it is helpful to break down humorous discourse into three groupings: universal humor, culture-based humor, and linguistic-based humor (Schmitz 89). Universal humor is the most basic form of humor and is not dependent on culture or language. An example of universal humor is: “Last week I went fishing and all I got was a sunburn, poison ivy, and mosquito bites” (Schmitz 96). No understanding of the original culture or language is required to appreciate this type of humor. Certain elements of humor such as irony, exaggeration, repetition, and incongruity are nearly universal. These four components are humorous in today's culture and were most probably humorous during the biblical era (Greenstein 330-3; Culpepper 333; Whedbee 8-9).

Humor has a strong cultural component (Nietiing 168) which is much different from the universal humor described above. Humor in North America is much different than humor in Southeast Asia. Humor in the Midwest is much different than humor in the Deep South. Garrison Keillor relates to a much different audience than Jeff Foxworthy, but both are two of America’s most beloved humorists. It is quite possible, even probable, that today's reader, regardless of culture, will miss humor when it is encountered in the Bible. It is also quite possible, even probable, that today's reader, regardless of culture, will find humor in the Bible when the author did not intend for the passage to be humorous. Culture-based humor is not universal because the listener must have an understanding of the culture to comprehend the humor. An example of cultural-based humor is: “This year for Father’s Day I got a special gift in the mail: the bill for Mother’s Day” (Fechtner 104). To understand this type of humor the listener must have an understanding of American culture. This joke would be lost in the cultures where these days are not celebrated, in cultures where credit is not extended, or in the cultures where Father’s Day does not directly follow Mother’s Day.

Linguistic-based humor is also not universal because the listener must have an understanding of the original language to comprehend to humor. An example of linguistic-based humor is: “How does a dog stop a VCR? He presses the paws button” (Schmitz 101). The non-English speaking listener would most likely have a difficult time understanding this humor. In no other language does the word for a dog’s foot sound similar to the button of a VCR that stops the tape. To further complicate things, in the future people will not know what a VCR is because that language has become obsolete. A second example: “Americans won’t allow the importation of Canadian beef, and now some Canadians have a beef with Americans who import Canadian drugs” (Danbom 668). The word “beef” used in the above sentence is slang, something that is very difficult to translate for a non-English speaking person.

A short study of the above-mentioned groupings gives the modern-day Western reader a clue that extracting humor from the Bible based on the original contexts and languages can prove to be a difficult task. Humor can get lost in translation (Hall 3-4 and Bell 384). Communication between cultures, languages, and different time periods has a probability for misunderstanding (Norrick 389-90). A possibility exists that the biblical interpreter will miss some of the humor in the Bible because of the linguistic and cultural differences—even if the interpreter is a student of biblical languages and biblical culture. It is also plausible that the biblical interpreter may find something humorous in the Bible that was not meant to be humorous in its original context. Another caveat exists. Much of the Bible is from an oral tradition (Kelber 30-4 and Avery-Peck 34-7). Today’s Bible is a written document. It is one thing to read Garrison Keillor’s humor in a book; it is a totally different experience to hear him on the radio. The following sections of the dissertation the investigate humor in the Hebrew Scriptures and humor in the New Testament. This section seeks to examine humor in the Bible as faithfully as possible given the limitations of cultural and linguistic humor and given the difference between oral and written communication.