If you are of the opinion that the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament is only a serious book about a serious God, then you need to read Simon Holloway‘s post, “The Hilarious Hebrew Bible” over at Divrei ben Abuya. The post looks at a collection of essays that came out quite a while ago: On Humour and the Comic in the Hebrew Bible, edited by (Sheffield: Almond Press, 1990). Simon also adds an example of humour from the Bible of his own.
Category Archives: Humour
Jonah and the “Big Fish”
I found this dialogue on Bits & Pieces:
A little girl was talking to her teacher about whales.
The teacher said it was physically impossible for a whale to swallow a human because even though it was a very large mammal its throat was very small.
The little girl stated that Jonah was swallowed by a whale. Irritated, the teacher reiterated that a whale could not swallow a human; it was physically impossible.
The little girl said, “When I get to heaven I will ask Jonah”.
The teacher asked, “What if Jonah went to hell?”
The little girl replied, “Then you ask him”.
Of course, we know that both teacher and student are wrong. Jonah was swallowed by a “big fish” (דג גדול), not a whale! While we are on the topic of whether a person can be swallowed by a fish/whale and live, I came across an article a number of years ago on the “urban legend” of a man being swallowed by a sperm whale. This story even made its way into a number of standard conservative biblical reference works. The article available online:
, “A Whale of a Tale: Fundamentalist Fish Stories” in Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 43 (1991) 224-237.
The article is definitely worth a read.
(While I am on the topic of Jonah, I thought I would note that I haven’t forgotten about my series on “Jonah’s ‘Big Fish’ Story.” I just ran out of time and energy before finishing the series. I will be returning to the series this upcoming year as I take my intro Hebrew class through the book of Jonah — so stay tuned!)
I Just Want To Be A Sheep…
I rarely post anything connected to my family, but I have to make an exception. This morning at church my five-year-old son coloured a picture that I have to share with the world:
I think we will name it, “God’s stern sheep.” What do you think?
WWJD
Potentially Offensive Alert! A student was nice enough to send me this picture (he automatically thought of my “going potty” series when he saw it).
Believe it or not, for a mere $18 USD, you can buy a T-shirt with this on it from a place (appropriately) called T-Shirt Hell.
Going Potty in Ancient Gath?! (GPAT 3.3)
The season at Tell es-Safi (ancient Gath) has almost come to a close. We have been able to follow the progress of the dig through their excellent blog here. On their July 31st update, they had an interesting discussion of Area F. What caught my eye was the object which they identified as a stone weight — I prefer to see it as an ancient potty!
This is the fourth in a series of semi-serious posts on “Going Potty in the Ancient World.� My other posts include:
- Going Potty in Ancient Times (GPAT 1)
- Going Potty in the City of David (GPAT 2)
- Going Potty in Ancient Hippos (GPAT 3)
All posts in this series may be viewed here.
While the identification of the object as a stone weight is possible, I’m not sure how they missed the clear indications that this object is indeed a toilet. The toilet paper and the fallen sign are clear giveaways to this amateur archaeologist!
This is exciting news… perhaps this is even the toilet that Goliath used before being killed by David! We have already found Goliath’s cereal bowl, and now this! All I can say is “Wow!” 🙂
(I sure hope Prof. Aren M. Maeir has a sense of humour!)