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From: e_p@unl.edu (edgar pearlstein)
Newsgroups: rec.humor
Subject: Humor in the Bible
Date: 31 May 1993 19:14:47 GMT
Organization: University of Nebraska--Lincoln	
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 .


     Maybe people take the Bible way too seriously.  There is humor in 
 it.  To appreciate some of it, though, you have to imagine yourself and 
 your companions as the biblical-days equivalent of a group of racist, 
 sexist, good-old-boys hanging out at the general store. 

     Abraham was a sly old fellow.  When he went to Egypt he spread word 
 that his beautiful wife, Sarah, was actually his sister. This led the 
 Pharoah to give Abraham lots of gifts, as part of the wooing of Sarah.  
 Poor Pharoah got punished by God for taking Sarah, but he was really an 
 innocent victim of Abraham's lying. When Pharoah found out about the 
 deception, he didn't kill Abraham; he merely sent him and Sarah away and 
 didn't even take back the gifts!  (Genesis 12:20)  The scam worked so 
 well that Abraham pulled it again with another king, Abimelich, (Genesis 
 20), who was sucker enough to give Abraham still more wealth (Genesis 
 20:14).  Honest Abe! 
     Abraham must have told his son Isaac about all this, for Isaac 
 pulled almost the same stunt (Genesis 26:6-14), apparently with the same 
 Abimelich, who must have been a real dunce. 
     Abraham dickered with God about how many righteous people in Sodom 
 it would take to justify sparing it.  This has to be the first recorded 
 case of what is now pejoratively called "Jewing-down". 
     A girl gets raped, and because she is too stunned to cry out, is 
 herself punished. (Deut 22:24)  (Great laughter for the male 
 chauvinists) 
     David wanted to have Saul's daughter for a wife.  Saul demanded as 
 payment 100 Philistine foreskins.  David instead got him 200 (1 Samuel 
 18:25-27).  Gross! 
     David, a really horny character, got a peek at Bathsheba bathing 
 herself, and had the hots for her.  But she was already married to 
 Uriah.  So David arranged to have her husband sent off to war and get 
 killed, in order that he, David, could have her. Now, that's a snicker, 
 but it gets even better: God didn't like that, so he punished David by 
 having all his wives raped in public! (II Samuel 11:2-12:12).  A real 
 knee-slapper. 
     Did God MOON Moses?  (Exodus 33:23) 
     Judah had sex with his daughter-in-law, thinking she was a whore.  
 When he later found out who she was, he wanted her to be burned to 
 death.  But she outsmarted him by proving that it was he who had sex 
 with her (Genesis 38:13-27).  So here was a case where the woman 
 outsmarted the man.  Who said those bible-day boys couldn't laugh at 
 themselves? 
     Ruth, upon Naomi's instructions, sidled up to Boas at night in order 
 to gain favors (giggle).  Another case where a woman gets the better of 
 a man. 
     Jesus preached that we should give to the poor.  But he dismissed 
 that idea when his own comfort was at stake, with the wisecrack "The 
 poor you will always have with you."  It's always funny to see a 
 hypocrite exposed. 
     Jesus was hungry, and came upon a fig tree.  Unfortunately, there 
 wasn't any fruit on the tree, since it was the wrong time of the year.  
 Jesus got so furious that he cursed the tree!  Can you picture that?  
 (The tree up and died, but there is no indication that succeeding 
 generations of fig trees suffered.) 
 .