This is a fascinating question, since the Gospels themselves don't
mention it. As I was researching a paper for a recent humor seminar, I
came across several Christian writers who asserted that Christ did,
indeed, laugh--usually citing his humanity as the reason they were so
sure. One even went so far as to characterize what his laughter must
have sounded like.
Yet another saw jokes in some of the incidents in the Gospels. The one
that comes to mind at the moment has to do with the episode concerning
taxes. This writer--drawing on another--said that Christ had the last
laugh, for when he said his famous "render unto Caesar" line, he surely
pocketed the coin.
The seminar for which I did this research was on medieval humor, and we
attempted to come up with a coherent theory of humor. We came up with a
lot of characteristics of what humor is/might be, but had difficulty
agreeing on how to define it, how to theorize it, how to understand it.
About the only thing we agreed on was that incongruity was a key
element. One of the contemporary Christian writers I read took this
particular notion and applied it to Christianity in general, pointing out
incongruities. She lists Christian incongruities:
". . . the weak inherit the earth; the foolish teach wisdom; the lame are
restored to wholeness; death leads to life; a virgin gives birth; giving
is a prelude to receiving; . . . [a] king is born in a stable; a child
upsets the entrenched political establishment; the savior is servant of
all."
And what she sees as "the most extraordinary incongruity of all. . . the
incarnation: God takes on flesh and human nature" (Doris Donnelly,
"Divine Folly: Being Religious and the Exercise of Humor," _Theology
Today_ 48.4 [1992]: 385-398).
This is all interesting and fun, but incongruity itself does not make for
humor; if it did, as Paul Lewis points out (I can't remember where),
adults would still laugh at elephant jokes.
And, of course, what do we do with something like this: "Woe to you that
laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep" (Luke 6:21)?
These incoherent ramblings have two points to them:
1) It seems to me that there is a distinction in the bible between
*humor* and *joy*. I think of *humor* as something that evokes laughter
in some way, and *joy* as an emotional state--and they are clearly not
the same thing.
2) Looking for laughter in the bible seems to me to be a manifestation of
the human habit of defining what is important. Someone (I apologize for
forgetting who; I'm really bad about such things) pointed out that it was
clearly not important to the Gospel writers to record instances of Jesus'
laughter. My guess would be that it was either unimportant or assumed.
Well, heck, I was going to take this somewhere interesting, but it seems
all I've done is throw out a few comments. For my part, I think that
Christ probably *did* laugh--a lot; how could he do otherwise? Human
beings are nothing if not funny. I have my doubts about Paul, though. :)
Beth Crachiolo
University of Iowa
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