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Humour in the Bible: 21B: Ecclesiastes (again)

July 23, 2011 4 comments

Photo (again) by Abode of Chaos

Never one reluctant to ask for more, David Ker has rightly pointed out that I did not explain how/why Ecclesiastes 10:5-15 is (and was meant to be) funny. So here goes…1

Oh, don’t worry, this won’t be a dull dissection or a boring breakdown, I’ll just show you how several of the signs of humour are present, and in doing so hopefully reveal (without analysing to death) the humour in this passage!

So, here’s the audio: Humour in the Bible: 21B: Ecclesiastes (again)

  1. If I had the hubris I’d title this podcast: “An artist’s reply to just criticism”, but that would be most unfair to poor David ;) [↩]
Ecclesiastes/Qohelet, Humour none

Humour in the Bible: book 21: Ecclesiastes

July 22, 2011 2 comments

Avatar de Abode of Chaos "Vanité des vanités, dit l'Ecclésiaste" (Photo by Abode of Chaos)

This series is just getting more and more interesting :) For Ecclesiastes I came across:

Levine, Étan. “The Humor in Qohelet.” Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 109, no. 1 (January 1997): 71-83.
As well as all its other strengths Levine begins with a nice catalogue of the stupid scholars who have pompously declaimed the absence of humour from Scripture. No, not raging Fundy Americans, but proper dignified European scholars, I enjoyed reading some of their wise words at the start of this podcast. In fact for humour in Ecclesiastes I’ll basically just read a short extract of Qohelet’s words (Ecclesiastes 10:5-15) and almost let them speak for themselves.
For Qohelet it is the absence of sense that raises a laugh.
Here’s the link to the audio: Humour in the Bible: book 21: Ecclesiastes
PS: for more explanation hear: Humour in the Bible: 21B: Ecclesiastes (again)
Ecclesiastes/Qohelet, Humour none
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