Attentive audience by San Jose Library
I’ve been marking student assignments for a course on Genesis. The more I mark the more I become aware of the issue of the intended (expected/implied) audience. In this podcast I’ll suggest that the answer is not as simple as it sounds 
and draw a conclusion about our practices of reading Scripture…
Photo by Kai Laborenz
Like all good stories, and the Bible is before and after everything else a story, Scripture begins at the beginning. The beginning of everything, and a garden planted by God. Everything falls apart, for humans fall apart, and many of the stories in Scripture are horrible, grotesque or inspiring, for such a mixture describes the world we inhabit.
In the middle of the Bible story, at the start of the second part of the library of Scripture, we hear the story of Jesus and his teaching, his death and resurrection. This is prolonged into the beginning of the story of the new humanity and illustrated by various letters before the big story ends in terror and destruction leading to a new heaven and earth.
Contents list from a typical Bible, showing "Books" with their abbreviations and page numbers.
The Christian Bible is a big sprawling collection of documents from widely different time periods (roughly the end of the Bronze Age to the Roman empire) in many different genres (as different as history and love poems, or proverbs and lengthy letters) composed in three languages and two different writing systems.
To make matters worse most Bibles do not “work” the same as other books. Page numbers do not help in identifying sections because they differ in most of the myriad different translations and editions.
So, how does one find one’s way around and use such a weird book? This podcast explains “chapters” and “verses”, how to find “books”, and gives the chief key to making some sort of sense of the widely and wildly different contents of The Holy Bible.
Future podcasts in this Bible in 5 minutes series will include (I may well add others to this list, so please suggest any you think could be useful 
:
Two Narrators by absentmindedprof
Since I am teaching Genesis again I am filling out the gaps in my podcasts on this book. I think it is important to notice that Genesis is told to us by (at least) two narrators. The story comes to us as an edited text, that is it already in its telling belongs, not to one person, not even a great hero like Moses, but to a community. For it is a book that tells of the origins not only of “everything” but of the people of God…
In this podcast I’ll focus on chapters 1-5 where it is easiest to spot the different narrators, then (all being well) I’ll talk about the rest of the book soon.
Here is the audio: Genesis as an edited text: pt.1 Genesis 1-5.
Andean Bear with her cubs an mage of YHWH (Photo by Smithsonian's National Zoo)
In this podcast I’ll again argue that Robert Carroll gets it wrong. Despite his own fierce black humour he fails to acknowledge its presence or at least its prevalence in the prophets. He writes about humour in Hosea in:
Carroll, Robert P. ‘Is Humour among the Prophets’. On humour and the comic in the Hebrew Bible. Edited by Yehuda T. Radday and Athalya Brenner. Continuum International Publishing Group, 1990, 179-180.
Bob was a fine friend, and a great scholar, I wish he was still around to argue against me! Since he isn’t perhaps you will do him the honour of looking for the gaps or weaknesses in what I say and pointing them out in the comments (he’d appreciate it
Here’s the audio: Humour in the Bible: book 28: Hosea
Contradiction: Photo by topastrodfogna
In part one I drew attention to the problem that this verse seems to contradict what Paul himself approves and to some funny things going on in and around the verse. Here I’ll focus on my reason for mentioning this, how we should respond when a Bible passage seems to contradict what the same author says or does elsewhere…
Photo by Chicago Man
Perhaps no Bible text illustrates the dangers of a simplistic reading of Scripture than 1 Cor 14:34.
If we tear this verse from its cotext,1 and then read it as if the Bible were “God’s instruction manual for life” and even worse read it also literally then we are in trouble! The verse (in the fairly literal NET)2 reads:
the women should be silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak. Rather, let them be in submission, as in fact the law says.
The verse is full of oddities.3 Not the least of which is that in 1 Cor 11:4-6 Paul assumes that both women and men will pray and prophesy, and in this same chapter 1 Cor 14:4-5 suggests the same thing, and that this is indeed in the public meeting (cf. v.4). Paul seems to be contradicting himself!
What is going on, and how should we interpret such passages?
Like Esther, Daniel is set in a foreign court and telling to the trials and triumphs of exiled Judeans and is packed with humour at the expense of the imperial overlords.
In this podcast I’m following an article by Hector Avalos from CBQ and focusing on the repeated lists of Dan 3. For his comparison text Avalos went to the early English Piers Ploughman but I’ll refer to “How the Whale got his throat” from the Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling (for obvious reasons
Audio file: Humour in the Bible: book 27: Daniel the humour of lists
Yeah, right! (Photo by swanksalot)
Well,the end of the world has passed, again That’s the second time this year! It is the Bible that causes all the problems. or ratheit is bad reading of the Bible that causes all the problems. No book is more commonly misread than Revelation. Christians keep wanting it to predict tomorrow. And boy, do they get tied in knots!
But a simple direct dose of the KIIC principle would cure them… Keep It In Context, that’s all you have to do. Ask how the message would sound to the writer and intended receivers of the message.
Here is the audio: Decoding Revelation: the KIIS principle
Cow Dung Patties (photo by mary jane watson)
If podcasts can have dedications, then this one is dedicated to Robert Carroll. The podcast is full or irony, first that of an introvert who spoke before thinking and who failed to read or digest a fine work by an admired teacher and friend, and then that of a frequently (and often mordantly) humorous Irishman who denies title humour to black humour so like his own. And then in the end, in Ezekiel 4:9ff. I’ll suggest there is both irony and (black) humour in the account of the Lord GOD conceding a customary prohibition to his staunch, righteous and rigorous prophet, while demanding that nevertheless he break the clear commandment of Scripture.
Here’s the audio: Humour in the Bible: book 26: Ezekiel
In this podcast I refer to:
Chotzner, Joseph. “Humour of the Bible.” In Hebrew humour and other essays, 1-12. Luzac & co., 1905. (The quotation is from page 12.)
and especially to:
Carroll, Robert P. “Is humour also among the prophets?” In On humour and the comic in the Hebrew Bible, edited by Yehuda T. Radday and Athalya Brenner. 169-189. Continuum International Publishing Group, 1990.
