Hi, I’m Wayne Jones, and welcome to re:Christian, a critical, satirical, and humorous reconsideration of Christianity, the Bible, and God. This is episode 8: “Laughter in the Bible.”
You may have heard of a man named Donald Trump and seen him make speeches or be interviewed or just give his opinion on things. He was the host of his own successful TV show for 14 seasons (2004–2015) and he was President of the United States for four years (2017–2020). He has been on TV and other media extensively even beyond these years, but I have never once seen him laugh. I don’t mean smile, or conjure a laugh for rhetorical effect, but outright genuinely laugh at something. Gut laugh. Laugh uncontrollably because he couldn’t control himself, as people do when they hear a good joke. Never. Not once.
He’s got that in common with the psychopathic God of the Old Testament that I’ve been talking about during the past few episodes of this podcast. And since the Bible is putatively written or inspired by God, I wondered how much laughter there is in his book, and what kinds, and when it occurs. We have the advantage these days of not having to actually read or re-read the entire text in order to find all references to laughter, because it’s freely available in databases on the web. So I did a keyword search of the word laugh in the Bible Gateway and found the following that the word laugh (or any variation of it, such as laughs or laughter) occurs only 38 times. What’s more interesting is that, in a kind of Trumpian fashion, the word is rarely associated with something positive as you might it expect it to be. I would divide the occurrences into these categories:
· Genuine. These are instances where the laughter is just what we mean when we use the word today. People are happy. There is joy. And they can’t help but be laughing in the midst of that. Most of these are pure, for example, Psalm 126:2: “Our mouths were filled with laughter, our tongues with songs of joy. Then it was said among the nations, ‘The Lord has done great things for them.’” Or Job 8:21: “He will yet fill your mouth with laughter and your lips with shouts of joy.”
But, alas, it is the Bible we are talking about, so there are examples too of genuine laughter but in a kind of negative context. The most perverse is one I’ve referred to in a previous episode, where Sarah understandably laughs when she is told that at the age of 90 she will conceive a child. This sets God, forever insecure, on a course of interrogation:
9 “Where is your wife Sarah?” they asked him. “There, in the tent,” he said. 10 Then one of them said, “I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife will have a son.” Now Sarah was listening at the entrance to the tent, which was behind him. 11 Abraham and Sarah were already very old, and Sarah was past the age of childbearing. 12 So Sarah laughed to herself as she thought, “After I am worn out and my lord is old, will I now have this pleasure?” 13 Then the Lord said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Will I really have a child, now that I am old?’ 14 Is anything too hard for the Lord? I will return to you at the appointed time next year, and Sarah will have a son.” 15 Sarah was afraid, so she lied and said, “I did not laugh.” But he said, “Yes, you did laugh.”
Ah, but he is a juvenile God, with the emotional intelligence of a 10-year-old.
There are some other references to genuine laughter which are a little odd in the Bible. There’s: “Frustration is better than laughter, because a sad face is good for the heart” (Eccl 7:3). And also one that seems that it’s more of a quote from a financial planning webinar than from a Holy Book: “A feast is made for laughter, wine makes life merry, and money is the answer for everything” (Eccl 10:19). And, no, I’m not making these up: check the transcript for the biblical citations.
· Laughter as Mockery. This is, unfortunately, the second category. Not laughter in celebration or in joy, but in laughing at someone or something. An example: “In the days of her affliction and wandering Jerusalem remembers all the treasures that were hers in days of old. When her people fell into enemy hands, there was no one to help her. Her enemies looked at her and laughed at her destruction” (Lam 1:7). And of course God himself is not above a bit of laughing mockery, for example in this case of people conspiring against him: “The One enthroned in heaven laughs; the Lord scoffs at them” (Ps 2:4). And, yes, of course, we humans in 2024 use laughter to scoff as well sometimes, but, crazy or not, I set a higher standard for the creator of the fucking universe.
I would add to this category the five instances of the word laughingstock in the Bible. You know these aren’t going to be good. There are no life-affirming occasions when a laughingstock is involved. Like the following, from “the man who has seen affliction by the rod of the Lord’s wrath” (Lam 3:1): “I became the laughingstock of all my people; they mock me in song all day long” (Lam 3:14).
· Laughter as Metaphor. And finally there are instances in the Bible where the laughter is used as a metaphor, or is used to mean reject or be brave. An example: “A club seems to it but a piece of straw; it laughs at the rattling of the lance (Job 39:22).
And that’s my breakdown of the use of the word and its derivations overall. A couple of points I would make … It’s perhaps a bit unfair to expect a book that’s designed to be people’s guide to life to contain much humour or laughter. It’s a serious book, to say the least. There are no standup routines. There are no examples of the apostles having a bit too much magically created wine and then riffing on various aspects of their daily lives. There are no jokes, no “What do you get when you cross the Twelve Tribes with the Ten Commandments?”
But on the other hand, it’s disappointing but not surprising that yet another aspect of human life is often negativized in the Bible. Is nothing pure? Is nothing ever treated with tender care and put into context? Is nothing, well, sacred?
And that’s all for this episode. Thanks for listening. Check the show notes for a full transcript and for how to contact me. And please join me again on Thursday.