What’s so humorous about the Bible? Quite a bit, especially if experienced with others! Nine biblical scholars explore their experiences of reading and hearing passages from the Bible and discovering humor that becomes clearer in performance. Each writer found clues in their chosen biblical text that suggested biblical authors expected an audience to respond with laughter. Performers have a powerful role in either bringing out or tamping down humor in the Bible. One audience may be more disposed to respond to humor than another. And each contributor found that experiencing humor changed the interpretation of the biblical passage. From Genesis to Revelation, this study uncovers the Bible’s potential for humor.

Probing the Frontiers of Biblical Studies is a Seventeen-Chapter anthology on biblical studies. It has been crafted as an extended and respectful thank you note to one of the most insightful scholars of biblical studies, David J. A. Clines of Sheffield University in England. He is credited with providing guidance to, and shaping the thought of, two generations of scholars who focus on essential approaches to understanding the Bible, with particular attention given to the Old Testament and allied literature. The anthology is directed toward those readers with pastoral, analytical, ancient intercultural, as well as contemporary cultural perspectives. These studies address a wide range of topics: the so-called Documentary Hypothesis; prophecy, divination, and magic; the wisdom themes in the Book of Job; the Egyptian influence on New Testament; the issue of non-sexual love between two men during combat conditions; character development in a biblical novella; rhetorical questions and their role in the Psalter; and the ways of God in the world. By combining these various topics, Probing the Frontier of Biblical Studies has addressed many of the outstanding issues in Old Testament study and ancillary disciplines. "David Clines has spent his scholarly career on the frontiers of biblical studies, with a commitment to relate his discoveries and insights to the complexities of our contemporary world. This collection of essays in his honor, written by distinguished colleagues, is a fitting tribute to his work and a serious engagement with it. They probe further along the frontier where Clines has led the way. These essays offer both a model of pioneering Biblical scholarship and a pointer to fresh and exciting new explorations of this frontier."---Peter Rodgers, Fuller Theological Seminary "An encomium to the TaNaK or Old Testament with articles gathered from four perspectives: pastoral, academic, intercultural, and cultural. The premise set out by the editors is that the Old Testament is `paradigmatic for the entire Western World.' Twelve scholars elucidate in the `language of the people' the diverse values of the TaNaK by examining selected stories, personalities, and poems. This `frontiers' volume shows how the Old Testament can stimulate a conversation between text and thought, action and reflection. The volume is not only an encomium to the TaNaK but also an encomium to the one to whom it is dedicated, David J. A. Clines."---Kent Harold Richards, Emory University

Judy Carter, guru to aspiring comedy writers and stand-up comics, tells all about the biz of being funny and writing funny in this bright, entertaining, and totally practical guide on how to draw humor from your life and turn it into a career. Do you think you’re funny? Do you want to turn your sense of humor into a career? If the answer is yes, then Judy Carter’s The Comedy Bible is for you. The guru to aspiring stand-up comics provides the complete scoop on being—and writing—funny for money. If you’ve got a sense of humor, you can learn to make a career out of comedy, says Judy Carter. Whether it’s creating a killer stand-up act, writing a spec sitcom, or providing jokes for radio or one-liners for greeting cards, Carter provides step-by-step instructions in The Comedy Bible. She helps readers first determine which genre of comedy writing or performing suits them best and then directs them in developing, refining, and selling their work. Using the hands-on workbook format that was so effective in her bestselling first book, Stand-Up Comedy: The Book, Carter offers a series of day-by-day exercises that draw on her many years as a successful stand-up comic and the head of a nationally known comedy school. Also included are practical tips and advice from today’s top comedy professionals—from Bernie Brillstein to Christopher Titus to Richard Lewis. She presents the pros and cons of the various comedy fields—stand-up, script, speech and joke writing, one-person shows, humor essays—and shows how to tailor your material for each. She teaches how to find your “authentic” voice—the true source of comedy. And, perhaps most important, Carter explains how to take a finished product to the next level—making money—by pitching it to a buyer and negotiating a contract. Written in Carter’s unique, take-no-prisoners voice, The Comedy Bible is practical, inspirational, and funny.

The Many Faces of Biblical Humor examines how the Bible writers intentionally used humor, irony, and sarcasm to argue their points concisely. This work begins with the dysfunctional families of Genesis, continues delightfully through every book of the Bible, and ends with a glorious fulfillment in Revelation. Along the way, the reader is presented humorous stories, pathetically funny characters, and poignant quips and quotes from prophets, poets, and principals. The author paraphrases each biblical text in an engaging prose that highlights the humor of that passage—humor that may not have been previously noted by the reader. Between the paraphrases, the author sets the historical and linguistic setting, allowing the reader to see how the humor (and puns) of the text enrich the biblical understanding of God's message. Also included are applications of these marvelous passages to our daily lives as we see our own foibles portrayed in the biblical characters. In many ways, this is a Bible commentary with an accent on the humorous. In another sense, it is simply a delightful book that makes the Bible come alive through the latent humor of its characters and their stories. This revised edition contains corrections of typographical errors in the first edition as well as some clarifying material to make the humor more enjoyable. For more information, visit the author's website.

New perspectives on humor within photography Despite the ubiquitous presence of photographic humor in art and popular media, the phenomenon has as yet received very little scholarly attention. Focusing on staged humor rather than on comic effects of snapshot photography, this volume brings together leading scholars in the field addressing humor performed in front of the camera, often specifically created for the camera, and the performative joke-work done by the medium itself. A first section explores how photography, due to its “shattering” qualities, turns into a privileged medium for eliciting humorous effects and how humor can be discerned within the photographic event. A second section discusses the toolbox of photographic trickery (photomontage, double exposure and cinematic movement) that allows photography to mock itself. The book closes with a section on photographic wit in conceptual art, both in canonized and more locally distinct practices. With artists’ pages from Paulien Oltheten, Lieven Segers and David Helbich

This volume reimagines the first-century reception of the Gospel of Mark within a reconstructed (yet hypothetical) performance event. In particular, it considers the disciples' character and characterization through the lens of performance criticism. Questions concerning the characterization of the disciples have been relatively one-sided in New Testament scholarship, in favor of their negative characterization. This project demonstrates why such assumptions need not be necessary when we (re-)consider the oral/aural milieu in which the Gospel of Mark was first composed and received by its earliest audiences.

Incorporating perspectives from religious studies, humor studies, cultural and film studies, and theology, as well as original data from textual analysis and the voices of religious comedians, this book critically analyses the experiences of believers who appreciate that their faith is not necessarily a barrier to their laughter. It is often thought that religion and humor are incompatible, but Religious Humor in Evangelical Christian and Mormon Culture shows that humor is not only a popular means of entertainment, but also a way in which an individual or community expresses their identity and values. Elisha McIntyre argues that believers embrace their sense of humor, actively producing and consciously consuming comic entertainment that reflects their own experiences. This process is not however without conflict. The book argues that there are specific characteristics that indicate a unique kind of humor that may be called 'religious humor'. Through an examination of religious humor found in stand-up comedy, television sitcoms, comedy film and satirical cartoons, and drawing on interview data, the book outlines the main considerations that Christians take into account when choosing their comedy entertainment. These include questions about ideology, blasphemy, taboos around the body, and the motives behind the joke.

This cutting-edge volume has been brought together in honor of Thomas Boomershine, author, scholar, storyteller, innovator. The particular occasion inviting this recognition of his work is the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Society of Biblical Literature's section on The Bible in Ancient and Modern Media (BAMM), which Tom was instrumental in founding. For two and half decades this program unit has provided scholars with opportunities to explore and experience biblical material in media other than silent print, including both oral and multimedia electronic performances. This book explores many, though by no means all, of the issues lifted up in those sessions over the years. Contributors A. K. M. Adam Adam Gilbert Bartholomew Arthur J. Dewey Dennis Dewey Joanna Dewey Robert M. Fowler Holly E. Hearon David Rhoads Philip Ruge-Jones Whitney T. Shiner Marti J. Steussy Richard W. Swanson

Comedy is both relative, linked to a time and culture, and universal, found pervasively across time and culture. The Hebrew Bible contains comedy of this relative, yet universal nature. Melissa A. Jackson engages the Hebrew Bible via a comic reading and brings that reading into conversation with feminist-critical interpretation, in resistance to any lingering stereotype that comedy is fundamentally non-serious or that feminist critique is fundamentally unsmiling. Dividing comic elements into categories of literary devices, psychological/social features, and psychological/social function, Jackson examines the narratives of a number of biblical characters for evidence of these comic elements. The characters include the trickster matriarchs, the women involved in the infancy of Moses, Rahab, Deborah and Jael, Delilah, three of David's wives (Michal, Abigail, Bathsheba), Jezebel, Ruth, and Esther. Nine particularly instructive points of contact between comedy and feminist interpretation emerge: both (1) resist definition, (2) exist amidst a self/other, subject/object dichotomy, (3) emphasise and utilise context, (4) promote creativity, (5) acknowledge the concept of distancing, (6) work towards revelation, (7) are subversive, (8) are concerned with containment and control, and (9) enable survival. The use of comedy as an interpretive lens for the Hebrew Bible is not without difficulties for feminist interpretation. While maintaining an uncomfortable, even painful, awareness of the hold patriarchy retains on the Hebrew Bible, feminist critics can still choose to allow comedy's revelatory, subversive, survivalist nature to do its work revealing, subverting, and surviving.