Jesus's Humor: Part 2 -- A Performance

It is no wonder that we don't laugh when we read Jesus’s words today. They have been "sanctified" of all their original humor when put into their written form. However, originally they were not written at all. They were spoken (see this article). And they were not just spoken, they were performed for an audience. The fact that Jesus's words were spoken makes his Greek different from the rest of the New Testament, which was written as a Gospel narrative or as letters about Jesus’s lessons. I cannot find anyone writing about the Bible recognizing this distinction. The fact that they were performed explains most of his choices of words.

We cannot know his tone when he was speaking, but we do know, from Jesus’s own words, how his opponents criticized him. They didn’t criticize him as a stern moralizer but as someone who enjoys life too much. John was the stern moralizer, (Matthew 11:18 For John came neither eating nor drinking,). So what did they call him? The same people called him a drunkard and a glutton (Matthew 11:19 The Son of man came eating and drinking). It is interesting how both Jesus and John appealed to the fallen, such as tax-collectors and prostitutes, but their appeal was clearly different. John brought the bad new, “the realm of the skies is at hand.” While Jesus brought the good news, “realm of the skies is at hand.” The different was not of words of perspective.

A Performance, Not a Speech

These words were likely performed; that is, they were structured to be acted out. The goal was to entertain as a way to educate. It is just that the details of how they were performed were not recorded. Nor were Jesus’s words were not simply spoken as in a sermon. We can get that impression because many of Jesus’s sayings were collected without any description of how he said them.

I cannot imagine talking about plucking out eyes (Matthew 18:9) and chopping off hands (Matthew 5:30) without acting those things out. Jesus does philosophize about the dangers of evil. He jokes about it. Jesus talk about “tossing” something out to get rid of it. He talked about “lifting” something up to remove it. Why these words? Because they can be performed.

Evidence for this is that the words that Jesus uses are not abstract. They are, for the most part, concrete in a way that can be acted out. We see this both in the nouns Jesus commonly used and his verbs. Many of the most popular ones also have multiple meanings, which work better in constructing plays on meaning. Many, such as “love” are translated in more abstract than in the original Greek (see this article). They are not the words of a philosopher, but of an actor.

Rhyming and Alliteration

To understand the difference between written humor and spoken humor, think about Shakespeare. If you read Shakespeare's comedies, most of them do not seem particularly funny. However, if you see the plays well performed, you will laugh from beginning to end. This humor is not stand-up comedy with simple jokes. It is a performance, creating humorous scenes, situations, and surprises.

Jesus often uses the same techniques we see in Shakespeare, for example, alliteration and rhyming. Both are very difficult to capture in translation without spoiling other aspect of his humor such as his wordplay. In some ways, ryming is easier in ancient Greek because he can pack a lot into Greek verbs. Verb with a similar root ending can be rhymed easily if they are put into the same tense, mood, person, and voice, but this is seldom accidental because many verbs are irregular and there are many different root endings. Alliteration is also easier because many verbs share prefixes with other words. In English, prefixes are less common because we use preposition more than prefixes, except with words of Greek or Latin origin.

Audience Interactions

Most of the humor in the performance comes from an interaction with the audience. We must imagine the performance and interactions today because they were not recorded. Shakespeare was written first, then performed later. In the case of Jesus, however, his words were performed first, then written.

However, like Shakespeare, many of the words don't quite make sense unless you imagine them performed by someone with great wit, warmth, and lots of talent acting them out. However, with Jesus, we also have to imagine the audience's interactions because the complete script was not recorded, just his part of it.  Shakespeare is not nearly as funny when we read it as when we hear a talented actor perform it with a live audience.

Conclusion

This article discusses some of the most common forms and elements of humor that Christ uses. Of course, jokes aren't particularly funny when they are explained, so don't expect to laugh out loud reading these articles. The goal is only to give those reading his words a different way of understanding them. This article also helps people understand how to read the "Spoken Version" versions of his verses on this site, which are written to emphasize Christ's humor and imagine the type of shtick that the recorded words suggest. Some of this business is clearly childish, but this is consistent with Christ's title for himself as "the son of a man," which has the sense of a "child of a man."