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FEATURE
God’ s overarching story is full of the contrast between his good creation( people and planet) and the ways people have contrived to mess up both. Take into account the fact that the 66 books of the Bible, while divinely inspired, are still humanly written, and you will find plenty of the idiosyncrasies of human beings are included.
Time after time in the long and amazing story of God’ s interaction with the human race, you’ ll find the preposterous happening. Donkeys talk. The seas part. It rains food. There are plagues of frogs, people are swallowed by whales, a giant warrior is slain by a kid with a sling, and prophets get up to all sorts to communicate God’ s message.
MADE FOR MIRTH
The Bible tells us God himself laughs( Psalm 2:4), and hardwired into every human being, made in God’ s image, is this release of joy. As the writer of Ecclesiastes reminds us, there is‘ a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance’
( 3:4). So what elements can you find in good comedy and humour, and where do we see these in action in the Bible?
First let’ s strip down the comedy engine and see what some of the components are. While how we respond to these will vary, depending on what kind of humour we find funny, these components are common if you’ re looking for laughter...
c surprise – the unexpected often makes us laugh
c misunderstanding – when you say one thing and I understand another
c incongruity – something out of place is often funny: deliberately bringing an unusual or unexpected element into a story or scenario has huge comedic value
c juxtaposition – putting two people or elements together that don’ t normally belong together: the comedy of contrast
c identification – when you recognise a situation, feeling or human response you instinctively identify with
c absurdity – the weirdly surreal, or simply plain daft
So here are types of humour that use these elements:
c surprise – slapstick and clowning, farce, joke-telling
c incongruity / absurdity – surreal humour, satire, joke-telling, commedia dell’ arte
c juxtaposition / misunderstanding – storytelling, monologues, surreal humour, puns and wordplay, theatre of the absurd, pantomime
c identification – observational humour, themed shows, selfdeprecating comedians