In comparison with other literary aspects of the Old Testament, humour has suffered much scholarly neglect. The present collection of essays (by the editors and ten other authors) argues that humour is plentiful in biblical literature and that many passages, indeed even whole books, can be properly understood only when the humorous intention of the author is acknowledged. This collection is a particularly interesting, innovative and provocative one.

Was God being ironic in commanding Eve not to eat fruit from the tree of wisdom? Carolyn J. Sharp suggests that many stories in the Hebrew Scriptures may be ironically intended. Deftly interweaving literary theory and exegesis, Sharp illumines the power of the unspoken in a wide variety of texts from the Pentateuch, the Prophets, and the Writings. She argues that reading with irony in mind creates a charged and open rhetorical space in the texts that allows character, narration, and authorial voice to develop in unexpected ways. Main themes explored here include the ironizing of foreign rulers, the prostitute as icon of the ironic gaze, indeterminacy and dramatic irony in prophetic performance, and irony in ancient Israel's wisdom traditions. Sharp devotes special attention to how irony destabilizes dominant ways in which the Bible is read today, especially when it touches on questions of conflict, gender, and the Other.

Humor has had a profound effect on the way the Jewish people see the world, and has sustained them through millennia of hardships and suffering. God Laughed reviews, organizes, and categorizes the humor of the ancient Jewish texts-the Hebrew Bible, the Talmud, and Midrash-in a clear, readable, and accessible manner. These works have influenced the Jewish people in many ways, and all are replete with humor and wit. Inevitably, this oeuvre of Jewish humor has itself influenced generations of comics, as well as genres of humor. The authors use examples of Biblical humor from several broad categories, including irony, sarcasm, wordplay, humorous names, humorous imagery, and humorous situations. Because their primary purpose is not to entertain, but to teach humanity how to live the ideal life, much of the humor in the Talmud and the Midrash has a single purpose: to demonstrate that evil is wrong and even, at times, ludicrous. This may help explain why approximately 1,500 years after its closing, the Talmud is still such a fascinating work.

Photomechanical reprint, with a foreword by Kritster Stendahl, and an epilogue.

No detailed description available for "No Joke".

This book explores the Hebrew Bible for evidence of comedy and further asks how reading the Hebrew Bible through a comic "lens" might positively inform feminist interpretation. The exploration is conducted with a number of Hebrew Bible narratives, all of which prominently involve female characters.

Positions Revelation within an ancient Jewish context and demonstrates how the author used humor to resist Roman power.