In Does Jesus Have a Sense of Humor? Austin Ruse (nyuk nyuk) tries but can't quite come up with any really good examples of Red Letter Jesus being funny.
Well, maybe because there aren't any?
And that's not because Ruse is, sorry to say, yet another example of a Catholic who is broadly unfamiliar with his Bible. He in fact oddly ridicules Biblical familiarity, calling G. K. Chesterton's negative opinion on the matter of humorless Jesus, for example, too Protestant, too sola scriptura.
Perhaps Ruse's best case is made with this though:
Consider also that Jesus is Jewish, and consider the Jews have always been funny. ... One final argument for His sense of humor which is ongoing. Here’s
the proof: He chose us. That is hilarious. He chose you and me to do His
work on earth. And we are so lame and even laughable.
This is indeed amusing. But again, Ruse might have found it in St. Paul, if only he had read him:
But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the
wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the
things which are mighty;
-- I Corinthians 1:27.
The joke was, moreover, as laughable to Athenians as it was to Jews like Paul:
And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked: and others said, We will hear thee again of this matter.
-- Acts 17:32.
Ruse finds some good material in the Old Testament for Jewish humor, which happens to emphasize the superiority theory of humor, where God laughs at the wicked and his prophet laughs at the impotent priests of Baal, but he glaringly leaves out perhaps the most famous example of the incongruity theory of humor in the OT, where God defies norms and acts contrary to expectations:
And [the Lord] said, I will certainly return unto thee according to the time of
life; and, lo, Sarah thy wife shall have a son. And Sarah heard it in the tent door, which was behind him.
Now Abraham and Sarah were old and well stricken in age; and it ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women. Therefore Sarah laughed within herself, saying, After I am waxed old shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also?
-- Genesis 18:10ff.
The main problem involved with all this is that there doesn't seem to be one unified theory of humor. It is a profound, perennial, and interesting problem of definition.
It shouldn't surprise us, for example, that we are hard-pressed to find examples of the relief theory of humor in the sayings of Jesus. The gospel writers aren't interested in portraying a Jesus who laughs to release pent up negative emotions. Instead they portray him sweating blood in the Garden of Gethsemane. And Jesus is not interested in superiority. He is the servant of all, as his followers must be.
Let there be no filthiness, nor silly talk, nor levity, which are not fitting; but instead let there be thanksgiving.
-- Ephesians 5:4.
There is much to be said instead for the incongruity theory, and to some extent the superiority theory, persisting in the New Testament, where reversal of expectations and fortunes both give to God the last laugh, with his elevation of the inferior, the lowly, the meek as the dominant theme.
But the comedy, it would seem, if there is any, is all from God's point of view. We are but the actors on the stage. We perform. He laughs.
And perhaps the biggest joke of all is that the star of this show is a bastard, born of fornication (John 8:41, 44). But Jesus, playing true to his part, couldn't possibly entertain this joke. He must be, like us, an actor.
His script, about the imminent end of the world, about only few finding eternal life, has nothing funny about it.
Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do.
We try, though:
