As I study and teach, I find I read the Bible ever more slowly, and as I do, I smile more and more frequently. I listen for its humor. My emotions span sorrow, understanding or joy as I empathize with the characters who cross its pages. I chuckle at many passages, even while acknowledging the sadness they may contain. Consequently, I believe it’s possible to read many verses, stories and even books through the lens of humor, indeed to see portions of the Bible as intended to be very funny. An appropriate response is laughter. I’ve come to this conclusion: Humor is a fundamental sub-theme in both testaments.Probably, although it's hard to tell. This is a good bit of laughter in the Bible, but people can laugh out of scorn, nervousness, delight, etc., and not just because they think something is funny. And humor is very difficult to detect cross-culturally. Even within the same culture, one person's joke is often not funny to someone else. Still, I would say that Dr. Gallaher Branch's first example, 2 Chronicles 21:20, is a clear example of humor in the Bible.
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