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And God Created Laughter: The Bible as Divine Comedy
Recognizing "a playful spirit" as part of our human makeup, Conrad Hyers shows how laughter and humor are integral to our serious study of the Bible. He opens the joy of understanding the Bible in its fullness.With the darker realities of the Bible—sin, suffering, and death—there coexists a lighter side -- laughter, humor, and playfulness. Competent biblical study requires both perspectives.
This highly readable, preachable, and teachable work gives ministers, students, lay readers a valuable tool for recovering the spirit and offers a chance to share in the celebration of life and the divine comedy of faith, hope, and love.
This highly readable, preachable, and teachable work gives ministers, students, lay readers a valuable tool for recovering the spirit and offers a chance to share in the celebration of life and the divine comedy of faith, hope, and love.
144 pages, Paperback
First published June 19, 1987
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
March 21, 2022
This book was an enjoyable read (it is a book on comedy and the Bible, after all)! Conrad Hyers recognizes the importance of the comic in the Christian life, and offers this short book as a helpful way in which to reintroduce the “foolishness” and the joy of the gospel. The penultimate chapter, in which Hyers analyzes the story of Jonah as a comic satire, is the high point of this work.
Unfortunately, Hyers does not provide any sort of definition of “comedy” or “comic.” Defining these terms would have been helpful, because the meaning of the terms are not necessarily self-evident. Is the Bible a comedy in the sense that it should make one laugh, or is it a comedy in the sense that it ends on a happy/high note (or both)? Also, while the subtitle of the book implies that the focus will be on the Bible and it’s comic features, apart from the chapter on Jonah, there is no detailed treatment of comic aspects of other biblical narratives, and no discussion of the ways in which the biblical authors used certain literary devices to create a work of comedy.
Still, Hyers’s work is important and illuminating, and one would do well to give it a read.
Unfortunately, Hyers does not provide any sort of definition of “comedy” or “comic.” Defining these terms would have been helpful, because the meaning of the terms are not necessarily self-evident. Is the Bible a comedy in the sense that it should make one laugh, or is it a comedy in the sense that it ends on a happy/high note (or both)? Also, while the subtitle of the book implies that the focus will be on the Bible and it’s comic features, apart from the chapter on Jonah, there is no detailed treatment of comic aspects of other biblical narratives, and no discussion of the ways in which the biblical authors used certain literary devices to create a work of comedy.
Still, Hyers’s work is important and illuminating, and one would do well to give it a read.
May 13, 2020
Comedy in the Bible?!! Can it be true? Hyers writes clearly and with great insight. Excellent topic.
June 1, 2013
interesting unconventional perspective on the faith, one that we have been missing out in all of our seriousness and self-righteousness.
Want to read
September 28, 2013I referenced this book in a paper in 2004.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews