Satire And The Hebrew Prophets

In this book, Thomas Jemielity demonstrates the striking relationship between satire and Hebrew prophecy by reviewing the role of ridicule in both and analyzing questions of nature, structure, form, and audience. This pioneering study makes compelling reading for all interested in the Bible and Western literature. The Literary Currents in Biblical Interpretation series explores current trends within the discipline of biblical interpretation by dealing with the literary qualities of the Bible: the play of its language, the coherence of its final form, and the relationships between text and readers. Biblical interpreters are being challenged to take responsibility for the theological, social, and ethical implications of their readings. This series encourages original readings that breach the confines of traditional biblical criticism.

Winner of the 2016 Religious Communication Association Book of the Year Award In God Mocks, Terry Lindvall ventures into the muddy and dangerous realm of religious satire, chronicling its evolution from the biblical wit and humor of the Hebrew prophets through the Roman Era and the Middle Ages all the way up to the present. He takes the reader on a journey through the work of Chaucer and his Canterbury Tales, Cervantes, Jonathan Swift, and Mark Twain, and ending with the mediated entertainment of modern wags like Stephen Colbert. Lindvall finds that there is a method to the madness of these mockers: true satire, he argues, is at its heart moral outrage expressed in laughter. But there are remarkable differences in how these religious satirists express their outrage.The changing costumes of religious satirists fit their times. The earthy coarse language of Martin Luther and Sir Thomas More during the carnival spirit of the late medieval period was refined with the enlightened wit of Alexander Pope. The sacrilege of Monty Python does not translate well to the ironic voices of Soren Kierkegaard. The religious satirist does not even need to be part of the community of faith. All he needs is an eye and ear for the folly and chicanery of religious poseurs. To follow the paths of the satirist, writes Lindvall, is to encounter the odd and peculiar treasures who are God’s mouthpieces. In God Mocks, he offers an engaging look at their religious use of humor toward moral ends.

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.

"From epigrams and name calling to sophisticated proverbs, fables and taunt-songs, Weisman provides a nuanced introduction to this multifaceted and fascinating subject. The author spends equal time looking at the historical (political) and literary (satirical) aspects of the subject, well aware that context matters and that sometimes "you have to be there" to get the joke. An excellent contribution to the emerging interest in biblical humor."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

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.

In Reduced Laughter: Seriocomic Features and their Functions in the Book of Kings, Helen Paynter uses a hermeneutic of carnivalization and mirroring to offer a radical, satirical re-evaluation of the Elijah-Elisha and Aram narratives in the book of Kings.

Prophetic Oracles of Salvation in the Old Testament is a comprehensive and innovative assessment of these often ignored or misunderstood canonical texts. Claus Westermann shows that these oracles occur in distinct forms and make up a coherent tradition. He goes on to demonstrate that these texts, often percieved only as a message of judgement and doom, in fact proclaim hope and deliverance as well.