The Bible contains lots of jokes. Very often, we don’t understand them because we are not reading the Bible “cumulatively” (keeping everything in mind as we go along).
One of the reasons jokes are funny is their reliance upon inside information. The comedian tells you a story and leaves something unsaid which doesn’t need saying, or he tells you a story you find very familiar, only to confound your expectations at a certain point by turning things upside down. The authors of the Bible do this all the time.
To illustrate, here is some Divine comedy from the Bible.
Firstly, some background is in order. Jesus makes it clear that whoever exalts himself will be humbled and whoever humbles himself will be exalted (Matthew 23:12). We see a number of events in the Bible where a young man on a mission from God is challenged to stand for the truth in a courtroom situation. If he humbles himself, he will be exalted. If he exalts himself “against the knowledge of God” (2 Corinthians 10:5), he will be humbled.
Adam
This process of testing goes right back to the Garden of Eden. Adam did not humble himself under the Word. When that Word was challenged, his job was to act upon it, and repeat it as a “legal witness” against the serpent, in order to rescue Eve and vindicate God. Through his failure to obey, act and speak, he actually empowered the exaltation of the serpent against the will of God. The angel behind the serpent was exalted to a legal role in the real courtroom, in heaven. The serpent was lifted up, standing at God’s right hand as the accuser of Man. (The word “satan” means a legal accuser, like a prosecuting attorney).
Adam had also exalted himself, empowered by the serpent, and when the Lord came to inspect the situation, Adam was humiliated. The result was that the promises of dominion which God had made to Adam remained a “closed scroll.” It would be a mystery to human eyes for four thousand years.
Joseph
Joseph was a man who was faithful to God. Despite constant challenges, he was obedient to God and to those whom the Lord put in authority over him. Unlike Adam, he humbled himself continually and also openly confessed his relationship to God. This could have cost him his life, but he was eventually lifted up. He “opened the scroll,” the double witness God had sent to the Gentile king in dreams. The mystery was explained. Once vindicated as faithful and wise, Joseph sat at Pharaoh’s right hand (with Pharaoh’s ring or seal) and became Pharaoh’s “living word.”
Daniel
Daniel was another young man carried into a Gentile court. He, too, humbled himself, and did not hide his Covenant identity, his vow to God. Again, this could have cost him his life, but he, like Joseph, was eventually lifted up. He “opened the scroll,” the fourfold witness God had sent to the Gentile emperor in dreams. He, too, became the top wise man in the royal court, and it seems he may have had a hand in the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonian armies (under God’s guidance, of course).
Christ
The purpose of each trial given by God was to qualify His right hand Man so that a much greater authority could be conferred upon him and a much greater blessing could be poured out through him. The mystery which Adam was supposed to “open” was the true will of God for him. If he had obeyed and trusted in the goodness of God, His Father would have given him every blessing he required to take dominion of the world. Obedience was intended to bring him wisdom and make him more like God. The man who is “worthy to open the scroll” becomes a channel for worldwide blessing.
Joseph and Daniel faced similar tests. In the case of both these young men, it seems their faithfulness not only brought about the conversion of their Gentile kings, but led to great blessings for God’s people, and in fact, all nations. Their stories are retellings of the testing of Adam, but with positive outcomes. The repeated story, in all these different men in different ages, points to Christ’s faithfulness, to His exaltation to the right hand of the power (finally usurping the accuser), and His worthiness to “open the scroll” of the New Covenant in the book of Revelation.
But the one instance of the story that made me laugh was its reappearance in the book of Esther. The story is already funny (in a very “black comedy” kind of way), but its true brilliance becomes apparent when we know it is turning these earlier stories on their heads.
Haman and Mordecai
Like Joseph and Daniel, Mordecai was a Jew living in a Gentile city. Instead of submitting to authority like Joseph, he refused to bow. (Bowing to Gentile kings, or any other human being, was not sinful for Jews. Only bowing to idols is sinful because they are not images of the true God.)
Mordecai also told Esther to hide her Covenant identity. This was the opposite of the kind of ministry the Jews were supposed to have among the nations into which they were scattered.
As a result, another satan, Haman the Agagite, usurped the role God had obviously prepared for Mordecai. (We know this because of all the previous patterns, and also because Mordecai eventually received this role, after which all nations from India to Ethiopia held him in awe.)
Mordecai thwarts an assassination attempt on the king, which leads us to the “divine comedy”…
Instead of the king receiving dreams from the Most High, he can’t sleep! If we were watching a sitcom with such a well-established pattern, seeing the king tossing and turning in his bed would surely justify some laughter from the live audience.
The king calls for the royal records to be read to him and discovers Mordecai’s faithfulness (which, in context, we must understand as a submission to authority which God can bless.) He summons self-righteous Haman and asks his advice on what to do to glorify, that is, exalt, a faithful man. Here, Joseph or Daniel would “open the mystery” by interpreting the dream.
Of course, Haman entirely misinterprets the king’s will, which is very funny, and repeats a theme which, as you can see now, unites the entire Bible from the first book to the last. Haman is just like Adam. In his desire to become an independent authority, he has himself become a lying serpent. He desired to exalt himself and he was humbled. His wisdom was not the wisdom of God but the shortsighted wisdom of this world. And of course, as the story continues, a much greater humbling for him, and his ten sons, was to come. Tragically, they would all be “lifted up” on Haman’s own gallows.
Now, there are many Bible teachers who say that a symbol is only a symbol if it is explained in the text of the Bible. Never read Shakespeare or watch a good movie with, or lend a novel to, such a person. Understanding the implicit message is what makes stories funny.
The Bible builds and builds and we need to take note of repeated roles and patterns as we read because just about everything comes up again later. And sometimes it is as a very pointed joke. The Bible can be very entertaining when we get its patterns and symbols under our belts.
Reading the Bible like this is not a new skill to learn because its constant, subtle self-referencing is the same reason a joke is funny to one specific audience or culture and not to another. The solution is to become “cultured” in the Bible.
This is a chapter from the Bible Matrix primer, Reading the Bible in 3D, which you can read online, download, or purchase on amazon here.
