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There is an excellent book by Yehuda Radday and Athalya Brenner, entitled On Humor and the Comic in the Hebrew BibleOn Humor and the Comic in the Hebrew Bible (JSOTS Series; Continuum International Publishing Group, 1990). I don't have a copy on hand, so I cannot provide you with the relevant page numbers, but the sorts of issues that they explore are whether or not, and to what extent, Jonah is a parody and Esther is a parody, whether or not there is scatological humour in such passages as Ehud's assassination of the fat Moabite king, and so on. For passages within the Torah in particular, I seem to remember them mentioning situational humour (such as when Pharaoh's magicians demonstrate their prowess by making the plagues worse), and puns. That last one is important, since it underscores the fact that humour isn't necessarily that which makes you laugh.

There is an excellent book by Yehuda Radday and Athalya Brenner, entitled On Humor and the Comic in the Hebrew Bible (JSOTS Series; Continuum International Publishing Group, 1990). I don't have a copy on hand, so I cannot provide you with the relevant page numbers, but the sorts of issues that they explore are whether or not, and to what extent, Jonah is a parody and Esther is a parody, whether or not there is scatological humour in such passages as Ehud's assassination of the fat Moabite king, and so on. For passages within the Torah in particular, I seem to remember them mentioning situational humour (such as when Pharaoh's magicians demonstrate their prowess by making the plagues worse), and puns. That last one is important, since it underscores the fact that humour isn't necessarily that which makes you laugh.

There is an excellent book by Yehuda Radday and Athalya Brenner, entitled On Humor and the Comic in the Hebrew Bible (JSOTS Series; Continuum International Publishing Group, 1990). I don't have a copy on hand, so I cannot provide you with the relevant page numbers, but the sorts of issues that they explore are whether or not, and to what extent, Jonah is a parody and Esther is a parody, whether or not there is scatological humour in such passages as Ehud's assassination of the fat Moabite king, and so on. For passages within the Torah in particular, I seem to remember them mentioning situational humour (such as when Pharaoh's magicians demonstrate their prowess by making the plagues worse), and puns. That last one is important, since it underscores the fact that humour isn't necessarily that which makes you laugh.

Typo.
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Danny Schoemann
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I was going to add a second answer, now that people are actually providing more in the way of specific examples, but I figured I'd add it to this one instead. This is an example of humour in Tanakh that I didn't mention - one that I personally find very funny, and which I think is continually mistranslated. It can be found in 1 Samuel 15:32-33, and constitutes the (rather grisly) execution of Agag, king of Amalek.

When Agag is brought before Samuel, his "famous last words" are to declare that, אכן סר מר המות. This is translated by JPS as "Ah, bitter death is at hand!" - although they note that the Hebrew is apparantlyapparently uncertain. Artscroll, similarly, translates it as "Alas, the bitterness of death approaches", the NRSV has "Surely this is the bitterness of death", and so too several other translations.

Myself, I would read סר as a masc. sg. participle of סור ("turn aside"), its referent being מר המות. My translation, therefore, would render this as the hapless and ironic observation that "At least the bitterness of death has passed!" Agag, you couldn't be more wrong.

I was going to add a second answer, now that people are actually providing more in the way of specific examples, but I figured I'd add it to this one instead. This is an example of humour in Tanakh that I didn't mention - one that I personally find very funny, and which I think is continually mistranslated. It can be found in 1 Samuel 15:32-33, and constitutes the (rather grisly) execution of Agag, king of Amalek.

When Agag is brought before Samuel, his "famous last words" are to declare that, אכן סר מר המות. This is translated by JPS as "Ah, bitter death is at hand!" - although they note that the Hebrew is apparantly uncertain. Artscroll, similarly, translates it as "Alas, the bitterness of death approaches", the NRSV has "Surely this is the bitterness of death", and so too several other translations.

Myself, I would read סר as a masc. sg. participle of סור ("turn aside"), its referent being מר המות. My translation, therefore, would render this as the hapless and ironic observation that "At least the bitterness of death has passed!" Agag, you couldn't be more wrong.

I was going to add a second answer, now that people are actually providing more in the way of specific examples, but I figured I'd add it to this one instead. This is an example of humour in Tanakh that I didn't mention - one that I personally find very funny, and which I think is continually mistranslated. It can be found in 1 Samuel 15:32-33, and constitutes the (rather grisly) execution of Agag, king of Amalek.

When Agag is brought before Samuel, his "famous last words" are to declare that, אכן סר מר המות. This is translated by JPS as "Ah, bitter death is at hand!" - although they note that the Hebrew is apparently uncertain. Artscroll, similarly, translates it as "Alas, the bitterness of death approaches", the NRSV has "Surely this is the bitterness of death", and so too several other translations.

Myself, I would read סר as a masc. sg. participle of סור ("turn aside"), its referent being מר המות. My translation, therefore, would render this as the hapless and ironic observation that "At least the bitterness of death has passed!" Agag, you couldn't be more wrong.

(Slight grammatical correction)
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Shimon bM
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Postscript

I was going to add a second answer, now that people are actually providing more in the way of specific examples, but I figured I'd add it to this one instead. This is an example of humour in Tanakh that I didn't mention - one that I personally find very funny, and which I think is continually mistranslated. It can be found in 1 Samuel 15:32-33, and constitutes the (rather grisly) execution of Agag, king of Amalek.

When Agag is brought before Samuel, his "famous last words" are to declare that, אכן סר מר המות. This is translated by JPS as "Ah, bitter death is at hand!" - although they note that the Hebrew is apparantly uncertain. Artscroll, similarly, translates it as "Alas, the bitterness of death approaches", the NRSV has "Surely this is the bitterness of death", and so too several other translations.

Myself, I would read סר as a masc. sg. participle of סור ("turn aside"), its referent being מר המות. My translation, therefore, would render this as the hapless and ironic observation that "At least the bitterness of death has passed!" Agag, you couldn't be more wrong.

Postscript

I was going to add a second answer, now that people are actually providing more in the way of specific examples, but I figured I'd add it to this one instead. This is an example of humour in Tanakh that I didn't mention - one that I personally find very funny, and which I think is continually mistranslated. It can be found in 1 Samuel 15:32-33, and constitutes the (rather grisly) execution of Agag, king of Amalek.

When Agag is brought before Samuel, his "famous last words" are to declare that, אכן סר מר המות. This is translated by JPS as "Ah, bitter death is at hand!" - although they note that the Hebrew is apparantly uncertain. Artscroll, similarly, translates it as "Alas, the bitterness of death approaches", the NRSV has "Surely this is the bitterness of death", and so too several other translations.

Myself, I would read סר as a masc. sg. participle of סור ("turn aside"), its referent being מר המות. My translation, therefore, would render this as the hapless and ironic observation that "At least the bitterness of death has passed!" Agag, you couldn't be more wrong.

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Shimon bM
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