IIDB Archive

[quote=""mountainman""]

Jeffrey Gibson;7477910 wrote:

Clivedurdle;7477861 wrote:
Reading about Julian's "Caesars" has raised many many problems about why precisely the xian beliefs took hold. It is as if there was not only a dark ages of civilisation, but also of humour.

I think there is a genuine question to research here - the relationships of humour, fun, comedy, satire, theatre, dance, celebration and this new state religion.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrAIGLkSMls

Good point Jeffrey.

As I have previously stated, getting a biblical scholar to discuss the historical possibility that any humour could have been directed at Jesus and/or the Apostles and/or the 4th century state religion is impossible. Biblical scholars are not equipped to deal with such possibilities, because the bible always was, still is, and always will be an utterly humourless monstrous tale.

Charles Freeman's thesis that the Greek intellectual tradition was suppressed by the Christian regime of the 4th century may be expanded to include the suppression of humour.[/quote]

:banghead:

Only in the books of the heretics do we find humour: apostles resurrecting smoked fish, getting camels to pass through the eyes of needles, travelling hither and thither on bright clouds. This list is expandable - see above.

A number of non canonical acts open with the apostles casting lots for the countries that they will go to and preach and then convert to the centralised monotheistic state religion. This is a satire or a parody of the soldiers casting lots for the raiment of the Jesus figure during the passion scene.

Another dodge and another tacit admission that you are not equipped to do what I asked you to do.

Jeffrey

[quote=""Jeffrey Gibson""]

Clivedurdle;7477220 wrote:Yes, it is - Menippean

http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2 ... 2379884157

But there is a huge amount of debate about is it precisely that type and there are difficulties with precise definitions.

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=io-R ... re&f=false

Good. But that just tells me that it is a mixture of prose and verse. How else does it distinguish itself, if it does, from Roman Satire?


BTW, did you have access to all of the JSTOR article?[/QUOTE]


I do. Julian appears to be validly enrolled amongst the satirists of antiquity.

And it appears to answer your earlier question ....

Even assuming that this work (known as the Symposium or the Kronia and best read here) was known and was recognized as satire (was it? By whom in the ancient world? Does any authority on Greco-Roman satire claim it to be such? If so, who [names, please!] and most importantly, why do they do so?) ...

We have yet to discuss the fact that both the Emperor Julian and the authors of many of the non canonical acts and gospels appear to have satirized the figure of Jesus.


As a simple signature for satire, comedy, humour and laughter come before the formal, literary, metrical, stylistic, and linguistic analyses

However my point is that, if one has the capacity to entertain a little laugh for Jesus, then one might expect that people in the 4th century could have done precisely the same thing out of basic human nature. The conditional here is that one has the capacity to entertain a little laugh for Jesus. This capacity has been thrashed out of the basic human nature by Draconian Blasphemy laws that seem to have been in place since the 4th century and the rule of Constantine until only a century or so ago.

What you Jeffrey Gibson do not seem to understand is the basic notion that the common people did not have to understand the formal, literary, metrical, stylistic, and linguistic characteristics of a satire to laugh at it. They laughed because it they found the story to be funny.

Hence for the common people, the presence of jokes in the work takes precedence over the presence of the formal, literary, metrical, stylistic, and linguistic characteristics of the work.

Now to return to the OP, at post #3 there is listed, amongst other categories as explained, what might be termed "gnostic jokes".

Why for heaven's sake does an apostle resurrect a smoked fish, command bedbugs, convert talking lions or forever look for Jesus's footprint and fail to find it?

Why for heaven's sake is Jesus the pilot of a water taxi service for the apostles in their bid to convert "The Land of the Cannibals"?

Why for heaven's sake does Peter physically pass a camel through the eye of a needle (and back again)?

Why for heaven's sake does the electric chair of antiquity, the cross, amble out of the tomb after Jesus and communicate with God?

Why for heaven's sake do loveable apostles physically destroy pagan temples?




SUMMARY

Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful

The way I see it comedy was embedded in some gnostic acts etc purposefully.

It was laughed at by the common people, and the wise authors (who parodied the canon) can take the credit.

But to the rulers in charge of the Canonical Holy Writ this may be seen as a form of political satire.

Therefore the rulers created and operate "Blasphemy Laws" to condition the minds of the common people and the unwise authors.

IMO while for some the remnants of these are still present in conditioned thinking, for other human beings "Blasphemy Laws" are still operative..




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