God Laughed: Sources of Jewish Humor

ISBN-13: 9781412853767 / Angielski / Twarda / 2014 / 368 str.

Hershey H. Friedman; Linda Weiser Friedman

Opis

Humor has had a profound effect on the way the Jewish people see the world, and has sustained them through millennia of hardships and suffering. God Laughed reviews, organizes, and categorizes the humor of the ancient Jewish texts--the Hebrew Bible, the Talmud, and Midrash--in a clear, readable, and accessible manner.These works have influenced the Jewish people in many ways, and all are replete with humor and wit. Inevitably, this oeuvre of Jewish humor has itself influenced generations of comics, as well as genres of humor. The authors use examples of Biblical humor from several broad categories, including irony, sarcasm, wordplay, humorous names, humorous imagery, and humorous situations.Because their primary purpose is not to entertain, but to teach humanity how to live the ideal life, much of the humor in the Talmud and the Midrash has a single purpose: to demonstrate that evil is wrong and even, at times, ludicrous. This may help explain why approximately 1,500 years after its closing, the Talmud is still such a fascinating work. God Laughed is the latest addition to Transaction's Jewish Studies series.

Spis treści

Preface

Acknowledgements

Part I: Introduction

1 Studying Jewish Humor
2 A Word on the Sources: Biblical, Talmudic, and Midrashic Literature

Part II: Heavenly Humor

3 Does God Have a Sense of Humor?
4 Biblical Humor: From Irony, Sarcasm, Wordplay to Humorous Imagery
5 No Match for God: Satan as Trickster

Part III: Humor in the Talmud and Midrash

6 Humor in the Talmud and Midrash: An Overview
7 Recurring Characters and Themes
8 Satire, Irony, and Self-Deprecating Humor
9 Sarcasm
10 Exaggerated Imagery and Other Hyperbole
11 Wordplay: Puns, Acrostics, and Riddles
12 Humorous Sayings and Remarks
13 Allegories, Parables, and Fables
14 Talmudic Tales
15 Humorous Cases and Other Absurdities

Part IV Conclusion

16 Is There a "Jewish" Sense of Humor?

Appendixes
Appendix A: Important Dates In Jewish History
Appendix B: The Time Periods of the Talmudic Sages
Appendix C: The Sages and Their Generations
Appendix D: Classic Commentators
Appendix E: Mostly Punch Lines, an Index of Jokes

Notes

Bibliography

Index

O autorze

Hershey H. Friedman