‘What a bubbling fountain of humour Mr. Spurgeon had!  I laughed more, I verily believe, when in his company than during all the rest of my life besides.’  That’s what people said about Charles Spurgeon, the nineteenth century ‘prince of preachers’. 

Today in theological debate, mentioning Adam and Eve is likely to get you into discussion about the interpretation of Genesis 1, the age of the earth, or whether the Fall was a real historical event.

There was a time, however, when you’d have been pinned to the wall by your sparring partner and forced to declare your position on the thorny issue of whether or not Adam and Eve had navels.  While Monks spent time literally 'navel gazing' over the puzzle in the quiet of their monasteries, fierce rival factions warred outside over what they took to be a key theological battleground. When Michelangelo painted Adam with a navel on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, he was labelled a heretic by some theologians.  In 1646, Sir Thomas Browne an English philosopher published his Pseudodoxia Epidemica in which a whole chapter was dedicated to the evils of ‘Pictures of Adam and Eve with Navels’, describing it a ‘vulgar error’.

Michelangelo dares to paint Adam's navel on the roof of the Sistine Chapel. 

The opposite team argued hard for Adam and Eve’s belly buttons, laughing-off accusations that they must have pictured God with one since the our first parents were made in His image. Unfortunately, this group had to deal with some internal politics as three distinct camps emerged; the pre-umbilicists, mid-umbilicists, and post-umbilicists.  The first group assumed that Adam and Eve were created with navels (usually in order to give the appearance of prior history, solving the infamous chicken and egg connundrum); the second posited that surely Adam’s navel was created when the Lord removed his rib to create Eve, and Eve went without; the third places the umbilicus on the pair after the Fall as a reminder that they’d been severed from the Lord, just as a child would be severed from his mother at birth.

The debate over whether Adam and Eve’s navels were intrusions (innies) or protrusions (outies) is still simmering in theology faculties around the country.

Tertullian, the great North African theologian writing around 200 AD, was like a cross between Bruce Banner and Oscar Wilde: scary enough that you didn’t want to get on the wrong side of him, and very, very funny.


Tertullian, ready either to explode or write a 'Knock! Knock!' joke.

Tertullian chuckled so much it disturbed people.  First of all, he used to laugh at how simple – in fact, how absurdly simple – truth is, meaning it takes a humble mind to recognise it.  Once, he put it like this:

‘The Son of God was crucified: I am not ashamed, because it is shameful.
The Son of God died: it is immediately credible, because it is silly.
He was buried, and rose again: it is certain,  because it is impossible.’
 
Fighting talk for those who reasoned God couldn’t become man, nor three be one!

But he also used to laugh at the absurdity of false belief.  This was quite appropriate, he reckoned:

‘There are many things which deserve refutation in such a way as to have no gravity expended on them. Vain and silly topics are met with especial fitness by laughter. Even the truth may indulge in ridicule, because it is jubilant; it may play with its enemies, because it is fearless. Only we must take care that its laughter be not unseemly, and so itself be laughed at; but wherever its mirth is decent, there it is a duty to indulge it.’

Marcion was a heretic to be given exactly such treatment.  Marcion, reasoning that Jesus was God, felt he had to deny that Jesus was fully human.  Tertullian reckoned this merely proved that Marcion himself was not fully human, because he must be lacking a brain.  Tertullian thought he probably had a pumpkin instead, meaning Marcion was half-man, half-fruit.

He dished out such lines because he believed they were just the sort of jolt the pompous heretics, puffed up with all their pretentious ‘profundity’, needed.  And, especially for dealing with those who denied Jesus’ humanity (and so were a bit inhuman themselves), it was a very human way of arguing.  

Perhaps PC means we can’t be like Tertullian any more (or like Paul in Galatians 5:12).  Or is it that PC, bone-dry theology is itself a bit half-man, half-fruit?

Reading different versions of the bible can be a good thing. But sometimes it can be quite surprising. Read Psalm 91:5 in the Coverdale Bible of 1535 and you’ll find ‘Thou shall not nede to be afrayed for eny bugges by night’ (‘bug’ meant ‘something terrifying’). 

Bored or naughty typesetters, however, once forced bible readers to be much more wary:

In the 1562 edition of the Geneva Bible, Matthew 5:9 read ‘Blessed are the placemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.’ 
A 1716 edition of the King James Bible has Jesus say ‘sin on more’ in John 5:14, rather than ‘sin no more’. 
A 1795 edition had Jesus say in Mark 7:27 ‘Let the children first be killed’ instead of ‘Let the children first be filled’.

Probably the worst mistakes, however, were made in the 1631 and 1653 ‘Wicked Bibles’.  In the 1653 edition, 1 Corinthians 6:9 read ‘the unrighteous shall inherit the kingdom of God’ and the 1631 edition had the seventh commandment as ‘Thou shalt commit adultery.’  The bibles were ordered to be burned, and the sloppy (one hopes it was just sloppiness) printer fined a then-hefty £300.

In the Charing Cross Bible of 1651, the bored typesetter replaced Ezekiel 48:5 with the following rant: ‘I amme sick to mye Hart of typesettinge... I telle you, onne daye laike this Ennyone with half an oz. of Sense should bee oute in the Sunneshain, ane nott Stucke here alle the livelong daie inn this mowldey olde By-Our-Lady Workeshoppe.’ 

It also included the following three extra verses at the end of Genesis 3:

25. And the Lord spake unto the Angel that guarded the eastern gate, saying Where is the flaming sword which was given unto thee?
26. And the Angel said, I had it here only a moment ago, I must have put it down some where, forget my own head next.
27. And the Lord did not ask him again.

Unlike the ‘Wicked Bibles’, however, the Charing Cross Bible was (after painstaking research) proved to be a forgery.  

The old Puritans aren’t generally known for their rollicking laughs; yet when it came to naming their children, they seemed to have the most roguish sense of humour.  Not satisfied with biblical names, some sought to give their children whole bible verses or edifying slogans for Christian names:

‘Job-Raked-Out-Of-The-Ashes,’ ‘Search-The-Scriptures,’ or ‘Fly-Fornication’ for example.  Surely no child could be so-named with a straight face.

Perhaps the best-known example was ‘Praise-God’ Barebone, a member of the Nominated Assembly in Cromwell’s day.

Praise-God Barebone

‘Praise-God’ got off lightly, though – his brother was called ‘Christ-Came-Into-The-World-To-Save’ Barebone.  Nevertheless, he decided to exact his revenge on his son, naming him ‘ Unless-Jesus-Christ-Had-Died-For-Thee-Thou-Hadst-Been-Damned’ Barebone.  Unsurprisingly, people found it easier to refer to the son simply as ‘Damned’ Barebone. Yet, for some reason, ‘Damned’ preferred to be known as Nicholas, and it is under that name that he founded London’s first fire insurance company and fire brigade

If you’d like some more Puritan advice in naming your child, maybe one of the following can inspire you:

No-Merit
Sorry-For-Sin
More-Trial
Small-Hope
Kill-Sin
Fight-The-Good-Fight-Of-Faith

Some of most rib-tickling theologians of all were the ‘holy fools’ of the 6th century, who behaved foolishly so as to defy the conventions of the sinful world.  Perhaps the most famous was Simeon the Fool.

Simeon the Fool (as he never looked)

He famously began his ministry of folly by entering the city of Emessa (dragging a dead dog behind him) and mimicking Jesus’ healing of the blind man.  Jesus had used saliva and clay on the man’s eyes; but when a man suffering from leucoma in both eyes approached Simeon, he anointed the man’s eyes with mustard, burning him and so aggravating his condition that he went completely blind. 

The rest of his ministry consisted of streaking in the circus, tripping people up, and consuming vast amounts of beans on solemn fast days – with predictable and hilarious results.  During church services, he would pelt the priests with nuts and blow out the candles; at other times he would drag himself around on his buttocks, punch adulterers, eat raw meat and defecate in public. 

Simeon was understandably revered by many (and was later canonised as a saint); yet when he ran naked into the crowded women’s section of the bath-house and jumped in to join them, he was promptly beaten and thrown out by the women, who suspected that perhaps he was not as foolish as he pretended. 

Simeon has inspired many people down through history, men such as Basil the Fool and John the Hairy, and is widely followed today.

The good theologian chuckles at how absurdly good the gospel of Jesus is. He laughs, because he doesn’t take himself too seriously. And he knows the power of a good giggle: tittering at what tempts him robs it of its power. So don’t be a pompous ass. Be a merrie theologiane!

Luther knew how to be merry: at home, Luther had his own bowling alley (he loved bowling – he’s said to be the guy who standardised the rules, fixing the number of pins at nine); he even had his own brewery.  Much of the Reformation in Germany stemmed from Luther having people over for dinner.  He had people over the whole time.  And over supper they’d talk theology: sometimes it was justification, sometimes the theology of farting.  For example:

“I resist the devil, and often it is with a fart that I chase him away.  When he tempts me with silly sins I say, ‘Devil, yesterday I broke wind too.  Have you written it down on your list?’”

Clearly the Devil’s taunts weren’t so bad after that! 

Fancy some more?  Laugh your way through this most rip-roaring read: