Davar Akher

In a book entitled On Humour and the Comic in the Hebrew Bible, Radday and Brenner attempt to demonstrate the assertion that Biblical authors knew how to have a good laugh. The fact that the Bible seems like so serious a text is simply because the people who have translated it over the ages have tended to be reasonably serious people. What is more, that which was funny two thousand years ago is not necessarily funny today. Today, even the reruns of Friends are starting to get tiring: how banal will they appear next millenium?

Throughout the essays in Radday’s and Brenner’s book, a variety of comic examples are listed. Some of them are slapstick (such as the manner in which the Egyptian magicians, when faced with a plague of blood, demonstrated their own prowess by making the plague worse), while others are simply sweet (such as the manner in which the local girls seem to speak over each other in answering the handsome Saul’s questions). I would like to relate another example, but one which is not listed in this entertaining book. It involves the aftermath of Abel’s murder.

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How does one reconcile Biblical ‘history’ with archaeology? How do we go about uniting different historical accounts of the same event? The second book of Kings (2 Kgs 3) relates a war that took place between Israel and Moab. The following is the account of this war as presented by the Biblical historian:

1. The Israelite king, Ahab (son of Omri), dies and the Moabites rebel against their Israelite overlords;
2. The new Israelite king, Jehoram (son of Ahab) musters his troops and heads south to unite with the Judean king, Jehosephat, and the Edomite king;
3. The three allied kings run low on water to sustain their armies and are forced to ask for assistance from the prophet Elisha;
4. Elisha miraculously produces rainfall and, thinking that the reflection of the sun in the water is the blood of the allied armies, the Moabite King (Mesha) throws caution to the wind and advances against them;
5. The Moabites are sorely routed and left with a single fortress: Kir-Hareseth;
6. Mesha sacrifices his son on the battlements, a “great wrath” comes upon Israel, and the allied armies retreat to their respective countries.

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In the Biblical book of Joshua, a curious character appears. Her name is Rahab and we are told that she lives within the wall around the fortified city of Jericho. Her role is an enigmatic one: when Joshua sends spies into the land, she hosts them for the evening and hides them from the local authorities. The spies themselves say little within the narrative, but she is given several lines, and she appears to be the one who is completely in charge of the situation. She sends the spies to the roof, she covers them with a protective blanket, speaks to the authorities and even tells the spies what they are to do next. Oh yes, we are also told that she is a prostitute.

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There is no doubt that people feel an aversion to the issue of infanticide. Despite several indicators within the Hebrew Bible that some people were murdering their children, as a ‘sacrifice’ or otherwise, Rabbinic literature insists on employing euphemisms (cf: bTa’an 4a – “שאלו שלו כהוגן”) and some mediaeval commentators avoid the issue entirely. The Bible itself appears uneasy, as can be seen by contrasting the suspense in leading up to the non-sacrifice of Isaac (Gen 22) with the brevity of the actual sacrifice conducted by Jephtha (Jud 11). This would seem to indicate that ancient audiences felt a similar aversion to the issue.

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