Humour and Religion Challenges and Ambiguities

by Geybels, Hans; Van Herck, Walter

• ISBN13: 9781441163134
• ISBN10: 1441163131
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-03-17
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic

Summary

Leading scholars analyze the importance and functioning of humor in different world religions.

Author Biography

Hans Geybels is Associate Professor in the Department of Pastoral Theology at the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium. Walter Van Herck is Associate Professor of Philosophy of Religion at the University of Antwerp, Belgium.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	p. vii
Notes on Contributors	p. ix
Introduction	p. 1
Religious Laughter
The Redemptive Power of Humour in Religion	p. 11
Humour as Practical Wisdom	p. 22
Humour in Hinduism	p. 35
Laughing Priests in the Atsuta Shrine Festival	p. 54
Humour on Religion in the Greco-Roman World	p. 66
Transferring Aristophanes' Religious Registers into Modern Greek and English: The Case of (Re) Constructing the Religious Humour of Aristophanes' Comedy Acharnians in Greek and English Target-Texts	p. 85
Laughing in and at the Mirror: Jewish Humour and Hassidic Wisdom	p. 108
Why Did Jesus Laugh? Laughing in Biblical-Demiurgical Texts	p. 123
Laughing Against All the Odds. Some Observations on Humour, Laughter and Religion in Byzantium	p. 141
Being Serious about Laughter: The Case of Early Modern Biblical Plays	p. 156
The Muslim Sense of Humour	p. 169
Laughing at Religion
Humour, Religion and Vulnerability	p. 191
Laughing at God. The Pictorial History of Boundaries Not to be Crossed	p. 204
The Fool and the Path to Spiritual Insight	p. 218
Humour, Religion and Politics in Greek Cartoons: Symbiosis or Conflict?	p. 248
Index	p. 269
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