Humor and Culture

A recent letter to the editor mentioned surprise that I had a sense of humor.   Actually, I laugh all the time.  Most of my writing is comedic.  I can’t help it.  It’s part of my Jewish cultural heritage.  

I saw the impact first hand while teaching a class on Jewish humor in Stetson University’s Continuing Education program.  I taught it three times. The first class was composed of almost all Jews.  They laughed from breakfast through bedtime.  The next group was about half filled with Jews.  The Christian portion sat there quietly and watched me; the Jews in the group couldn’t stop laughing and telling jokes.  

The third class was all Christian.  On the first day of class, midway through my opening monologue, I endured what performers call “flop sweat.”  That happens spontaneously when no one responds. They just didn’t get the jokes.  In fact, they didn’t appreciate the humor at all.   

Pity.   Jewish humor has become an integral part of American humor, something worth recalling any time of year.

The names of Jewish comedians who established what is now known as American humor could fill an encyclopedia:  Jack Benny, George Burns, The Marx Brothers, The Three Stooges, Ed Wynn, Eddie Cantor, Don Rickles, Milton Berle, Gilda Radner, Gene Wilder, Jack E. Leonard, Mort Sahl, Joan Rivers, Billy Crystal, Myron Cohen, Danny Kaye, Adam Sandler, Jerry Lewis and so many more.

Probably without knowing the sources, they simply built on a centuries-old tradition born in the Bible and developed under the cruelest of circumstances.  

To the surprise of many, the Bible is replete with humor.  A sainted teenager in the Middle Ages used to berate Christians for telling jokes because, he pointed out correctly, there’s no humor in the New Testament.  He was right.  That’s not true with the Jewish sacred text.

The humor is often sardonic, even sarcastic.  In Judges, for example, Ehud rescues the Jews from a Canaanite oppressor by stabbing a heavy-set king.  The guards don’t respond despite the resulting smell, because, the text reads, they were used to the stench when the king used the toilet.  That won’t get anyone rolling in the aisle, but raises a wry smile.  So does Haman’s comeuppance versus Mordecai in the book of Esther.  There are also puns, plays on words and much more.

By itself, that did not allow Jewish humor to blossom.  Ghettos were needed.  Isolated in a Christian world, Jews were forced to live in small communities or walled sections of towns.  There, powerless and impotent to fight back, they used the only weapon readily available – their wit.

They created the Polish joke – and entire city of Chelm populated by dimwits.  They turned the spring holiday of Purim into a time for skits and parodies, all new to the entertainment world.  They came up with the funny emcee, a role Berle perfected; the schnorrer, a man who tries to con everyone, like Phil Silvers; the schlemiel, the clumsy oaf, who invariably trips over the schmazzel.  Think the Marx Brothers and the Three Stooges.  All of these concepts infused American culture in time.

Jewish humor traveled here on several currents.  One, of course, was the massive wave of Russian immigration that started around the 1880s.  Emma Lazarus’ famed poem on the Statue of Liberty – “Give me your huddles masses yearning to breathe free” – was originally written to encourage Russian Jews to leave the shtetls of Russia for the United States.  (Note:  I am not related to Emma.)  The Russian Jews brought with them their finely honed humor.  The Broadway show, Fiddler on the Roof, reflects some of those comedic ideas.  

Another avenue was theater.  Abraham Goldfarb, a Russian Jew, took advantage of a thaw in Russian anti-Semitic thinking in the mid-1800s to start a troupe of touring Jewish performers.  Jacob Adler became the most famous of the actors.  They moved eventually to England and then the United States, bringing their uncontrolled, ribald approach to the stage.  In the midst of a play, such as Shakespeare’s King Lear, the cast might break into song or perform other hijinks.  

The concept traveled well in this country.  Singer Al Jolson, for example, became famous for continuing his performance after his allotted time and even inviting the audience to join him after the show.  He would tell them, “You ain’t seen nothing yet” and ignore the pleas of other acts to stop.  He was just following the pattern set by his Russian counterparts.  The Marx Brothers adlibs did that, too.

Finally, the American theater had Jewish stock characters, the Hebe.  Jews who saw the performers decided that if anyone was going to make fun of Jews, they were.  Jewish comedians began to flock to the stage.

Over time, Jewish humor imbued American humor with a robust, unconventional current.  Their influence was so strong that the late comedian Buddy Hackett said he had to act Jewish to become successful in Hollywood.  And Buddy Hackett was Jewish.

On this most American of holidays, the role Jewish humor has played in the United States is something worth celebrating, both for how it has added joy to our lives and for another reason that transcends comedy.  It serves as an almost daily reminder of the influence of foreign cultures and ideas on the growth and development of our country.  And that, thankfully, is no joke.

Long-time religious historian Bill Lazarus regularly writes about religion and religious history.  He also speaks at various religious organizations throughout Florida.  You can reach him at www.williamplazarus.net.  He is the author of the famed Unauthorized Biography of Nostradamus; The Last Testament of Simon Peter; The Gospel Truth: Where Did the Gospel Writers Get Their Information; Noel: The Lore and Tradition of Christmas Carols; and Dummies Guide to Comparative Religion.  His books are available on Amazon.com, Kindle, bookstores and via various publishers.  He can also be followed on Twitter.

You can enroll in his on-line class, Comparative Religion for Dummies, at http://www.udemy.com/comparative-religion-for-dummies/?promote=1

Muslims Through Other Eyes

Recently, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University hosted a speaker talking about the role of women in Islam.  Many of my students went to hear Dr. Jim Shoopman talk about the difference between public perception in this country of Islam women and reality.  He said that, e pointed that, in the Arab world, the position of women varies from country to country.  In Saudi Arabia, for example, women cannot drive; in Kuwait or the United Arab Emirates, they can and do. They also hold many rights not available in other less-enlightened countries, including the right to own and run businesses. He also pointed out how many Americans hold preconceived notions about women and Islam that are difficult to change.

Shoopman could have been talking about a lot more than women and Islam.  False impressions invariably seem to dominate our thinking. 

Take the hubbub in November over President Obama’s recent children’s book, which identified a handful of famous Americans.  He included Sitting Bull, to the consternation of those who argued that the Lakota Indian chief helped massacre Gen. George Custer and his men in 1876. That’s true, of course, but completely ignores other facts.

1.  Sitting Bull was defending sacred Indian lands stolen by gold-hungry American settlers despite a legally binding agreement between the tribe and the government.  In fact, he was standing up for human rights, a noble cause in any situation.

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2. Sitting Bull joined “Buffalo” Bill Cody’s Wild West Show, which toured this country and Europe just nine years after Custer’s Last Stand, a fact that apparently didn’t bother Cody or the thousands who turned out to see the entertainment.

3, Cody and Sitting Bull became friends.   In his autobiography, the famed Indian scout wrote, "Of all the Indians I encountered in my years on the Plains, the most resourceful and intelligent... were the Sioux.... The greatest of all the Sioux in my time, or any time for that matter, was that wonderful old fighting man, Sitting Bull."

Reality is never cut and dry.  George Washington was a patriotic American.  To the British, he was a traitor.  Robert E. Lee lost his family estate – now Arlington Cemetery – but he didn’t lose his reputation or go to jail for leading the Southern states in a rebellion against the U.S. Government.  Neither, for that matter, did Confederate President Jefferson Davis, who retained public affection in the South for decades after his great counterpart, Abraham Lincoln, was assassinated.

Confederate battle flags today are not uncommon, often dressing up trucks owned by patriotic Americans who would never dream of attacking their own country.

The list is endless.  We all tend to see reality as black and white.  We can put a political party, a person, an event or an idea into a neat box.  We can careful homogenize everything.  It’s easier that way.  It’s also often wrong.

Take American history.  While studying for a doctorate in American Studies, I read about Andrew Jackson, the Indian fighter and general who went on to be president.  My high school history book talked about the Jacksonian Age and his impact on American life.  In college, I discovered that most Americans then didn’t know who the president was or cared.  Based on voting records, Jackson had virtually no effect on anyone.

Or famed lawman Wyatt Earp, who has been the subject of multiple books, movies and the like.  He was actually a saloon owner and gambler who did little of what he was renowned for.  A later newsman, Stuart Lake, created a fictional biography of him that has been the basis of the movies.

The idea here is not to demolish heroes.  Nor am I trying to prove that reality is a lot messier than people would like to believe.  I suspect most people are well aware of that.  Rather, I would like to suggest we always keep an open mind and look at as many of the facts as possible before making decisions. 

Maybe then, we can resolve our many problems without being hampered by preconceived and little understood solutions, whether we are talking about the Islamic world, wars, political differences, taxes or any other topic on a local, state, national or international level.

There are two sides to everything – sometimes even many more than that.

Bill Lazarus teaches writing and communication courses at international students attending Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.  Recent books include Comparative Religion for Dummies (Wiley, 2009); The Unauthorized Biography of Nostradamus (Halifax Press, 2010) and Noel, The Tradition and History of Christmas Carols (Halifax Press, 2010).  His books are available on Amazon or by going to his website, www.williamplazarus.com. 

Bible and Koran II

I’ve been carrying on a discussion with a reader of my book, The Gospel Truth, which details where the authors of the New Testament got their information.  The reader thought both the Bible and the Muslim sacred text, the Koran, were created through the compilation of written and oral documents, which enhance their historical nature.

I pointed out that while the Koran used that method, war interfered in the case of Christian compilers so that they had nothing left.  

 He countered with this comment: “I would still support the idea that in absence of a written history of Jesus during his life or immediately after, that the oral tradition and oral recording was far more powerful than we might suspect, and that the details of Jesus' life were maintained not only by a suppressed fledgling Christian religion, but also by those who either disregarded Jesus and Christianity, or opposed it entirely.”

In addition, he noted, “The truth of the existence of Jesus has some correlation to the historic events that are cited in that religious history. Likewise, what's known about Mohammad and the formation of Islam also has a correlation to other historic events, only more so because presumably literacy and the technology of recording history had advanced to capture greater perspective of whom Mohammad was and how Islam emerged.”

While the comments seem plausible, they are not.  Without understanding the depth of investigations that have taken place regarding the time of Jesus, anyone might think that that historical recording improved in time and that the Gospels contain historical truths which buttress the account of Jesus’ life. 

For starters, the recording of history was better in 1 AD than it was in 632 AD or in 1200 AD.  In reality, the Greeks and Romans did a far better job of recording history than any cultures prior to the advent of printing in the 1400s.  The Greeks had started the concept of history under Herodotus.  It flourished after that with Thucydides and many more. 

It’s hard to find historians once the Roman Empire fell.  The first Christian history was not written until the 4^th century.  The Bishop Eusebius did not include any sources and, from all available evidence, was writing from a religious perspective, not an historical one. 

After him, there are few historians of any kind.  The Venerable Bede and Procopius are the most prominent.   Procopius, following in the Roman tradition, is better known for his secret history of Emperor Justinian’s reign, which contradicts his official account. 

Bede was a priest who wrote an account of Christianity in England from the beginning until his own day in the late seventh century.  As the Catholic Encyclopedia, his book serves as “the foundation of all our knowledge of British history.” Unfortunately, Bede considered the Scripture as a more important book and a valuable source, although historians today know it is very inaccurate.

The lack of any history is understandable.  People waiting for the world to end are not going to stress literacy.  The Catholic Church didn’t.  It wanted to dictate belief and fared a public that read the texts. Christmas carols, crèches and the like start in the Middle Ages as way to educate the illiterate masses.

In the 1400s, Luther took advantage of the Church’s reluctance to launch of Protestant Revolution.  He did so by using the written language to translate the Bible into German.

Actually, much of what we know from the fifth century to the 14^th has been gleaned from deed transfers and other records. For example, we know a lot of about England after the French conquest because King William ordered a survey of all the towns now under his control.  The result was what became known as the Doomsday Book, a survey of the English land and resources in 1086.  That suffices for historical reporting. 

In contrast, a wide array of historians was busily documenting facts through the Roman Empire.  They include world leaders like Augustus Caesar and Julius Caesar, whose books on the Gallic wars are still read in schools (I know – I took three years of Latin in high school.)  Others include Plutarch, Livy, Tacitus and Sallust.  Many of their works survive; none mention Jesus.

Given the extensive historical documentation in the Roman Empire, the absence of any mention of Jesus becomes startling.  Not even Philo, an Egyptian-based Jewish philosopher who lived at the same time of Jesus and was immersed in the idea of a God and the word (which is where John got the idea), knew the "messiah" existed. 

No one did.  Not even Paul, who wrote the first recorded Christian documents, his letters, had any idea that Jesus was betrayed, performed miracles or said anything special.  To Paul, Jesus becomes the chosen one of God after dying innocently on the cross.  He was, Paul wrote, born in the normal way to a woman in Galilee. History in his writing disappears after that. 

Besides, history was not the Gospel writers’ concern.  In answer to my reader’s second concern, the Gospel authors used names and places to give their account an historical patina, not the other way around.  Historians know that because the New Testament accounts are inaccurate. For example, the description of the trial of Jesus contradicts all valid descriptions of a Roman trial.  In those trails, Judges are never seen.  They do not traipse back and forth to address a mob.

The mention of Pilate, the census and the like are probably nothing more than glosses to give that historic sense.   Pilate, like all Roman administrators, left detailed records; they have vanished.  Hmm.  Don't you think that, if they matched the religious stories, they might have been widely disseminated? 

Finally, the records of those opposed to Christianity did survive.  The Ebionites, for example, the first followers of Jesus, condemned Paul and his teachings, which is the source of Christianity.  Christians call the Ebionite belief the "first heresy." 

In reality, the only reasons the revelations of Mohammad were preserved are because the religion he founded endured and thrived.  The comments of other would-be prophets have vanished or are ignored.  For example, the Avista, which contains the thoughts of Zoroaster, the founder of the once-powerful Farsi faith, are nothing more than afterthoughts in religious history.

None of this means that Christianity is wrong and Islam is right.  Or vice versa.  That is a matter of belief, something no historian can counter.  All historians can do is show how a belief started and developed over the years.  Fortunately, with Islam, we have the historical documentation to do that.  That’s simply not true with Christianity.

Bill Lazarus is been a long-time writer, educator and religious historian.  He holds an M.A. in communication from Kent State University and is a full-time instructor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.  His latest book, The Gospel Truth, was published in February 2011 and is available via Amazon.com or on his website www.williamplazarus.com .  You can also write him via Jeanne.

The Bible and the Koran

A reader of my new book, The Gospel Truth, which examines where the authors of the New Testament gathered their information, sent me an e-mail that raised some important issues.  

My book points out that nothing was written down about Jesus until decades after his death, leaving little for the Gospel authors to work with.  “The lack of recorded narrative or history about Jesus would not have stopped a lesser author, and, in fact, 40 years later is not unusual for the literate to record the spoken history,” the reader noted.

He added that, “The Quran is not unlike that. It was decades after Mohammad's death that literates recorded the memorized or interpreted content of Mohammad's prophesies, and several hundred years later that the Hadith -- or Islamic laws -- were recorded with the meticulous pedigree of tellers that substantiate each entry.”

His comparison of the two, apparently similar, sacred documents is understandable.  Without studying history, no one would know that these texts were created under entirely different circumstances.

First, the Koran: Listeners scribbled revelations of Mohammad, who was illiterate, onto leaves, scraps of cloth and similar material.  The writings were supposedly assembled -- amended and augmented -- some 50 years after his death under Sultan Uthman.  Unfortunately, more recent scholars have argued that the text contains writing elements not used in Arabic until centuries later.  That would make the date of its compilation uncertain.  It’s also possible that the Koran went through the same kind of editing as the Bible, which is known to have received hundreds of thousands of changes.  Historian Paul Johnson called the rewriting “pious editing.”

Nevertheless, the Koran has been accepted as the revelations expressed by Mohammad.  Later commentaries were based on (often inaccurate) stories passed along through generations. Nevertheless, the people who knew Mohammad were able to share their accounts, no doubt flavoring them the way all witnesses do. 

That's not true with early Christians.  All the early followers of Jesus, called Ebionites, were wiped out in a war with the Romans before the initial Gospel text, Mark, was written. The Roman war started in 66.  The Temple, the core of Jewish belief, was burned down in 70, and the revolution ended disastrously for the Jews in 73.  Jerusalem was leveled.  Records destroyed.  Perhaps 1 million people died.  No one who knew Jesus was available to pass along his stories. Any written documents – a rarity anyway – would have been lost in the conflagration.

Instead, survivors followed the teachings of Paul, who never met Jesus or agreed with his followers.  Paul moved outside Israel and, by tradition, died in Rome.  His letters went to colonies founded outside Israel and the war.  The Gospels were also written outside Israel.   The Christian movement was based on Pauline teachings and galvanized by the destruction of the Temple, which convinced believers that the promised end of the world would arrive soon.

Under the circumstances, few accurate stories about Jesus existed or could have existed.  As noted in my book, historians of the day did not know him.  That includes the Jewish historian Josephus, who described the war against the Romans.  

What has come down to us are four versions of the story of Jesus.  None of them agree except superficially. Many of the sayings attributed to Jesus predate him and are attributable to multiple speakers.  The stories clearly were drawn from biblical or other accounts and superimposed on the unknown life of Jesus. 

As a result, when whoever we call Mark sat down in Rome to tell the story of Jesus, at best he knew a few oral stories about Jesus -- all enhanced by both time and the desire to add divine qualities -- and teachings about what a messiah must do. Uthman had a lot more to work with, including eyewitnesses.

As Dr. Charles Guinebert, the late professor of Christian history noted in his famed book Jesus, “Jesus was born, he lived, he was crucified and he died.  Everything else is conjecture.” 

As a result, we can be sure at least some of the non-fantastic stories about Mohammad and sayings attributed to him are likely true.  That simply cannot be said for Jesus.  That's particularly evident when stories about Jesus are compared to those about Sabbati Zevi, a 17th century mystic once thought to be the messiah.  Followers of Sevi, who were Jews in a Muslim world and knew nothing of Jesus, developed virtually identical mythological tales as did followers of Jesus centuries before.  Sabbatai adherents actually accused Christians of stealing stories about Zevi and applying them to Jesus.

At best then, much – if not all – of the Jesus story is mythology.  No one as is supposed to know that.  As Winston Churchill was advised, once he started questioning his Anglican faith, the stories of Jesus are probably not true, but it would not be wise to discuss that openly.  Once we discard the mythology, however, Dr. Albert Schweitzer realized unhappy in his book Quest for the Historical Jesus, nothing is left, especially a real person.  That's not the case with Islam.

That may also explain why Islam is growing so rapidly.  Islam is now the world’s second-largest religion and boasted an annual growth rate of 6.40 percent, according to United Nations figures.  The growth is worldwide:  Since 1989, the number of Muslims in our neck of the woods has blossomed 25 percent and in Europe a whopping 142.35 percent.  Some of that is related to higher birthrates and to natural movement of people from one land to another.  

Some of it has to do with a decline in Christianity.  In some countries, like Sweden, the Christian religion has virtually disappeared.  

Some historians actually predict Islam will eventually replace Christianity as the world’s largest religion.

Of course, when that happens, there will be a lot more questions to answer.

Bill Lazarus is been a long-time writer, educator and religious historian.  His latest book, The Gospel Truth, was published in February 2011 and is available via Amazon.com or on his website www.williamplazarus.com .