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Legions of Laughter: What’s Up with Those 2,000 Pigs?
It turns out that humor and war have gone together for thousands of years.
by Dr. Hal Taussig
Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian President, worked as a comic when he was a young adult. Even in the middle of the current horrendous Russian invasion, Zelenskyy is not averse to reaching for biting humor to ease the strain of dealing with the trauma of war. And actually, word is now spreading that using dark humor to cope with the strain is both common and popular among the Ukrainian population.
Although straightlaced Christians in the 21st century don’t seem to like thinking about anything in the Bible being funny, it actually contains lots of humor. We just don’t get it. Indeed, in a very Ukraine-like manner, the Bible approaches the horrendous ancient Roman violence with jokes too.
Here we go then. Let’s see what dark humor does in both the first and 21st centuries. Let’s try out contemporary Ukrainian laughter and ancient New Testament jokes. In both cases folks do not use humor as an effort just to look on the “bright side of life.” Rather, although laughter does flow in both cases (if the 21st century Christians can only wake up to it), the humor is dark enough to have people both crying and laughing at the same time. This kind of humor usually goes deep enough to give a different perspective.
This week’s Associated Press national article’s headline (by John Leicester) was “War isn’t funny but humor helps Ukrainians cope with trauma.” Headlining both Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and a country gardener who quips that “Russian missiles churning up her potato plot…would spare her the spade work” are part of Ukrainians’ deep laughter.
In the New Testament one of the most challenging and funny stories in Mark, Matthew, and Luke starts as a dark tale with a man’s life falling apart into deep pain because of thousands of Roman soldiers occupying the parts of Galilee where he lives and works. These soldiers torture this man, his family, and neighbors so much that the man was crazy with pain and loss: “The man lived in the tombs… Night and day among the tombs and in the hills he would cry out and cut himself with stones.” (Mark 5:3,5)
But when Jesus came through the tombs and talked with him, the story turns strange and eventually funny, finally fantastically healing and with a victory by the man over the thousands of Roman soldiers.
This lively and strange situation starts with the man telling Jesus that he is possessed by the legion of Roman (2000) soldiers occupying his land. Jesus challenges the legion of soldiers that the man feels inside him, making him crazy and hurting him. Then funny things start to happen. Jesus sees 2,000 pigs on a hillside near the tombs, and Jesus chases the legion of soldiers out of the man and into the 2,000 pigs. The violent legion—now inside the 2,000 pigs—“rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned.” (Mark 5:13)
With the legion gone from the man, into the pigs, and finally dead in the lake; the man is relieved of his pain and craziness. He feels fine.
Because most Bible-readers in our day think the Bible is always serious, they miss the hilarity of Jesus and the man single-handedly killing the legion (and/or pigs). Of course, the people in the first century—just like the 21st century Ukrainians—did not really think that the Roman soldiers/pigs died. Indeed, since the people of Galilee never ate or even had pigs, the first century people knew there were not 2,000 pigs on a hill in Galilee, but rather there were 2,000 Roman soldiers stationed in the Galilean hills.
That is, the ancient story about Roman military occupation of Israel is only a fantasy that imagines a different reality, making fun of the Roman legion, just as today the Ukrainian woman imagines the Russian missiles doing the spade work in her potato patch.
Of course, both the Ukrainian and Bible comics make light of the violent Russians and Romans, showing their enemies missing their mark, and holding up the future in favor of the people of Ukraine and Israel.
Here’s to humor that paints a dark, funny, and different perspective. Here’s to letting the people who look like they are in trouble chuckle about their future. Here’s to violent legions rushing toward their own demise.
Based partly on “Legions of Laughter: What’s Up with Those 2,000 Pigs?” I have written a poem about Jesus and the man full of demons. I have listened to many of your online sessions and enjoyed them. Hope you like the poem (below).
Legion of Demons
By Lance Carden
Jesus went by ship to the Gadarenes
& met a poor man full of demons,
living among tombs, the many tombs
filled by some of his closest friends.
In that country were many Romans,
legions of soldiers—& one of them,
two thousand strong, in the same region.
To this man’s head, they all were demons.
He told dear Jesus of this legion,
the legion of demons in his head.
“There’s no good reason,” the Master said,
“to keep all of them inside your head,
for all is One & that One is good;
I’ll cast them all out, instead, instead.”
But then the poor man thought to opine:
“Cast them all into the sea, sea, sea,
where there are no tombs for one to find;
cast them all into the wide, wide sea.”
But the demon legion cried aloud:
“If you intend to cast everyone out,
cast us not out in the teeming sea;
for we know not what the seas about.”
Tired of hearing their whine, whine, whine,
Jesus replied to the bitter man:
“How about into some swine, swine, swine?
I could send them all into filthy swine!”
The poor madman grinned & he nodded
his head; then suddenly he started
to smile at what the Master had said,
nodding & nodding his poor, poor head
when Jesus said: “Can you see; can’t you see,
a herd of pigs running down
to the sea, the sea, the wide, wide sea?
Lift up your eyes & see, see, see.”
The man saw nothing running that way;
no swine here, though there used to be.
But he started to laugh, laugh with glee,
when the legion fled his poor, poor head,
as Jesus smiled, yes, smiled & said
the swine were jumping into the sea.
For Lance Carden and his poem, many thanks.
Which poetry do you like better in these three somewhat different gospel poetics?
From which funny reading do you get the most laughs? The very idea of 2000 pigs? The almost reality of legions of soldiers being killed after all their killings? The imagination of pigs and/or soldiers helping the demoniac feel better after so many of his friends and family being brutalized by Roman violence?
Or, more or less where I have landed, all of the above dark humor?
Yes, many thanks, for your sneaky poetics with so many choices!
Sara Barnacle commented privately: I really appreciated Hal’s article on the destruction of legions of “pigs.” People are forever asking me about this story, and Hal has given me a new perspective to share. However: I believe Mark’s story was set in the country of the Gadarenes, not Galilee. Yes? No?
For Sara Barnacle’s lovely and smart comments on my poetic location of this darkly humorous “story”.
Many thanks for your point about whether this “occurs” in Galilee at all, as I told the story. Yes, yours is a good point especially that in a number of readings of some Greek versions it is clearly the “Gadarenes, not Galilee”. There is no reason not to keep that Gadarenes reading in play. And yes, especially in various readings of Mark, there is larger comedy and complexity concerning how much Israelite identities are in place in Mark overall. I apologize for leaving that reading out. But, as you probably also know, the locations for this “story” are multiple in different manuscripts. I think my single comic reading of Galilee was meant to be simply that. If I was not encumbered by the short version of the blog form, I probably would have elaborated several more comic readings. Again, many thanks, Sara Barnacle, for giving us more comedy and more scholarship to keep in play.
Hmmmmm ,,,, Do you s’pose …. Mark may have indicated that this poking of lethal-but-healing fun at the Roman legions happened “oh, somewhere over there, to the east — er, Gadara, that’s right, Gadara”— to keep the legions actually stationed in Galilee from realizing that the grim humorist was working (and his followers were working after him) all around them in Galilee? Another question: Were there other occasions when Jesus so directly attacked those Roman legions? I am familiar with Walter Wink’s explanation, in his Powers trilogy, of turning the other cheek, walking the extra mile, giving your last remaining garment to a creditor, etc. (Matt 5:38-42) as teaching the poor that when unfairly oppressed by the Roman authorities, God will give you an actionable idea that will help you triumph through nonviolent direct action. This may also be a form of humor: Besting the Romans at their game, but through your style of play.