LITMIR.BIZ

Funny Stuff in the Bible is a field trip through the Bible library hunting for funny stuff. The many stories and other literature in this library were written over a period of a thousand years. This is well known. Thinking of the Bible as a library provides perspective. Though there are more copies of this library, its writings bound into a single volume, than of any other book in the world, the literature in it is underrated and underenjoyed. It is underenjoyed because of the smog created by the notion that every word is religiously serious and not for enjoyment, let alone laughter. This overlay of morality and religious seriousness makes it difficult to read a particular story as we do other stories in the world. Funny Stuff shakes off these notions to enjoy some stories. The Bible is a large library. We can only explore a little of it as we look both for stuff that makes us laugh and also things that are strange. We investigate what we come across–stumble on, so to speak. The quest is undertaken in good humor and with light hearts.

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Arnold of Brescia (ca 1100-1155), exiled twice and finally martyred, takes us into the student world of Paris during the blossoming of the twelfth-century Renaissance, through an infamous heresy trial, to teaching in Paris, then Zurich, and into Rome where he was the spiritual leader of the city for almost a decade. Arnold believed the church should be separate from civil government. He supported the revived Roman Senate and the Roman people who were foremost among the many who loved and admired him. An Augustinian canon regular, Arnold made the authorities, ecclesiastical and imperial, tremble. He was a brilliant scholar of Latin literature and Scripture–a combination that made him both sane and formidable. He was first a student and later a colleague of the great Peter Abelard–a champion of reason. Their independence brought them into conflict with Bernard of Clairvaux, relentless defender of the status quo in society and theology. Arnold vigorously supported the democratic commune movement as cities struggled for independence from episcopal control during the twelfth century. A man of learning and action, he challenged the medieval synthesis by which popes and emperors exercised authority.

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