Via Tyler Meier: The entire Bible in limericks!
They’re not great. Too much onomatopoeic filler and too many exclamations for my taste. Still, here’s the end of the flood, which has the added benefit of ascribing the destruction of the world to a zinger in a debate:
As God made His point, the rain stopped,
And onto Mount Ar-a-rat dropped
The ark. All within it
Cried, ‘Praise God! We’ve done it!’
And onto dry land out they popped!
And Daniel 1:3–7 is funny:
Neb wanted some bright young men who
Were skillful in knowledge. ‘You’ll do’
Az-a-rí-ah and Dan-iel
Han-án-i-ah, Mi-shael’—
Neb gave them new names, as you do!So now, Bel-te-shazz-ar was Dan,
And Az was A-béd-ne-go, man!
And Han was called Shad-rach
While Mi-shael was Me-shach,
All part of old king Neb-bie’s plan!
The new testament scriptures don’t offer quite as many good stories (I can hardly imagine slogging through a series of Pauline arguments in limerick. It would take a much more talented lyricist than Handley to keep the lines from being nonsense.) But still, there’s this, in which Jesus uses up some magic points to do good:
A crowd had been round Him for hours
‘They’ll be hungry,’ said Jesus. His powers
To feed them He used.
With compassion, He mused—
‘Fish and bread, more than ever, are yours!’
And Spirit 1, Body 0:
Peter reached the tomb well after John.
It was true. Jesus’ body had gone!
Empty tomb. Body nil!
Yet the graveclothes were still
As they’d left them. Could this be a con?
Awesomest comment ever finishes a limerick that begins with the line, “There was a sperm donor named Onan.”
There was a sperm donor named Onan,
whom the Lord could scarce reckon a man:
He came on the floor,
Tamar played the whore,
Thus the Pope forbids families to plan!
by JH—Sep 14, 11:13 AM
David’s blade wouldn’t rise to the chalice
Of the virgin they sent to his palace.
He tried and he tried,
but finally, he sighed,
“My God! What I’d give for Cialis!”
by greg—Sep 14, 11:43 AM
1 totally pwns.
by greg—Sep 14, 11:44 AM
1 was written forwards while 2 seems to be written backwards.
by JH—Sep 14, 11:52 AM
That’s pretty much right. I tried the story several ways but wrote the punchline well before the first couplet.
Somebody do Ham and Noah!
by greg—Sep 14, 11:57 AM
You people with actual religious backgrounds are so much more well versed than I am!
(My religious background was, of course, interrupted by my father, who was pro-pun and probably pro-limerick but anti-ordination-of-women.)
by Laura—Sep 14, 08:14 PM
Old Noah was quite the oenophile;
his youngest named Ham, a paraphile:
when dad would get drunk,
Ham would ogle his trunk,
And Canaan was cursed as servile.
This I was told as a boy:
don’t be a drunk or a voyeur.
Now that I’m grown,
I think Ham came into his own
and that is how Canaan was born.
by Balthasar Gracián—Sep 17, 10:26 PM
w00t!
I say this thread should remain in the background for years to come, with people contributing as the mood (and muse) strikes.
by JH—Sep 18, 07:27 AM
8 is exactly right.
by greg—Sep 18, 07:40 AM
reworking the last of the pair
This I was told as a boy…er:
don’t be a drunk or a voyeur.
Now that I’m grown,
I think Ham came into his own
and Canaan was his half-step brother.
by Jeremy—Sep 18, 07:46 AM
Following from 8, on the front-page sidebar, under “Access,” there’s now a permanent link here.
Re: the reworking—You have to give up “voyeur” or try to rhyme it with “-atcher” nouns.
The first of the pair was excellent.
by greg—Sep 18, 08:18 AM
And if you get bored with limericks, there’s the LOLcat Bible.
by Laura—Oct 9, 03:52 PM
The LOLcat Bible will be the crowning achievement of Western Civilization. In the future it will be read more often than the real Bible, and do 1000x more good. I wish I were unemployed and therefore able to contribute.
by JH—Oct 9, 04:13 PM
OMG!!!!!OMCC!!11!! Leviticus 21 teh brilliant!by greg—Oct 9, 05:18 PM
The Ecclesiastes stuff is pretty good too.
by JH—Oct 9, 05:43 PM
Holy shit, I’m reading through 1 Corinthians on LOLcatbible and trying not to wake my housemates up.
by JH—Mar 10, 08:06 PM
I was doing so well trying to avoid that site. Now, look because of you, I can’t stop thinking “If u beleived what I says, WOOT!”
by greg—Mar 10, 08:45 PM
7: It suddenly occurs to me that the second couplet in the first limerick should actually be
by greg—Mar 14, 03:56 PM
Indeed.
by JH—Mar 14, 07:09 PM