Are There Clowns in the Bible? No, but Scripture Speaks Often of Fools

Equipa Christian Pure

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Resumo

  • No major English translation of the Bible uses the word “clown”; only The Message paraphrase does, in 1 Samuel 26:21 and Psalm 69:11.
  • The word “clown” came to mean a professional fool soon after 1600, and Joseph Grimaldi created the modern whiteface clown in the early 1800s.
  • The Bible’s fools, named by Hebrew words such as kesil, ewil e nabal, are people who despise wisdom, not entertainers.
  • Paul wrote that the apostles had become “a spectacle to the world” and “fools for Christ’s sake” (1 Corinthians 4:9–10).
  • The Orthodox Church honors holy fools such as Simeon of Emesa, Basil of Moscow and Xenia of Saint Petersburg, who feigned madness to avoid praise.
  • The picture of Christ as a clown comes from Harvey Cox’s The Feast of Fools (1969) and the musical Godspell (1971), not from Scripture.

No. The Bible never mentions clowns, and none of the major English translations uses the word “clown.” Scripture does speak often of fools, mostly as a warning, and Paul called himself and the other apostles “fools for Christ’s sake” (1 Corinthians 4:10), a phrase later applied to the holy fools of the Orthodox Church. Does the word “clown” appear in any Bible? Only in a paraphrase. The word does not occur in the King James Version, the New International Version,…

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Bibliografia (Clique para mostrar)
  • Scripture quotations from the English Standard Version (1 Samuel 21:13; 25:25; 26:21; 2 Samuel 6:14, 22; Psalms 14:1; 69:11; Proverbs 1:7; 10:23; Ecclesiastes 7:6; Isaiah 20:3; Ezekiel 4:4–5; Matthew 27:28–29; 1 Corinthians 1:18, 25; 4:9–10; Ephesians 5:4), with the King James Version for Ephesians 5:4 and The Message for 1 Samuel 26:21 and Psalm 69:11. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Samuel+26%3A21&version=MSG
  • Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew lexicon, kesil (H3684), ewil (H191) and nabal (H5036), via Blue Letter Bible. https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/h3684/kjv/wlc/0-1/ ; https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/h191/kjv/wlc/0-1/ ; https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/h5036/kjv/wlc/0-1/
  • Thayer’s Greek Lexicon, eutrapelia (G2160) and theatron (G2302), via Blue Letter Bible. https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/g2160/kjv/tr/0-1/ ; https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/g2302/kjv/tr/0-1/
  • John Chrysostom, Homilies on First Corinthians 4 and 12, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, first series, vol. 12. https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/220104.htm ; https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/220112.htm
  • “Foolishness for Christ,” Wikipedia, citing Sergey Ivanov, Holy Fools in Byzantium and Beyond. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foolishness_for_Christ
  • “Simeon the Holy Fool” and “Xenia of Saint Petersburg,” Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simeon_the_Holy_Fool ; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenia_of_Saint_Petersburg
  • “Blessed Basil of Moscow, the Fool-for-Christ,” Orthodox Church in America. https://www.oca.org/saints/lives/1999/08/02/102185-blessed-basil-of-moscow-the-fool-for-christ
  • “Clown,” Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clown
  • “Godspell,” Wikipedia, quoting Stephen Schwartz, “Notes on the Script” (1999). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godspell
  • Harvey Cox, The Feast of Fools: A Theological Essay on Festivity and Fantasy (1969), contents listed at Goodreads; the chapter “Christ the Harlequin” is described in “feast of fools,” a Godspell production blog. https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/753523.The_Feast_of_Fools ; https://olneygodspell.wordpress.com/tag/feast-of-fools/

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