Divine Irony

This study develops the idea of irony as the product of the divine point of view through a selective survey of Greek and Israelite religious literatures, including Oedipus, Orestes, and The Bacchae, as well as the Exodus story and the Lord’s answer to Job. A discussion of Socrates considers the divine origins of his irony, and includes an assessment of Kierkegaard’s theory of irony. Paul the apostle is discussed as an author whose use of irony in his letters to Corinth arises specifically from the contrast between God’s foolishness and human wisdom.