Ludicrous Aspects Of Christianity A Response To The Challenge Of The Bishop Of Manchester — Key Ideas to Explore

The Challenge and the Method

Holyoake frames his entire project as a direct response to a specific public statement. The Bishop of Manchester, speaking in Oldham in August 1870, had issued a dare: he could defy anyone to caricature the work, character, or person of Jesus Christ. Holyoake takes this as an invitation to test the claim. He insists he lacks the temerity to wound the devout, but he cannot help finding the Gospels 'amusing, extravagant, and contradictory.' His stated aim is to read the text as it is, not as faith expects it to be. He distinguishes his approach from that of Ernest Renan, who he says went looking for a perfect man and found one; Holyoake claims only to report what he actually sees.

Property, Prophecy, and the Two Donkeys

One of Holyoake's most detailed critiques targets the Gospel account of Jesus entering Jerusalem. He seizes on the detail that Jesus sent disciples to fetch a donkey and its colt, interpreting this as a straightforward appropriation of someone else's property. Holyoake then mocks the prophecy that the king would come 'meek, and sitting upon an ass, and a colt the foal of an ass,' pointing out the physical impossibility of sitting on two animals at once. He calls the prophet 'an ass' for not realizing this. The episode, he argues, reveals 'very loose notions indeed of the rights of property.' He compares the act unfavorably to what would be said of Mahomet or Joseph Smith.

The Temple Incident as Assault

Holyoake continues his literalist reading with the cleansing of the temple. He notes that Jesus, a stranger to Jerusalem, had no more right to be there than the merchants. He describes Jesus taking a rope and thrashing everyone out, upsetting tables and chairs, and calls the resulting consternation what 'only a Bedlamite broken loose would be likely to produce.' Holyoake then draws a modern parallel: if someone behaved that way on the Stock Exchange, the police would arrest him immediately. The excuse of being about his Father's business would only aggravate the offence. The passage is typical of Holyoake's technique: applying contemporary legal and social standards to first-century events.

The Cursing of the Fig Tree

Perhaps the most famous of Holyoake's examples is the fig tree that Jesus cursed for not bearing fruit out of season. Holyoake points out the obvious: it was not the right season for figs. He concedes that an excited hungry man might forget this, but argues that cursing the tree for a natural lack of fruit is a sign of madness. He then quotes Jesus' response to his disciples—that faith could move mountains—and dismisses it as 'insane talk' that nobody can believe. The episode, for Holyoake, epitomizes the absurdity of taking Gospel narratives at face value. He ends with a dry warning: 'the less they try such credulity on fruit trees, the better for our orchards.'

Holyoake's pamphlet is a period piece of Victorian freethought polemic, but its method remains striking: he reads scripture with the rigorous literalism that believers often reserve for their own interpretations, then follows the logic wherever it leads. Readers interested in the history of biblical criticism, the rhetoric of secularism, or simply the art of the sardonic footnote will find much to consider. The text rewards attention to its rhetorical moves—the sudden shifts from mock solemnity to deadpan observation, the use of anachronistic comparison, and the refusal to let any miraculous claim pass without a practical test.