The total absence of humor from the Bible is one of the most singular things in all literature.

Whitehead is remarking on what he perceives as a striking tonal feature of the biblical canon: compared with much of world literature, it rarely aims at overt comedy or sustained humor. The observation is less a claim that the Bible contains no irony, satire, or wordplay than that its dominant rhetorical posture is solemn—prophetic warning, moral instruction, lament, praise, and theological argument—rather than entertainment. Read this way, the quote points to how genre and purpose shape style: texts meant to found a religious community and convey divine law tend to suppress the comic mode. It also invites debate about whether humor is present but culturally distant, lost in translation, or overlooked by modern readers.