Story Time Jesus memes feature an image of Lars Justinen’s painting, The Parable, which shows a diverse group of people gathered around Jesus Christ as He explains various concepts about creation, life, death, and other Biblical parables. The twelve-meme sample was taken from the website knowyourmeme.com. The sampling strategy concentrated on identifying memes that demonstrate three main characteristics: 1) retell Biblical narratives in a hyper-modernized fashion, 2) state the scripture reference that directly applies (or be able to clearly infer which Biblical story is being referenced), 3) portray the Christian faith as a playful, user-friendly religion
Story Time Jesus has been used to retell and exploit a wide range of Biblical stories/topics; He is portrayed as a general storyteller in each meme with no focus on one specific idea or type of story. He is often used in a positive, playful way, although Story Time Jesus memes often exhibit sarcasm and hyperbole.
The “Come At Me Bro” meme refers to when Jesus is teaching lessons about proper Christian behavior to a large group of people in chapter 6 of Luke. |
The “Embrace Me Bro!” meme refers to the passage miracle of healing that Jesus performs in Mark 2 to a man who is paralyzed. Humor types of playfulness and incongruity are exhibited in this sampling. |
This meme refers to the Biblical passage where Jesus asks Abraham to sacrifice his son as a testing of Abraham's trust and faith in Jesus. |