bread-alone
Explanation
The Joke
A priest is quoting scripture: "Man shall not live by bread alone. But have you tried taquitos?" -- attributed to "Matthew 4:4: Universe 98x771812." The caption below reads: "According to multiverse theory, there are infinite versions of every book of the Bible."
The Humor
The comic takes the famous Bible verse from Matthew 4:4 ("Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God") and imagines what alternate-universe versions of this verse might say. In this particular parallel universe (numbered 98x771812), Jesus's response to Satan's temptation in the desert was not a profound theological statement but a casual food recommendation for taquitos.
The humor lies in the collision of the serious implications of multiverse theory with the mundane results it would produce. If there truly are infinite parallel universes, then mathematically there must exist versions where sacred religious texts contain absurd or trivial content instead of profound wisdom. The priest delivers this ridiculous verse with the same gravity and solemnity as he would the real one, adding to the comedic effect.
References
- Matthew 4:4: A Bible verse in which Jesus, being tempted by Satan during his 40 days of fasting in the wilderness, responds: "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God."
- Multiverse theory: The hypothesis that our universe is just one of many (possibly infinite) parallel universes, each potentially having different physical constants, histories, or events. Various interpretations exist in physics, including the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics and the inflationary multiverse.