Samson

[Zzyzx]

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Bible tales about Samson

Judges 13:5 Samson went down to Timnah together with his father and mother. As they approached the vineyards of Timnah, suddenly a young lion came roaring toward him. 6 The Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon him so that he tore the lion apart with his bare hands as he might have torn a young goat.

19 Then the Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon him. He went down to Ashkelon, struck down thirty of their men, stripped them of everything and gave their clothes to those who had explained the riddle.

3 Samson said to them, “This time I have a right to get even with the Philistines; I will really harm them.� 4 So he went out and caught three hundred foxes and tied them tail to tail in pairs. He then fastened a torch to every pair of tails, 5 lit the torches and let the foxes loose in the standing grain of the Philistines. He burned up the shocks and standing grain, together with the vineyards and olive groves.

14 As he approached Lehi, the Philistines came toward him shouting. The Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon him. The ropes on his arms became like charred flax, and the bindings dropped from his hands. 15 Finding a fresh jawbone of a donkey, he grabbed it and struck down a thousand men.

17 So he told her everything. “No razor has ever been used on my head,� he said, “because I have been a Nazirite dedicated to God from my mother’s womb. If my head were shaved, my strength would leave me, and I would become as weak as any other man.�

25 While they were in high spirits, they shouted, “Bring out Samson to entertain us.� So they called Samson out of the prison, and he performed for them. When they stood him among the pillars, 26 Samson said to the servant who held his hand, “Put me where I can feel the pillars that support the temple, so that I may lean against them.� 27 Now the temple was crowded with men and women; all the rulers of the Philistines were there, and on the roof were about three thousand men and women watching Samson perform. 28 Then Samson prayed to the Lord, “Sovereign Lord, remember me. Please, God, strengthen me just once more, and let me with one blow get revenge on the Philistines for my two eyes.� 29 Then Samson reached toward the two central pillars on which the temple stood. Bracing himself against them, his right hand on the one and his left hand on the other, 30 Samson said, “Let me die with the Philistines!� Then he pushed with all his might, and down came the temple on the rulers and all the people in it. Thus he killed many more when he died than while he lived.


Summary:

1. Killed a lion bare handed
2. 'Struck down' / Killed thirty men
3. Caught 300 foxes and tied their tales together
4. 'Struck down' / Killed 1000 men
5. Lost strength when hair was cut
6. Regained strength and pushed down pillars of a large temple collapsing it onto 3000 people

Really? All true?

Killed 1000 men with the jawbone of a donkey? Really? Did they just line up and kneel?

A haircut caused loss of strength? Really? (No wonder I haven't pushed down any temples lately)

Pushed down a large building? Really?

Columns two feet diameter and twenty feet high would weigh over 10,000 pounds each* – times two – not considering the resistance of the entire structure – not considering that downing two columns is not likely to collapse an entire building. (*area of 2' circle = 3.14 x 20' tall = 62.8 cubic feet x 170 pounds / cubic food marble = 10,700#)

Is it more rational to consider the Samson tale a myth, perhaps on the order of Paul Bunyan – with a tiny kernel of truth with a whole lot of exaggeration?

(Note: Historians believe Bunyan was based in large part on an actual lumberjack: Fabian Fournier, a French-Canadian timberman who moved south and got a job as foreman of a logging crew in Michigan after the Civil War https://www.history.com/news/was-paul-b ... eal-person )

[Menotu]

[Replying to post 1 by Zzyzx]

It's magic......


But in all honesty, when does one cross that line? When do so many of these exceptional claim cross the line into the magic realm?
Christians don't like to make that correlation (between God's claims and magic) but one has to ask when does that happen?

Maybe it has more to do with belief than it does anything else?

Maybe JKR needs to pay royalties to the RCC? Both books seem to deal with magic.

[Diagoras]

There was a closely-related aspect of this story that I’d been meaning to comment on for a while. Judges 16:6-16 has Delilah pestering Samson three times to tell her the secret of his strength, and Samson making up tales of reeds, ropes and of weaving his hair into a loom.

Immediately after each of Samson’s ‘confessions’, Delilah performs the exact actions required to sap Samson’s strength, and then - lo and behold! - a bunch of Philistines leap out to grab him, mistakenly thinking he’s lost his strength.

One might consider Samson to be a little slow on the uptake. After all, the first episode with Delilah suddenly acquiring seven reeds and binding Samson with them must have been a clue that she was up to no good. Apparently, Samson had the bad luck to choose a second wife who nagged him constantly (see Judges 14:7 - Samson’s riddle) and yet he didn’t bother to send Delilah away and get another woman, like he did with his first wife (Judges 14:20 - he gave her away to his friend).

It’s not as if he’s incapable of finding ‘comfort’ with a woman and is limited to Delilah. In Judges 16:1, he’s off with a ‘harlot’ - possibly the first woman he’s seen in Gaza, after twenty long years of ‘judging’. I can’t imagine he was someone you’d say ‘no’ to, as this tale of brothel-creeping is presumably only inserted into a sacred text to underscore Samson’s utter contempt for the city’s defence. The very next verse, he rips the gates off the city wall and wanders off (I like to imagine Michael Caine commenting a la ‘The Italian Job - look up the quote for a laugh), before falling for Delilah.

Samson seems to be a tale of some grossly over-exaggerated ‘warrior stud’, who nevertheless was brought low by a woman.

Embellishing tales of your tribe’s strongest warrior, but adding a caution to beware of nagging and sneaky women might be a good way to mythologise him. Having him dramatically ‘take out’ three thousand of the enemy when he’s bound and blinded is just a fitting finale to the whole thing.

These days, we’re entertained by action movie heroes. For desert tribes two thousand years ago, Samson would have been their ‘Arnie’ or ‘Jason Bourne’.

[Difflugia]

I'm not sure if this is common knowledge, but Samson is Shamash, the Sumerian and Babylonian solar deity. In short, his long locks of hair are solar rays. Delilah (דְּלִילָֽה) is a play on the Hebrew root for "to weaken" or "to languish" (דלל) and the word for "night" (לַיְלָה). The sun weakens when it is shorn and blinded by the night, but its strength returns when its rays and light return in the morning.

To those that can tolerate reading Google scans of old books, I recommend two:

Mythology Among the Hebrews and its Historical Development by Ignác Goldziher
The Story of Samson and its Place in the Religious Development of Mankind by Paul Carus

[Red Wolf]

The Samson story is a fable. Nobody can really believe the story is true.....can they?

[Clownboat]

The Samson story is a fable. Nobody can really believe the story is true.....can they?

The civilized world is realizing this it seems.
Day by day people are being set free from their religious beliefs.
(Not including 3rd world countries yet unfortunately).

Yet even in civilized countries, there are still those that have been convinced that they deserve to burn in hell for eternity for being born in to sin. For these people, the only medicine that can cure them comes with odd myths like this one that many take as true still.

[1213]

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Really? All true?
...

This doesn’t really seem to be any debate topic, but if you are interested, I believe the story is true as Bible tells it. How people interpret it, may not be true.

[amortalman]

The Samson story is a fable. Nobody can really believe the story is true.....can they?

Yes, unfortunately. There are 14.8 million Southern Baptists in the US and many thousands (perhaps millions) more evangelicals who are biblical literalists. I'm not saying all of them believe all the mythology in the Bible but it is taught as true stories from the pulpits and Bible study classes.

[Tcg]

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Really? All true?
...

...I believe the story is true as Bible tells it.

This doesn't answer the question asked. It doesn't ask if you believe the story, it asks if this story is true.

People are capable of believing all manner of stories. Their belief has no bearing on the truth of the stories they believe.


Tcg

[Zzyzx]

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Really? All true?

This doesn’t really seem to be any debate topic,

For any who have difficulty understanding the OP, it asks if the Samson story is true, if the events and feats described actually happened in the real world.

but if you are interested, I believe the story is true as Bible tells it. How people interpret it, may not be true.

What you 'believe' may be significant in church or among fellow believer; however, your beliefs are of no interest or merit in debate. What you can substantiate, it anything, can be of interest and merit.

Did Samson catch 300 foxes, kill a lion, kill a thousand men, kill thousands by pulling down a temple? How can the truth of the story be determined?

Concerning the likelihood of catching 300 foxes: fox population density in arid areas is approximately three per square mile (0.9 per km2). Thus, if Samson could catch every fox available, he would have had to scour an area of over 100 square miles (10 miles x 10 mile area) to catch 300 foxes.