Why isn't the story of SAMPSON quickly and clearly regarded a myth?

by Terry 45 Replies latest watchtower bible

• 

  Terry

  A man wants to have sex with his wife after returning from a long trip away from home.

  His father-in-law tells him something which enrages this returned husband.

  The family had thought he wasn't coming back and had deserted the wife. As a consequence, she had been given to

  another man: a Philistine!

  This triggers an unprecedented rage in the sociopath husband.

  The stage has been set for what he considers "payback."

  JUDGES CHAPTER 15:

  14 When he came to Le′hi, the Phi·lis′tines shouted triumphantly at meeting him. Then Jehovah’s spirit empowered him,+ and the ropes on his arms became like linen threads that were scorched with fire, and his fetters melted off his hands.+ 15 He now found a fresh jawbone of a male donkey; he reached out and grabbed it and struck down 1,000 men with it.+ 16 Then Samson said: “With the jawbone of a donkey—one heap, two heaps! With the jawbone of a donkey I struck down 1,000 men.”+

  (NWT @ JW.org)

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  Who in their right mind would regard this account as even minimally feasible?

  Bruce Lee took on a dozen men (who were courteous enough to attack him by one's and two's) and defeated them in his Chinese films.

  But, armed Philistines numbering 1,000 could not have been defeated even if they had lined

  up to be killed (which they wouldn't have done.)

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  Isn't this incredible biographical account of Samson really a thin plagiarism of the Labors of Hercules?

  ________________

  Note:

  Previously we are told:

  4 So Samson went and caught 300 foxes. Then he took torches, turned the foxes tail to tail, and put one torch between each pair of tails. 5 Then he set fire to the torches and sent the foxes out into the fields of standing grain of the Phi·lis′tines. He set on fire everything from sheaf to standing grain, as well as the vineyards and the olive groves.

  _____________________

  Ecologists and animal rights activists must have really been pissed off at this lunatic!

  Extra reading:

  http://freethoughtnation.com/samson-the-solar-myth/

  and

  http://users.adam.com.au/bstett/BSamson55.htm
• 

  _Morpheus

  And lets add to it a couple of other accounts:

  samson kills a grown lion with his bare hands.

  samson rips a cities gates from their hinges and carry them up a mountain.

  *edited to fix stupid spelling error
• 

  blondie

  BTW, that is Samson unless you are thinking of someone else.
• 

  Simon

  Just think about the practicalities. What were fox pair #1 doing while he's tying together pair #150. LOL

  Such a bad, obvious fictitious story.

  Probably why so many people skip it as useful scripture. Expect a movie though - bible films are back in vogue it seems.
• 

  Terry

  NOTE: I just finished watching THE WHITE BUFFALO before I posted.

  In that film, the actor whose name is WILL SAMPSON must have impinged upon my mind when I posted

  the Topic title.

  It is SAM-SON (son of Sam :)
• 

  Terry

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PJyhU4iMT0
• 

  redvip2000

  Who in their right mind would regard this account as even minimally feasible?

  Wait a minute. Isn't this the same god that flew polar bears and koalas across the ocean to the middle east to be stuffed in a wooded box, so that he could flood the earth and destroy all vegetation along with 99.9 percent of all animals in order to kill a few humans? seems feasible to me...
• 

  ScenicViewer

  One other tiny fragment of information:

  He became the strongest man around because he had long hair. After he got a haircut he wasn't strong any more.

  If the Bible says it, it must be scientific fact!

  Judges 16:15, 16 (NIV)

  15 Then she said to him, “How can you say, ‘I love you,’ when you won’t confide in me? This is the third time you have made a fool of me and haven’t told me the secret of your great strength.” 16 With such nagging she prodded him day after day until he was sick to death of it.

  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.”
• 

  HowTheBibleWasCreated

  The story is a chronogical mess for me in trying to date certain texts in my book...Samson is very plainly a spin off of Hercules and his association with the 'Sea Peoples' is a good clue to the origins of the story. Some date it pre exiclic but I can't... to many Greek ideas and parallels in it.. which places it after 332 BCE (Alexander's conquest) Yet is follows the other judges perfectly which tell me the other stories like Gideon, Barek etc ae much older and the text was onlt finalized later.

  Also a BIG shocker in is the following chapter (17) a man steals from his mother the exact same amount of money as Samson was betrayed for... is he Samson's son?.... This story is set before where the Samson story is set chronologically... What is worse the following story Judges 19-21 is set as an apoligetic to David-Saul and follows from 18.... (The worst part of the bible to read.)

  I see no historical personage for Samson.... (Son of Sun)
• 

  kaik

  There are several similarites and also differences between these ancient hero-myths, but also differences. The similarity is known for centuries. Evangelicals attempts to prove since mid 19th century that Samson is the original story, and Hercules/Heracles is derived myth that Greeks copied from Hebrews. Both men had slain lion, and both had died due cunning woman. One knocked pillars down, other have pillars named form him. However, there is also difference, where Hercules was somewhat outcas of the gods, especially jeallous Zeus' wife Hera. Samson like Heracles are myth. They maybe derived from some strong warrior-king in archaic era as many primitive nations had oral history about them.