Those who are believers and worry about meeting God’s standard for moral, ethics and general behavior seem to have very little to worry about.
At least if we are to take the Bible serious. Take the example of the well know hero and Judge, Samson. Just like with Jesus, it took a direct intervention from God in order for Samson to be born:
*** Rbi8 Judges 13:2-5 ***
2 Meanwhile there happened to be a certain man of Zo'rah of the family of the Dan'ites, and his name was Ma•no'ah. And his wife was barren and had borne no child. 3 In time Jehovah’s angel appeared to the woman and said to her: “Look, now, you are barren and have borne no child. And you will certainly become pregnant and give birth to a son. 4 And now watch yourself, please, and do not drink wine or intoxicating liquor, and do not eat anything unclean. 5 For, look! you will be pregnant, and you will certainly give birth to a son, and no razor should come upon his head, because a Naz'i•rite of God is what the child will become on leaving the belly; and he it is who will take the lead in saving Israel out of the hand of the Phi•lis'tines.”
God seems to love this “barren woman” trick since he pulled it so often according to the Bible. In this incidence the writer didn’t even take the trouble of telling us the name of this remarkable woman. Anyway she got the son and God behold he was “getting bigger” and Jehovah continued to “bless him”. Then God “spirit” apparently started to work on Samson:
*** Rbi8 Judges 13:24-25 ***
24 Later the woman gave birth to a son and called his name Samson; and the boy kept getting bigger, and Jehovah continued to bless him. 25 In time Jehovah’s spirit started to impel him in Ma'ha•neh-dan between Zo'rah and Esh'ta•ol.
What did God’s spirit influence Samson to do? Let us find out:
*** Rbi8 Judges 14:1-2 ***
14 Then Samson went down to Tim'nah and saw a woman in Tim'nah of the daughters of the Phi•lis'tines. 2 So he went up and told his father and his mother and said: “There is a woman that I have seen in Tim'nah of the daughters of the Phi•lis'tines, and now get her for me as a wife.
Well, apparently God made him think about, and (gasp) want sex because he wanted to marry, not a fine Jewish woman, but a Philistine woman. God had apparently for some reason seen fit to endow Samson with “great strength”, one of the way’s Samson used this ability was to be cruel to animals, apparently something greatly admired in those days:
*** Rbi8 Judges 14:5-7 ***
5 Accordingly Samson went on down with his father and his mother to Tim'nah. When he got as far as the vineyards of Tim'nah, why, look! a maned young lion roaring upon meeting him. 6 Then Jehovah’s spirit became operative upon him, so that he tore it in two, just as someone tears a male kid in two, and there was nothing at all in his hand. And he did not tell his father or his mother what he had done. 7 And he continued on his way down and began to speak to the woman; and she was still right in Samson’s eyes.
As we can see tearing a male kid in two was a common pastime among Samson’s contemporaries.
Samson also was quite a party man, according to the Bible he held a banquet that lasted for 7 days. If he tried such a stunt today Brooklyn would have been very displeased indeed. In the beginning of the banquet he tells the 30 Philistine groomsmen a riddle they have to solve before the banquet is over. Apparently this was serious business because the groomsmen threaten to burn down her fathers house if she doesn’t help them find out the answer to the riddle. This sent Samson’s wife into a crying fit lasting the 7 days of the banquet. It must have been quite a damper on the party having the wife of the host sobbing away all the time. But the crying eventually worked on Samson so he gave her the solution for the riddle, which she in turn told the despicable groomsmen. Samson seem to have learned about what happened:
*** Rbi8 Judges 14:17-18 ***
18 So the men of the city said to him on the seventh day before ever he could go into the interior room:
“What is sweeter than honey,
And what is stronger than a lion?”
In turn he said to them:
“If YOU had not plowed with my young cow,
YOU would not have solved my riddle.”
Here we can see the origin of the still doubtful custom of referring to women as heifers or cows, but what else can you expect from men of God? Now, what did Samson do? Did he pull a similar stunt as with the lion, and tear these deceptive groomsmen apart as a punishment for their despicable behavior? Let us find out:
*** Rbi8 Judges 14:19 ***
19 And Jehovah’s spirit became operative upon him, so that he went down to Ash'ke•lon and struck down thirty men of theirs and took what he stripped off them and gave the outfits to the tellers of the riddle. And his anger continued hot, and he went his way up to his father’s house.
Jehovah’s spirit made him very angry but instead of venting this anger on the guilty men he went to another place and killed 30 men who had had nothing to do with the whole matter, took their clothes and gave them to the 30 groomsmen, go figure. A man who randomly kills 30 strangers is what we today call a mass murderer and this guy also did it under the influence of Jehovah’s spirit.
Samson had no doubt been very displeased with the behavior of his wife, so much so that her father thought he hated her and had given her to one of the groomsmen, this was what Samson had been “planning” for:
*** Rbi8 Judges 15:1-3 ***
So he said: “I will go in to my wife in the interior room.” And her father did not allow him to go in. 2 But her father said: “I really said to myself, ‘You must unquestionably hate her.’ Hence I gave her to your groomsman. Is not her younger sister better than she is? Let her, please, become yours instead of the other.” 3 However, Samson said to them: “This time I must be free of guilt against the Phi•lis'tines in case I am dealing with them to their injury.”
This did of course not help much to quench Samson’s anger and he had to find some other sick depraved way of venting it so let us see what happened next:
*** Rbi8 Judges 15:4-5 ***
4 And Samson went his way and proceeded to catch three hundred foxes and to take torches and turn tail to tail and put one torch between two tails, right in the middle. 5 With that he set fire to the torches and sent them out into the fields of standing grain of the Phi•lis'tines. Thus he set on fire everything from sheaf to standing grain and the vineyards and the olive groves.
Again we can see how this hero of God treated innocent animals and used them to devastate the crops of his enemies. Now the Philistines got a chance to show the they without the help of Jehovah could be just as vicious as the Jews:
*** Rbi8 Judges 15:6 ***
6 And the Phi•lis'tines began to say: “Who did this?” Then they said: “It was Samson the son-in-law of the Tim'nite, because he took his wife and then gave her to his groomsman.” At that the Phi•lis'tines went up and burned her and her father with fire.
Instead of coming after Samson and punish him for his act, they turned their rage toward the poor woman and her father, what had they done to deserve such a gruesome death? Then in true middle east tradition, which we can see is still alive and well today, the violence escalated as Samson slaughtered a great number of Philistines. The other Jew’s didn’t seem very pleased with Samson because they tied him up and delivered him to the Philistines but of course with the help of Jehovah he was able to kill a thousand of them with a jaw bone of an ass. But the madman, liar and mass murderer Samson had other excellent Godly qualities too:
*** Rbi8 Judges 16:1-3 ***
16 Once Samson went to Ga'za and saw a prostitute woman there and came in to her. 2 And report was made to the Ga'zites, saying: “Samson has come in here.” So they surrounded him and lay in wait for him all night long in the city gate. And they kept quiet the whole night, saying: “As soon as the morning gets light, we must also kill him.”
3 However, Samson kept lying till midnight and then rose at midnight and grabbed hold of the doors of the city gate and the two side posts and pulled them out along with the bar and put them upon his shoulders and went carrying them up to the top of the mountain that is in front of He'bron.
Samson would of course not dream of doing something so vile as masturbating so instead he went to a whore in Gaza. His night with this no doubt remarkable and talented woman was so invigorating for him that in the morning he ripped out the city gates and carried them up to the top of a nearby hill. But being a man with an obviously great appetite for female companionship and a clear preference for Philistine women he soon cast his eyes upon another one by the name of Delilah, you know, by the same name as in the Tom Jones song.
However, Samson didn’t have much luck in choice of women as Delilah proved to be as much of a whiner as the first one and he didn’t learn much from that experience so he gave in to the whining this time too. Then we really get into the unmistakable realm of the superstitious nonsense and folklore. As we know the secret was in his hair. With a shaved head Samson, and even Jehovah was helpless. Then the Philistines was tying him up again and then they performed another very popular Biblical pastime and they put out his eyes. The rest of the this story we know, with his 7 locks (no doubt rastafarian dreadlock style) now grown back, he calls for the help of the chief mass murderer, Jehovah and together they kill a lot of Philistines. And this “Hero” was their “Judge” for 20 years. Poor people.
But as I mentioned in the beginning, it shouldn’t be very difficult for anyone to live up to Jehovah’s standard for a genuine hero. Partying, frequenting whorehouses, tormenting animals, mass murder etc. Compared to Samson we all stand out as extremely good people.
Norm.
