In the Book of Judges there is a story about a man named Samson. He was so strong that he destroyed an entire army with nothing but a donkey's jawbone, wrestled a lion and destroyed a building singlehandedly. However, when his hair was cut, it turned out that it was the source of his strength and he subsequently loses it.

Now I'm questionable of the sanity of anyone who can honestly believe that cutting a man's hair causes him to lose his strength and that a man is singlehandedly capable of slaying an entire army with nothing but a donkey's jawbone.

However, if the story is not read literally and history is studied, then it makes perfect sense.

In the Old Testament times, there were men called Nazarites. They grew their hair long and kept it uncut as a symbol of their devotion to God. Now, interestingly, Samson is a Nazarite. If read metaphorically, then, the story is stating that with faith in God one could have the strength to get through life, and the cutting of Samson's hair, therefore, is a metaphor for what happens when one loses their faith.

If I am correct, then surely this is evidence that a literal reading of the Old Testament is wrong. St. Augustine (who I have been reading lately) believed that the Bible wasn't concerned with facts of science (which could be argued to include geography and history), if I am not mistaken, but with spiritual truths and that therefore when a Christian is seen harping on about how, for example, evolution is false because it contradicts a literal reading of the Bible, he is doing a great disservice to the religion of Christianity.

So, I would love to hear people's opinions on this.

Most of the Bible is myth and metaphor--or as Mark Twain put it, "some noble poetry, a wealth of obscenity, and upwards of a thousand lies."

Jesus was very big on parables, which are by definition not to be taken literally.

OK, you have me convinced. In fact, let's read the entire Bible metaphorically.

The title made me think the topic would be completely differant :rolleyes:

But I agree entirely, I think the bible should very rarely be read literally, if ever.

I gotta read this thing. I could only get to Genesis 3 before i quit.

Or, the fact that his hair was cut broke the covenant with god that originally garnered his strength. Just saying is all.

First off i am NOT saying you're wrong. The intrepretation is as valid as any other.

However in general I'd caution about seeing metaphors behind every burning bush.

With Samson we are clearly dealing with a legend and legends very often tend to be nearer to the truth than we think. Infact at best a legend is nothing less than verbal folk history.

I don't have time at the moment to look into Samson but i want to give you some off the top of my head thoughts to illustrate the point I'm trying to make.

But these are really only 'musings'.


First off, the wrestling a lion thing. Don't forget the word doesn't mean lion as we would understand it but rather a now extinct form of big cat which used to be common in the middle east. If I remember rightly it was smaller than a lion and more like a cougar (?). There have been various well recorded incidents of a strong man killing a big cat with his bare hands. Infact a very famous renown naturalist killed a panther single handed (was it Leakey?). It also doesn't say the the 'lion' was in its prime...

You see what I mean , you read lion and have a mental image of the BIG African game cat we all know from the Discovery Channel.


Moving swiftly on, the 'jawbone of an Ass' if I remember again rightly actually refers to a type of weapon , a kinda sickle shaped sword.

Maybe there is some confusion or later embellishment here. Maybe a misunderstanding between the terms to 'kill an entire army' and 'to destroy an entire army'.

Total supposition on my part but lets assume (not unreasonably from other OT evidence) that the nazarites were in fact a warrior caste/sect of warrior priests/ religious nut-jobs with weapons (there is nothing new under the sun!)

We find evidence also that they could become 'filled with righteous anger for God' (later what we'd call 'Zealot') and as we know from history this Righteous Anger could express itself in a form of what we in the west label 'beserk'.

So a strong man, a beserk man, armed with a nasty sharp sword can do a hell a lot of damage.

Maybe *musing* his madden charge 'broke' the 'army'?

Finally to destroying a building bare handed. I know nothing about ancient middle eastern architecture but I'd guess that causing a pillar to collapse might cause the whole building to cave in? Depends on how well it was built to start with I guess?

Maybe my musings seem unbelievable and i'm not at all saying I'm right, I just want to show that there may be no need for a metaphorical or metaphysical interpretation in this case.

Or, the fact that his hair was cut broke the covenant with god that originally garnered his strength. Just saying is all.

Congratulations your smarter than most of the people in here that cant even comprehend an entire thought.

Congratulations your smarter than most of the people in here that cant even comprehend an entire thought.

Now, here I was thinking examining objects beyond a literal interpretation required greater brainpower.

My bad everyone!

The intrepretation is as valid as any other.

I've actually thought about this myself. I'm not quite sure how anyone can say they've exactly figured the Bible out. For example, take Romans (my favourite book of the NT, after Mark). This is a letter from a man named Paul and there have been two very compelling readings of it, one from Protestants and one from Catholics. The problem is that they're incommensurable. It's like a Gestalt switch, read it one way and you have the Catholic interpretation, read it the other way and you have the Protestant interpretation. The problem is that Paul is dead, so we can't exactly ask him which is correct and therefore, it seems to me at least, that there is no way of knowing which reading is correct.

Of course this is an argument that's been going on between modernists and postmodernists for a very long time: modernists believe we have to take the author into consideration when considering the meaning of a text while postmodernists believe in the "death of the author", so to speak. (I'm not wrong about the postmodernists, but I may be wrong about the modernists, however, so don't quote me on this.)

With Samson we are clearly dealing with a legend and legends very often tend to be nearer to the truth than we think. Infact at best a legend is nothing less than verbal folk history.

I never thought of that, even though I'm aware that the Old Testament was handed down from generation to generation orally at first, only to be written down - and still altered quite extensively - much later on.

I guess it is possible that Samson simply removed one pillar, causing the building to topple, wrestled with a small, decrepit cat and slayed the army as it was sleeping. These stories got passed down from generation to generation orally and, like a game of telephone, eventually came out somewhat distorted.

I was having a discussion about the unbelievability of Samson losing his strength because of his hair loss with a person online last night, and they told me that there was a theory that he was poisoned and that it was the poison that caused him to lose his strength and his hair, because there were poisons back then that caused hair-loss.

Congratulations your smarter than most of the people in here that cant even comprehend an entire thought.

You're a very bitter person, Sammy. Needless to say, it's not a surprise that you're a Christian.

I was having a discussion about the unbelievability of Samson losing his strength because of his hair loss with a person online last night, and they told me that there was a theory that he was poisoned and that it was the poison that caused him to lose his strength and his hair, because there were poisons back then that caused hair-loss.

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Hmm an intriguing notion ...especially as poison has always been a female weapon of choice.

However assuming he believed that his hair was the seat of his strength (as he obviously did) then the simple pyschological damage of it being shorn would be enough for him to believe he was now weak.

This is further born out by the fact he prayed to God to be given his strength back. As I like to keep the supernatural out of biblical interpretation then I think its safe to assume that he believed God had granted him this last request and hey presto he was strong again.

As with just about everyone, I think that taking anything written hundreds/thousands of years ago literally is a serious mistake.

Metaphorically, it can be read, understood, and applied to daily life. There are some good values in there. I just don't care about the rest of the garbage in there, though :)

Another thing just sprang to mind. Yoiu will recall the famous line from Jesus that it is easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven.

I one read that this was a reference to a well-known geographical feature on a camel route--known as the eye of the needle--which was a low,narrow, rocky passage --camels had to sort of kneel to get through it.

The idea being, that a rich man had to humble himself --transcend his ego, in other words-- to get into heaven.

Jesus was very big on parables, which are by definition not to be taken literally.

I'm sure you're old enough to have known Christ personally, you ancient fuck. :cool:

So far we have three interpretations of this passage (which is a very dramatic and intriguing story, religion aside).

1- It was a metaphor for a people losing their spiritual way
2- It was a literal story about a man whose hair was key to a covenant with God that granted him immense strength and courage.
3- It was a legend with roots in reality consisting of believable yet epic actions by a man with close ties to God.

I don't know how anyone could call any of these interpretations 100 percent BS and look down on the adherents to one or another. You can believe whichever you want, but that doesn't make other people wrong for believing a different one.

Gouge Away, you can gouge away

Well, as those things go, you picked a dumb example. There are much better cases against the bible being even taken seriously at all.

My all time favorite is when God orders his followers to be happy to dash the little children to death against the rocks.

Any rational person who wants to be moral has to denounce those actions.

If anything is obvious, it's that the all loving creator of the universe couldn't possibly have ordered such barbaric atrocities, therefore he didn't.

Ultimately, there is so much brutality in the bible, from racism, to slavery, to misogyny, to genocide, all commanded and condoned by God, that you are forced to throw out much of it.

This means that it still comes down to your own feelings about what is right and wrong.

This is surprising to most christians because most christians haven't read the bible. If all christians really read the bible and focused on what was actually happening in all the stories, there would be very few christians left.

There are some people who have read the bible, like DS, who do think the bible is a beautiful, perfect, and inerrant guide to living. How she rationalizes all the murderous atrocities is beyond me, because if presented to her in terms of any setting other then her own religion, she would be outraged, and then probably self-righteously proclaim that if the had been christian and followed the bible then it never would've happened.

I hope for the sake of our future, that most of the population is better at critical thinking then DS.

The exploration and discovery of our world, the real world, through science, will not be carried out on the backs of people like her. Thank God we still have enough scientists to save our species.

I'm sure you're old enough to have known Christ personally, you ancient fuck. :cool:

Actually, no, but I am on real good terms with his dad.

BTW, there is no truth to the rumour that I catered the Last Supper.

I hope for the sake of our future, that most of the population is better at critical thinking then DS.
.

Actually she is extremely good at critical thinking within the confines of her faith.

[...]

Of course Y believing interpretation Z doesn’t make the interpretation X believes wrong: the interpretation being false is what makes the interpretation wrong.

Yes, there are three interpretations, but I would not argue that they are all equal in the probability of their validity. My interpretation has evidence, does not make outrageous claims and is self-contained. Jackketch’s interpretation, if I have read it correctly, is that it is a true life story embellished over time. I would argue that both of these readings are higher in probability than the literal reading of it. The reason why I would argue this? Because the literal interpretation has zero evidence, makes outlandish claims and relies upon a supernatural being that there has been no evidence for since the dawn of man.

I certainly can’t call each interpretation 100% BS, but I can say I believe one interpretation to be more likely to be BS than the others.

Of course Y believing interpretation Z doesn’t make the interpretation X believes wrong: the interpretation being false is what makes the interpretation wrong.

Yes, there are three interpretations, but I would not argue that they are all equal in the probability of their validity. My interpretation has evidence, does not make outrageous claims and is self-contained. Jackketch’s interpretation, if I have read it correctly, is that it is a true life story embellished over time. I would argue that both of these readings are higher in probability than the literal reading of it. The reason why I would argue this? Because the literal interpretation has zero evidence, makes outlandish claims and relies upon a supernatural being that there has been no evidence for since the dawn of man.

I certainly can’t call each interpretation 100% BS, but I can say I believe one interpretation to be more likely to be BS than the others.

Well I really wasn't offering an interpretation, just some musings , meant to show that often it is our understanding that is at fault.


Another quick example of what I mean.

You recall the story of the Pied Piper? When the parents lamented the loss of their children, how old were said children?

Automatically we would tend to think that the children were prepubescant.

Yet when I talk to the wife about 'die Kinder' I am refering to young adults (16/17/18). If my mom phones my dad to talk about 'the kids' they are talking about people in the age range 26-38.

I'm sure you know from your own family that thats true.

Infact the story and history tell us that the 'children' were young adults.

Ok thats a very simple example but the principle holds true for all serious biblical study.

Doth not even nature itself teach you, that, if a man have long hair, it is shame unto him? I Corinthians 11:14

From somewhere in the OT concerning people who suggest to believe in a different deity:

"you must kill him, your hand must strike the first blow putting him to death and the hands of the rest of the people following. You must stone him to death, since he has tried to divert you from Yahweh, your God"

OT version of god = fails at life.
:D

Weren't we supposed to.. not kill people... or something??

Definitely not to be read as fact!

First off i am NOT saying you're wrong. The intrepretation is as valid as any other.


First off, the wrestling a lion thing. Don't forget the word doesn't mean lion as we would understand it but rather a now extinct form of big cat which used to be common in the middle east. If I remember rightly it was smaller than a lion and more like a cougar (?). There have been various well recorded incidents of a strong man killing a big cat with his bare hands. Infact a very famous renown naturalist killed a panther single handed (was it Leakey?). It also doesn't say the the 'lion' was in its prime...



Here in Florida, just last week, a 60 year old man killed a full-grown bobcat in his back yard with his bare hands. Rare indeed, but not necessarily an act of god.

Here in Florida, just last week, a 60 year old man killed a full-grown bobcat in his back yard with his bare hands. Rare indeed, but not necessarily an act of god.

Save me googling please, how big and dangerous is a bobcat?

Save me googling please, how big and dangerous is a bobcat?

Its about the size of a medium or large dog. (Not Great Dane or St. Bernard big though :D )

Save me googling please, how big and dangerous is a bobcat?

They can run up to about 35 pounds and are not generally considered a threat to humans, generally feeding on small game and birds. They have been known, however, to occasionally make a meal of white-tail deer.

What does this have to do with this thread? In an era before television and newspapers would have accurately documented this event, the tale would have been passed along from generation to generation, no doubt becoming a bit embellished at every turn until the fellow would have become the folk hero who slayed the great panther using only his left hand.

Just because a story is not 100% factually accurate by today's standards does not necisarily mean that it is without any shred of truth.