Miracles

[Robban]

Regarding limping I think first of 1 Kings 18:21.

A crystal clear verse., though in no way connected to Jacob's injury.

 

[cloudyday2]

That sounds like a bit of a stretch. "If we leave this letter out and swop those around, and ignore the whole tradition of separate figures, then that was the original one". It is how whichever US president is in office, somehow gets to 666 and becomes the Antichrist, by hook or by crook.

I'm not certain if you read the discussion of that in the encyclopedia article there were several reasons for the theory. I'm unconvinced except that Enoch works much nicer than Noah. If we put the same hero in Noah's Flood, the Book of Enoch, and the Gospels then there are some nice parallels. It OUGHT to be three appearances of the same purpose even if the authors of those three stories didn't intend. The parallel between Jesus and Noah is much stronger than the parallel between Jesus and Moses that is typically noted. And of course Jesus called himself the Son of Man which clearly referenced the Book of Enoch.

So it would be neat if Noah's Flood story was originally Enoch's Flood story, but probably it wasn't.

 

[cloudyday2]

Regarding limping I think first of 1 Kings 18:21.

A crystal clear verse., though in no way connected to Jacob's injury.

In the encyclopedia article there was a story explaining that Noah's hip injury was a punishment for his failure to pray that God would spare the Earth from the Flood. In that story, Noah was content to save himself and let everybody else die, but he realized his selfishness afterwards and made a sacrificial offering to apologize.

I'm not certain if that is quite the same as Elijah's criticism. I guess not LOL.

 

[cloudyday2]

As an aside, the shining light of Moses' face was sometimes erroneously translated as 'horns', which is why Moses sometimes sports tiny horns in Renaissance and Mediaeval artwork.

I wonder if it is so simply explained. The story describes a veil as the remedy for fear caused by the change in Moses' appearance. Could the translators have been so dense that they didn't realize a veil would not help if it was horns? I don't think so. Probably the original version of the story had Moses coming down the mountain with horns to symbolize his divine aura. This was from a time when God was symbolized by the bull. Then later editors attempted to diminish the near god-like status of Moses by removing his horns and inserting the detail of the veil. However, the horns of Moses couldn't be removed from Judaism simply by changing the official text. So when the Hebrew was translated the correct word was "horns", because everybody knew it was "horns". ... Just a thought. I'm sure you've seen the victory stele of Naram-Sin of Akkad with the horns on his head. ( Naram-Sin of Akkad - Wikipedia )

 

[Robban]

In the encyclopedia article there was a story explaining that Noah's hip injury was a punishment for his failure to pray that God would spare the Earth from the Flood. In that story, Noah was content to save himself and let everybody else die, but he realized his selfishness afterwards and made a sacrificial offering to apologize.

I'm not certain if that is quite the same as Elijah's criticism. I guess not LOL.

Compared to Abraham Noah was not even close, but the situation was a little different

the generation of the flood were completely bankrupt of any form of goodness.

 

[Robban]

I'm not certain if you read the discussion of that in the encyclopedia article there were several reasons for the theory. I'm unconvinced except that Enoch works much nicer than Noah. If we put the same hero in Noah's Flood, the Book of Enoch, and the Gospels then there are some nice parallels. It OUGHT to be three appearances of the same purpose even if the authors of those three stories didn't intend. The parallel between Jesus and Noah is much stronger than the parallel between Jesus and Moses that is typically noted. And of course Jesus called himself the Son of Man which clearly referenced the Book of Enoch.

So it would be neat if Noah's Flood story was originally Enoch's Flood story, but probably it wasn't.

You would have to rewrite the text, you know, make Göd laugh.

Hohoho.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

I'm not certain if you read the discussion of that in the encyclopedia article there were several reasons for the theory. I'm unconvinced except that Enoch works much nicer than Noah. If we put the same hero in Noah's Flood, the Book of Enoch, and the Gospels then there are some nice parallels. It OUGHT to be three appearances of the same purpose even if the authors of those three stories didn't intend. The parallel between Jesus and Noah is much stronger than the parallel between Jesus and Moses that is typically noted. And of course Jesus called himself the Son of Man which clearly referenced the Book of Enoch.

So it would be neat if Noah's Flood story was originally Enoch's Flood story, but probably it wasn't.

The parallels between Jesus and Moses are legion, such as Jesus wandering 40 days in the desert, going into Egypt before being called back out as a child, the 12 disciples as the 12 tribes, the Garden of Gethsemane patalleling the Tabernacle; the transfiguration even puts Jesus directly in juxtaposition with Moses and Elijah. I really don't see a Noahic parallel even being close to it. Besides, the term Son of Man is from Daniel, not necessarily Enoch (which is where the latter book probably lifted it from), and all such references make far more sense from a Daniel Eschatological viewpoint.

I wonder if it is so simply explained. The story describes a veil as the remedy for fear caused by the change in Moses' appearance. Could the translators have been so dense that they didn't realize a veil would not help if it was horns? I don't think so. Probably the original version of the story had Moses coming down the mountain with horns to symbolize his divine aura. This was from a time when God was symbolized by the bull. Then later editors attempted to diminish the near god-like status of Moses by removing his horns and inserting the detail of the veil. However, the horns of Moses couldn't be removed from Judaism simply by changing the official text. So when the Hebrew was translated the correct word was "horns", because everybody knew it was "horns". ... Just a thought. I'm sure you've seen the victory stele of Naram-Sin of Akkad with the horns on his head. ( Naram-Sin of Akkad - Wikipedia )

Certainly the Ancients saw things in an unity that we often have lost, such as breath and spirit being little differentiated. The word for shining is related to the word for horn, probably from the metaphor of the sheen of polished horn originally. It gives a nice interplay between the Golden Calf and the Shining Moses. The ancients weren't dumb, and Jerome, a noted scholar, is responsible for translating the term as horn in the Latin - likely for its metaphorical effect and interplay as anagogy. It is likely the same reason Naram Sin had bull's horns, from the linguistic metaphorical connection, the same reason why some coat of arms are plays or puns on the surnames of their recipients.

So no, I don't think later commentators removed Moses' horns to diminish his 'god-like status', as Moses remains the premiere Jewish culture-hero. This is semantic confusion, something lost in translation. It reminds me of the confusion over the meaning of mana in the treaty of Waitangi, or how Japanese Kami are treated as gods by westerners, or how people erroneously think the living Roman Emperors had been gods (instead of their genius, and barring the few insane ones that declared them as such). Or if I say Nixon was a crooked president, it doesn't necessarily mean his back had scoliosis, even if cartoons sometimes depicted him hunched over in Richard III-esque poses.

 

[cloudyday2]

The parallels between Jesus and Moses are legion, such as Jesus wandering 40 days in the desert, going into Egypt before being called back out as a child, the 12 disciples as the 12 tribes, the Garden of Gethsemane patalleling the Tabernacle; the transfiguration even puts Jesus directly in juxtaposition with Moses and Elijah. I really don't see a Noahic parallel even being close to it. Besides, the term Son of Man is from Daniel, not necessarily Enoch (which is where the latter book probably lifted it from), and all such references make far more sense from a Daniel Eschatological viewpoint.

On the Transfiguration, Jesus = Enoch = Noah = the Son of Man. The cloud is a symbol of heaven and all three people (Enoch/Noah, Elijah, and Moses) ascended to heaven rather than dying. The ascension of Elijah is preserved in the Bible while the ascension of Moses is preserved in the Bible's effort to debunk it through the story that a God buried the body of Moses in a secret place. The ascension of Enoch is preserved in the Bible too, and the Gilgamesh version of the Flood story has the boat-builder rewarded with eternal life. The Torah combined different sources, and it would not be surprising if the genealogies are also a cut-and-splice job. For example Cain is condemned to be a wanderer and also builds the first city. Noah builds the ark and invents wine. These characters seem to be combined. Maybe the inspiration for combining the characters was similar positions in genealogies or similar-sounding names. Another example of the fishiness (if I'm not mistaken) is Cain's son Enoch in the 3rd generation rather than the 7th generation. So it doesn't seem too much of a stretch to imagine that the flood story originally belonged to Enoch who ascended to heaven as his reward for building the Ark, and somehow the flood story was reassigned to Noah who originally had been the inventor of wine or agriculture, and Enoch was left to ascend to heaven without any explanation.

For me, the parallels between Jesus and Noah seem closer than the parallels between Jesus and Moses. The difference is the character of the generation who heard their messages. Both Noah and Jesus urged a depraved generation to repent so that they would survive God's wrath. On the other hand, Moses rescued an innocent and victimized generation of Jews from oppression.

Certainly the Ancients saw things in an unity that we often have lost, such as breath and spirit being little differentiated. The word for shining is related to the word for horn, probably from the metaphor of the sheen of polished horn originally. It gives a nice interplay between the Golden Calf and the Shining Moses. The ancients weren't dumb, and Jerome, a noted scholar, is responsible for translating the term as horn in the Latin - likely for its metaphorical effect and interplay as anagogy. It is likely the same reason Naram Sin had bull's horns, from the linguistic metaphorical connection, the same reason why some coat of arms are plays or puns on the surnames of their recipients.

So no, I don't think later commentators removed Moses' horns to diminish his 'god-like status', as Moses remains the premiere Jewish culture-hero. This is semantic confusion, something lost in translation. It reminds me of the confusion over the meaning of mana in the treaty of Waitangi, or how Japanese Kami are treated as gods by westerners, or how people erroneously think the living Roman Emperors had been gods (instead of their genius, and barring the few insane ones that declared them as such). Or if I say Nixon was a crooked president, it doesn't necessarily mean his back had scoliosis, even if cartoons sometimes depicted him hunched over in Richard III-esque poses.

Here is a link arguing that the horns were not merely a stupid error by St. Jerome.
Ki Tissa: Moses’ Horns: Not a Mistranslation

Here is a longer link on the theme of horns in Judaism arguing the case for Moses' horns.
The Horns of Moses:Old Symbols and New Meanings

The smoking gun would be some evidence that Jews imagined Moses with horns independently of the translation by St. Jerome. For example, a mosaic from the period of the Roman empire depicting Moses with horns would be pretty persuasive. On the other hand, a similar mosaic depicting Moses WITHOUT horns would be reason for skepticism.

 

[cloudyday2]

O.k. @Robban and @Quid est Veritas? , here is another crazy idea:

In the story where Moses meets God in the burning bush, Moses asks God why the Hebrew slaves should listen to him. Moses also mentions his "heavy tongue" which meant that he didn't speak Hebrew fluently. In other words, Moses saw himself as a not being Jewish enough to lead and inspire Jews. God's responds by instructing Moses to tell them that Yahweh sent him.

If nobody prior to Moses had learned the name of God then how could Moses gain the confidence of the Jews by saying "Yahweh sent me". This only makes sense if the name of God was already known but not widely known. Maybe the Jewish leaders passed the name of God from generation to generation but the average Jew didn't know the name.

So this brings up the story of Jacob fighting the heavenly being. In the official story Jacob never learns the being's name, but maybe in the original story Yahweh reveals his name to Jacob so that he can be free to light the world at sunrise. Jacob then passes this secret name to one of his children and so on down to the time of Moses.

Also, I don't believe there is anything in the story of the Burning Bush to suggest that it happened in the daytime rather than the nighttime. So it is possible that the burning bush was in fact the sun (Yahweh) resting on the ground during the night.

Apparently there are coins from the period of King Hezekiah that seem to show Yahweh as the sun with wings. And there are some pots too with sun imagery. The Bible itself mentions sun horses offered to the Temple by the kings. An article I read and can't relocate said that scholars agree that Yahweh was represented by the sun, but they don't agree that Judaism imagined Yahweh as a sun god. An analogy would be Jesus and the Cross. Christians don't imagine Jesus as a tree god or a crucifixion god or something. The Cross is just one feature of Jesus and a convenient symbol. It may have been the same with Yahweh and the sun.

 

[cloudyday2]

@Robban and @Quid est Veritas? , here is another thought on the horns of Moses. Maybe the horns of Moses were identical to the mark of Cain. The mark of Cain was God's way of protecting Cain. Some Jewish storytellers imagined the mark of Cain as horns, and they imagined that Cain was killed by a hunter who mistook him for an animal. (Others imagined Cain dying when a house collapsed on him, because God had promised that no man would kill Cain. Still others imagined the mark of Cain as a guard dog.) ... Anyway, this might suggest that horns as a symbol of divine protection or divine mission was present in Judaism before St. Jerome's time.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

Here is a link arguing that the horns were not merely a stupid error by St. Jerome

Not a stupid error, but an erudite one. Jerome tried to translate the ambiguity of the Hebrew and the image, to maintain the flow of the narrative from false Golden Calf to Shining Moses. The result though failed in Latin, which was why the LXX didn't use it.

There is some evidence of poetic use of the image of a horned Moses amongst Jews, if I am not mistaken.

On the Transfiguration, Jesus = Enoch = Noah = the Son of Man. The cloud is a symbol of heaven and all three people (Enoch/Noah, Elijah, and Moses) ascended to heaven rather than dying.

The cloud is usually taken as the Shekinah of God, though. You are reading things in here, as we have no evidence of Moses having ascended - the hidden grave of the culture-hero is a well-established trope itself, like Arthur at Avalon, or Genghis Khan, or Atilla; usually associated with the semi-historic variety, sometimes as a Once and Future King kind of deal. The transfiguration places Jesus in line with Moses and Elijah, the two greatest Jewish prophets, and you are just assuming Jesus embodies Enoch/Noah here - why wouldn't Enoch then not have been there himself? No, I find this highly unconvincing myself. Personally from primary reading of the Gospels and some of the midrashic Enochic literature, the association is often highly exaggerated.

O.k. @Robban and @Quid est Veritas? , here is another crazy idea:

In the story where Moses meets God in the burning bush, Moses asks God why the Hebrew slaves should listen to him. Moses also mentions his "heavy tongue" which meant that he didn't speak Hebrew fluently. In other words, Moses saw himself as a not being Jewish enough to lead and inspire Jews. God's responds by instructing Moses to tell them that Yahweh sent him.

If nobody prior to Moses had learned the name of God then how could Moses gain the confidence of the Jews by saying "Yahweh sent me". This only makes sense if the name of God was already known but not widely known. Maybe the Jewish leaders passed the name of God from generation to generation but the average Jew didn't know the name.

So this brings up the story of Jacob fighting the heavenly being. In the official story Jacob never learns the being's name, but maybe in the original story Yahweh reveals his name to Jacob so that he can be free to light the world at sunrise. Jacob then passes this secret name to one of his children and so on down to the time of Moses.

Also, I don't believe there is anything in the story of the Burning Bush to suggest that it happened in the daytime rather than the nighttime. So it is possible that the burning bush was in fact the sun (Yahweh) resting on the ground during the night.

Apparently there are coins from the period of King Hezekiah that seem to show Yahweh as the sun with wings. And there are some pots too with sun imagery. The Bible itself mentions sun horses offered to the Temple by the kings. An article I read and can't relocate said that scholars agree that Yahweh was represented by the sun, but they don't agree that Judaism imagined Yahweh as a sun god. An analogy would be Jesus and the Cross. Christians don't imagine Jesus as a tree god or a crucifixion god or something. The Cross is just one feature of Jesus and a convenient symbol. It may have been the same with Yahweh and the sun.

Under Egyptian influence, the use of Scarab seals were common in 8th century BC Palestine. This is the symbol that is often seen, and the Scarab represented the Sun as Khepri. Now Khepri sounds like the Egyptian Kheper, meaning come to be - which is a sort-of similar idea to YHWH meaning Being or What Is. So some syncretic usage here makes perfect sense, though the use of YHWH predates the first scarab imagery. As stated before, the oldest Biblical passages more present a storm aspect, as in the Song of Deborah, and Ahab's attempted syncretisation with Canaanite El and replacement with Baal only makes sense if we are dealing with primary storm characteristics. The Sun was in use, but as a symbol of monotheistic or monolatric characteristics. Palestine did not have a fixed water supply except for the Jordan, so Canaanite and Israelite culture places much emphasis on rain and the well-watered Baalim lands. This is again present in the Bible in diverse places, most notably in the long drought of Elijah or the Joseph tale. In Egypt, rain was unimportant as the Nile was always there, so solar worship was more prominent, not rain. Solar imagery was present, but storm imagery is always more prominent, even in the Exodus story.

Again though, we have no evidence to represent a handed-down secret name tradition, and Moses primarily said that the God of your Ancestors, of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, sent him. The burning bush is an inspired scene in the Bible, as even some Eastern thinkers have said it is the clearest expression of Divinity. That God is I AM is important, but it establishes more about God than to establish Moses' legitimacy, which is more related to the miracles he does. The oldest YHWH reference is anyway amongst the Shasu in Sinai.

@Robban and @Quid est Veritas? , here is another thought on the horns of Moses. Maybe the horns of Moses were identical to the mark of Cain. The mark of Cain was God's way of protecting Cain. Some Jewish storytellers imagined the mark of Cain as horns, and they imagined that Cain was killed by a hunter who mistook him for an animal. (Others imagined Cain dying when a house collapsed on him, because God had promised that no man would kill Cain. Still others imagined the mark of Cain as a guard dog.) ... Anyway, this might suggest that horns as a symbol of divine protection or divine mission was present in Judaism before St. Jerome's time.

It is clear that Cattle had some iconographic meaning there, as the Golden Calf or the Calves of Dan and Bethel make plain. But iconography does not mean something must be literally so, as with Christian Halos or the depiction of Buddha in aniconic form or as a Banyan tree.

There is also a tradition of Asses in Judaism, as in Moses praising them, the High Priest riding on them, Jedus entering Jerusalem on one, Balaam, etc. That is one of the reason Hellenistic writers thought the Jewish God was related to Egyptian Typhon (Set) and the story that the Holy of Holies contained an Donkey's head. Some thought the mark of Cain were donkey ears, putting the narrative in line with Midas' donkey ears and similar tropes, and giving the idea of Christ riding a donkey to be murdered as redeeming the first Murder, as Christ as the righteous Abel.

We don't know what the mark of Cain was, but there is a lot of speculation on it.

Anyway, on Enoch in both Cain and Seth's lineage, that makes sense if they were marrying into each others' families - which they certainly would have if they were the only people. Personally I like the idea that Noah's wife was a descendant of Cain, else why go to the trouble to give his generations if they all pass away in the flood?

 

[Jok]

Besides, Joshua isn't much of a solar figure outside this one event and a dubious etymology for Timnath-Heres. This is different from say Samson; whose name invokes the Sun, is opposed to the marine fertility god Dagon, has long hair like rays of the sun, is destroyed by Delilah which can be read as meaning night; he is active around Beth-Shemesh, meaning House of the Sun; etc. So it seems a bit of a stretch here, especially as there is a much better candidate for solar demigod in Israelite lore.

So do you think that the Samson story isn’t literal? I always have a tough time with Samson! Some struggle with Genesis but I’m totally fine with Genesis, Samson is what had given me troubles of doubt the most in life, and even currently I can’t say that I’m comfortable with it (like reading the story would leave me feeling foolish and gullible).

He is nearly like Superman. And things like ripping a lion in half always sounds so ridiculous to me in a literal sense. And one man killing 1000 would go far beyond the disbelief of even the most unreasonable Kung Fu movie where one man beats up 50 guys. Now I’m way more (intellectually) comfortable with stories where God strikes the highly favored (and much more plentiful in numbers) enemy with confusion, and even stories where it doesn’t specify what happens I could easily imagine how God might confuse, or perhaps even make a bunch of soldiers nauseous or something like that. But Samson is hard for me because things sound more unrealistic like he’s a superhero.

Even worse is things about the story that doesn’t even sound physically doable based on extension & leverage. Let’s say Samson was 6’ tall with a 6’ wingspan and weighed 200 lbs, how could he drag huge town gate doors and drag them for miles up a hill? He’s only dealing with 200 lbs of leverage. Worse, how could a man with a 6’ wingspan PULL two huge pillars together that were the foundation to a huge temple? The pillars can’t possibly be within arms reach! Nobody ever brings up Samson as there area of struggle lol but that’s the toughest one for me. I mean to beat 1000 men he would need to have the speed of Flash, or have a body that’s impossible to piece, or have super strength to avoid being completely smothered and trampled, etc, or actually he would need all of the above it seems. But still with the pillars it seems he would even need telekinesis.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

So do you think that the Samson story isn’t literal? I always have a tough time with Samson! Some struggle with Genesis but I’m totally fine with Genesis, Samson is what had given me troubles of doubt the most in life, and even currently I can’t say that I’m comfortable with it (like reading the story would leave me feeling foolish and gullible).

He is nearly like Superman. And things like ripping a lion in half always sounds so ridiculous to me in a literal sense. And one man killing 1000 would go far beyond the disbelief of even the most unreasonable Kung Fu movie where one man beats up 50 guys. Now I’m way more (intellectually) comfortable with stories where God strikes the highly favored (and much more plentiful in numbers) enemy with confusion, and even stories where it doesn’t specify what happens I could easily imagine how God might confuse, or perhaps even make a bunch of soldiers nauseous or something like that. But Samson is hard for me because things sound more unrealistic like he’s a superhero.

Even worse is things about the story that doesn’t even sound physically doable based on extension & leverage. Let’s say Samson was 6’ tall with a 6’ wingspan and weighed 200 lbs, how could he drag huge town gate doors and drag them for miles up a hill? He’s only dealing with 200 lbs of leverage. Worse, how could a man with a 6’ wingspan PULL two huge pillars together that were the foundation to a huge temple? The pillars can’t possibly be within arms reach! Nobody ever brings up Samson as there area of struggle lol but that’s the toughest one for me. I mean to beat 1000 men he would need to have the speed of Flash, or have a body that’s impossible to piece, or have super strength to avoid being completely smothered and trampled, etc, or actually he would need all of the above it seems. But still with the pillars it seems he would even need telekinesis.

Firstly one must be careful with what is meant by literal. Modern historians feign an objectivity which is simply impossible - we all write from a subjective viewpoint, and history is merely the set of agreed upon lies. Ancient historians wrote in a different manner, with literary allusions and the like. Our modern idea of history is just another paradigm with its own veils drawn onto events.

Further, in legend we see a real historical event through the prism of a cultural tradition, that warps and distorts it - even more so when it is treated more as Epic or as a romance (in the mediaeval sense). So to take an example, Alexander the Great was a real Macedonian king that conquered the Persian Empire - but in Persian accounts he became Darius III's half-brother and is present at his heroic death, cradling him in his lap. In the Alexander Romance, he visits the bottom of the sea in a diving bell. In many Greek histories, his mother was impregnated by a snake, etc. Is this false? We think so, and modern historians sift the sources to find what they deem 'plausible', which is ofyen framed in a wholely naturalistic viewpoint. Now Greek historiography is the beginning of our history, so we are on more solid ground with what Alexander really did, but even that often sounds fantastic - like his visit to Siwa Oasis to be called a god, or his gallantry refusing water in the desert or treating Darius' harem kindly, or his headlong charge at Gaugemela.

Or a more recent example on this 4th of July, think of the fantastic escapes of Washington in the US war of Independance, or such mythologised scenes like Paul Revere's ride or Bunker Hill, or chopping down cherry trees.

Now what do we do with legendary figures where we only have the Romance narratives, like King Arthur? Here the archaelogy clearly points to a temporary recovery and reversal of the Anglo-Saxon conquest and this has always been attributed to a King Arthur in the Welsh tales. So it is plausible he existed, but what parts of his legend encode real events as opposed to literary embellishment? As a consequence, serious historians have placed him in South Cadbury or in Gwynedd or amongst the Goddodin in Scotland. We don't know.

With that long preamble, let us turn to Samson. The narrative has strong mythological parallels, as you are aware. Samson is a strongman figure, like Hercules or Enkidu or Cuhculain. The Philistines are likely Aegean in origin, as seen in the Goliath narrative especially, so some connection to Herakles/Hercules seems to be reasonable.

That said, is it false though? I don't think so, no. I would rather think we are dealing with King Arthur - a shadowy historic figure swathed in a mythological and cultural romance, which absorbed elements of surrounding stories. I would not be surprised if Samson wasn't his real name, but rather a persona adopted - like Genghis Khan or Stalin, maybe even Arthur which means bear - that people have come to know him as. This would then facilitate hos story accrueing more solar elements too.

The Philistines, known as the Peleset to the Egyptians, arrived in Palestine after being driven off by Ramses III as one of the Sea Peoples. They were clearly expansionist and almost conquered Egypt, yet failed to gain more than the sliver of land that became Philistia. This obviously points to a noted defence by the inhabitants of Canaan, but prior to their later attempts to expand again against Saul and David. This has been attributed to a Judge called Samson in Jewish tradition.

Now further, Philistine temples from excavations do have two large support pillars. These seem to have been stone bases with large cedar columns holding up a roof. We are dealing with pre-arch construction, so less secure, and these columns were only about 2 metres or so apart. Now a man chained between them; especially if a strong man, or having old partially rotting columns, or cracked bases from the frequent earthquakes in the area; pulling down the Temple, is not really that unreasonable. Other elements like Nazirite vows, which Samson notably fails to keep, also have a whiff of something that doesn't fit a 'superman' story.

So a lot of exaggeration perhaps, but hard to know where. Also I expect some euhemerism of Solar motiefs or the Herakles archetype too. But the kernel is probably a real guy, whose name might not even be Samson; as you must remember Judges is an epic round of stories, of the Israelites failing God then punished then redeemed, not a 'history' by our understanding. This is heroic material, like the Matters of France, Rome or Britain of the mediaeval period, with larger than life figures loosely based on real people with liberal admixture of story. That is pefectly fine, as you can learn far more about Western ideals from reading Arthurian Romance, or about Mediaevals view of themselves, than from most modern histories. What is 'real' is hard to know at the best of times.

 

[cloudyday2]

So do you think that the Samson story isn’t literal? I always have a tough time with Samson! Some struggle with Genesis but I’m totally fine with Genesis, Samson is what had given me troubles of doubt the most in life, and even currently I can’t say that I’m comfortable with it (like reading the story would leave me feeling foolish and gullible).

He is nearly like Superman. And things like ripping a lion in half always sounds so ridiculous to me in a literal sense. And one man killing 1000 would go far beyond the disbelief of even the most unreasonable Kung Fu movie where one man beats up 50 guys. Now I’m way more (intellectually) comfortable with stories where God strikes the highly favored (and much more plentiful in numbers) enemy with confusion, and even stories where it doesn’t specify what happens I could easily imagine how God might confuse, or perhaps even make a bunch of soldiers nauseous or something like that. But Samson is hard for me because things sound more unrealistic like he’s a superhero.

Even worse is things about the story that doesn’t even sound physically doable based on extension & leverage. Let’s say Samson was 6’ tall with a 6’ wingspan and weighed 200 lbs, how could he drag huge town gate doors and drag them for miles up a hill? He’s only dealing with 200 lbs of leverage. Worse, how could a man with a 6’ wingspan PULL two huge pillars together that were the foundation to a huge temple? The pillars can’t possibly be within arms reach! Nobody ever brings up Samson as there area of struggle lol but that’s the toughest one for me. I mean to beat 1000 men he would need to have the speed of Flash, or have a body that’s impossible to piece, or have super strength to avoid being completely smothered and trampled, etc, or actually he would need all of the above it seems. But still with the pillars it seems he would even need telekinesis.

The book I mentioned earlier, "From Gods to God", has a chapter on Samson. I haven't read it recently, but there here are a few points I recall:
(1) Samson's mother encountered an angel while in the field. Typically rapes were expected to happen when males encountered females in the field (just as marriages were expected to happen when males encountered females at the well). So it's likely that the original tradition on Samson was as a nephilim - half human / half angel or demigod.
(2) The nephilim were imagined to be giants, so that helps with stories of Samson carrying the gates of a city on his shoulders.
(3) The name "Samson" suggests the character was originally a Philistine hero later adopted by the Hebrews. (I'm not certain if that was from the book or some other source.) He is probably like the Christmas Tree where a popular non-Christian tradition was "baptized" into Christianity. So these stories of a Philistine demigod were circumcised and included in Judges along with more historical leaders. Probably it wasn't a conscious decision by some cynical author of Judges but a more unconscious evolution of the oral tradition that was later recorded in writing at a time when the absurdity of it wasn't so obvious.

 

[cloudyday2]

Is this false? We think so, and modern historians sift the sources to find what they deem 'plausible', which is ofyen framed in a wholely naturalistic viewpoint.

It seems to me that this is what happened with the horns of Moses. In ancient times it didn't matter if Moses had horns like a bull or had a glowing face (except that possibly the zealots of monotheism might have disliked the horns due to their connection with divine power and inserted the detail of the veil in an effort to transform the horns into a glow). It was only in modern times that the horns seemed to be a stupid translation "mistake", because a glow seemed more naturalistic than horns. But that wasn't how the ancient Jews thought.

 

[cloudyday2]

Vitamins and minerals are essential for well being and immune system.


Vitamin D I get by being in sunlight I take also vtamin C plus one
magnesium tablet per day, and sometimes zink.

But I don't want to overdo it, our bodies are fantastic they give out warning signals but are also good at fighting off invaders,

I just don't pamper with it.

I saw a similar sentiment from a gardening expert who was giving advice on growing the plant that helps me with depression. He said that the medicinal properties of the plant are stronger when you don't pamper it with lots of fertilizer and water.

Apparently the mother of Napoleon would occasionally not feed him, because she wanted to prevent him from being pampered.

So there is probably a lot of truth to what you say.

Also regarding the body's warning signals, my grandmother used to say that we should pay attention to our food cravings. About a year ago I had a lot of depression and a strong craving for Chinese food. I was too depressed to actually go out and get Chinese food, but I began thinking about possible explanations for the craving. Monosodium glutamate (MSG) came to mind, so I looked for a food high in MSG and read about tomatoes. I found that eating a small can of tomato paste sometimes relieves depression/anhedonia. Interestingly, the other plant I use for depression is related to tomatoes. ... So our bodies are sometimes smarter than our brains LOL.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

(1) Samson's mother encountered an angel while in the field. Typically rapes were expected to happen when males encountered females in the field (just as marriages were expected to happen when males encountered females at the well). So it's likely that the original tradition on Samson was as a nephilim - half human / half angel or demigod.

Semi-divine parentage was often ascribed to great figures in the past. I already mentioned Alexander, or I could mention the traditions of Livia and the Eagle with a laurel leaf as a slightly different take. The story of Arthur's birth while Uther was magically pretending to be someone else is similar. Similarly though, messengers or signs announcing a birth are too, like Isaac or Samuel.

(2) The nephilim were imagined to be giants, so that helps with stories of Samson carrying the gates of a city on his shoulders.

This sounds more like the removal of the lintel of the gates of Troy by Herakles, so I think more Indo-European than Semitic.

(3) The name "Samson" suggests the character was originally a Philistine hero later adopted by the Hebrews. (I'm not certain if that was from the book or some other source.) He is probably like the Christmas Tree where a popular non-Christian tradition was "baptized" into Christianity. So these stories of a Philistine demigod were circumcised and included in Judges along with more historical leaders. Probably it wasn't a conscious decision by some cynical author of Judges but a more unconscious evolution of the oral tradition that was later recorded in writing at a time when the absurdity of it wasn't so obvious.

How did he get that from Samson? It is clearly related to the Semitic Shemesh for Sun, so not a Philistine name. Although I do think there is some relation between Samson and Herakles, which ancient Jewish writers or Church Fathers ascribed to copying by the Greeks, and modern writers like to present in the opposite way.

It seems to me that this is what happened with the horns of Moses. In ancient times it didn't matter if Moses had horns like a bull or had a glowing face (except that possibly the zealots of monotheism might have disliked the horns due to their connection with divine power and inserted the detail of the veil in an effort to transform the horns into a glow). It was only in modern times that the horns seemed to be a stupid translation "mistake", because a glow seemed more naturalistic than horns. But that wasn't how the ancient Jews thought.

Exactly, this is the ancient unity of ideas of Owen Barfield. Only later did they conceptually divide, so that shining and horns no longer associated. You see the same kind of thing in the antropomorphic language in the OT applied to God, which as soon as the concept became more clearly differentiated, was repudiated.

It is similar to how the people of Bristol could put up a statue of Edward Colston as a great philanthropist and humanitarian, fully aware that his fortune came from the slave trade. Or how the US founding fathers had self-evident truths of all people being equal, yet did not see this in contradiction really to continued slavery.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

I saw a similar sentiment from a gardening expert who was giving advice on growing the plant that helps me with depression. He said that the medicinal properties of the plant are stronger when you don't pamper it with lots of fertilizer and water.

Apparently the mother of Napoleon would occasionally not feed him, because she wanted to prevent him from being pampered.

So there is probably a lot of truth to what you say.

Also regarding the body's warning signals, my grandmother used to say that we should pay attention to our food cravings. About a year ago I had a lot of depression and a strong craving for Chinese food. I was too depressed to actually go out and get Chinese food, but I began thinking about possible explanations for the craving. Monosodium glutamate (MSG) came to mind, so I looked for a food high in MSG and read about tomatoes. I found that eating a small can of tomato paste sometimes relieves depression/anhedonia. Interestingly, the other plant I use for depression is related to tomatoes. ... So our bodies are sometimes smarter than our brains LOL.

The body tries to maintain homeostasis, so cravings often relate to electrolyte or nutrition deficiencies. It is well-known medically, especially in pregnancy. Even some abnormal behaviour is related, such as the occurence of pica, or cravings to eat soil, in iron deficiency.

 

[cloudyday2]

This sounds more like the removal of the lintel of the gates of Troy by Herakles, so I think more Indo-European than Semitic.

How did he get that from Samson? It is clearly related to the Semitic Shemesh for Sun, so not a Philistine name. Although I do think there is some relation between Samson and Herakles, which ancient Jewish writers or Church Fathers ascribed to copying by the Greeks, and modern writers like to present in the opposite way.

I just skimmed the chapter on Samson, and the author doesn't claim a Philistine etymology for "Samson" or claim that Samson was originally a Philistine hero. He does mention the Herakles similarity.

So I must have seen the Philistine origin theory somewhere else or maybe I am misremembering.

The book ("From Gods to God") did quote another book that quotes a rabbi on the size of Samson: "Rabbi Shimon the Pious said: Samson's shoulders measured sixty cubits, as it is said, 'But Samson lay in bed only till midnight. At midnight he got up, grasped the doors of the town gate together with the two gateposts, and pulled them out along with the bar. He placed them on his shoulders', teaching us that the gates of Gaza were not less than sixty cubits [more than twenty yards]"

I suppose the story of Samson might be older than the story of Herakles, so maybe it was the Philistines who borrowed from the Hebrews and elements of Samson were incorporated into Herakles?

 

[cloudyday2]

Was listening to an old History Channel documentary on Moses last night, and there was an interesting detail. Apparently one of the Egyptian sun gods would part the water in the Reed Sea and rest there from sun-down to sun-up.