Did Samson Really Tear up Lion like a Young Goat?

Van Dyck’s Painting Samson and Delilah

Van Dyck’s Samson and Delilah. Delilah was a Philistine woman for whom the hero conceived a passion, and who betrayed him. She pried out from him that Samson’s power was in his hair, and called her countrymen to cut it. When Samson lost his power, he was captured and blinded.

Indeed, three thousand years ago they (lions) still lived in the territory of the modern Israel. This is what the Bible says about the occasion, “As they approached the vineyards of Timnah, suddenly a young lion came roaring toward him. 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.”

Is it possible that the Scriptures do not narrate some mythical stories of the life of Samson, but more or less real ones? Archeologists believe that it is not altogether impossible. For they found an evidence that this very Samson existed – the one who was granted by God his fantastic power, the source of which was in the hero’s hair, and he was not to shave it. Otherwise, the power would go away.

During the excavations in the area of Beit Shemesh near Jerusalem, Professor Shlomo Bunimovitz and Doctor Zvi Lederman found a stone seal with an engraved image. On the seal, as the professor and the doctor suggest, there is a picture of a man fighting a lion. It is logical to believe, that if the beast had won the battle, the victim would not have been worth remembering!

He must be Samson!, decided the scientists. Who else could he be? The place of the finding is fitting: in this very area, according to the tradition, Samson lived. The time is also right – the 11th century BCE.

This seal was found in the area, where according to the tradition the hero lived

If the story about the lion is true, then, probably, the story of Samson killing a thousand people with a donkey’s jawbone in a short period of time is not false either. And the one about the mass destruction of the Philistines in a temple, when they mocked the blinded and powerless Samson, was not a fake too.

The Bible says about this event the following, “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. (…)

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. Then his brothers and his father’s whole family went down to get him. They brought him back and buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol in the tomb of Manoah his father…”

The town of Eshtaol, where Samson is allegedly buried, still exists – it is located twenty kilometres west of Jerusalem. In order to be finally convinced in the truthfulness of the Biblical myth, only a trifle is left to do – the hero’s tomb must be discovered.

http://old.archeo-news.ru; ARCHEOLOGY. NEWS OF THE WORLD OF ARCHEOLOGY.