God Hates You, Hate Him Back: Making Sense of The Bible (17 page)

The full effects of the author’s ‘shroom consumption really start to take hold as he narrates an account of a bizarre wedding ceremony. Apparently, in those days it was customary for the bridegroom to provide a feast for the all his groomsmen. In this case, all were Philistines. At some stage in the afternoon family get-together, Samson stands on a table, so we can presume he was drunk, as it is starting to sound all too similar to some of my family gatherings, and asks a cryptic question to all thirty guests present:

Does Samson sound like the bad uncle at your Christmas gatherings?

The groomsmen agree to take him up on his wager and Samson asks the following riddle:

For three entire days his wife and the wedding party attempted to solve the riddle, but alas without any success. In frustration, they turned to her with the most heinous and excessive threat imaginable:

Samson’s wife threw herself at him, sobbing with tears, demanding that Samson tell her the answer to the riddle, so that her friends would not burn her to death. Samson rejected her plea, telling her that he had not even told his parents the answer and he would not tell her.

Eventually, Samson softened, after seeing his wife cry continuously for seven days and he gave her the answer. The two part answer being: honey and a lion.

Samson’s groomsmen ran to him with the answers, an answer they knew only because his wife had revealed it to them and demanded payment of the clothing he had promised as a reward for solving the riddle. Samson told them he would not pay, because they had not as agreed, figured it out for themselves. The gathering became furious with Samson for failing to honor his word, as they saw it. But a little divine intervention put paid to this conflict:

The Lord still loves smiting innocents, doesn’t he? The poor old fellas in Ashkelon were killed by the spirit of God and they had nothing to do with the wager. Further, Samson’s wife is discarded like trash because she revealed the answer to the riddle to her friends so that they would not kill her.

Samson then takes vengeance on the Philistines, for what it is not evidently clear, as it seems their only crime was to sneak a peek at the answer to a ridiculous riddle.

He returns to the home of his former wife, who he had passed onto one of his philistine friends. Samson appears at the door to his former father-in-law and states his intention to have sex with his ex, in her room. The former wife’s father protests and says that she has been given away to one of Samson’s friends and in an effort to placate the horny Samson, the father offers his other daughter to him in lieu:

It’s difficult to follow the logic of this story, but it seems as our stoned-storyteller is trying to convey that God, operating through Samson, was seeking to destroy the Philistines for whatever reason he could muster, as is evident with Samson’s reply to the offer of the better looking younger sister:

In a rage, Samson went out and caught three hundred foxes, tying them together in pairs by their tails. He then devises a plan to attach a torch to each pair of foxes and then sets them off running through the Philistines crops, which are naturally destroyed in the pursuing blaze. The town folk demand to know who was responsible for this malicious property damage and it is not long before the fingers are pointed at the former wife’s father:

Well, if you have read the book this far, I am sure you can guess what happens next - the usual bloodshed and violence. The father-in-law and his daughter are set alight and burnt to death.

Samson, enraged, responds with the following personal declaration of war before slaughtering countless number of Philistines:

Soon word reaches Judah, the current leader of the Israelites, and Judah is pissed off that Samson has mercilessly attacked the Philistines in the manner in which he had. Judah, concerned this would lead to a counter attack by the Philistines on the Israelites, said to Samson:

Samson agrees to surrender to Judah’s army, under the condition that they will only pass him onto the Philistines and not harm him themselves. As the Philistines came towards Samson, the Spirit of the Lord came upon him in power and thus he was able to break free, the arm bindings dropped from his hands. Without weapon, he fortuitously finds a fresh jaw-bone of a donkey and uses this to kill a thousand Philistine soldiers. A thousand soldiers slain by a man with a donkey bone! Then Samson said:

Based on this clever little poetic prose, in the midst of battle no less, we should credit Samson as the Godfather of rap.

As you can imagine, the act of killing a thousand men makes for thirsty work, and Samson was parched as he scoured the battlefield. He looked to the heavens and cried:

Sorry, I don’t get this. I have my fair share of bar room or football field brawls and never did it concern me whether or not my foe was sporting a hooded penis or not. Call me strange?

God fulfils Samson’s plea by opening up the ground beneath his feet with a gushing, geyser of cool clean water to quench the thirst. Are there any marketing executives reading this? Because this makes for a great Budweiser beer commercial! Voice over prompt: “Just finished killing a thousand men with the jaw-bone of an ass and now feeling a little thirsty? [Cue: beer shooting up like a fountain from out of the earth] Then this Bud’s for you! The nectar of the Gods!”

From this point in time, Samson led Israel for twenty years in the days of the Philistines.

We are now introduced to the story of Samson and Delilah. The story has it that Samson ventured into the city of Gaza. The purpose of his trip was not for a little shopping, or sightseeing, or even just to catch up with an old friend. He was there to fuck a prostitute, which he successfully did and henceforth spent the night with her. Whispers quickly swept through the city that Samson was here and the men of Gaza surrounded the place and lay in wait for him all night at the city gate. The order went out that they would wait until he emerged at dawn, and then kill him.

But Samson stayed with the prostitute only until the early evening, which suggests his bedroom stamina fell well short of his proclaimed fighting fitness. His strength did return thereafter, though, as he was able to sneak out of the city safely by ripping apart the doors to the city gate with his bare hands.

Shortly after this event, he fell in love with a woman from the Valley of Sorek, named Delilah. Samson, however, was unknowingly being set up for what would be a sting operation. The Philistines had plotted with Delilah to mastermind Samson’s doom. Once more, another attempt by the Bible’s authors to demonize women, matching the story of the original sin in the Garden of Eden.

The Philistines had said to Delilah:

Delilah, with the promise of financial reward from her puppet-masters, agreed and later that night she said to Samson:

Hello, alarm bells! Hey, I love my wife, but I would never give her instructions as to how to kill me, and she also doesn’t know how much I’m insured for.

Samson confides in her that if she was to tie his arms together with fresh bow ribbons then this would render him powerless. Delilah informed the Philistines and several of their men waited for him to fall asleep that night. With his arms tied together and men hidden in the room, Delilah yelled out:

Samson, startled, was able to break free easily of the flimsy handcuffs and his would-be captors fled into the night. Then Delilah said to Samson:

This seems like a highly unnatural course of events, as there is no mention of Samson saying words to the effect of, “You treacherous cow, why would you deceive me so in order to have me killed!” None of this, just an incredulous wife accusing Samson of being a liar, and angrily disappointed he didn’t fall into the trap.

Samson then tells Delilah that if anyone were to tie him with new rope that had never been used before, then he would be as weak as any other man. Sure enough, on cue, Delilah waits for Samson to fall asleep, ties him up and shouts the same signal to the hiding Philistines. Once more, Samson breaks free of the ropes and his attackers run off into the night.

Delilah becomes even more pissed off and tells Samson that he has made a mockery of her, but still nothing from Samson that would suggest that, at the very least, he was displeased with his beloved.

She persists with the questioning and Samson fools her for a third time. Now, wouldn’t you be getting the hell away from a woman that was so obviously trying to facilitate your downfall?

The Bible suggests that Delilah’s probing for Samson’s weakness went on for some time:

With this insight Delilah ran off to the Philistine authorities and urged them to come back once more, as she now was sure of Samson’s secret. Later that night, Samson fell asleep on her lap and she cut seven braids of his hair and immediately his strength left him. The men captured him on this fourth attempt and took him prisoner. Whereby they gouged out his eyes and took him to the city of Gaza.

Two glaringly obvious points here, firstly why would the Philistines be so daft to allow Samson to grow his hair again after having finally figured out the way to subdue him, after having witnessed him kill a thousand of them with a donkey’s jaw-bone? Secondly, if God chose Samson to be his servant providing him with such special super-human powers then why would he leave one of his own so exposed to such an obvious Achilles’ heel? Kryptonite was the only thing that could stop Superman and finding Kryptonite lying dormant on the ground posed a much greater logistical challenge than snipping a few strands of hair.