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Not every character in the Bible is a good role model. We already know that we should boo the devil, Judas, and Goliath when they come on stage. The same reception should greet King Herod, the Egyptian Pharaoh, and Jezebel.
Jesus, on the other hand, is THE hero of the Bible. Everyone agrees that the world would be a better place if we would all just act like him. Even non-Christians cede that point—from Muhammed to Gandhi to the Dali Lama—to several prominent atheists.
It’s the biblical characters in the gray zone who confuse us. Such as Paul—who wrote eloquent definitions of love, but seemed to be a sexist pig. Such as Peter—who would display fierce loyalty one day, cowardice the next. Such as David—who uplifted million with his Psalms, yet trafficked in murder and adultery. Such as Solomon—who sponsored some of history’s greatest wisdom literature, all the while sending his kingdom down the drain by his foolishness. Such as the Virgin Mary—who sacrificed her reputation in order to bear Jesus, but thought he was mentally unstable when he began his ministry and tried to stop him. Such as Moses, arguably the smartest and most courageous human being who ever lived—yet kept allowing his spirit to be reduced to the petty levels of the people he led.
Such biblical characters are problematical if you are trying to teach a children’s Sunday School class. How much information do you give the kiddies about Jacob—who fathered 13 children by two wives and two concubines, or Elisha—who got mad at some boys for calling him “bald” and arranged for them to be eaten by a wild bear, or Isaiah—who preached his sermons while stark naked in order to get people to pay more attention to him? When telling the little tikes about David fighting Goliath, do you finish the story as the youthful David did—by beheading the giant? Or when you tell the inspiring story of Esther, do you tell the whole truth, which includes the Jews massacring 75,000 of their enemies, including women and children?
No wonder God had to send Jesus to the earth—to clear up all the screwy theology people were into. No one in the Bible was more screwed-up than Samson. If he were in the Wizard of Oz, Samson could have played both the scarecrow and the tin man—as he demonstrated neither a heart nor a brain. He did have strength though, which enabled him to be a terrorist. Incidentally—he was also cruel to animals. Ask the foxes.
Here is his story: Back in the days when the world was harassed by the Philistines—10th and 11th centuries B.C.—God raised up numerous protectors for the Israelites, newly settled in the Promised Land. Those were bloody and messy times—not the good ole days. Samson was born into that era and was endowed with amazing strength, a gift from heaven. No Philistines knew it at first, but Samson only had his strength as long as no one cut his hair. Samson would bait the Philistines into an argument, or a bet, and then slaughter the lot of them, singlehandedly, when they resisted him. Let’s just say that Let There Be Peace on Earth—and Let it Begin with Me was not on Samson’s playlist.
Given Samson’s lack of common sense, it was inevitable that he would spill his secret into enemy hands. His girlfriend Delilah, in cahoots with the Philistines, tried four times to get the secret of Samson’s strength out of him. He knew she was setting him. But on the fourth time, he told her anyway, “Cut my locks and I will be as weak as any man.” Thus it happened that when Samson fell asleep soon afterward, Delilah summoned a barber to give him a buzz cut. The Philistines then rushed in the room, tied him up, and took him prisoner.
To Gaza. Which leads us into the second part of today’s post.
While in Gaza, Samson was ridiculed and the Philistines held large parties—with the shackled Samson as entertainment. In the midst of one of those parties, with thousands present, Samson realized that his hair had grown back just enough—that he could push the pillars over that supported the building, thus killing everyone there, himself included. We call this a suicide terrorist. At the end of that fateful day, Samson had killed himself and many others, but—the Bible says—the Philistines remained in control. Nothing changed. Except everyone hated each other all the more.
Please don’t try to tell us that all this killing was—or is—somehow the will of God. Get thou behind us Satan.
It should give us pause to know that Gaza—and the region thereabout—is still the scene of horrors. The curse of Samson gets recycled from one generation to another. Human labels neither excuse it or mitigate it, whether we call someone Israelite, Hamas, Zionist, American, Jew, Muslim, or Palestinian. In the eyes of God, all are sinners and all fall short of God’s glory. God is no respecter of human labels. Only the politicians—and those whose religion is saturated in politics—seem to see any difference among the perpetrators of oppression and violence.
In the Bible, Samson was a reactionary. His solutions were violence and death, his understandings of environments, cultures, religions, and people were nil. His empathy was non-existent. He lives on in various guises, doctrines, politicians, warriors, and pundits today.
For those of us who sit comfortably distant from the current conflict in Palestine and Israel, perhaps the best way to not be a Samson is to not be a pundit—over-simplifying and pontificating. The story there is too long and too complex for us to land smugly on one side or another. Before we join the fray and spout our own religious or self-righteous opinions, we owe the people who suffer there some thoughtfulness—to learn or relearn several stories. We can’t talk about the news, and people’s reactions to it, without exploring the following 12 topics:
1. Collapse of Ancient Israel and emergence of Judaism—Israel collapsed in the Bible because of its idolatry and disobedience to a God who blessed them in order that they could be a blessing to others. As the ancient kingdom went extinct, it was replaced by one of the most remarkable and amazing cultures in human history: the Jews. While stunningly diverse, the Jewish people have maintained an ethos that has indeed blessed everyone else in the world.
2. Rise of Christianity and its appropriation of Israel metaphor—Among the Jewish people, a new religion arose, Christianity, that both retained its Jewishness and rejected portions of it. Christians picked up the concept of “Israel” as a metaphor for themselves, seeing it in aspirational terms, and rejecting the notion of "Israel" as a political or military movement.
3. Rise of Islam and dispersion of Christians and Jews from the Holy Land—By the 8th century A.D., Arabic speaking Muslims conquered the Holy Land and established Islam as the religion of that area, tolerating small remnants of Christians and Jews there. The first Muslims protected Christians and Jews, recognizing the things the religions had in common, respecting them as fellow “people of the book.”
4. Crusades and anti-Semitism—Militarized and uncompromising factions in both Christianity and Islam promoted religious intolerance. Both Islam and Christianity turned against the Jews. Crusades were organized by Christian leaders to drive the Muslims out of the Holy Land. The Crusades failed. Spain, the place where the three religions had their most healthy relationship, turned violently Christian, and the Spanish Inquisition arrested, tortured, and killed converts whose faith was thought to be still tainted by Islam or Judaism. By A.D. 1200, radical elements in Christianity and Islam throughout the world made it lethal to profess anything other than the official religion of the whatever local government was in charge.
5. Rise and Fall of Ottoman Empire and competing nationalism—From the 16th through the 20th centuries, AD, the Turkish Ottomans ruled the Holy Land. Islam was their religion. Minority communities of Christians and Jews were tolerated in the Holy Land, as long as they didn’t cause trouble. But by the 1800s, the empire was weaking and there were stirrings among both Jews (Zionists) and Palestinians for their own territory and their own nations. The population of the Holy Land was overwhelmingly Palestinian, speaking Arabic and practicing either Islam, Christianity, or Judaism. But there was a growing population of Jews, immigrating from other parts of the world, buying property in Palestine, in hopes of establishing a new, modern, secular nation of Israel.
6. Britain, WWI, Zionism, and Palestine—As Britain, France, and the United States squared off against Germany, the Ottoman Empire, and others in World War I, everyone tried to get both the Jews and the Palestinians to help their side. Britain promised both the Palestinians and the Jews their independence—and land, if they would side against Germany and the Ottomans. But you can’t promise the same place to two different groups.
7. Holocaust and New State of Israel—After six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust, the United States, and the new United Nations, relented and granted territory in the Holy Land to the Jews, who had been left unprotected by all the other nations of the world during Hitler’s reign. But Hitler wasn’t the first one to try and exterminate or drive out the Jews. It was time to give them a place where they could protect themselves. In 1948, land roughly equal to the size of New Jersey was taken away from the Palestinians and granted to immigrating Jews—the new state of Israel. Within 3 years, ¾ of a million Jews had settled their new country. Land equal to the size of Delaware was set aside for the 1.5 million Palestinians, who live there at the time. Half of the Palestinians were required to leave their homes and land and settle in refugee camps, on either the West Bank of the Jordan River, or the Gaza Strip, a 25 by 5 miles strip of land between Israel and Egypt.
8. Christian millennialism and fabrication of the rapture—As Jews struggled for their own homeland, a struggle intensified in the 1800s, some Christians revived theories of the end of the world, taking biblical verses out of context and using them to fabricate the scenario of the Rapture, a speculation never mentioned in the Bible. Relying especially on verses from the Book of Revelation, the theory asserted that as soon as Israel reclaimed territory in the Holy Land, that all the armies of the world would meet there for a final battle, at Armageddon. The theory has several variations, but in the end, all the peoples of the world who do not convert to Christianity, including the Jews, will go to hell, and the Christians will be taken into the heavens in a “rapture” to be with Christ for eternity. These fabricated theories, while employing many biblical verses, are not taught by Jesus, nor do they in any way resemble the spirit of Jesus. Yet the concept of “rapture” persists, and many people in churches support the establishment of Israel, and its efforts against any other nation or people arrayed against it. This adds a dark religious element to the politics and violence of the area.
9. Two-state solution—From the beginning, the United Nations granted both Israel and Palestine land for two different independent nations. Israel, with less population, was granted 75% of the land, Palestine was granted 25%. There are currently about 7 million Israelis who live in the Holy Land, and 7 million Palestinians.
10. Arab-Israeli wars and peace treaties—When Israel was established in 1948, it was immediately attacked by the surrounding Arabic nations, none of which wanted to take in the Palestinians. While Israel had its own terrorists, the surrounding nations were also aggressive. In time, Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia established peace treaties with Israel, and the countries found ways to mutually benefit each other. Some nations still have hostile relationships with Israel, such as Iran and Syria. While all the surrounding nations claim to be concerned about the Palestinians, none except Jordan has agreed to help resettle them. Palestinians have become a pawn of international politics.
11. Israeli settlements and Palestinian refugees—Israel, for the past 40 years, after wars and terrorist attacks on its people, has expanded its control over all Palestinian territories. It has encroached on those territories with new Israeli settlements, in the name of defense. There are now 144 Israeli settlements including more than ½ million Jews who have moved into Palestinian territory. Meanwhile, the Israeli military controls both the West Bank and the Gaza strip, has built walls around the populations there, and deprived Palestinians of their property and their civil rights. The Palestinian response has been disorganized and ineffective, and the rest of the world, including the United States, has been ignored when expressing concern for Palestinians.
12. Recent politics in Israel and Palestine—As both sides have hardened and become more militant and violent, the situation has spiraled out of control. In the Gaza Strip, where almost 2 million Palestinian refugees live, the political organization Hamas has taken root. They believe in the extermination of Israel and the use of terrorist tactics (kill as many people as possible.) The Israeli governments, increasing hardline, have a more “civil” and sophisticated approach to violence, but use it constantly as a way to control the restless Palestinian populations. In short, there is ineffective, violent leadership on all sides. And the masses of people suffer.
Samson lives. But as people of faith, we strive to not lose heart. Almost everyone who reads this has the luxury of NOT being in the Gaza strip, or Israel these days. It is hard to see the news reports (mostly framed as propaganda, unfortunately) and not lose heart. But we can seek and pray and open our hearts and minds, and stay curious. “History” means “inquiry.” I try to make sure my discoveries of history are not politics in the disguise of history. I try to make sure that my religious beliefs are not politics in the disguise of faith. And I welcome anyone to wants to help hold me to those standards.
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