[Milton-L] Samson as suicide bomber

[Noam Flinker]

Unfortunately the motives of Samson in Judges are a deadly mix of  
religion and nationalism.  That was my point when I first discussed  
Samson as a terrorist at the Fourth IMS in 1991("Pagan Holiday and  
National Conflict: A Philistine Reading of Samson Agonistes").
When Samson first tells  his parents of his desire for a Philistine  
woman, the account (Judges 14) is specific about the religious  
implications:
1
And Samson went down to Timnath, and saw a woman in Timnath of the  
daughters of the Philistines.
2
And he came up, and told his father and his mother, and said, I have  
seen a woman in Timnath of the daughters of the Philistines: now  
therefore get her for me to wife.
3
Then his father and his mother said unto him, Is there never a woman  
among the daughters of thy brethren, or among all my people, that  
thou goest to take a wife of the uncircumcised Philistines? And  
Samson said unto his father, Get her for me; for she pleaseth me well.
4
¶ But his father and his mother knew not that it was of the LORD,  
that he sought an occasion against the Philistines: for at that time  
the Philistines had dominion over Israel.

The religious significance of the conclusion of Judges 16 is likewise  
all too clear:
28
¶ And Samson called unto the LORD, and said, O Lord GOD, remember me,  
I pray thee, and strengthen me, I pray thee, only this once, O God,  
that I may be at once avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes.
29
And Samson took hold of the two middle pillars upon which the house  
stood, and on which it was borne up, of the one with his right hand,  
and of the other with his left.
30
And Samson said, Let me die with the Philistines. And he bowed  
himself with all his might; and the house fell upon the lords, and  
upon all the people that were therein. So the dead which he slew at  
his death were more than they which he slew in his life.

In 1991 I explored Hebrew and Philistine (Israeli and Palestinian?)  
readings of Samson Agonistes in order to point to the sinister  
similarity between both kinds of religious nationalism.

I fear that Samson's tragedy is our own. Mixing religion and  
nationalism can lead to explosive results that we must learn to  
harness with care.

Noam Flinker
Dept. of English
University of Haifa
Israel
On May 10, 2009, at 7:40 AM, Carrol Cox wrote:

> Andy Frisk wrote: "There's a great essay in MIlton Quarterly Vol.  
> 42 No.
> 1 March 2008 titled "A Poem to the Unknown God: Samson Agonistes and
> Negative Theology" by Michael Bryson that addresses Samson in the
> context of the motivations for his actions and argues that his
> motivations are not of God and that Samson has much more in common  
> with
> Satan, rather than The Son."
>
> There is an elephant in the room - so far delicately ignored: "Suicide
> Bomber" refers, of course, to Arabs, who have replaced "dirty commies"
> in the mythology of u.s. politics. But that is not the elephant but
> merely the context. The elephant is that, through discussing Samson in
> _theological_ terms, one implies that the suicide bombers of the daily
> newspaper are acting or claiming to act from theological motives -  
> that
> they are religious fanatics.
>
> But they are acting from strictly secular motives, as a study of a  
> year
> or so established: they represent frustrated nationalism! So if we  
> want
> to discuss Samson as a suicide bomber, we need to discuss his  
> politics,
> not his religion.
>
> (I can't remember now thename of the author of the study. He was a
> professor at the University of Chicago. I'll inquire on another  
> list for
> a citation.)
>
> Carrol
>
> P.S. Suicide bombers have been defined as the poor man's F-16.
>
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