[Milton-L] Samson as suicide bomber

Thu May 14 17:10:10 EDT 2009

I'm interested in another question that Jonathan raised in this discussion, one that seems to have passed without comment.  I quote:

"...God restores Samson's strength to destroy more Philistines in one act than he had killed in his entire lifetime (including himself). So why the restoration of strength at the end?"

This strikes me as a very good question.  How do those of you who claim that, for Milton in SA, Samson's final act had no divine sanction answer it?

I'm not immersed in the literature on Samson Agonistes right now, and I don't recall from the last time I was just how Derek or Michael or for that matter Joseph Wittreich or others have dealt with the problems the question raises.  I can think of several different ways in which those problems might be dealt with, but none of them seem entirely satisfying to me-at least not in support of the various "anti-Samsonist" arguments.

Apologies if this is too obvious (and if it has already been heavily debated in the literature-if so, please post citations, so I can do some homework).  It just suddenly struck me this afternoon that it is clearly asserted in Judges and (I think) simply assumed in SA that Samson required and received superhuman strength (and if not from God then from whom?) to topple the pillars by hand, and that the assumption has perhaps been at times forgotten in discussions of the play.

Louis

===========================

Louis Schwartz

Associate Professor of English

University of Richmond

Richmond, VA  23173

(804) 289-8315

lschwart at richmond.edu

-----Original Message-----
From: milton-l-bounces at lists.richmond.edu [mailto:milton-l-bounces at lists.richmond.edu] On Behalf Of jonnyangel
Sent: Thursday, May 14, 2009 12:56 PM
To: John Milton Discussion List
Subject: Re: [Milton-L] Samson as suicide bomber

They were rhetorical questions. And why would I need Wikipedia when I have

perfectly good Encyclopedia's lying next to my bed? Samuel is the author

most often attributed with writing Judges. A lot of blame shifting, cherry

picking etc. ensues. The Israelites enemies, the Canaanites (Philistines,

Sidonians, and Hivites) all set up shop in the kingless land of the

Israelites (there's a reason Samson was the 12th judge). When the "mayoral"

system fails <boom> "monarchy". (Saul's, I believe). Like I said, I have

theories about why Milton placed SA "last". And as I said above, there's a

reason Samson was the 12th judge (a far cry from Othniel). Samson was a

prick, but he was not that unusual in his fall from grace, either.

And I'm well aware that Christ was a Nazarene and *not* a "Nazirite", but it

feels as though we're splitting rather long hairs here.

There are *many* similarities too lengthy to get into here (off to school),

but it has been argued that Jesus *was* a Nazirite, in part because Nazarene

is absent in the Hebrew Scriptures.

On 5/14/09 7:21 AM, "James Rovira" <jamesrovira at gmail.com> wrote:

> Jonny --

>

> A Nazarene in the sense that Christ was a Nazarene is someone who

> comes from the region of Nazareth.  A Nazirite is one who has taken a

> vow requiring him to not drink wine, not touch anything dead, and not

> cut his hair.  These vows are usually taken for limited periods of

> time: Paul is recorded as taking such a vow in the book of Acts.

>

> Samson was unusual in that he was supposed to be a Nazirite his entire

> life. He broke his vows, of course -- allowing his hair to be cut was

> the last vow to be broken, so he lost his strength.  When he hair grew

> back, he prayed and regained his strength, using it to kill off the

> Philistine nobility.

>

> As much as we agonize over this event today, it was a morally

> unambiguous act for the author of Judges, for the author of the book

> of Hebrews, and probably for Milton given his support of Parliament

> during the English Civil War.  Most readers of this episode throughout

> history have thought something along the lines of, "those bastards

> needed to die" -- roughly equivalent to the way most of those watching

> The Dark Knight felt about The Joker at the end.

>

> We're egalitarian and tolerant, however, so can't think that way.

>

> Anyway, Christ was a Nazarene but not a Nazirite.

>

> Rather than post this to the list you could have saved yourself some

> trouble just by doing a Wikipedia search.  Type "Nazarene" into

> Wikipedia and read the first line on the page.

>

> Jim R

>

> On Wed, May 13, 2009 at 11:37 PM, jonnyangel <junkopardner at comcast.net> wrote:

>> What *is* the "distinct" difference? Are there any theologians on the list?

>> No booze? Growing your hair? I'm putting you to the test here...

>>

>> There are more similarities than differences.

>>

>> JA

>

>>

>> On 5/13/09 10:18 PM, "Salwa Khoddam" <skhoddam at cox.net> wrote:

>

>>>

>>>

>>> There is a distinct difference between a "Nazarite" and a "Nazarene". Samson

>>> was the former.

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