Ancient seal lends credence to biblical Samson-vs.-lion tale

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An ancient seal slightly smaller than a penny apparently depicts a man fighting a lion, which archaeologists believe could be an early reference to the biblical tale of Samson.
The find doesn’t prove that the legendary strongman, who was said to have torn apart a lion as if it were a “young goat,” actually lived, but it does “anchor the story in an archaeological setting,” said Tel Aviv University archaeologist Shlomo Bunimovitz.
The seal was found at Beth Shemesh, an archaeological site between the ancient cities of Zorah and Eshtaol, about 12 miles (20 kilometers) west of Jerusalem. Archaeologists date the seal to the 12th century B.C.
“If we are right and what we see on the seal is a representation of a man meeting a lion, it shows that the Samson legend already existed around the area of Beth Shemesh during that time period,” Bunimovitz said in a statement. “We can date it quite precisely.”
Samson’s tale, told in the Book of Judges, is one of cross-border communication and conflict.
According to legend, Samson was of the Dan tribe of Israelites, born near where the Israelite, Philistine and Canaanite borders met. Samson seeks a wife among the Philistine people and is on his way to secure the marriage when he meets the lion and kills it with his bare hands. The marriage engagement goes sour due to a feud between Samson and the bride-to-be’s relatives, and ends with Samson slaughtering multiple Philistines and setting fire to their crops using torches tied to the tails of foxes. That story has been depicted in a mosaic dating back to A.D. 400 or 500.
These stories represent the anxiety people felt about the fuzzy borders between their civilizations, according to Zvi Lederman, who co-directs the Beth Shemesh excavations with Bunimovitz.
“When you cross the border, you have to fight the enemy and you encounter dangerous animals. You meet bad things,” Lederman said in a statement. “These are stories of contact and conflict, of a border that is more cultural than political.”
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Among the majority of Christians throughtout history, and ancient Jewish beliefs, Samson was not a fictional tale, but history. Only in recent times of Christian history has a portion of Christians taught that Samson, Jonah, etc is not real historical people. The seal discovery is interesting though!
 
COPLAND_3 said:
Among the majority of Christians throughtout history, and ancient Jewish beliefs, Samson was not a fictional tale, but history. Only in recent times of Christian history has a portion of Christians taught that Samson, Jonah, etc is not real historical people. The seal discovery is interesting though!
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I consider Samson historical myself, but I found this interesting to share 👍
 
ooh:rolleyes: sounds like another archeological find that confirms the historacity of God’s love story to y’all:D:thumbsup:
 
Hercules also fought a lion…didn’t he? He was a demi-god and was quite popular in ancient times with followers.
 
Publisher said:
Hercules also fought a lion…didn’t he? He was a demi-god and was quite popular in ancient times with followers.
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Precisely, but given the date and the location, it’s very unlikely that the seal referred to Hercules… :rolleyes:
 
farpinho said:
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Interesting indeed, but I have different reasons to be interested. 😛 To be honest I’m now more of the idea that archaeology can neither directly prove nor disprove the ‘historicity’ of most of the biblical accounts; what it can do at best is give us a concrete historical context for them. This is why I think agenda-driven projects (actively trying to prove the Bible to be either right or wrong by digging stuff up from the ground) are usually doomed to fail.

All this seal proves I think is that we have evidence for the tradition of a man fighting a lion (if indeed the seal portrays the image in that context) at the time period from the relevant area. It is not a direct proof for Samson’s historical existence as say, a seal or any other item from the time bearing Samson’s name or giving independent information about him would be - and even then, we can never be too sure that the ‘Samson’ of these hypothetical artifacts (if we actually do find them) is the Samson. We can hypothesize all we want, but short of building a time machine it would be a lie to claim 100% certainty.
 
12th century??? That seems a little early for Samson’s exploits even by traditional reckoning. I would think that man fighting lion is a very common archetype anywhere were lions are known.

It would be very interesting if the seal did indeed depict Samson. Out of all the judges, I would have pegged the Samson story as least likely to be historically accurate. I mean it reads more like a Greek hero myth than traditional Jewish story.
 
patrick457 said:
Interesting indeed, but I have different reasons to be interested. 😛 To be honest I’m now more of the idea that archaeology can neither directly prove nor disprove the ‘historicity’ of most of the biblical accounts; what it can do at best is give us a concrete historical context for them. This is why I think agenda-driven projects (actively trying to prove the Bible to be either right or wrong by digging stuff up from the ground) are usually doomed to fail.

All this seal proves I think is that we have evidence for the tradition of a man fighting a lion (if indeed the seal portrays the image in that context) at the time period from the relevant area. It is not a direct proof for Samson’s historical existence as say, a seal or any other item from the time bearing Samson’s name or giving independent information about him would be - and even then, we can never be too sure that the ‘Samson’ of these hypothetical artifacts (if we actually do find them) is the Samson. We can hypothesize all we want, but short of building a time machine it would be a lie to claim 100% certainty.
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I agree we can never be absolutely sure the tales are historical from archaeology, though I have yeat another different reason to be interested in these artifacts. 🙂
My reason to be interested in the artifacts is that it can prove (at best) the traditions were transmitted orally (or even written) many many years before the date it’s commonly agreed the tales were written 🙂
 
Taestron said:
12th century??? That seems a little early for Samson’s exploits even by traditional reckoning. I would think that man fighting lion is a very common archetype anywhere were lions are known.

It would be very interesting if the seal did indeed depict Samson. Out of all the judges, I would have pegged the Samson story as least likely to be historically accurate. I mean it reads more like a Greek hero myth than traditional Jewish story.
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True, but the story of Hercules was written at best during the 3rd-4th century B.C…
 
farpinho said:
True, but the story of Hercules was written at best during the 3rd-4th century B.C…
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Actually, it is true that the Herakles mythos only reached the form we know it today at that date, but Herakles is represented in Greek art well before that, and he already gets a single brief mention by Homer (8th-7th century BC) in the Odyssey (12.72). According to your reasoning, stories about Herakles could also very well have been transmitted orally for a long time (at that time, what wasn’t?) before they got the literary treatment.
 
farpinho said:
I agree we can never be absolutely sure the tales are historical from archaeology, though I have yeat another different reason to be interested in these artifacts. 🙂
My reason to be interested in the artifacts is that it can prove (at best) the traditions were transmitted orally (or even written) many many years before the date it’s commonly agreed the tales were written 🙂
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But the important question is, is it really Samson who’s portrayed in the seal?
 
patrick457 said:
Actually, it is true that the Herakles mythos only reached the form we know it today at that date, but Herakles is represented in Greek art well before that, and he already gets a single brief mention by Homer (8th-7th century BC) in the Odyssey (12.72). According to your reasoning, stories about Herakles could also very well have been transmitted orally for a long time (at that time, what wasn’t?) before they got the literary treatment.
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Very true indeed (and I thought about that right after I submitted the post), but I would wonder how that tale reached the area between the cities of Zorah and Eshtaol before 10 B.C. Anyway, what we do know is that the seal can’t be depicting a greek hero if the dating of the artefact is correct… there’s no way we could possibly know if the seal depicts Samsan 😃 but it might be more likely a local hero.
 
Taestron said:
12th century??? That seems a little early for Samson’s exploits even by traditional reckoning. I would think that man fighting lion is a very common archetype anywhere were lions are known.

It would be very interesting if the seal did indeed depict Samson. Out of all the judges, I would have pegged the Samson story as least likely to be historically accurate. I mean it reads more like a Greek hero myth than traditional Jewish story.
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Well, a temple discovered in Gaza also provides a good context for the story of Samson’s death.
 
farpinho said:
We will never know. I think the question should rather be “does it even really depict a person fighting a lion? :D”
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I wonder if a picture of the seal is on the Internet yet…then we’ll know. :hmmm:
 
farpinho said:
Very true indeed (and I thought about that right after I submitted the post), but I would wonder how that tale reached the area between the cities of Zorah and Eshtaol before 10 B.C. Anyway, what we do know is that the seal can’t be depicting a greek hero if the dating of the artefact is correct… there’s no way we could possibly know if the seal depicts Samsan 😃 but it might be more likely a local hero.
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Well, one could answer here that the Philistines most likely originated from the Aegean, since there are strong connections between the Mycenaean (ca. 1700-1100 BC) and Philistine cultures. So in other words, they had Greek origins, although they soon adopted local Canaanite culture and language. If we identify the Philistines as being one of the “Sea Peoples” who fought against the Egyptians, we know that they already existed in the area by the late 12th-11th century BC at the beginning of the Near Eastern Iron Age.
 
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