Jump to content

Talk:Samson's riddle

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The murder of 30 innocents to steal their possessions to pay off a debt

[edit]

There is no discussion of the morality of these murders in any of the scholarly sources used to create the article? There should be an entire section dedicated to the morality of killing 30 men just to take the shirts off their bodies in order to pay of his debt. Instead of just buying 30 tunics, he committed mass murder without consequence. No blood debt to the families, no arrest, no court. This part of the story needs extensive coverage and instead the article spends inordinate amount of time on the meaning of hive placement or the lion. What does it say about Samson and the culture the stories arose from that allows a man to commit mass murder for a debt he could pay off with hard work and some coins or by taking out a loan? Instead go on a killing spree of innocents because some men coerced your wife in a riddle game that Samson didn't play fairly in the first place by using private experience instead of a deducible logic puzzle. 97.85.173.38 (talk) 03:35, 23 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Trap the trapper, Thirty-Six_Stratagems#The_beauty_trap_(Honeypot), that whole chapter is about the so called honey trap; if a judge needs to save more than a dozen people from perfidy, if you can think of a better way than an unsovalble riddle: give me a hint, here.

If you want morality and ethical behavior, the Bible is the wrong place to search for it. For example, the "wise" Solomon rose to the throne despite not being the legal heir to David. Solomon contacted an extensive purge, executing anyone who could oppose his usurpation. Among them David's chief general Joab. And he consolidated his position of power by appointing his own friends to positions of authority in the administration, the religious hierarchy, and the military. Basically a usurper who practiced cronyism.

As for David, several of his acts are far from moral. Take for exactly the story of Nabal. David sends his men to collect "protection tribute" from Nabal. Nabal refuses to pay, and insults David himself. David leads an army of 400 men against Nabal. Nabal dies suddenly, supposedly of natural causes ("Yahweh struck Nabal and he died"). David immediately marries Abigail, Nabal's widow, and probably inherits all of Nabal's property. David seems like a racketeer who murdered his victim. Dimadick (talk) 09:51, 23 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the response. My point is that the article needs some treatment from scholar on ethics and/or comparative religion. The divine 'energy' that inspired Samson before his killing spree I assumed would already, at least, be in the article. Been around the Wikipedia block long enough to know of the factional warfare on these religious articles and the extreme number of sources to choose from that adds to the fighting over reliable sourcing. The people with the free time to work on religion articles are typically people who preach on Sabbaths and are freer on the other days. So getting secular scholarly opinions about Samson's behavior might lead to an edit war and extensive discussions. Do you have reliable sourcing on biblical morality from modern views available? 97.85.173.38 (talk) 18:17, 23 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds like a reasonable idea. If you have some reliable notable sources, please provide them. 85.149.13.48 (talk) 16:01, 26 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Lyle's Golden Syrup

[edit]

Samson's riddle is probably most familiar to many from the illustration on tins of Lyle's Golden Syrup, which features a dead lion, bees, and the quotation "out of the strong came forth sweetness". Worth mentioning in the article? DuncanHill (talk) 15:17, 12 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]