Why, Why, Delilah? Textual, Pictorial, Musical and Filmic Portrayals of Delilah (original) (raw)
Related papers
Victim, Victor, or Villain? The Unfinalizability of Delilah
Journal of the Bible and its Reception, 2019
Delilah is one of the more enigmatic characters in the Bible. She is marked by a series of ambiguities in the text that pose a host of unanswered questions. Is she a Philistine, an Israelite, or something else? What exactly does her name mean and what is the nature of her relationship to Samson? And why does she help the Philistines capture Israel’s notorious strongman? Despite all this ambiguity, much of her reception history is rigidly consistent. The dominant trend is the portrayal of Delilah as the reviled seductress who bedevils Samson. This interpretation was also promulgated among ancient readers of the story, such as Josephus and Pseudo-Philo, who identify Delilah not only as a prostitute and a Philistine, but as the wife of Samson. These types of interpretive gap-filling serve as early exemplars of a long and nearly unwavering reception history in which Delilah is unequivocally the villain. If there is any other interpretive potential lying dormant in the text, then it is rarely actualized. Building upon the work of contemporary feminist and womanist scholars, I intend to subvert that trend by arguing that Delilah can and should be read in a variety ways due to the intentional ambiguity employed by the biblical author. Furthermore, by drawing upon the work of Mikhail Bakhtin, I will identify the “unfinalizability” of Delilah’s character and demonstrate how she simultaneously embodies the role of victim, victor, and villain.
2019
This paper discusses the character of Samson as an historical figure within Judges 13-16 narratives in the Old Testament Bible. The main aim of this paper is to find out through theoretical inference whether there were circumstances surrounding Samson’s sexual behaviour. Drawing from causal theory, the paper argues that there is a possible nexus between Samson’s failed marriage and his subsequent relationship with other women. It shows that Samson’s problem was not metaphysical but human induced and as such it is causal. It constructs, Samson as human figure in the narrative and analyses the text from the perspective of causal theory and concludes that Samson’s failed marriage could be responsible for his subsequent relationship with a Harlot in Gaza and Delilah. In the Narrative, apart from the harlot in Gaza, the ex-wife and Delilah betrayed his love. Within this line of theoretical thought, Samson was seen as a victim of emotional catharsis, human intrigue, insensitivity, naivety...
2018
Samson’s mother is nameless in the Hebrew Bible. Little is said about her as a person. Roughly two millennia ago, in three sources of Rewritten Bibles her character is fleshed out, she becomes much more of a real figure. This article addresses specific verses pertaining to her in Judges 13 showing how they were recast in three pieces of literature from the Late Second Temple period and beyond. The three works are Josephus’ Judean Antiquities; Biblical Antiquities (Pseudo-Philo – Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum [L.A.B.]); and the homiletic discourse, Pseudo-Philo’s “On Samson.”
The Samson Saga - Tragedy and Triumph
Samson has to be one of the most curious of all Bible characters. He is the stuff of legends. Some see him as a parody of Israel itself. His feats of prodigious strength attract us to him as some sort of Old Testament Superman; he’s the Israelite Rambo, a Hebrew Hercules! But Samson suffered from an identity crisis and rarely behaved as he supposedly believed. What can we learn from the life and death of Samson?
Samson Went Down to Timnah: Gender and Borders in Judges 14-15
Maarav 25.1-2 , 2021
When Samson leaves his home in Zorah and goes down to Timnah in Judges 14–15, he both crosses a border and makes that border more distinct. In this literary unit, gender dynamics serve as the mechanism through which ethnic difference is constructed. The distinction between Israelite and Philistine is manifested through the struggle over intimate access to the Timnite woman whom Samson seeks to marry. This woman comes to embody the intersection of the territorial and ethnic boundaries at play in the narrative. While she initially exer-cises limited agency in the struggle of the men that surround her, she ultimately cannot sustain the tension of her multiple states of belonging. Her violent death reasserts the ethnic borders she has bridged.
NEW: Emerging scholars in Australian Indigenous Studies, 2018
Warwick Thornton's Samson and Delilah (2009) is an unnerving and brutal portrayal of a rural Australian reality; one that we can no longer simply ignore. Amidst the governments failing targets to 'close the gap' for Aboriginal Australians, Thornton's 2009 film has a newfangled relevance within public consciousness. Samson and Delilah is much more than an adolescent romance; it is a stark contrast of Australian pride and failures, a bleak and truthful demonstration of where systematic government failure has led, and, a simultaneous celebration of the survival and resilience of the Aboriginal peoples.