Covenanter Witness Vol. 54 - Rparchives.org

name."
correct."
Archaeology and the Story
of Samson
By J. A. Thompson
(A pamphlet published by The Australian Institute of Archaeology)
To some people, Samson is an elusive character
To one man at least, of whom the writer heard re
cently, Samson was merely a myth.
This man was a school inspector, and during a
visit to a certain country school, asked the children
for the name of a strong man from the past. One boy
gave the name of Samson. To this the inspector re
plied, "Oh, that story is only a myth. Give me an
other Strangely enough, the teacher of that
class took the inspector up at this point, and sug
gested that, in view of modern archaeology, his dis
missal of the boy's answer was a bit hasty. Unfor
tunately that teacher had no archaeological material
to produce at the moment, so that her objection was
a bit hollow. In this article we shall look at five pie
ces of evidence connected with this general period
of Bible History and will discover that in the light
of these, the inspector would have been well advised
to hold his criticism. Unfortunately, he is typical of
so many who criticize in ignorance of the facts. That
is a dangerous thing, when it is so glibly resorted to
in matters which touch on a child's faith.
Now the story of Samson is set in the general
context of the Philistine occupation of Palestine. To
day, we know something about the period, the geo
graphical distribution, the customs and the activities
of these people. Each of these aspects of our study
throws light on the Bible story of Samson.
1. The Philistines in History-
The Philistines were part of a great folk move
ment which began in the region of Asia Minor and
the islands just before 1200 B.C. These peoples,
known as "Sea Peoples," began to move into Asia
Minor, Cyprus, Syria, Palestine and Egypt, and to
set up their own states. In Palestine they settled on
the southern coast around Gaza. In point of time, we
may date them from 1200 B.C. onwards. They re
mained strong in Palestine till the days of David,
some time about 1000 B.C. they are recognizable by
their peculiar culture, especially their pottery.
Now the Israelites had come into the land some
what before the Philistines, but not much before.
By 1200 B.C. they were settling down on the hill
country areas. The Canaanites still held the valleys
and plains with their chariot forces. But our point is
that it is historically quite correct to place the story
of Samson, one of the judges, in the days of the Phil
istines. The age of the judges must be in the general
period 1150-1050 B.C. At this time the Philistines
were well settled in Palestine.
2. Geographical Distribution of the Philistines.
The Bible speaks much of the Philistines in the
area of Gaza, their home. It indicates that at times
they pressed inland, as for example, when they came
to Micmash (1 Samuel 14). David slew Goliath in the
valley of Elah. which is not far from Gaza. They did
penetrate to Shiloh (1 Samuel 4), but by and large
they are confined to the coast. Samson met them at
Timnath, Gaza, Askelon, Sorek all places close to
the coastal plain. Now, the Philistines have a very
distinctive type of pottery. Concerning this pottery,
Albright says, "This Philistine ware is abundant in
April 27, 1955
all levels and deposits of this period in Philistia it
self, and is also found in the adjacent sites of the Ne
geb and the Shephelah between about 1150 B.C. and
the late eleventh century. Its title to be called "Phil
istine"
seems excellent. Moreover the ware in ques
tion decreases relatively as one moves away from
Philistia; it still occurs in deposits of the same age
at Beth-Zur, Tell-en-Nasbeh and Bethel, and is found
very sparingly at Bethshan or Tell-abu-Hawam, al
though there was continuous occupation of these
sites throughout this period. From the standpoint of
geographical distribution alone, the term 'Philistine'
is thus perfectly
Of course, the important thing for us is that the
Biblical distribution of this people is in general
agreement with what we know from archaeology.
3. Drinking Habits of the Philistines.
One impression we gain from the Samson story
is that Philistines were great drinkers. Samson was
a Nazarite and stood apart from the local people.
(Judges 13.) Later on, he met his death at a Phil
istine feast where there was much drinking. (Judges
16:23-25.) Archaeological work has shown us that
there was an abundance of large jugs with open
spouts found in Philistine cities. Albright is again
useful to us in this matter.
"The jugs are usually provied with a strainer
spout, obviously intended for the same purpose for
which the highland peoples of antiquity used reeds
in order to strain out the
or pipes in drinking beer
beer without swallowing barley husks. It is not diffi
cult to infer from the ubiquity of these wine craters
and beer jugs that the Philistines were mighty carousers.
In this respect again, archaeology is in full
agreement with Biblical tradition, as we see from the
story of Samson, where drinking bouts are men
tioned several times in connection with the Philis
tines, though it is said emphatically of Samson that
he drank neither wine nor beer" (Albright's Archae
ology of Palestine, page 115)
4. Philistines Houses.
We know a good deal about the kind of dwellings
the Philistines lived in. Our special interest, though,
is in the large dwellings, such as would be used by
the nobles. When Samson met his death, he was in a
house with pillars. He asked the lad who guided him
to let him feel the pillars which supported the roof.
Archaeology had no comment to make on the super
human strength of Samson, but it does make a com
ment on the fact that houses with pillars which sup
ported the roof were known. A recent Israeli exca
vator, B. Maisler, describes one such building he
found in the excavations at Tell Qasile near Tell
Aviv. It was a Philistine town for some time. In Level
XI of this excavation they found the building in
question. He writes :
"In Stratum XI we discovered among others, a
large building, one of whose rooms is bisected by a
row of pillars built of bricks on stone foundations.
The pillars evidently served to support the ceiling
and recall the story of Samson's death." (Judges 16 :
25-29).
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