Number 1 of 17 in the *Twilight Zone* Series:
by Farrell Till
Judges 15:15 claims that Samson killed a thousand Philistines with the jawbone of an ass, but according to the mythology of other nations of biblical times, Hercules and other strong-man heroes did similar feats, defeating entire armies and such like single-handedly. Now if Samson had killed 20 or even 10 of a thousand men rushing to overwhelm him, that would have been remarkable enough, but the entire thousand? That's just too incredible to believe.
His final feat, however, taxed common sense and credulity even more. After being tricked by Delilah into revealing that his uncut hair was the secret of his strength, an unlikely aspect of Samson's story that I will say more about later, she cut off his hair so that the Philistines could overpower him. He was then blinded and taken as a captive to a prison-house, where he was put to work turning a grinding stone. After his hair had grown back, his captors put him on display between two pillars in Dagon's temple. While the Philistines were making sport of him, Samson cried out to Yahweh, who gave him the strength to pull the temple pillars down to cause the structure to collapse on the people inside and on the temple roof.
