Sunday, December 31, 2006

Samson the Vow-Breaker

I picked up a copy of the "Absolute Beginner's Guide to the Bible" (Tom Head, Que Publishing, 2006) from the local library the other day. All sorts of fascinating little tidbits.

Samson, you'll recall, was dedicated at birth ...
to God as a nazirite, which means he must be kept away from unclean animals, corpses, fermented food and drink, and that his hair must never be cut. He violates most of his vows -- most notably in [Judges] 14:8-9, where he eats fermented honey from the corpse of an unclean animal....
(pg 104)

2 comments:

Kent West said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Kent West said...

I'm not sure it is justified to claim that the honey was fermented. I see no indication of that in the Biblical record.