David Plotz is dead to me

Ok, not really. But I think he missed the boat with his latest post. For those of you who are not readers of his, Plotz has spent the last few months Blogging the Bible for Slate. It's a great series, and I am terribly jealous of a paying gig that allows one to read the Bible and then post opinions about it.

In any event, I've been looking forward to him getting to the Book of Judges, and in particular to the chapters on Samson. When I made my first communion, friends of my parents gave me an illustrated children's Bible, and the story (and images) from Samson always stayed with me. I did some work in grad school on Milton's Samson Agonistes, which only sealed the deal for me regarding Samson as a hero. And also a pretty cool name.

All of which leads me to think that Plotz is off-base in his analysis. Inasmuch as Samson is a violent and feckless character, I think Plotz is right on. But I'm not sure Samson is bad to the bitter end.

And I wondered how much junior high lunchroom baggage was brought to bear on the description of the biblical Samson as proto-"hockey goon" or "fraternity rush chair." [Full disclosure: I hated junior high, especially the lunch room, because of hockey (and football and lacrosse) goons; and while I was never rush chair of my fraternity, I was its pledgemaster for a semester. What does this all mean? I don't know.]

Plotz offers up Samson's shortcomings [he does tend to kill a lot of people out of rage] as a way of denying Samson hero status. But I think the prologue of his life is what makes his heroic transformation possible.

Simply put, Samson was a flawed character who ultimately recognized the error of his ways and made amends. What more can you ask of someone? Especially in an Old Testament context. Not exactly a parade of G-rated happenings. [Sidenote: If you don't believe me, check out this site. The Legos don't lie.]

That said, I hope for a much different life trajectory for my Samson. And he's already my hero.