Free Republic

Is Darwin Still Relevant? Geoffrey Simmons Editor’s note: We are delighted to introduce a new series, “Modernizing Darwin,” cross-posted at Shabbat.com, by Geoffrey Simmons, MD. Dr. Simmons is the author of What Darwin Didn’t Know and Billions of Missing Links. He is a Fellow with Discovery Institute’s Center for Science & Culture.During Charles Darwin’s time, many educated people still believed in spontaneous generation, meaning that living beings can emerge from non-living things. Maggots arose from rotting meat, amphibians grew from flooded soils, and rats were created by decomposing garbage. In addition, birds were thought to fly to the moon for...

Samson and Delilah. The story has been told hundreds of times for thousands of years. This is the story of Samson’s defeat, a story that must be told in each generation. A strong man can be morally weak; in one moment he can destroy what cannot be rebuilt in a lifetime. Let us consider two facts that highlight Samson’s weakness. First, he was tempted by lust. He went to Gaza and met a harlot with whom he has a sexual relationship. There was no pretense of love here. No sweet words of mutual love. It was a simple matter of...

You can generally recognize a double-minded man. He has moments of commitment to God; often surprising us with his burst of spiritual discipline and devotion. Mighty Samson is a picture of double-mindedness. He breaks promises he intends to keep; he overrates his ability to change himself. He has not yet come to the end of self-rule. So his promises are made largely in dependence upon good intentions. It is a sincere promise, but it means little. Second, his commitment to God was based on convenience, not convictions. When things went bad, he called on God. When God answered, he drifted...

The greater the potential for success, the greater the possibility of failure. The higher our expectations, the farther we can fall. No one was born with greater potential than Samson, whose birth is recorded in the book of Judges. Here is a man who had it all and lost it all. But it is because he had so much that his loss was so great. He was a great man who spent most of his life seeking after small things. He squandered incredible opportunities. He was a man of contradictions: he had incredible physical strength, but a weakness for women....

Midwife Mercada Dasa lived in the Old City of Jerusalem until 1948. In her attic she raised an unusual pet -- a white female snake about a meter and a half long -- and fed it sugar cubes. Just before the entry of the Jordanian Legion she left the besieged city with her family and her pet remained behind. That a midwife, whose family lived in Jerusalem since the time of the Second Temple, carried on a tradition of feeding white female snakes was part of the family's lore, but not something anyone considered significant. Now Mercada's grandson, Benny Avigdory,...

Research into the dispersal of Philistine cooking methods among various populations in Israel shows that the Philistines spread their culture beyond the areas under their control... Unlike most of the peoples living in the region in the biblical era, the Philistines were not Semites... They prepared meals in a characteristic sealed pottery vessel suited to long cooking times at low heat, while most inhabitants of Canaan at the time used open pots and faster cooking methods. The bones found at the Philistine cities showed that... the Philistines ate mainly pork, with an occasional meal of dog meat. The Philistines' wine...

Eric Altschuler from the University of California at San Diego and his colleagues say that Samson showed signs of no fewer than six of the seven behaviours associated with antisocial personality disorder. Samson routinely got into fights, and once killed 1000 Philistines single-handedly and then gloated over it, showing no remorse. He also showed a reckless disregard for his own safety when he told Delilah, a woman who'd tried to kill him three times before, the secret of his strength. The researchers note that Samson also burned Philistine fields, which showed both his impulsivity and his inability to conform to...

The story of the Mighty Samson: "Self sacrifice" and giving your life away intentionally and taking as many enemy lives with you as possible for the sake of GOD Almighty and your people exists in the Bible. Let us look at the story of the Mighty Samson in the Bible: "Samson said to the servant who held his hand, "Put me where I can feel the pillars that support the temple, so that I may lean against them." Now the temple was crowded with men and women; all the rulers of the Philistines were there, and on the roof were...

The Samson Effect - a novel by Tony Eldridge Book Description Since discovering an ancient scroll in a cave in Hebron, Israel, American biblical archeologist Thomas Hamilton and his trusted friend and colleague, Israeli biblical linguist Michael Sieff, have been consumed with the notion of the Samson Effect - the idea that a long-lost elixir can allow an ordinary person to perform superhuman feats. When they happen upon a worn Hebrew parchment that not only confirms the existence of the Samson Effect but could potentially lead them to its source, the scholars embark on an impassioned crusade for the truth...

'A tiny seal has been uncovered that could be the first archaeological evidence of Samson, the Biblical slayer of Philistines. Archaeologists discovered the ancient artifact while excavating the tell of Beit Shemesh in the Judaean Hills near Jerusalem, Israel. It appears to depict the Old Testament story of Samson, whose might was undone by his lust for the temptress Delilah, and his fight with a lion. The seal, which measures less than an inch in diameter, shows a large animal with a feline tail attacking a human figure. The seal was discovered at a level of excavation that dates it...

(CNN) -- Archaeologists are reveling in the discovery of an ancient synagogue in northern Israel, a "monumental" structure with a mosaic floor depicting the biblical figure of Samson and a Hebrew inscription. The synagogue -- dating to the fourth and fifth centuries in both the Talmudic and late Roman periods -- is in Huqoq, an ancient Jewish village in the country's Galilee region, the Israeli Antiquities Authority said. Jodi Magness, a professor of early Judaism in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said the building was found in a recent excavation. She...