User blog comment:GSFB/Samson vs Cerberus (Greek Myth)/@comment-8012490-20130501013337/@comment-5232784-20130501040211

Alright woodcampers, cerberus gets the lead: 3 to 2 in Cerberu's favor!

BTW: an excellent argument for Hercules being stronger than Samson. Very well thought out.

Yet, there are some things to note: Hercules, while in human form, was indeed mortal: when he was poisoned accidentally by Dianera (his squeeze), Hercules built a funeral pyre ad burned himself to death, to end his suffering (the poison was hydra blood, the blood of the Hyrad he killed. He dipped his arrows in the blood and made the first toxic arrows. A Centaur he killed, Nessus, convinced Dianera, before he died, that if she got Hercules to wear a toga with his blood on it, Hercules would never stray from her: he knew his blood was saturated with Hydra blood). Hercules died, and like Samson he also aged like any other mortal, hence he was mortal.

Yet when Hercules died, his essence split in two: his human nature survived in hades, while his divine half became a god. In either form, he is immortal, and in the latter form, being a pure God, he is most likely stronger than Samson (unless we get back to the limitless possibilities for brute force from an almighty God, but it is also reasonable to assume that God gave Samson limits to his great strength.

Samson did not lift the temple of Dagon: he moved the pillars off their bases, so that the temple would collapse. And it could be the case that, had not Samson said "Let me die with the Philistines", possibly a prayer to God, that he would not have died in the chaos of the collapsing temple.

I doubt God gave Samson all his divine strength (as I said, there were no doubts limits). and indeed his strength might have indeed been different at times. Yet the Folklore adds to thus brute force, and extra-Biblical folklore should not be ignored, since there much of Hercules' story is folklore as well.

And Samson's strength was not due to his beard, or indeed as some might imply simply his hair: Samson was a Nazarite, a person under a special dedication to God, who was forbidden to drink wine, and most importantly to shave his head: though the vow was kept if the Nazarite drank wine, it would b broken if the hair was cut. Hence, when Samson grew his hair back in prison, his covenant was re-established, and God honored Samson with one final strengthening.

Nevertheless this subject can be debated a long time, and I do believe you made a very strong argument, no pun intended. But the Folkloric angle will still be kept for this fight.

It is interesting how many similarities there are between Samson and Hercules.