- Scott's Silly Answers Column - The Edge magazine, Oct 13, 2007
- Video segment -
A strong argument that gels with everyone has yet to be found in this tangled debate.
Rather than commenting on how many Weet-Bix Samson did, the Bible prefers to talk about his hair being the source of his strength.
We know that if the secret to strength was just having long hair, the fairy tale about Rapunzel would have focused on her being able to carry around an entire castle (moat and all) under one arm and an entire set of Uncle Arthur’s Bedtime Stories in the other.
Therefore, there must be more to strength than hair length.
There are three popular theories about Sampson’s strength and his hair:
ONE: It was a symbol of his dedication to God, who provided the strength as a result. This is the traditional explanation.
TWO: It was his hair that caused rage. He was teased for looking like a girl all through school, bullies pulled his hair, his mother wasn’t very gentle when brushing out knots, he had split ends, trying to run a restaurant was unsuccessful (every dish seemed to have a handful of hair in it) and he would catch his hair when ploughing the field. All this built up and you will see in the Bible he had several anti-joyful attitudinal moments, all caused from the built up anger caused by his hair. Thus, his strength got out of control.
THREE: The explanation that lathers best involves Samson using the hair strengthening shampoo "Steroidsilk." To the average user, this had no noticeable effect but because Sampson washed his hair after every meal (due to it falling into his food each time) and with the huge quantities of Steroidsilk needed each time—due to the amount of hair Samson had—it slowly absorbed into his body through osmosis. You will notice, when his hair was cut, no more washing and the effects wore off. Coincidence??
Random fact about Samson: According to Judges 15, Samson was the creator of Firefox, a fast way to access all the local farmers’ produce from one location.