pop-culture and intertextuality

8/12/2019 Pop-Culture and Intertextuality

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Claremont Graduate University

Nicholaus Benjamin Pumphrey

Superman and Samson:The Intersection between Pop Culture and Bible, an Intertextual Reading


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Superman! Champion of the oppressed the physical marvel who had sworn to devote his

existence to helping those in need.1

With these words, Superman was introduced to the general public as a new kind of hero,

one incapable of any evil and designed specifically to fight the Nazis. When Jerry Siegel and Joe

Shuster created Superman in 1938, they completely reshaped the way that Western society

viewed a hero. Indeed, Superman was no herohe was a new category altogether, the

superhero,and the very word was created from this super man. Siegel and Shuster created a

new paradigm for a hero figure, changing the traditional Western hero, a larger-than-life

character capable of performing both good and bad deeds, to a purely noble figure unable to

perform any negative action. With the new creation of superhero,the U.S. government, as

well as society at large, began viewing their soldiers as this new version of hero as a way to

legitimate the efforts in WWII. This creation by Schuster and Siegal was not only a way for the

Jewish writers to join in the fighting, but also helped propagate the American ideals about

heroes now defined by superhero traitsto future generations.

With the rise of the superhero ideal, society began to assign superhero traits to all strong

characters, resulting in an anachronistic reading of history. Of major concerns in biblical

scholarship, the presuppositions will always affect the interpretation of a text. These interpretive

biases are based on culture, religion, ethnicity, and even language. Given that a large portion of

popular culture results from religious influence, intentional or unintentional, religious scholars

should be aware of various forms of popular culture and their potential influence. This essay

focuses on the Deuteronomistic History as a text and how modern scholars view it through the

eyes of another text: Superman. The interpretation of DtrH. results from an intertextual loop.

1Action Comics #1, The first appearance of Superman in Comic Books.


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The character of Superman results from intertextuality with Samson in the book of

Judges. Then, scholars unknowingly integrate the intertextual, Samson qualities of Superman and

fill in the gaps of Samsons story with intertextuality from Superman, creating a loop. Simply

put, a primary text is interpreted using a secondary text creating a tertiary text. This progression

of texts, along with the cultural influences that creat them and influence paradigmatic Judges

scholarship, is the focus of the present study. Three Judges scholars who wrote commentaries

from the seventies until present time will represent the major paradigm of Judges scholarship:

Robert G. Boling,Anchor Bible Commentary,1974; Alberto Soggin, Old Testament Library,

1981; Susan Niditch, Old Testament Library, 2009.

2

This essay proceeds as follows. First, I discuss the various concepts of intertextuality,

beginning with the intertextual qualities of the medium of the comic book. Then, I examine the

evolution of the word hero as it originates in Homeric epics and is transformed by Shuster and

Siegel. Then, I look at the book of Judges and how the wordp, Hebrew for judge, has been

interpreted in the corpus of the Deuteronomistic History. My main focus lies on how this super

hero view of Samson differs from the Deuteronomistic view of the book of Judges, how this

leads to a defense of Samsons faultsby scholars, and how this in turn results in Delilah as the

true reason for the heros downfall, placing the blame on female wiles rather than on the

flawed hero himself. To the contrary, the text of Judges as a whole, placed inside a

Deuteronomistic corpus, presents a chaotic time in need of a hero, and Samson falls short

because of his own flawed nature.

2Samson is a major character in the work of Susan Niditch. From this, I use more books and articles than

just her commentary. However, her commentary represents many of her ideas expressed in her other works.


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What is a text? The Bible as Pop-Culture/ Comic books as a multifaceted text

Defining a text in a post modern culture is a complicated matter, and defining sacred

scripture is even more difficult. Texts can represent any form of communication whether written

or oral. Timothy Beal goes as far to say a text in its broadest sense as anything that can be

read,listing as examples rituals, persons, faces, and speeches.3

John Barton states, So far

from texts being one specific and delimited aspect of the world of human culture, all other

aspects of human culture are directly or indirectly texts.4 Thus, all human interaction and

expression can be interpreted as textual. When dealing with popular culture, everything falls into

the realm of textual, from the music of the radio to the circulating comics, movies, and even the

general feedback given by the audience.

Out of popular culture, this essay primarily focuses on comic books. The texts are

actually in written form, but much like the text of stained glass windows of Medieval Europe, the

pictoral elements of comic books communicate as much as the words themselves. Reading a

comic requires more than interpreting words; it is a layered endeavor in which the reader

encounters both words and pictures, choosing to read them together, separately, or as a set,

mutually informing the interpretation of the other. Most present day comic books have three to

four authors: the writer, the penciler, the inker and colorist (all three could be the same person),

and the cover artist. When reading the pictures depicted in comics, the audience is already

reading the pencilers interpretation of the script written by the author. Also, the audience first

has to read the cover of the comic, which isthe interpretation of another artist about either the

contents of the comic or an interpretive work about the comic series as a whole. Thus, the reader

3Timothy K. Beal, Intertextuality,Handbook of Postmodern Biblical Interpretation, 128-130, ed.

A.K.M. Adam (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2000), 128.4John Barton,Reading the Old Testament: Method in Biblical Study,2nded.(Louisville: Westminster John

Knox Press, 1996), 221.


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is actively reading the cover, the depictions, and the words. If she actually reads the script of the

comic, the interpretation may be different. Compounded with the presuppositions brought by the

reader, the act of reading a comic book is an engagement of intertextuality on several levels.

Like comic books, the Bible is a text; it however, is generally understood as a primarily

written text. There is dispute over the amount of orality that exists behind the text, and to a large

extent, how much of the text is informed by other texts. However, looking at Beals list of texts,

the Bible contains speeches, rituals, and characters, as well as several other genres, sometimes

even in one chapter. A redacted biblical text contains pieces of several texts, as well as quotes

from various books, pasted together to create one. From redaction to reader response, the Bible

is intertextual per se. The audience creates a text through reading and interpreting the various

books. Also, each translation of the Bible is a new text based on various manuscripts and

interpretations of the translator. The environment around the text changes based on the religious

tradition, period in time, and culture of the interpreter. The Bible is then such a multifaceted text

that the only way to interpret it as a text is through an intertextual understanding.

Another facet of the Bible as a text is that of a piece of contemporary popular culture. As

mentioned above, popular culture is influenced by religion as much as religion is influenced by

popular culture. The Bible, and interpretations thereof, has been the inspiration of many movies,

cartoons, novels, video games, music, TV series, and other forms of popular media. The most

famous of these biblical riffs would probably be the Academy Award winning Ten

Commandmentsbased on Exodus.5 However, the Bible as popular culture is not limited to only

to the West; several biblical references exist in Japanese novels, manga, and anime.

Comic books and the Bible have also had a close relationship. The most famous Bible

comic books would be the various picture bibles, which are graphic novel/comic book versions

5The Ten Commandments, directed by Cecil B. DeMille, Paramount Pictures, 1956.


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of selected texts; two newer examples are theAction Bibleand theManga Bible, where biblical

characters are depicted as superhero figures either as manga characters or as action heroes.

However, the Bible and its interpretation serves as the back drop for many famous comic books,

especially English ones, likeJohn Constantine: Hellblazor, Testament, andLucifer. Several

characters are specifically based on biblical characters or religious tradition such as Mephisto,

Ghost Rider, Ezekiel, Arch Angel, Lilith, Baal, and Superman.6

As the sons of Jewish immigrant parents, Siegel and Schuster created their super hero

using the literature that they knew best, the Hebrew Bible. Of all the Jewish heroes form the

Hebrew Bible, Samson emerged as their leading influence in the creation of Superman. All of

the basic attributes of Samson match Superman: his great strength, his birth being heralded from

the heavens, his normal parents, and even his weakness that temporarily takes away his strength.

As further evidence, Supermans true name Kal-El is Hebrew, and whether they knew it or not,

Samsonsname is derived from the Hebrew word for sun, which is the source of Supermans

power.7 In creating Superman as a new brand of hero, Siegel and Shuster were transforming

Samson and creating a multi-layered interetextual experience. This association is also aided by

depictions of Superman in similar poses as depictions of Samson, as seen below. A recent

Superman book, Superman: Blood of My Ancestors, even embraces the Samson allusion by

creating an ancestor for superman named El, who sacrifices himself to save his people. Thus,

Superman is a direct creation from the biblical text; he is being of intertextuality, who takes on

the basic attributes of hero but is something larger, devoid of negative action. The

superhero/superman forever alters the environment, which modern readers interpret.

6With the exception of Superman, most of the figures are from Marvel comics and come from the 1980s

when the writers were primarily Christian.7Given how Siegel and Schuster transliterate the Hebrew, the name could either mean the voice of god

or god is everything. The only difference is whether the K is a transliterated koph or qoph.


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The three pictures above show how the classic depiction of Samson (right) and of Superman

(left) from 1939 fourth issue reinforce the intertextuality, which culminates in the bottom photo

from Superman: Blood of My Ancestors.


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Intertextuality

Intertextuality can exist in several ways: when a text is directly engaging another text by

using similar themes, when a text is a direct result from another, either with quotes or without, or

when a text is interpreted by the reader or audience.8 Carroll states, The notion of

supplementers working on prior documents and producing the book as we know it already

contains in it the basic idea of intertextuality. Texts are generated by prior texts.9 From this,

every texts exists in relation to another text. No text can exist without an engagement with

another text. Thus, as any reader interprets a text, she is engaging in an act of intertextual

interpretation. Julia Kristeva coined the term intertextualitywhen examining Bahktins ideas of

Dialogism. Patricia Tull states

Bakhtin calls attention to three loci where some sort of dialogue is operative. All threepoints of intertextual exchange affecting the text and its reception by the reader. The first

is the existence of a variety of other, foreign, even competing utterances already present

in the environment into which the text enters, that attach themselves to the subject aboutwhich the text wishes to speak; the second, an internal dialogism operating within the text

as it responds to the utterances in its environment; and the third, the active, sometimes

competing responses of the audience.10

Bahktin focused on Dostoevsky and how critics treated the text as if it were written in a

vacuum and was addressing only them. Beal believes that these loci are constantly in interplay

given that they are inherent in language itself,and are in a state of constant flux.11

He states,

This back-and-forth play between and among texts explodes, or dynamites,the supposedly

closed structure and univocal meaning of any particular text, opening it to further and further

8Patricia K. Tull, Rhetorical Criticism and Intertextuality, In To Each Its Own Meaning: An

Introduction To Biblical Criticisms and Their Application, 156-182 eds. Steven L. McKenzie and Stephen R.

Haynes (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1999), 164.9Robert Carroll, Intertextuality and the book of Jeremiah,pgs. 55-78 in The New Literary Criticism and

the Hebrew Bible, eds. Cheryl J. Exum and David J. A. Clines (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993), 61.10Tull, Rhetorical Criticism and Intertextuality, 167.11Timothy K. Beal, Ideology and Intertextuality: Surplus of Meaning and Controlling the Means of

Production, InReading Between Texts: Intertextuality and the Hebrew Bible,27-40, ed. Danna Nolan Fewell

(Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1992), 29.


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reappropriations, reinscriptions, and rediscriptions.12

No text is written without certain

presuppositions and no reader reads without presuppositions. If a text quotes another, it not only

has the voice of one text, but three, counting the author reading the text. Thus, the text is in

constant dialogue, but also constantly reconstructs itself. Mandolfo states about Bakhtins work,

The same dialogic relationship he outlined between author (and for him a reader was also

an author) and text, and text and text, extends into the realm of interpersonal relations.We are all constituted in part by our interactions with others. Authoringis Bakhtins

term for the architectonic work we are all involved in vis--vis each other. We are all the

co-authors of each others lives. As a human being, I am finishedby others; I have no

independent identity apart from the gazeof others.13

As described by Mandolof, intertextuality is similar to Buddhist philosophy of the

interconnectedness of life but with an authorial intention; like Buddhism, there is ethical

responsibility to treat everyone well considering the interconnectedness. Mandolfo further

states, Part of the job of authoring others involves listening to them as responsiblyas we can,

listening and respondingfairly.14

For Kristeva, texts are mosaics made from bits of other texts that were inherent in

language and culture.15

Kristeva, a psychoanalyst, focuses on the creation of identity as similar

to the creation of texts. Beal states,

She focused especially on intertextuality as a theory of intersubjectivity,that is, on the

constitution of any individual subject not as an independent, autonomous agent, but rather

as an intersubjectivity, an intersection of multiple, often clashing categories and facets ofidentity, in which the sum of the parts make up something more and something less than

a whole. Just as every text is an intertext, so every subject (every self, every

consciousness, every person) is an intersubject, a between-space, a centerless field of

transpositions of various signifiying systems, a more or less unified, more or less stableconvergence of personas, roles, voices, images, narratives, and so on.

16

12Ibid.13Carleen R. Mandolfo,Daughter Zion Talks Back to the Prophets: A Dialogic Theology of the Book of

Lamentations(Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2007), 12.14Ibid., 12-13.15Beal, Ideology and Intertextuality, 29.16Beal, Intertextuality,128-129.


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Since Kristevas work, intertextualityhas become useful as applied to the Biblical text and its

interpretation. Tull states, Every text we hear or read becomes intelligible by means of

association with what has already been heard or read. Moreover, every text we write or speak is

constructed from the building blocks of previous texts.17 Danna Nolan Fewell states,

Intertextual reading is inevitable. We cannot, in fact, understand any text without some appeal

to other texts.18

The purpose of intertextual readings in biblical studies allows scholars to

examine how texts are influenced by other environments and texts, how texts actually directly

and intentionally use other texts, and also interpretive environments and the audience inform the

reading of the text. Carroll states,

The term intertextuality defines the literary object/even/word as an intersection of

textual surfaces and as a mosaic of quotations. In other words, a text is always both

pretextual and contextual, as well as being textual. It is not simply generated by a writer,but is a complex production formed by prior textual events and the interaction of

writers/redactors/readers with such a contexting textuality.19

Seen through Carrolls eyes, texts exist parallel from each other not supplanting one for the other

but meeting at various moments. These points allow scholars to examine these intersections and

interpret what they will.

Using Tulls loci, the intertextual loop exists either within the first, last, or a new locus

that exists outside his three areas. Given that Bakhtin was concerned on the text not existing in a

vacuum, he wanted to trace the environments that were in constant dialogue with the given text,

which allows him or any interpreter to set the interpretive boundaries. The loop can only exist

when a secondary text is created through intertextuality, through quotation or direct borrowing,

and then is used to explain the primary text. This could be a product of the environment or seen

17Tull, Rhetorical Criticism, 164.18Danna Nolan Fewell, Introduction: Writing, Reading, and Relating, In Reading Between Texts:

Intertextuality and the Hebrew Bible,11-20, ed. Danna Nolan Fewell (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press,

1992), 17.19Carroll, Intertextuality and the book of Jeremiah, 57-58.


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as a direct competing response of the reader. The two texts are parallel but a third text (the

audience) unknowingly makes the text perpendicular. A Biblical example of this exists between

Revelation 4 and Daniel 7. Through intertextual syncretism Revelation takes the son of man

figure of Daniel 7 and the separate figure, the ancient of Days, and merges them into one

messianic being. Then, scholars and theologians interpret the son of man of Daniel 7 as divine.20

Given that Superman is likewise an intertextual being, he was created not only from

unconscious characteristics but also direct borrowing from the Biblical text. When asked who

inspired Superman, Siegel always listed different characters like Achilles or Odysseus, yet

always included Samson.

21

Although speaking primarily about the biblical text, Mandolfo states,

When dealing with ancient texts it is particularly difficult to substantiate direct influence, unless

it is explicitly acknowledged by the borrowing author.22

When it comes to characters like

Superman, the character is built much like a direct quote. However, since one cannot put

quotations around a character, it is a subtle infusion of direct borrowing from the Biblical text,

and if one does not know the intention of the author, the borrowing may go unnoticed but still

influence the interpreter.

The uncovering of the intertextual loop allows for the ability to see the presuppositions

and major trends of scholarship. Here, it shows the evolution of the idea of the hero in Western

Society. Some would call this a misinterpretation,but seen in the Bakhtinian loci, it is simply

a response of the environment or the result of the audience. Tull states, It is not simply that

some choose to disagree with the obvious meaning of a text, or that everyone elseis

20See John Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination: An Introduction to Jewish Apocalyptic Literature.

(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1998), 104, who supports the divine status or Marvin A. Sweeney

Form and Intertextuality in Prophetic and Apocalyptic Literature. (Tbingen:Mohr Siebeck, 2005), 259, who

supports human priestly figure.21Les Daniels, Superman The Complete History: the Life and Times of the Man of Steel(San Francisco:

Chronicle Books, 1998), 18.22Mandolfo,Daughter Zion, 10.


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misinterpreting. Rather, in different environments the same text means differently.23

In this

work, we are dealing with three texts: Superman, the Deuteronomistic History, and the major

trend represented by three Judges scholars. Although the obvious meaning of the

Deuteronomistic History is one of digression, Superman altered the environment by rewriting the

idea of a hero in Western culture and influencing 20th

and 21stcentury interpretations of Samson.

This alteration is potentially harmful. Mandolfo states, If we do not author responsibly (and

that includes listening well)in other words are not answerable for the stories we both read and

tellthen the kind of authoring we do can cause damage. A persons agency can be seriously

compromised by the types of stories we construct about them.

24

The text of the DtrH is then

altered in modern scholarship as a result of popular culture, which generally goes un-

acknowledged. Tull states, In fact, to ignore ones own rhetorical context is to offer

interpretation that is unconsciously overdetermined by ones reading practices.25

Back to Superman: The Modern Definition of Hero

The western and American concept of a hero evolved from the Greek, but was influenced

by religion, language, World War I, World War II, and popular culture. The heroes of Greece

were not viewed in the modern ideal, which creates a system of purely good hero. Liddell and

Scott define (hero) in Homer as a title of honour, given not only to warrior-chiefsbut

also to men who had nothing to do with war or commandas the Heroic age gained dignity by

antiquity, the heroes were exalted above the race of common menbut always distinct from the

23Tull, Rhetorical Criticism,174.24Mandolfo,Daughter Zion, 14.25Tull, Rhetorical Criticism, 166.


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national gods.26

The Greek heroes performed actions that existed in the gray area of morality,

and, like most deities in a polytheistic system, could operate in the realms of good and evil.

When ancient Greek athletes become deified as heroes, their stories and worship emphasize not

only their strength but also their ability to accomplish both good and bad.27

Western culture

removed the negative aspects of the hero in order to feed the various cultural needs of the

society.

The perfect example of the evolution of the hero in the modern world is the Nazi

propaganda film Olympia, which depicts the 1936 Olympic Games held in Berlin. The director

Leni Riefenstahl dedicates the first portion of the movie to a silent display of naked German men

and women performing faux Olympic events with frequent shots to statues of Greek figures as a

comparison. The viewer gets a sense that Riefenstahl is saying that the Germans are the new

Greeks; they are the new heroes. However, she is not intending to proclaim that the Germans

existed in the gray area between good and bad, but as a propagation of the perfect hero.28

In the

United States during WWI and WWII, to cope with ideas of sending young men to kill and die

for the country, the media and government labeled the people in service heroesand glorified

their work in order to keep American ideals from dying out. The G.I. hero became a household

commodity and was propagated through popular culture, such as comic books and radio, and

continued throughout American society adapting from conflict to conflict.

In 1938 in the same cultural milieu, Siegel and Schuster created Superman as a

conglomeration of the best parts of multiple heroes. Comic book historian Les Daniels states,

26Henry George Liddell and Robert Scott eds., A Greek-English Lexicon,8thedition (New York: Harper &

Brothers, 1897), 655-656. I selected this reference for the date in which the book was compiled. The text will lack

the modern influence of WWI and WWII and other pop-cultural influence.27Christopher Jones,New Heroes in Antiquity: From Achilles to Antinoos, (Cambridge: Harvard University

Press, 2010), 38.28Olympia, written and directed by Leni Riefenstahl, International Olympic Committee, 1940, opening

scene.


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He was in the tradition of the mighty heroes who are legendary in every culture, from Samson

and Hercules to Beowulf, and he fought against crime and tyranny and social injustice. An

immigrant of sorts, he became the champion of the American way.29

Originally created as a

sci-fi villain based on the Nietzschian concept of the bermencsh, Superman was quickly

changed by Siegel, who decided to create a benevolent hero that embodied all the heroes of his

childhood who could fight the oppressive Nazi ideology rather than embrace it.30

Siegel took

then the character from his own tradition that seemed otherworldly and more than human.

Superman was meant to encapsulate all the positive aspects of Samsons physical attributes but

be devoid of any negative interpretation. Although Superman was created in the early 30sfor

newspaper strips, it was not until 1938 that he was picked up by the newly created comic book

industry.31

As Superman flooded all markets of media, he would forever change the way

Americans and the world would view heroes.

The term superhero results from Superman being the first of his kind and his qualities

establish the paradigm that all superheroes necessarily follow. This paradigm includes the

supernatural abilities, the tights, the one weakness, and the ultimate good intentions. The secret

identity was the most profound element of his nature, allowing Superman to be the everyman

character who was lying dormant in Americana. As stated earlier, Siegel intended Superman to

fight Nazi ideology, but not alone. Although the secret identity allowed the shy authors and

readers to envision themselves as the superhero, it also aided in propagating the American G.I. as

a superhero. Les Daniels states, The idea of the superhero, who gave up his ordinary life and

put on a uniform to battle the bad guys had special resonance during wartime; costumed

29Daniels, Superman The Complete History, 18.30Les Daniels,DC Comics: Sixty years of the Worlds Favorite Comic Book Heroes, (New York: Bulfinch

Press, 1995), 20.31Ibid


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characters became one of the emblems of the age.32

The association of the G.I. solider with

Superman further solidified the association of the superhero with ultimate good that reflected the

American ideal. Superman constantly fought for the G.I. but as Daniels states, he couldnt win

the war. That responsibility fell to what one of his 1943 adventures called Americas secret

weaponthe courage of her common soldier.33

The Cover for 1939s Superman 14 depicts Superman as the all American Hero.

The invention of the superhero allowed Western society to use a new association of

ultimate hero to view and propagate its religious ideals in new American mythology. Danny

Fingeroth states, If there was any Jewish mythological basis for the superheroes that emerged

32Ibid., 64, 65.

33Ibid.


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from comics, it was fueled by the same Bible tales to which every child in Western society is

exposed. Samson has become synonymous with great strength as Hercules or John Henry. Or as

Superman, for that matter.34

Although the association of Samson as an ultimately good figure

directly correlates with the Christian ideal of holy figures of the Old Testament as precursors

to Jesus, the creation of Superman based on Samson allowed Western society to have a new

concept of hero that they were reading about every month, listening to or watching every night,

or going to the movies to see. This allowed scholars of western society to internalize the

intertextuality at play, only to associate it later in a loop with the biblical figure in which he was

based, although the Deuteronomistic History presents a conflicting view.

The Deuteronomistic History and Samson

The text of Judges as a whole shows a chaotic society in need of stability and hope.

MartinNoths theory on the Deuteronomistic historian posits that the books of Joshua, Judges,

Samuel, and Kings were compiled together with one goal in mind: to support and propagate the

unified monarchy of Israel and explain the downfall of Jerusalem.35The book of Joshua leads,

the reader to the promised land, and Judges is meant to explain why we, the reader, need a

king.36

Its message is plain and simple: If you let the people do what is right in their eyes, then

the world plunges into chaos.37

Each time this happens, a new judge is appointed and saves the

people from their self-inflicted chaos. However, both the situations in the text, and the judges

themselves, begin to get progressively worse, culminating in chapters 19-21 with the gang rape

and murder of a young woman who has no one to save her. The situation of the text is so chaotic

34Danny Fingeroth,Disguised As Clark Kent: Jews, Comics, and the Creation of the Superhero (New

York: Continuum International Publishing Group Inc, 2007), 24-25.35Martin Noth, The Deuteronomistic History, (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1987).

36The Deuteronomistic historian is usually abbreviated as DtrH and the corpus of work as Dtr.

37Judges, 21.25.


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as to pave the way for the next book, Samuel, which establishes kingship in Israel. Samuel, in a

sense, is the figure that Samson should have been.

Before the gang rape in the text, the judge is Samson. If the text is paving the way for the

need of a king, the last judge would not be an all good and just superheroand he is not. The

text devotes three full chapters to describing the faults of Samson and why he is not only a bad

judge but a bad Israelite, one who only wants to marry Philistine women and who completely

disassociates with Israelites altogether. In the end, his blindness results in his eyes being

removed, and only the deity gives him the strength to prevail over the people whose approval he

wanted. The position of most Judges scholars, as exemplified in the commentaries of Boling,

Soggin, and Niditch, is to look at the gaps in Samsons story and create a background based on

their own interpretation of heroes and judges, which includes the deeply held, yet modern, idea

of superheroes. The process is easily done given that the word for judge in Hebrew is loosely

defined and has gone through numerous interpretations.

The word ,p, is the nominal form of the Hebrew verb meaning to judge,and the

Theological Dictionary of the Old Testamentstates that the vb.pdenotes an act of ruling or

the exercise of authority, with further differentiation depending on the context.38

Wolfgang

Richter defines ajudge as an individual from a city or tribe appointed by the elders to exercise

civil authority and administer justice in a city and the surrounding countryside.39

However, the

text never supports an election by tribal elders nor do all judges administer justice. Richter

takes the term to mean a charismatic leader, mostly in the military sphere, who took control of

38H. Niehr,p, in The Theological dictionary of the Old Testament, vol. XV eds., G. Johannes

Botterweck, Helmer Ringgren and Heinz-Josef Fabry (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Grand Rapids 2006),

415.39Quoted by H. Niehr,p, in The Theological dictionary of the Old Testament, vol. XV eds., G.

Johannes Botterweck, Helmer Ringgren and Heinz-Josef Fabry (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Grand Rapids

2006), 426.


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the area before any king ruled. Samson does not fit this model. The text never portrays Samson

as a military leader or a leader of the people at all. In fact, in Judges 15.11, several Judeans

attempt to hand him over to the Philistines. Since the text stresses that Samson is a judge,

commentaries on Judges generally contain similar themes when filling the gaps: military duty,

wise decision making, reverence to hisNaziritestatus, and a downfall resulting from Delilah.

Boling, Soggin, and Niditch are perfect examples for this study given that they are separate from

each other by 10-20 years and come from various backgrounds. However, they come to similar

conclusions about the character and backstory of Samson, ignoring the negative digression of

history portrayed by the Deuteronomistic History. This unconscious creation of the hero

Samson comes as a result of the intertextuality of Superman and its effect on Western society.

Robert Boling

Concerning Samson, the text portrays a judge who lacks direction, but Boling, theearliest

Judges scholar profiled here and closest in time to WWII, follows the classical definition of

judgeand fills the gaps in the story with military strategy. He states, On that occasion

Yahweh had in fact allowed him to be discharged from military service, so that Israel was left for

a while without a judge to lead them against the Philistines.40

The majority of Samsons story

describes him wandering the country side aimlessly. In Judges 14, he travels to gain a wife, kills

a lion along the way, and creates a riddle based on the carcass of the lion producing honey.

When the Philistines at his party cannot answer the riddle, they ask his wife for the answer in

order to win the bet. After threatening her life, she obliges and Samson is forced to pay the

Philistines, but to do so he travels south to Ashkelon and kills 30 men and robs them. When

Samson kills large amounts of Philistines like this, Boling states that YHWH gives Samson a

40Robert G Boling,Judges: Introduction, Translation, and Commentary, Anchor Bible Series (Garden

City, New York: Doubleday & Company, 1975), 252.


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last-minute reenlistment.41

Boling simply has to justify the slaughter of Philistines with

YHWHs true intentions in order to paint Samson in an all-positive light as a high military

commander and even states, Samson is the guerilla fighter par excellence42

Bolings viewpoint of the end of Judges, which lasts for five chapters after Samson, also

follows the classic, scholarly model, which traditionally ignores this section, as well as the gang

rape at the end. Boling, who believed Samson was a heavenly envoy, classifies the remainder

of Judges as Supplementary Studies.43

Boling believes that Samson was truly a military hero,

but the full extent of his military stories was traded for a collection of wild entertaining ones.

Boling states,

Samson toward the end of that period was truly remembered as a judge, despite all the

wild stories about him. It had to be borne out that from first to last Yahweh had in truth

ruled Israel through his judge, so the pragmatist used the popular stories to explore theimplications of that pivotal conviction. Apparently it was also his last word on the period

prior to Samuel.44

Boling uses his military superhero, Samson to ignore the remainder of the text. Given the war

and rape that follows, the text is emphasizing the chaotic time that existed prior to the kingship

and is not giving a last word.

Alberto Soggin

Soggin, like Boling, envisions a judge in light of a military definition but adds a religious

aspect. He states, However, there is evidence of another title for the judges invested with

military leadership: saviour or liberator. It is therefore probably that the earliest phase of the

book was that of a book of saviours.45

Through this definition of an ultimately good figure,

41Ibid. Samson again slaughters a large number of Philistines in Judges 15 after he discovers his wife has

moved on to one of the party goers.42Ibid., 236.43Ibid., 245-270.44Ibid., 241.45Soggin Alberto J.,Judges, A CommentaryTrans. John Bowden, The Old Testament Library Series

(Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1981), 3.


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Soggin feels the need to defend Samson from scholars who would deny him his savior title.

Soggin states, There are two lines of approach: those who see in Samson a religious hero with

tragic elements, and others who make an essentially negative evaluation of him, as an example

not to be imitated, the opposite of the true hero.46

To Soggin the true hero is none other than

the superhero, who is morally obligated to do no wrong regardless of the themes of the

Deuteronmistic History.

By creating a salvific figure, Soggin makes Samson indestructible and moral, but with

one weakness. Although the text presents a number of mistakes in which Samson disobeyed his

family, his people, and his deity, Soggin and popular culture fixate on women, especially

Delilah, as his downfall. As the story reaches the climax of chaos, Delilah is paid by the

Philistines to find the secret of Samsons strength; shecuts his hair, and Samson is captured.

Samson then prays for his death only if he is allowed vengeance for his eyes, which he gains by

killing 3000 Philistines as he pulls down the pillars of Dagons temple.

The text shows that Samsons fault was not relying upon YHWH, but upon the thing that

he believed held his strength: his hair. He also died only for vengeance of his eyes being

removed and not for helping his fellow Israelites. He wanted to live like a foreigner and marry a

foreigner; eventually, he died with the foreigners. However, Delilah, who is at the end of

Samsons story, is the one to blame for the heros fallin Soggins view. Soggin believes that this

heroic character would not have fallen if it was not for the foreign woman, Delilah. He states,

The erotic adventures of the hero are simply the exemplification of the theme of the foreign

woman who brings shame, deception and death, a theme clear to Israelite wisdom.47

However,

the text never states clearly that Delilah is a foreigner, nor does Soggin adequately explain why

46Ibid., 259.

47Ibid.,237.


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Samson should not be at blame for giving Delilah his secret.48

Much like Seigel and Schuster in

Action Comics #1, Soggin creates a champion for the people out of Samson. Delilah may not be

Lois Lane, but either through intertexuality or misogyny, Soggin places her as Samsons

kryptonite.

Here in Supermans Girl FriendLois Laneissue 98 from 1970, Lois is depicted as

Delilah cutting Supermans hair with magic shears.

48Samson blatantly knew that Delilah was in league with the Philistines. They act out three scenes where

he gives two faulty reasons for his strength where he has to escape the Philistines each time. The last time he does

not escape.


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Susan Niditch

One focus of Susan Niditchs scholarship uncovers the folklore behind the Hebrew Bible

and looks at characters as tricksters. She states, Like theBritish social bandit Robin Hood, the

judges fight those who wield power over them, often using the underdogs weapons of deception

and trickery to liberate their people. Samson is one of these border figures.49

So in Nidiths

eyes Samson is not only a bandit with a purpose, but also a deceptive outcast who robs from the

rich Philistines and gives to the poor Israelites. This imaginative viewing is oddly similar to

Cecil B. DeMilles movie Samson and Delilahas well as Superman, a figure who also contains

Robin Hood imagery.

50

When Samson robs from the Philistines in Judges 14, he does so after

killing 30 men to pay off a debt from the riddle. She even states, The riddle is grounded in the

supermans display of power over nature...51

Her obvious proclamation of Samson as a

supermanfurther attests her interpretation based on the intertextual loop and is, for her,

legitimization for Samson slaughtering a multitude.

Her intertextual readings result from Samsons birth narrative and hisNaziritenature,

which lends to the Superman paradigm. The story of Samson begins with a promise made

between a messenger of YHWH and Samsonsparents. As long as his mother would keep her

promise to make him aNazirbefore YHWH, then she would be given a son. Judges 13.4-5

states,

49

Susan Niditch,My Brother Esau Is a Hairy Man: Hair and Identity in Ancient Israel(New York: OxfordUniversity Press, 2008), 68.

50Samson and Delilah, directed by Cecil B. DeMille, Paramount Pictures, 1950. Robin Hood is one of the

heroes that Siegel often cited as inspiration of Superman and can be seen in Action Comics #2 where Superman

hunts down the root of an arms deal that sees someone making money off of the poor, which he eventually

redistributes.51Susan Niditch, Samson As Culture Hero, Trickster, and Bandit: The Empowerment of the Weak, pages

608-624 of The Catholic Biblical Quarterlyvol. 52, (1990), 619. The traditional view is to see the riddle as wisdom

literature and Soggin,Judges, 243, offers a scientific explanation for honey from corpses and other unanswerable

riddles in order to support Samson.


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Pumphrey 23

Now guard yourself and drink no wine and strong drink and do not eat anything unclean.

Thus, Behold! You are pregnant and shall bear a son and a razor shall not go upon his

head for the boy of your stomach shall be aNazirof the god YHWH. And he shall beginto deliver Israel from the hand of the Philistines.

52

As Samson lives his life, he drinks wine at a marriage party, he eats honey from the carcass of a

lion, which is unclean, and he spends more time with the Philistines than he does with the

Israelites. Niditch states that he did notbreak hisNazirstatus and, for her, theNaziritesfirst

mentioned in Numbers 6 is a later addition, so the prohibitions against drinking wine or coming

in contact with dead things do not apply to Samson but only his mother when she was pregnant.53

This shifting of the weight of the restrictive prohibitions from Samson to a female figure is yet

another example of the scapegoating of the women in Samons life by modern-day interpreters.

To Niditch, the only thing that marks Samson as theNazirsuperhero is the long warrior-

like hair that is not cut, which allows her to deny the theme of the downward spiral of the Dtr.

She states, Samson, theNazir, is also a swashbuckling superhero and warrior called a judge.54

As long as Samson is an all-powerfulNazir, until his hair is cut, he exists simultaneously as a

proper Israelite and superhero. However, the message of the Deuteronomistic History is simple:

The times are chaotic and Samson is not the proper leader of Israel. Obviously from her

references to Samson as supermanand superhero,she is reflecting Superman as the epitome

ofNazirite. Niditch then fills the gaps of the story with what the character Samson is supposed

to be but does not live up to: Superman.

52Translation is mine.

53Susan Niditch,My Brother Esau Is a Hairy Man, 88. Numbers 6 goes into greater detail about theparameters of the Nazirite status. Niditch believes that the greater detail is a further elaboration of the Samson tale.

54Ibid.


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Pumphrey 25

This superhero paradigm had immediate and far-reaching effects on popular culture and

the collective Western consciousness. In 1952, the appellate case National Comics Publications

v. Fawcett Publications established that Superman was the paradigm from which all superheroes

result.56

Although National won the case, which allowed National to sue Fawcett over the rights

to the superhero, Judge Learner Hand gave a definition to the idea of superhero. Judge Hand

stated that the superhero must have a mission, powers, and identity .57 Identity and

superpowers are self-explanatory, but the mission as described by Judge Hand exemplifies the

new hero. As explained by Coogan, Hand believes the superhero mission is pro-social and

selfless, which means that his fight against evil must fit in with the existing, professed mores of

society and must not be intended to benefit or further his own agenda.58

The new hero exists

simply to be all good and could not perform any act of evil, and the court case settled that the

recent development of the superhero was not limited to one character, but extended into a new

realm of identities.

With the creation of Superman, and, by exstension, the collective idea of the superhero,

Siegel and Schuster unknowingly created a new lens in which readers would view the biblical

text of Samons story in Judges. Through intertextuality, Superman was created and with a loop

back to the text, scholars use intertextuality to fill in the gaps in Samsons story effectively

making him Superman. However, the Deuteronomistic History explains through the digression

of history and mistakes of the judges why Israel needs a king. Samson, the last judge, deals the

56National Comics Publications v. Fawcett Publications,191 F.2d 594(2d Cir.1951). In 1939 National

Comics tried to file suit with Fawcett that several of their characters were copies of Superman, especially Wonder

Man and Captain Marvel. However when a trial commenced in 1941, the judged ruled in the favor of Fawcett due

to loss of copyright of Superman when he was in newspaper strip form. When National appealed, Judge Learned

Hand ruled in their favor and Fawcett settled out of court. For more information see,

http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/191/594/91314/accessed 4/4/11.57Peter Coogan, The Definition of the Superhero,A Comics Studies Reader, pp. 77-93, eds. Jeet Heer

and Kent Worcester, (Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 2009), 77.58Ibid.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_citationhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_citationhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_citationhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2d_Cir.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2d_Cir.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2d_Cir.http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/191/594/91314/http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/191/594/91314/http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/191/594/91314/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2d_Cir.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_citation


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final blow that causes a downward spiral in Israel, leading to a vicious rape and civil war.

Reading the text created by the intertextual loop, many, if not all, post-Superman scholars

completely abandon the themes of the Deuteronomistic History. As the earliest and closest to

WWII, Boling acts on the paradigm established by previous scholarship and adds nuances based

on his version of supermanas military superhero. Soggin is the control for the study

considering that he is Italian and is not as likely to have been deeply influenced by a particularly

American phenomenon like Superman. Although his interpretation may result from his national

and religious leanings, he still falls victim to the superhero worship. He creates a new paradigm

for the interpretation of judge as savior. Niditch, the youngest and most influenced by popular

culture, integrates the loop more strongly and even refers to Samson as superheroand

superman.She sees Samson as carrying Judge Hands mission,power, and identity. She

states:

Some scholars have treated Samson as a foolish dolt, an antihero, or a poor leader, who

makes the cries for a king in 1 Samuel 8 seem appropriateSamson is a complex, epic-

style hero who would be incomplete without flawsHe is a worthy judge; the judge is to

be understood, however, not as a seated and robed adjudicator of justice but rather as anaction heroTales of Samson as preserved in the Hebrew Bible, however, would have

continued to appeal during the nationalist experiments with monarchy and statehood-he is

after all a great hero...59

Although Hebrew Bible scholars still struggle with acknowledging popular culture as a major

impact on biblical scholarship, it is quite evident that these three scholars, who represent the

major paradigm of the work on Judges, are not seeing Samson. They are seeing Superman,

champion of the oppressed, the physical marvel who had sworn to devote his existence to

helping those in need.

59Susan Niditch, Susan,Judges: A Commentary, Old Testament Library, eds., William Brown, Carol

Newsom, David Peterson, (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 2008),154-155.


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Pumphrey 27

Intertextuality informs us that pop-culture cannot be ignored by Biblical scholars. It

influences and engages at least two of the Bakhtinian loci described by Tull. No literature or

interpretation can exist today without the influence of popular culture, much like Gunkels work

was influenced by the Grimm Brothers or Herder by Goethe. Beal states, Intertextuality draws

attention to the uncontainable and unstable fluidity of the biblicalas it seeps into and through

our various overlapping and clashing constructs of culture and society, past, present, and future;

and it demands self-critical honesty, at least, about why and how we cut it off where and when

we do.60

When dealing with Superman, either scholarship is failing to acknowledge the

influence of the modern take on the traditional hero or his influence is so paramount that he is

attached to the collective subconscious of Western society.61

Superman is very much an intertextual being. Speaking specifically about the biblical

text, but notably also applicable to Superman, Tull states:

What is significant is not the mere fact that these books used earlier material, but the way

in which earlier material was used for a new rhetorical purpose. It is less pertinent to say

that the texts are influenced by previous texts and more accurate to note the ways in

which the new texts appropriate previous material, establishing a complex system ofrelationships of opposition, agreement, partial agreement, and reformulation.62

Although Beal states that intertextuality and the biblical influence is fluid, he raises doubts in an

earlier article that we cannot trace presuppositions. He states, More than this, to trace a

subjects influences through a particular line of tradition is nothing short of impossible, since a

line requires two fixed points.63

However, this is exactly the purpose of explaining the

intertextual loop. Beal believes that there is no linear progression and that all the texts

60Beal, Intertextuality,130.61Whenpresenting the first edition of this paper, I was asked, What does this paper mean for Ghost Rider

or the Punisher, anti-heroes who were not ultimately good characters? My response was simple. Ask any person

on the street who is Johnny Blaze or Frank Castle. You may get a few correct answers, but when asking someone

who is Clark Kent, you will almost always get Superman as a response.62Tull, Rhetorical Criticism,169.63Beal, Ideology and Intertextuality, 30.


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Pumphrey 28

intermingle. When dealing with a text that is directly quoting another text, there are two fixed

points: the text that is quoted and the quotation in the new text. The loop explains the interface

of scholarship or the audience as it gives and takes from these two points.

I agree that it is impossible to pin down everyones traditions, culture, and beliefs, and I

even acknowledge in this paper that there is more at play with this intertextual loop than

Superman; however, the loop allows for a better understanding of how scholars or the audience

from a certain stereotypical tradition address an issue. Superman was the first superhero and

all heroes changed after his creation. We could probably apply this text to the views of Robin

Hood or Heracles. However, given the significance of intertextuality in biblical studies and the

significance Bible in Western society, it is more important to explore the intertextual loop as it

plays between a popular figure from the Hebrew Bible, as well as the Christian and Jewish

traditions, and such a key figure in the popular culture of Western Society. Biblical Studies has

long since ignored the significance of popular culture and how it influences the scholarship

produced.64

Thus, we should read and author responsibly, and attempt to be aware of the loops

that we create between texts. The Bible has long been a text full of power and influence, eclipsed

only in power by that wielded by the interpreter. In keeping with the comic book theme, as

Uncle Ben stated to Peter Parker a few hours before he died, With great power, comes great

responsibility.

64This is evident in the fact that SBL just now created a session for the Bible and Pop-Culture. It is not

separated between Hebrew Bible and New Testament, and is not developed thoroughly. Similarly, AAR is in the

same situation. To give papers on Popular culture, one has to seek out the occasional popular culture and religion

conference given by a reputable school or journal, or go to the Popular Culture Associations meeting; however, this

is still separate and a lack of acknowledgment by the Biblical studies community.


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Pumphrey 29

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