Romanticizing Samson’s Mother Romanticizing Samson’s Mother David J. Zucker, Aurora, Colorado, USA Abstract Samson’s mother is nameless in the Hebrew Bible. Little is said about her as a person. Roughly two millennia ago, in three sources of Rewritten Bibles her character is fleshed out, she becomes much more of a real figure. This article addresses specific verses pertaining to her in Judges 13 showing how they were recast in three pieces of literature from the Late Second Temple period and beyond. The three works are Josephus’ Judean Antiquities; Biblical Antiquities (Pseudo-Philo – Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum [L.A.B.]); and the homiletic discourse, Pseudo-Philo’s “On Samson.” Key Words: Biblical Antiquities (Pseudo-Philo – Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum [L.A.B.]); Josephus’ Judean Antiquities; Judges 13; Ms. Manoah/Eluma; Pseudo-Philo’s “On Samson.” Although anonymized in the biblical book of Judges, Samson’s mother increasingly is a person of interest in a number of writings created in the Late Second Temple period and after, i.e. the centuries around the time of the turning of the millennium two thousand years ago, about 200 BCE-200 CE and beyond. She becomes romanticized and idealized; she becomes more prominent and empowered in these works. Referring to specific verses which address her in Judges 13, this article shows how in three later texts a new picture of this woman emerges. The three sources under consideration are: Flavius Josephus’ Judean Antiquities (also known as the Antiquities of the Jews); a Pseudepigraphic work titled Biblical Antiquities (Pseudo-Philo – Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum [L.A.B.]) and a third source, the homiletic Pseudepigraphic work, Pseudo-Philo “On Samson.” All three of these texts come under the rubric, Rewritten Bible or Rewritten Scripture. Before considering the verses in Judges, some words about the concept of Rewritten Bible and then something about the three texts themselves. Broadly speaking, the term Rewritten Bible refers to “literature written in the Second Temple period [or beyond] that either expands biblical stories, retells biblical stories, or uses biblical stories as platforms to write new texts.”1 To place this in some kind of context, one has to realize that the Masoretic Text (MT), the Hebrew Bible as known 1 Women in Judaism: A Multidisciplinary Journal Volume 15 Number 2 (2018) ISSN 1209-9392 © 2019 Women in Judaism, Inc. All material in the journal is subject to copyright; copyright is held by the journal except where otherwise indicated. There is to be no reproduction or distribution of contents by any means without prior permission. Contents do not necessarily reflect the views of the editors. Romanticizing Samson’s Mother today, is a product of the late first century CE. Emanuel Tov explains that before “that period, only the proto-rabbinic (Pharisaic) movement made use of MT, while other streams in Judaism used different Hebrew textual traditions. In other words, before the first century of the Common Era, readers witness a textual plurality among Jews, with multiple text forms conceived of as ‘the Bible,’ or Scripture, including the Hebrew source upon which the ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, the Septuagint (LXX), was built.”2 Josephus’ Judean Antiquities The purpose of Josephus’ Judean Antiquities (Antiquities of the Jews) as he explains in the work known as Against Apion, is to correct non-Jewish ignorance about Jewish history. Josephus’ motives may well have been apologetic since the Jews had been accused of being misanthropic and of having failed to produce marvelous men (AgAp 2.12 §135).3 Composed c. 90 CE, in sections 5: 276-285 of Judean Antiquities, Josephus writes about the birth of Samson. Quite unexpectedly, Josephus has positive things to say about Manoah’s wife. More commonly, explains Louis H. Feldman, in “the Antiquities Josephus has a number of sneers directed against women,” and Josephus’ attitude tends to be “misogynistic.”4 It is difficult to know if this was true misogyny or whether he was living in and reflecting a culture which was both patriarchal and androcentric. In any case Josephus often “downplays the role of women”5 although this tendency is not apparent in his comments about Samson’s mother. In his Judean Antiquities in order to make his narrative more appealing, Josephus introduces romantic motifs reminiscent of Homer, Herodotus, Xenophon, and Hellenistic novels.6 Biblical Antiquities (Pseudo-Philo – Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum [L.A.B.]) Biblical Antiquities (Pseudo-Philo – Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum [L.A.B.]) – hereafter abbreviated to Biblical Antiquities (L.A.B.) – was likely composed somewhere between the Roman Army’s destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE, and 150 CE. Falsely attributed to Philo of Alexandria (25 BCE-50 CE), it is “an example of a genre known as rewritten Bible. The author reviews the biblical narrative from Adam to David, adding, subtracting, embellishing, Women in Judaism: A Multidisciplinary Journal Volume 15 Number 2 (2018) 2 ISSN 1209-9392 © 2019 Women in Judaism, Inc. All material in the journal is subject to copyright; copyright is held by the journal except where otherwise indicated. There is to be no reproduction or distribution of contents by any means without prior permission. Contents do not necessarily reflect the views of the editor Romanticizing Samson’s Mother and revising.”7 [Note: Biblical Antiquities (L.A.B.) is not to be confused with another Pseudepigraphic work, Pseudo-Philo “On Samson” as is explained in that section below.] Biblical Antiquities (L.A.B.), similar to the book of Jubilees which probably dates from the early 2nd century BCE, is the most extensive rewritten Bible of the ancient world. Jubilees covers material found in the book of Genesis and early Exodus. Both of these sources offer very different views when compared to the Masoretic Text. Biblical Antiquities (L.A.B.) weaves the biblical text – whichever version(s) the author was using – with its own interpretation of these narratives.8 Unlike the Bible, where verses are often but a sentence in length, verses in Biblical Antiquities (L.A.B.) are often a paragraph in length, containing many sentences. Pseudo-Philo, “On Samson” Pseudo-Philo, “On Samson” also is falsely ascribed to Philo of Alexandria. His authorship of this extended homily is unlikely. Scholars suggest that Pseudo-Philo, “On Samson” was written somewhere in between the period of early 2nd century BCE and about the 4th century CE. The Septuagint (LXX) is the underlying biblical text for this work. The “approaches of Philo and Pseudo-Philo to the biblical text are quite different. Philo sequentially cites short biblical passages and gives their literal or allegorical interpretation (or both), whereas Pseudo-Philo has composed rhetorically embellished literary versions of biblical stories.”9 Pseudo-Philo “On Samson” is Hellenistic. The reader can immediately see the difference between this work and Biblical Antiquities (L.A.B.). “On Samson” similar to Josephus is presented from the view of the omniscient narrator who describes what is taking place in the voice of the third person. The author offers his portrayal of events and then periodically presents an evaluation of what has happened. For example, the author asks rhetorically why was it that in the case of Abraham and Sarah that it was Abraham who first learned about the birth of a child, and in this case as one shall see that it is the wife who learns first? He answers his own question with “For there the husband was readier than the wife to believe the annunciation, while here Manoah’s wife was readier to believe” (Chapter 7, verse 3). In total, Pseudo-Philo, “On Samson” contains forty-six short chapters. Women in Judaism: A Multidisciplinary Journal Volume 15 Number 2 (2018) 3 ISSN 1209-9392 © 2019 Women in Judaism, Inc. All material in the journal is subject to copyright; copyright is held by the journal except where otherwise indicated. There is to be no reproduction or distribution of contents by any means without prior permission. Contents do not necessarily reflect the views of the editor Romanticizing Samson’s Mother Rewriting Judges: Introducing Manoah’s Wife 2There was a certain man of Zorah, of the tribe of the Danites, whose name was Manoah. His wife was barren, having borne no children. (Judges 13:2). In Judges Manoah’s wife, the woman who will become Samson’s mother, is nameless. Initially she is but an adjunct to her named husband Manoah. It is the “exclusive quality of infertility—the sense that it is the only aspect of [this woman] that is worth mentioning”10 which stands out in verse 2. Manoah lives in Zorah, and is a Danite. Similar to the first notation of Abraham’s wife Sarah [Abram/Sarai] toward the end of the eleventh chapter in Genesis, here too one initially learns of her husband’s name, and then that his wife was “aqarah.” The same word is utilized in both accounts, in Genesis and Judges. This word often is mistranslated as “barren” or “sterile” and then comes the clarification, at least up to that point, that she was without issue. (If she actually was infertile/barren/sterile, she would be incapable of having children. What aqarah means in these contexts is that to date she has not yet given birth to a child.)11 Josephus’ Judean Antiquities Josephus introduces Manoah and then explains that he “had a wife who was notable for her beauty and who stood out among the women of her time.” (5.276). Further it is stated that Manoah “was madly in love with his wife and therefore immoderately jealous of her.” (5.277). The text states that because of not “having children and being distressed at his childlessness…[Manoah] kept begging God to give them legitimate offspring.” (5.276).