Biblical Analysis: Samson's Death

²⁵ While they were in high spirits, they shouted, "Bring out Samson to entertain us." So they called Samson out of the prison, and he performed for them.
When they stood him among the pillars, ²⁶ 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." ²⁷ Now the temple was crowded with men and women; all the rulers of the Philistines were there, and on the roof were about three thousand men and women watching Samson perform. ²⁸ Then Samson prayed to the LORD, "O Sovereign LORD, remember me. O God, please strengthen me just once more, and let me with one blow get revenge on the Philistines for my two eyes." ²⁹ Then Samson reached toward the two central pillars on which the temple stood. Bracing himself against them, his right hand on the one and his left hand on the other, ³⁰ Samson said, "Let me die with the Philistines!" Then he pushed with all his might, and down came the temple on the rulers and all the people in it. Thus he killed many more when he died than while he lived. Judges 16: 25-30

I don't think I've ever seen two structural pillars close enough for a single person to put a hand on both at the same time. Consequently, the preceding passage has always made me wonder about the temple Samson died in. Especially after reading it as an adult: What kind of temple can hold three thousand people on the roof and still have two critical supports that close together? I figured someone out there had already done the research, what with it being in the Bible, and the Bible being the most popular book ever.

I wasn't disappointed. John Roskoski, PhD, seems to have written quite a bit on the subject. I first found his paper that describes the size of the temple, among other things. It was "26 feet wide by 47 feet long," according to Dr. B.G. Wood, as quoted by Roskoski. "The pillars would be within the reach of Samson, a huge man according to most scholars, as they were situated approximately six feet apart." This is based on the excavation of Tell Qasile, which is believed to be very similar to the temple in Gaza. With that question somewhat answered, I moved on to the three thousand people on the roof. A roof that is definitely too small for three thousand people.

John Roskoski's article on Samson's death addressed the number of people in the section appropriately titled "How Many People?"

The Hebrew term ‘elep represents the numeral 1,000. However, there are several specialized meanings attached to this term. One meaning is that the term represents the “largest basic division of leadership in political oversight or military leadership.” Also, “it is occasionally alleged that since ‘elep means a company of a thousand men it could mean any military unit, even of reduced strength” (Scott 1980: 48). Therefore, it seems as though the text is referring to three distinct contingencies that were in attendance, in addition to the followers of Dagon who filled the temple.

I have no way of really evaluating the information in that section. For now, I will accept it as it is. I will say that it doesn't strike me as a particularly strong argument, though. It seems odd to have to use some specialized meaning of a word in order for it to make sense. We go from "three thousand men and women" to "three distinct contingencies." It seems rather vague.

For the record, my favorite fact comes from a footnote in the first paper by Roskoski: "The columns were wider at the top and tapered at the bottom, a result of inverting the cypress trunk so to prevent sprouting once in place." I had no idea that was a problem, and I love the mental image that comes to mind when imagining some engineer encountering that problem for the first time.

Quantum Tunneling and The Matrix

As I'm sure you know, quantum tunneling involves a particle not impacting a barrier. One would expect that a particle hitting a barrier would bounce off, just like a baseball off a wall [I wanted to link that to a clip of The Great Escape with Hilts in his cell, but due to copyright enforcement the closest I can get is the final scene - SPOILER ALERT]. A curious thing can happen with individual particles in quantum mechanics, though. There's a probability, dependent upon the speed and mass of the particle and the thickness and other properties of the barrier, that the particle will tunnel through and appear on the other side. This has a number of absolutely cool applications: pressure sensors, a bunch of physics and semiconductor stuff, and of course the scanning tunneling microscope.

All this strikes me as similar to something else, though, and that is the errors in collision detection that some games have. I had a friend in high school that made an awesome QBasic platformer called Bouncy, which was just a bouncy ball that had to bounce around a screen to get to the exit. In some of the early versions, it was quite possible to get bouncing so fast that you'd run straight through the platform you were on and die. The probability of going through the platform was dependent upon your speed, the thickness of the platform, and the length of time between calculations. Sounds quite a lot like quantum tunneling! Which is why I think we're in The Matrix, and that our simulation needs to calculate things at a finer time resolution. Quantum mechanics is very probably just a programming error. Q.E.D.

Justification

A few months ago, I was doing my regular shopping at Walmart. Among other things, I bought two cans of Parmesan cheese. I wasn't entirely sure I bought them at the time, though.

I wasn't paying all that much attention, but it looked like the kind lady at the register had put one of the cans in the bag without scanning it. I consider myself a pretty moral and honest person, but I didn't seriously consider pointing it out. It'd be nice if my subconscious had quickly ruled out that course of action as either unnecessary or inefficient; it'd be even nicer if I believed that to be true.

No, I immediately justified the unintentional discount in several ways. My subconscious was definitely thinking, but it was thinking greedily. But, when you think about it, they've overcharged me for a couple items in the past. And I definitely do way more than my fair share of correcting the product placements on the shelves. And when I take my shopping cart to the car, I always put it back in its designated area - and compact the carts already there, too! Why, I'll even go out of my way to remove shopping carts from the handicapped spaces when I see them. And I do give Walmart a lot of regular business. Retailers build these kinds of mistakes into their prices, after all.

In my defense, there were also a couple of points in Walmart's favor in the battle in my head. I fully appreciated that not ringing up the Parmesan cheese would throw off their inventory until their next manual recount. And, it is Parmesan cheese, and if there was ever a product that deserved to be paid for, it is cheese - especially Parmesan! But I've done cycle counting, and the mistake would be corrected remarkably shortly - if people were doing their jobs properly. And food does taste better when it's free.

Yeah, that Parmesan was going to stay mine. Guilt lasts until you forget about it, and that was likely to be before bed. Parmesan lasts all the way until you eat it (which wasn't actually all that much longer)!

It's remarkable how easy it was to justify an action I knew was wrong. Incidentally, this post is proof that I underestimated my memory when it comes to guilt. I'm sure I understated the awesomeness of Parmesan cheese, too, though. Also, I did check the receipt on my way out, so I didn't leave the store thinking I'd stolen cheese. I still like to think I would have gone back and paid for it had I seen that it was, in fact, missed.