Claremont Graduate University

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

Pumphrey 2 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.
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Action Comics #1, The first appearance of Superman in Comic Books.

Pumphrey 3 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 word p, 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 faults by 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.

Samson 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.

Pumphrey 4 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 is the 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

Timothy K. Beal, Intertextuality, Handbook of Postmodern Biblical Interpretation, 128-130, ed. A.K.M. Adam (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2000), 128. 4 John Barton, Reading the Old Testament: Method in Biblical Study,2nd ed. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1996), 221.

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

Pumphrey 6 of selected texts; two newer examples are the Action Bible and the Manga 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, like John Constantine: Hellblazor, Testament, and Lucifer. 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, Samsons name 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.

With the exception of Superman, most of the figures are from Marvel comics and come from the 1980s when the writers were primarily Christian. 7 Given 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.

Pumphrey 8 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 intertextuality when examining Bahktins ideas of Dialogism. Patricia Tull states Bakhtin calls attention to three loci where some sort of dialogue is operative. All three points 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 about which 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

Patricia 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. 9 Robert 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. 10 Tull, Rhetorical Criticism and Intertextuality, 167. 11 Timothy K. Beal, Ideology and Intertextuality: Surplus of Meaning and Controlling the Means of Production, In Reading Between Texts: Intertextuality and the Hebrew Bible, 27-40, ed. Danna Nolan Fewell (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1992), 29.

Pumphrey 9 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. Authoring is 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 finished by others; I have no independent identity apart from the gaze of 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 responsibly as we can, listening and responding fairly.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 of identity, 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 stable convergence of personas, roles, voices, images, narratives, and so on.16

Ibid. Carleen R. Mandolfo, Daughter Zion Talks Back to the Prophets: A Dialogic Theology of the Book of Lamentations (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2007), 12. 14 Ibid., 12-13. 15 Beal, Ideology and Intertextuality, 29. 16 Beal, Intertextuality, 128-129.
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Pumphrey 10 Since Kristevas work, intertextuality has 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
Tull, Rhetorical Criticism, 164. Danna 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. 19 Carroll, Intertextuality and the book of Jeremiah, 57-58.
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Pumphrey 11 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 else is
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See 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. 21 Les Daniels, Superman The Complete History: the Life and Times of the Man of Steel (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1998), 18. 22 Mandolfo, Daughter Zion, 10.

Pumphrey 12 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 21st century 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 unacknowledged. 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

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Tull, Rhetorical Criticism, 174. Mandolfo, Daughter Zion, 14. 25 Tull, Rhetorical Criticism, 166.

Pumphrey 13 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 heroes and 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,
Henry George Liddell and Robert Scott eds., A Greek-English Lexicon, 8th edition (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. 27 Christopher Jones, New Heroes in Antiquity: From Achilles to Antinoos, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2010), 38. 28 Olympia, written and directed by Leni Riefenstahl, International Olympic Committee, 1940, opening scene.
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Pumphrey 14 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 30s for 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

Daniels, Superman The Complete History, 18. Les Daniels, DC Comics: Sixty years of the Worlds Favorite Comic Book Heroes, (New York: Bulfinch Press, 1995), 20. 31 Ibid
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Pumphrey 15 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

32 33

Ibid., 64, 65. Ibid.

Pumphrey 16 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. Martin Noths 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.35 The 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
Danny Fingeroth, Disguised As Clark Kent: Jews, Comics, and the Creation of the Superhero (New York: Continuum International Publishing Group Inc, 2007), 24-25. 35 Martin Noth, The Deuteronomistic History, (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1987). 36 The Deuteronomistic historian is usually abbreviated as DtrH and the corpus of work as Dtr. 37 Judges, 21.25.
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Pumphrey 17 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 Testament states that the vb. p denotes an act of ruling or the exercise of authority, with further differentiation depending on the context.38 Wolfgang Richter defines a judge 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

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), 415. 39 Quoted 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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Pumphrey 18 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 his Nazirite status, 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 judge and 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

Robert G Boling, Judges: Introduction, Translation, and Commentary, Anchor Bible Series (Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, 1975), 252.

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Pumphrey 19 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 the implications 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,
41

Ibid. 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. 42 Ibid., 236. 43 Ibid., 245-270. 44 Ibid., 241. 45 Soggin Alberto J., Judges, A Commentary Trans. John Bowden, The Old Testament Library Series (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1981), 3.

Pumphrey 20 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; she cuts 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 fall in 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

46 47

Ibid., 259. Ibid., 237.

Pumphrey 21 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 Friend Lois Lane issue 98 from 1970, Lois is depicted as Delilah cutting Supermans hair with magic shears.

Samson 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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Pumphrey 22 Susan Niditch One focus of Susan Niditchs scholarship uncovers the folklore behind the Hebrew Bible and looks at characters as tricksters. She states, Like the British 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 Delilah as 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 superman further 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 his Nazirite nature, which lends to the Superman paradigm. The story of Samson begins with a promise made between a messenger of YHWH and Samsons parents. As long as his mother would keep her promise to make him a Nazir before YHWH, then she would be given a son. Judges 13.4-5 states,

Susan Niditch, My Brother Esau Is a Hairy Man: Hair and Identity in Ancient Israel (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 68. 50 Samson 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. 51 Susan Niditch, Samson As Culture Hero, Trickster, and Bandit: T he Empowerment of the Weak, pages 608-624 of The Catholic Biblical Quarterly vol. 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 a Nazir of the god YHWH. And he shall begin to 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 not break his Nazir status and, for her, the Nazirites first 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 the Nazir superhero is the long warriorlike hair that is not cut, which allows her to deny the theme of the downward spiral of the Dtr. She states, Samson, the Nazir, is also a swashbuckling superhero and warrior called a judge.54 As long as Samson is an all-powerful Nazir, 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 superman and superhero, she is reflecting Superman as the epitome of Nazirite. Niditch then fills the gaps of the story with what the character Samson is supposed to be but does not live up to: Superman.

Translation is mine. Susan Niditch, My Brother Esau Is a Hairy Man, 88. Numbers 6 goes into greater detail about the parameters of the Nazirite status. Niditch believes that the greater detail is a further elaboration of the Samson tale. 54 Ibid.
53

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Pumphrey 24 Conclusion The ancient Near East and Greek worlds do not fit into the binary of absolute good and evil. In these ancient societies, a level of gray exists in between worlds where the ancient heroes of Greece and the Judges of Israel dwell. Superman was not meant to dwell here. When two Jewish authors created a new hero, they believed that the world was facing an absolute evil: Nazi ideology. They took pieces of Heracles, Robin Hood, Achilles, and especially Samson, removing all the negative aspects of their characters and creating a new paradigm: the superhero.55

Here are two examples of early issues of Superman where he helps fight the war for America.

Another example is Captain Marvel, aka Shazam!, created by C.C. Beck and Bill Parker and was based on the superman paradigm established by Siegel and Schuster. When mild mannered Billy Batson said the word Shazam!, he transforms into Captain Marvel. The positive synchronism is exemplified in the word Shazam!, which is an acronym for Solomons wisdom, strength of Hercules, stamina of Atlas, power of Zeus, courage of A chilles, and the speed of Mercury.

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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

National 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. 57 Peter 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. 58 Ibid.

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Pumphrey 26 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 superman as 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 superhero and 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, epicstyle 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 an action 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.

Susan 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 biblical as 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 of relationships 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
Beal, Intertextuality, 130. When presenting 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. 62 Tull, Rhetorical Criticism, 169. 63 Beal, Ideology and Intertextuality, 30.
61 60

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.

This 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 Bibliography Barton, John, Reading the Old Testament: Method in Biblical Study,2nd ed., Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1996. Beal, Timothy K. Ideology and Intertextuality: Surplus of Meaning and Controlling the Means of Production, In Reading Between Texts: Intertextuality and the Hebrew Bible, 27-40, ed. Danna Nolan Fewell, Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1992. . Intertextuality, Handbook of Postmodern Biblical Interpretation, 128-130, ed. A.K.M. Adam, St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2000. Bellis, Alice Ogden, Helpmates, Harlots, and Heroes: Womens Stories in the Hebrew Bible. Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1994. Boling, Robert G., Judges: Introduction, Translation, and Commentary the Anchor Bible Series Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1975. Campbell, Joseph, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, New York: Bollingen Foundation Inc., 1949. Carroll, Robert, Intertextuality and the book of Jeremiah, The New Literary Criticism and the Hebrew Bible, 55-78, eds. Cheryl J. Exum and David J. A. Clines, Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993. Collins, John. The Apocalyptic Imagination: An Introduction to Jewish Apocalyptic Literature. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1998. Coogan, Peter, The Definition of the Superhero, A Comics Studies Reader, pp. 77-93, eds. Jeet Heer and Kent Worcester, Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 2009. Daniels, Les, DC Comics: Sixty years of the Worlds Favorite Comic Book Heroes, New York: Bulfinch Press, 1995. .Superman The Complete History: the Life and Times of the Man of Steel, San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1998. Fewell, Danna Nolan, 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. Fingerroth, Danny, Disguised As Clark Kent: Jews, Comics, and the Creation of the Superhero, New York: Continuum International Publishing Group Inc 2007 Jewett, Robert, The Captain America Complex: The Dilemma of Zealous Nationalism, Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1973.

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Jones, Christopher, New Heroes in Antiquity: From Achilles to Antinoos, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2010. Liddell, Henry George and Robert Scott eds., A Greek-English Lexicon, 8th edition, New York: Harper & Brothers, 1897 Mandolfo, Carleen R. Daughter Zion Talks Back to the Prophets: A Dialogic Theology of the Book of Lamentations, Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2007. Niditch, Susan, Judges: A Commentary, eds., William Brown, Carol Newsom, David Peterson, Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 2008. . My Brother Esau Is a Hairy Man: Hair and Identity in Ancient Israel, New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. . A Prelude to Biblical Folklore: Underdogs and Tricksters, Chicago: University of Illinois press, 1987. . Samson As Culture Hero, Trickster, and Bandit: The Empowerment of the Weak, of The Catholic Biblical Quarterly vol. 52, 608-624, 1990. . War In The Hebrew Bible: A Study in the Ethics of Violence, New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. Noth, Martin, The Deuteronomistic History, Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1987. Niehr, H. p, in The Theological dictionary of the Old Testament eds., G. Johannes Botterweck, Helmer Ringgren and Heinz-Josef, 411-413. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing, 2006. Olympia, written and directed by Leni Riefenstahl, International Olympic Committee, 1940. Samson and Delilah, directed by Cecil B. DeMille, Paramount Pictures, 1950. Schneider, Tammi., Judges, Berit Olam Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2000. Soggin, Alberto J., Judges, A Commentary Translated by John Bowden From the Italian Original, The Old Testament Library series Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1981. Sweeney, Marvin A. Form and Intertextuality in Prophetic and Apocalyptic Literature. Tbingen:Mohr Siebeck, 2005. The Ten Commandments, directed by Cecil B. DeMille, Paramount Pictures, 1956.

Pumphrey 31 Tull, Patricia K. 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.