This paper analyzes the epic form and technique as found in "The Story of Samson" from Judges 13-16. In many ways, Samson
fits the pattern of the epic hero, who was featured in the many epics generated by the peoples of the Mediterranean world. How this is so will be developed and demonstrated in this study.
The epic genre consists of two basic types: folk and literary. The folk epic has no known single author and comes down through the oral tradition of a particular group of people. Various professional bards relate or sing the legend of a great epic protagonist. The Babylonian folk epic Gilgamesh or the ancient Greek Odyssey are appropriate examples of this type of. artistic endeavor. Although Homer may have been a single author, of a great some scholars believe that it is entirely possible that several persons were involved in creating The Iliad and The Odyssey over a period of many years. Very likely, an oral tradition preceded the actual composition of these two epics.
Concerning the literary epic, Virgil's Aeneid belongs to that classification. The Aeneid was written by a single author, Virgil, and was directed at highly literate, cultivated readers
mainly from the Roman aristocracy. The purpose of a literary epic was more of ten didactic, with a theme.
"The Story of Samson" is included folk epic; and as is true of many such philosophical and moral under the category of a
epics, it is based upon historical fact. However, the Hebrew scholar Ignaz Goldziher offers the following opinion: "The difference between Samson's position and that of the other Judges makes it obvious that his history is mere legend through and through . . . If the other Judges receive Divine apparitions by which they are impelled to obvious that his action for the deliverance of their people, yet they act with perfectly human forces and means, in human fashion: Samson acts with supernatural force, and is a miracle from begin...