Reading Solomon J. Solomon’s Samson against the Book of Judges

Abstract

This paper examines Solomon J. Solomon’s Samson, an interpretative artistic portrayal of the biblical Samson and Delilah narrative in Judges 16. Solomon’s painting explores themes of eroticism, power, and ‘the Other’. Solomon both embellishes and fills gaps in the biblical narrative. By doing so, he conspicuously explores themes only implicit in the Bible, thus creating content where the biblical text remains silent. Filling these narrative gaps and making the implicit explicit changes the focus of the Samson and Delilah narrative, thereby adding to the cultural memory of the biblical text and altering the way in which the biblical narrative is approached by readers.