@dshipp17: Christianity has the habit of stealing other people's stories, traditions and holidays. The story of Samson is more likely based on that of Heracles like everything else seems to be other people's stuff... like the Pope/Papa and Jesus.
Highly doubtful, as the story of Samson is from one of the oldest books of the Old Testament, while, at the same time, being apart of Judaism; the Old Testament is the entirety of Judaism; Christianity is an extension of Judaism, being that Jesus was the fulfillment of Jewish prophecy; therefore, Christianity does not steal from anything; Jesus was intended to be connected with books of the Old Testament like Isaiah; the history of Samson is clearly established to be around 1500 BC so it cannot be a copy of Hercules; if you look at Samson, the man, and Hercules, the character, you can clearly tell that Hercules barrows from Samson the man, as Hercules is much more dynamic and performs more extraordinary feats, as would be expected from a created myth; actually, I'd be willing to consider that Hercules was probably created during the Roman Empire at the time it was persecuting Christians and Jews, probably as a mockery of Jewish tradition, intending to imply Roman dominance over the Jews. I do agree, however, that Christianity did assimilate some of the traditions and holidays from the Pagans, coinciding with the the spread of Christianity in foreign locations, but it's more of an issue of assimilation, not thievery; but, the Samson story is clearly apart of the Jewish tradition that became apart of Christianity; I can most assuredly state that it's Hercules that borrows from Samson, not the other way around.
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