Archaeological Evidence of Biblical Samson

Christian Post — An Israeli excavation team believes it has found an artifact depicting the Bible’s Old Testament story of Samson fighting a lion.

Professor Shlomo Bunimovitz and Dr. Zvi Lederman, excavation directors at Tel Aviv University, reported that while recently digging at the Tell Beit Shemesh excavation site, just outside of Jerusalem in the Judaean Hills, they found a small circular stone seal, less than an inch in diameter, which depicts a man with long hair fighting a feline figure.

The seal was found near the River Sorekm, which served as the ancient border between Israelite and Philistine territories, and dates to the 11th century BC, which was biblically during the ruling of the Judges, one of whom was Samson, according to The Telegraph.

According to Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Israeli archaeologists speculate that the seal does not represent a biblical Samson, but rather a story of a local hero who fought a lion and eventually morphed into the biblical Samson tale.

The archaeologists chose to focus their study of this area more on the stark differences between the Philistines, who traveled across the Aegean, and the local people, who were first the Canaanites and later the People of Judah.