Samson finds repose

There is a point in the Samson story -- the moment when he falls asleep on Delilah's lap -- that seems to absorb and encapsulate the entire tale. Samson withdraws into his childish, almost infantile self, disarmed of the violence, madness, and passion that have confounded and ruined his life. This is, of course, also the moment when his fate is sealed, for Delilah is clutching his hair and the razor, and the Philistines outside are already relishing their victory. In another moment his eyes will be plucked out and his power extinguished. Soon he will be thrown into prison and his days will be ended. Yet it is now, perhaps for the first time in his life, that he finds repose. Here, in the very heart of the cruel perfidy that he has surely expected all along, he is finally granted perfect peace, a release from himself and the stormy drama of his life.

--David Grossman, Lion's Honey: The Myth of Samson (2005)

'absolute dependence upon the spirit of the times'

No one perhaps has said it better than Karl Barth who observed with pointed irony that the more a theologian wishes to be considered a pure biblicist, disdaining the Church, her dogma and tradition, the more surely he ends "in absolute dependence upon the spirit of the times."

—Henri de Lubac, A Brief Catechesis on Nature & Grace (1980)

The Spirit and Wonder World

We cannot use electric lights and radios and, in the event of illness, avail ourselves of modern medicine and clinical means and at the same time believe in the spirit and wonder world of the New Testament. And if we suppose that we can do so ourselves, we must be clear that we can represent this as the attitude of Christian faith only by making the Christian proclamation unintelligible and impossible for our contemporaries.

—Rudolf Bultmann, "The New Testament and Mythology" (1941)

The Dead Letter and the Appalling Command

I certainly do not wish to consider as witnesses of my inner and living faith the scribes and pharisees of our age, men who turn the dear holy Bible into a cold twaddle that destroys heart and soul...Only I do not like to give myself and my heart where it is misunderstood; so I am wont to keep silence before those who are theologians by profession..., just as much as before those who do not wish to know anything at all of the whole business because every kind of religion, which is after all the first and final need of man, has been marred for them from their earliest days by the dead letter and by the appalling command to believe.

—Friedrich Hölderlin, Werke (January 1799)

you have ravished my heart with a glance of your eyes

You have ravished my heart, my sister, my bride,
     you have ravished my heart with a glance of your eyes,
     with one jewel of your necklace.
How sweet is your love, my sister, my bride!
     how much better is your love than wine,
     and the fragrance of your oils than any spice!

—The Song of Solomon 4:9-10 (RSV Catholic Edition)

Like a Dog

Like snow in summer or rain in harvest,
       so honour is not fitting for a fool.
Like a sparrow in its flitting, like a swallow in its flying,
       an undeserved curse goes nowhere.
A whip for the horse, a bridle for the donkey,
       and a rod for the back of fools.
Do not answer fools according to their folly,
       or you will be a fool yourself.
Answer fools according to their folly,
       or they will be wise in their own eyes.
It is like cutting off one’s foot and drinking down violence,
       to send a message by a fool.
The legs of a disabled person hang limp;
       so does a proverb in the mouth of a fool.
It is like binding a stone in a sling
       to give honour to a fool.
Like a thornbush brandished by the hand of a drunkard
       is a proverb in the mouth of a fool.
Like an archer who wounds everybody
       is one who hires a passing fool or drunkard.
Like a dog that returns to its vomit
       is a fool who reverts to his folly.
Do you see persons wise in their own eyes?
       There is more hope for fools than for them.

--Proverbs 26:1-12, NRSV

...echoing through the canon...

[T]he various inaccuracies and other inadequacies of the King James Version, though they justify a new translation, are beside the point when it comes to that version’s aesthetic power. The K.J.V. is so ingrained—its poetry has so completely seeped into the collective consciousness of the English-speaking world—that a new rendering, however valuable, is a vaguely disconcerting experience. In the four centuries since its completion, the K.J.V. has become our lives’ background poetry, its phrases and rhythms echoing through the canon, having been endlessly plundered by writers in search of a turn of phrase, or of a certain resonance unattainable elsewhere.

—Nathaniel Stein, "The Sun (Also) Rises: How Alter's New Translation Fares in Literature," posted on The New Yorker's The Book Bench blog (October 1, 2010)