Strongest humans in the Bible

[Bellator]

Seems fitting to put this in Fantasy.

Who are the strongest human beings in the Bible? Excluding angels and giants and other semi-devine creatures. Let's define it as who would win in 1 on 1 unarmed combat.

And how do they compare to (I assume lower tier) comicbook superheros?

Samson is prolly #1 (didn't he collapse a building while being tied to it?), but who else is there? Goliath? Or maybe Jacob, who wrestled with none other than God himself? Are there other human beings who accomplished great feats of strength?

[Majin Gojira]

Not that I can recall, most biblical miracles/super powers I can think of involve summonings, evocations and the like.

My personal favorite is "Summon Bears to destroy kids who mocked me for arbitrary reasons!" but I can'r recall where that one occured.

[Lusankya]

That was the prophet Elisha, the not-quite-so-stupendous-as-the-prophet-Elijah.

To be fair, those punk kids probably deserved it for calling him "baldy".

Oh, David was pretty tough. He could kill giants and once he went out and killed 200 Philistines and collected their foreskins just so he could marry some chick. (He only actually needed 100 foreskins, but that was too easy or something.)

[Shroom Man 777]

How can you quantify Goliath? He didn't do feats of strength aside from scaring away Hebrew/Israelite warriors before he had his shit ruined by David.

How bout Noah? He and a bunch of meddling kids built a zoo-boat big enough for all the animuls, while everyone was laughing at him. To be fair, in the cartoons it made it look like the animuls helped him out.

[Lonestar]

Didn't Moses out-wrestle God?

[aieeegrunt]

I think we can discount Jacob. He wrestled an angel for most of a night, but it ended with the angel tapping his leg and dislocating his hip, which it probably could have done at any point in the fight. It was wrestling with him to let him clear his head and realize something, or something like that. This seems pretty extreme, but people often do stuff like that. I always know that something is bothering my girlfriend when she goes out and runs herself into the ground.

Samson would be the one to go with, he did twist a lion's head off and collapse a building. I don't think we have anything comparable to that.

[Bellator]

How can you quantify Goliath? He didn't do feats of strength aside from scaring away Hebrew/Israelite warriors before he had his shit ruined by David.

Not that we know of, but wasn't he like 9 feet tall? Could he be an ancient Hong Man Choi, only bigger?

[Shroom Man 777]

He could've been a skinny tall shit who the Canaanites propped with paper mache to scare the dumb Hebrews until David figured it out and threw a rock in his face.

[Patrick Degan]

The most famous Biblical hero was Sampson, who could wrestle wild beasts, overcome any number of Philistines sent against him, and was nigh-invincible until Delilah —with whom he had taken up and in doing so reneged on his covenant with Yahweh— clipped his hair. He subsequently lost his strength, was taken by the Philistines, and was blinded. However, he was able to pull down the Temple of Baal calling upon Yahweh for one last feat of strength to humble the Philistines.

[Ford Prefect]

Don't Abram and Lot tag-team an army at some point? I seem to recall this is the case.

[Steve]

Been a long time since I studied it, obviously, but I do seem to recall that in the Bible the heroes of the Old Testament tended to rely upon A) divine intervention or B) wit and cleverness more than they did brute strength and force. But again it's been a while, I may be wrong.

[Steve]

I heard it was something like Abraham rescuing Lot from three kings and their own armies by having an army of his own.

[Gil Hamilton]

Didn't Moses out-wrestle God?

That was Jacob and they can seem to agree if he out wrestled God or an Angel.

[Lonestar]

That was Jacob and they can seem to agree if he out wrestled God or an Angel.

Ah, I was thinking of when God was about to whack Moses because he had a foreskin. Nvm.

[Themightytom]

My vote is for Sampson the Hebrew Hercules. Unless the opponents have knowledge of each other's weaknesses he is unstoppable unless hair pulling starts to go down.

he ripped a lion apart people, a Lion.

[Civil War Man]

If you are looking at combat skills, Samson still comes out pretty far ahead in the category of mortals.

Finding a fresh jawbone of a donkey, [Samson] grabbed it and struck down a thousand men.

Though verse 14 suggests that he may have been possessed by God when he did that particular feat.

[CaptainChewbacca]

For Samson to have lifted the gates of Gaza in one piece, he would have had to move several tons of masonry and carry them about forty miles to Hebron.

So... there's that.

[Bounty]

How can you quantify Goliath? He didn't do feats of strength aside from scaring away Hebrew/Israelite warriors before he had his shit ruined by David.

He carried 120+ pounds of armour for his torso alone, plus greaves and weapons (sword, shield, spear and javelin). For him to be nine feet tall and carry that sort of equipment, never mind fight in it, has got to count for something.

[Bellator]

He could've been a skinny tall shit who the Canaanites propped with paper mache to scare the dumb Hebrews until David figured it out and threw a rock in his face.

Why would the Philistines risk having Goliath exposed and thereby losing the entire battle, and why did they flee afterwards? If he wasn't as strong, why would it matter that David killed him by getting a lucky shot in?

[Gil Hamilton]

Why would the Philistines risk having Goliath exposed and thereby losing the entire battle, and why did they flee afterwards? If he wasn't as strong, why would it matter that David killed him by getting a lucky shot in?

The Phillistines were Greek decended and Goliath was acting out in the best Greek tradition, IE, marching up and down the front of the battle lines calling out taunts to the strongest in the Hebrew army so they could square off before the battle and he could kill their best in front of them to demoralize them. Saul was supposedly the strongest of Hebrew army, but he refused to fight Goliath in single combat, which is how David ended up fighting him. This backfired when David cheated in the duel by using his sling to blind Goliath long enough to get hold of Goliath's sword and behead him.

The Phillistines knew this was a bad situation. If Goliath had successfully slain David, it would have been no triumph. After all, Goliath was their baddest dude, you expect him to be able to stomp a teenaged charioteer in single combat. Him LOSING to the single charioteer was devestating. If Saul had went out there and managed to kill Goliath, that would have been one thing, but Goliath dying at the hands of a boy? Ouch.

[Darth Hoth]

That was the prophet Elisha, the not-quite-so-stupendous-as-the-prophet-Elijah.

To be fair, those punk kids probably deserved it for calling him "baldy".

Jewish and Christian apologists like to point out that the word translated as "boys" is somewhat ambiguous; at other points in the Bible it can refer to grown men and soldiers.

In later, non-canonical Jewish legends, they are portrayed as having really been merchants selling pure water to the people in Jericho who were angry with the prophet for spoiling their livelihood when he cleansed the well there, and sought to kill him.


As for the question, generally Samson is my bet here. Overall, as noted, in the Bible Israel tends to prevail through trickery or magic, though there are exceptions. Some other feats of extraordinary strength/resilience/combat prowess in the Bible:

*Shamgar, Son of Anath, does a mini-Samson by killing 600 Philistines with an ox goad in Judges 3.

*Various of "David's Heroes" do improbable things in 2. Samuel.

*Elijah the prophet outruns King Ahab's chariot in 1. Kings 18.

Though if you want superpowers, you might want to look at the Midrash legends. They are basically the EU for the Old Testament and uberwank everything. Samson, for example, there has the ability to tear mountains apart and (if I recall correctly) run faster than sound, Elijah is given Angelic powers and shapeshifts into a harlot to save a rabbi from persecution, and Sisera (the guy with the iron chariots who fought against Barak and Deborah in Judges) is given magical powers and commands an army of 4 billion (sic, 4,000,000,000) men . . .