Sometimes on this show, host Mike Jordan Laskey has topic in mind he’d like to cover and then he goes and finds someone great to talk about it. Other times, he knows he wants to talk to a specific person because they’re brilliant and Mike doesn’t really care what the topic is. Whatever the guest wants to discuss will be interesting. Today’s episode is this latter type of show.

Dr. Mahri Leonard-Fleckman teaches at the College of the Holy Cross, where she’s an associate professor in the Departments of Religious Studies and Classics. She’s an Old Testament scholar, and first came on the show about four years ago to talk about the Book of Ecclesiastes and King David. Mike wrote her recently and asked what’s fascinating her these days. And that’s how we have come to have an episode about Samson, that strong guy with the long hair from the Book of Judges.

Mahri has been researching the history of Samson, how this bizarre Biblical character came to be and how interpretations about him have shifted through centuries. Mahri’s research has way deeper concerns than the surface-level story of Samson – she uses the story to reflect on the nature of Biblical biography writ large. Where do these larger-than-life characters come from and what do they mean? How do cultures receive and interpret sacred texts over generations? After hearing form Mahri, you won’t think about Samson the same way ever again.