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SAMSON, the celebrated Biblical strongman, suffered from the earliest
recorded case of antisocial personality disorder.

Eric Altschuler from the University of California at San Diego and his
colleagues say that Samson showed signs of no fewer than six of the seven
behaviours associated with the disorder. Samson routinely got into fights, and
once killed 1000 Philistines single-handedly and then gloated over it, showing
no remorse. He also showed a reckless disregard for his own safety when he told
Delilah, a woman who鈥檇 tried to kill him three times before, the secret of his
strength.

People with antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) exhibit at least three of
seven specific behaviours, such as being impulsive, reckless and habitually
getting into fights, according to a standard manual called DSM-IV which doctors
use to diagnose all recognised mental illnesses. 鈥淚t鈥檚 almost as if the writer
of the story has the DSM criteria tacked to the wall, and he is writing a
sketch,鈥� says Altschuler. 鈥淏ut this was 3000 years before the DSM.鈥�

The researchers note that Samson also burned Philistine fields, which showed
both his impulsivity and his inability to conform to social norms. He was
deceitful鈥攏ot telling his parents, for instance, that he got honey from
the carcass of a lion鈥攁nd like many people with ASPD, Samson behaved badly
as a child: setting things on fire, torturing animals, stealing, and bullying
other children.

Altschuler says the diagnosis may even make other parts of the story, found
in chapters 13 to 16 of Judges, more understandable. For instance, a whole
chapter is devoted to Samson鈥檚 mother being warned by angels not to drink while
she鈥檚 pregnant, suggesting that recklessness and a disregard for others may have
run in the family, says Altschuler.