Strongmen who fight lions

Do other ancient traditions have heroes of superhuman strength who kill lions with their bare hands?

What the relationship labels mean

Possible historical contact: The cultures were in contact, so one tradition could have known the other.
Shared literary world: The stories appear to share older roots or a common cultural setting.
Similar human experience: Different peoples responding to similar realities, such as river floods.
Resemblance only: A real similarity worth noticing; no historical connection has been established.
Modern speculative theory: A modern interpretation, not an ancient source. Not supported by authenticated evidence.

Greek · Greece

Resemblance only

Composed: Oral tradition; written forms from the 7th–6th centuries BC
Earliest surviving copy: Greek poetry and vase paintings of the 7th–6th centuries BC

Heracles strangles a lion whose hide no weapon could pierce; he performs labors, is betrayed by a woman (Deianira), and dies in agony.

Similar

Different

Mesopotamian · Mesopotamia

Shared literary world

Composed: 3rd–2nd millennium BC
Earliest surviving copy: Cylinder seals with a hero grasping lions, from the 3rd millennium BC; the Epic of Gilgamesh tablets

A hero, often identified with Gilgamesh or Enkidu, wrestles lions on seals; Gilgamesh kills lions in the mountain passes.

Similar

Different

Israelite · Judah

Possible historical contact

David kills a lion and a bear (1 Samuel 17:34–36); Benaiah "slew a lion in the midst of a pit in time of snow" (2 Samuel 23:20).

Similar

Different

Full investigations

Samson's Strength and the House of Dagon →Is there evidence for Samson, and could a man bring down a Philistine temple?

Samson's Birth and Consecration →The angel of the LORD appears to the childless wife of Manoah, a Danite of Zorah, and tells her she will bear a son who will be a Nazirite from the womb and begin to deliver Israel from the Philistines. Manoah asks to meet the messenger, who refuses to give his name and ascends in the flame of the altar.
Samson and the Riddle →Samson wants to marry a Philistine woman of Timnah. On the way he tears apart a lion with bare hands, and later finds bees and honey in its carcass. At the wedding feast he poses a riddle to thirty Philistine companions, who threaten his bride until she gets the answer. He kills thirty men of Ashkelon to pay the wager.
The Jawbone and Retaliation →Finding his wife given to another, Samson ties torches to 300 foxes or jackals and burns the Philistines' fields. They burn his wife and her father; he slaughters them. Judah hands him over bound; at Lehi he breaks the ropes and kills a thousand men with a donkey's jawbone. God opens a spring for him when he is dying of thirst.
Delilah, Gaza and the Final Collapse →Samson carries off the gates of Gaza. He loves Delilah, whom the Philistine lords pay to learn the secret of his strength. Three times he lies; the fourth time he tells her of his uncut hair. Shaved, captured, blinded and set to grind in prison, he is brought out to entertain a feast to Dagon. He prays, pushes the two pillars, and dies with the Philistines.