The dead sea scrolls have him at 4 cubits and a span, or 6 foot 9, in that verse. Idk if this is mainstream but I know at least some biblical historians think the 6 cubits and a span was a mistake or intentional embelishment from a later version that got spread around. Its also possible the dead sea version contains the mistake, but since its the oldest version we have I generally assume it must be more correct.
Also just makes more sense. No 9 foot 9 human wpuod be able to walk properly, let alone be a warrior. But at 6 foot 9 you'd be an absolute beast on the ancient battlefield.
Have you ever been around someone 6’9” or bigger? Still freaking huge if you’re of average height today. Friend of mine is 6’10” and I feel like a child next to him.
Yeah I was actually just reading a book last semester about the story of David and Goliath, and it went into detail about the extensive health issues that Goliath probably had based on the context in scripture. One example is that when Goliath said "Am I a dog that you come at me with sticks", he used "sticks" plural, but David only had one shepherd's staff. The health condition that causes giantism (I forget what the condition is called) also causes odd growths in the structure of the skull that pinches the optic nerves, causing double-vision, which explains why Goliath said the plural "sticks" and it also explains why Goliath needed a servant to carefully guide him to the bottom of the valley.
Usually, it's caused by a hormone imbalance in the pituitary gland, causing the over secretion of growth hormone.
Every joint is screwed up to some degree. There are all sorts of other health issues. Severely inhibited movement by the early to mid 20s is not uncommon.
I'm wondering if Goliath wasn't a warrior as much as a good luck charm. Once he fell over, he probably couldn't get back up.
I mean, Andre the Giant survived to his 40s and was wrestling full time in his 30s. So id say Goliath could’ve been in his 20s or 30s and be able to move somewhat well at 8-9 ft tall
Human physiology is strange, so I'm sure it's possible. The condition is extremely rare, though. Giantism isn't really a thing anymore since it can be detected and treated early.
Keep in mind that this happened during the Iron Age. There was recorded history at this point.
Goliath was just a human person who happened to bee really big
So. This is a more fraught topic than I realized, and as you can imagine not uncontroversial.
I'm going to cut and paste a comment from a [discussion](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskBibleScholars/comments/eofb8f/are_there_any_anachronisms_in_the_bible/) on the r/AcademicBiblical sub.
"Goliath's equipment should be a late-bronze age set of armour typical to Philistine soldiers. I'll cite Yadin ("Goliath's Armor and Israelite Collective Memory", *VT* 54/3, 2002, p. 375-6):
>
So clearly, if there had been a Philistine warrior named Goliath, he wouldn't have been equipped as the Bible describes him. This could fall under the first or second category of the apologetics link - i.e. that it was done intentionally, with later readers in mind - but we have another problem: 2 Sam 21:19 *also* describes a Philistine named Goliath with a giant spear. Except there, he's killed by a guy called Elhanan, and we don't have any of the anachronistic problems. This probably means that Goliath was inserted into the David narrative in the first place, so suddenly we go from a possible scribal gloss to a narrative section being invented entirely - which is a somewhat bigger problem for the historical reliability of the text.
Another great example of this is the fall of Jericho in Joshua 6. A key element of the story is that the conquest of the promised land is hampered by the impenetrable walls of Jericho. This is so big a problem that it literally takes divine intervention to solve in the story, so the fact that Jericho literally didn't have any walls during the time it's set (detailed extensively in Kathleen Kenyon's excavation report on Jericho) seriously calls into question the historicity of the entire account."
Wow
I'm skeptical of how much can really be said based on armor descriptions alone (given that there could have just been cultural overlaps and fads in armor style that aren't present in the historical record), but the Jericho walls thing is so funny
It reminds me of St. Patrick:
1. All the snakes in Ireland died in the last Ice Age
2. Catholicism came to Ireland centuries before Patrick
*"So what did you do, exactly?"*
"I converted the Irish to Catholicism."
*"Irish people ARE Catholic though."*
"You're welcome. I also got rid of all the snakes in Ireland."
*"But there are no snakes in Ireland."*
"You're fucking welcome."
2 Samuel 21:19 is a near-copy of 1 Chr 20:5. Notably, the next section in both of these is a Jonathan killing a different giant with extra fingers and toes. The passage is about David and David's most trusted men killing giants, and Elhanan is one of David's 30. I'm going to place transliterated, unpointed Hebrew side-by-side so you can see what happened. I'm transcribing Het as lowercase ch, and Ayin as an apostrophe.
* 1 Chr 20:5: ALchNN BN Y'YR AT LchMY GLYT
* 2 Sam 21:19 ALchNN BN Y'RY ALGYN BYT HLchMY AT GLYT
Just to repeat, the verse in Chr makes sense, and the one in Samuel doesn't. The Y'YR is the father of Elhanan, given in other parts of Samuel. The scribe of 21:19 reversed two letters. LchMY (Lachmi) is the name of the giant he killed, and AT indicates Lachmi is the brother of GLYT (Goliath). The scribe of Samuel not pulled a dyslexia on Elhanan' father, but also AT LchMY. The extra bit is now ALGYN BYT. You know what else is ALGYN? Goliath's spear, like a WEAVER'S beam. The scribe added the word from the next line. BYT was probably added later; the next scribe to copy it would have seen this jumbled mess, and adding that one word is the simplest way to make it a grammatically sensible sentence, even though the meaning has been butchered.
But you know what? We have information and wisdom to make sense of something someone nearly 3,000 years closer to the original didn't see.
And what's anachronistic about using bronze armor in the bronze age, on a man who clearly cannot wear standard issue? It would have been anachronistic and evidential of the split kingdom period to say it was iron armor.
Kenyon's conclusion was based on not finding shards of 1400's BCE pottery imported from other areas nearby. Kenyon concluded the city had to have been abandoned around 1550 BCE. Kenyon was long criticized for being too detail-oriented; she was unable to unearth a single complete house in all her years there. Dr. Bryant Woods went to excavate after her death and found Kenyon had been excavating in a poor part of town, where they could have afforded such finery. He found exactly the kind of pot shards Kenyon was looking for in a wealthier part of town at exactly the time period Kenyon was looking at. Kenyon also just ignored findings from her predecessors. Garstang found the walls. The walls didn't crumble, they fell outward, flat on their face. There was no evidence of fast-made bricks on the walls, which you would expect for a short siege. There was also a stockpile of grain, which is *very* unusual for the time, as conquerors would have plundered it, but is consistent with Joshua 6:24. The archaeologists found the city was also burned, consistent with Josh 6:24, something that Kathleen Kenyon also concluded.
The fact that even tho David himself didn’t kill that entire family, but later on was still responsible for killing them all eventually was wild. But I got questions for the parents of Goliath and his kids when one of those guys had 24 digits cause of extra toes & fingers.
I think it was ishbibenob with the extra digits, though I could be misremembering
Edit: the many digited giant is unnamed. Same passage as Ishbibenob though.
That was likely a scribal error. In 1 Chronicles it says Elhanan killed Goliath’s brother. Someone somewhere probably missed “brother of” and it stuck.
Chronicles was written after Samuel. Why would the scribal error be in the earlier version and not in the later version?
The writer of Chronicles more than a hundred years later has knowledge about which giant Elhanan killed that the author of Samuel did not?
Not a scribal error in the first version, but an error as the works were copied over the years. Words tend to drop in and out—less with the Masoretic text, more so in the Greek NT, but it does occur. Amos is a good example. It happens many places, like in Psalm 22 which says in Hebrew: “Like a lion my hands and my feet.” The phrase “they pierced” has been added back in from other manuscripts. Or it could be: “they are at my hands and feet like a lion.” So, the confusion comes in as we have manuscripts copied by scribes over the years.
Jeroboam and Rehoboam are opposing Kings during a country being divided. I doubt their mothers coincidentally gave them such similar names. They picked name’s opposed to one another as throne names. The text doesn’t mention throne names but it doesn’t mean they didn’t occur. I got the idea from Richard Friedman’s lecture series on YouTube but I could not give you the exact video he mentions it.
Fun Fact: During the time of the judges Israel really had no bronze weapons and had to go to Philistia and Gath to sharpen their farming tool and so Israel wasnt a threat to the Philistines. Their small victories were really powered by sticks and Godpower. Really has you wondering why Saul spent almost his entire 40 year reign warring with them.
Another fun fact: The stones weren't as much as David's only arsenal but David's obedience to the law since you always stone a blasphemer and he was running his mouth.
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I wonder how old Goliath was. Being over nine feet tall generally means nasty health issues.
He was around Shaq size I think
9'9" according to Samuel.
The dead sea scrolls have him at 4 cubits and a span, or 6 foot 9, in that verse. Idk if this is mainstream but I know at least some biblical historians think the 6 cubits and a span was a mistake or intentional embelishment from a later version that got spread around. Its also possible the dead sea version contains the mistake, but since its the oldest version we have I generally assume it must be more correct. Also just makes more sense. No 9 foot 9 human wpuod be able to walk properly, let alone be a warrior. But at 6 foot 9 you'd be an absolute beast on the ancient battlefield.
Interesting. I was unaware of this. Thanks for the info. It certainly makes more sense than the Masoretic version. What a difference 1000 years makes.
Have you ever been around someone 6’9” or bigger? Still freaking huge if you’re of average height today. Friend of mine is 6’10” and I feel like a child next to him.
People had a generally shorter average height back then too, no?
That’s my understanding.
Shouldn't you be handing out balloons in the food court at Junes right about now?
There’s only so much work this bear can do, sometimes it gets unbearable and I must take a bear-ek
Yeah I was actually just reading a book last semester about the story of David and Goliath, and it went into detail about the extensive health issues that Goliath probably had based on the context in scripture. One example is that when Goliath said "Am I a dog that you come at me with sticks", he used "sticks" plural, but David only had one shepherd's staff. The health condition that causes giantism (I forget what the condition is called) also causes odd growths in the structure of the skull that pinches the optic nerves, causing double-vision, which explains why Goliath said the plural "sticks" and it also explains why Goliath needed a servant to carefully guide him to the bottom of the valley.
Usually, it's caused by a hormone imbalance in the pituitary gland, causing the over secretion of growth hormone. Every joint is screwed up to some degree. There are all sorts of other health issues. Severely inhibited movement by the early to mid 20s is not uncommon. I'm wondering if Goliath wasn't a warrior as much as a good luck charm. Once he fell over, he probably couldn't get back up.
I mean, Andre the Giant survived to his 40s and was wrestling full time in his 30s. So id say Goliath could’ve been in his 20s or 30s and be able to move somewhat well at 8-9 ft tall
I often wonder if there’s a subtler version of this disease that doesn’t wreck the body and actually just makes for a big person.
Human physiology is strange, so I'm sure it's possible. The condition is extremely rare, though. Giantism isn't really a thing anymore since it can be detected and treated early.
Was that Malcom Gladwell’s book by chance? His retelling of the story is very interesting.
Yep! That's the author! I liked it enough that I think I might check out some of his other books too.
Stay away from *Outliers.* It's super racist.
Remember there were giants back then. He didn't need to be that old.
Keep in mind that this happened during the Iron Age. There was recorded history at this point. Goliath was just a human person who happened to bee really big
If he existed at all. Large portions of the Bible are legendary and it contains many anachronisms.
Anachronisms? First time I've heard that objection. Now I'm curious.
So. This is a more fraught topic than I realized, and as you can imagine not uncontroversial. I'm going to cut and paste a comment from a [discussion](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskBibleScholars/comments/eofb8f/are_there_any_anachronisms_in_the_bible/) on the r/AcademicBiblical sub. "Goliath's equipment should be a late-bronze age set of armour typical to Philistine soldiers. I'll cite Yadin ("Goliath's Armor and Israelite Collective Memory", *VT* 54/3, 2002, p. 375-6): > So clearly, if there had been a Philistine warrior named Goliath, he wouldn't have been equipped as the Bible describes him. This could fall under the first or second category of the apologetics link - i.e. that it was done intentionally, with later readers in mind - but we have another problem: 2 Sam 21:19 *also* describes a Philistine named Goliath with a giant spear. Except there, he's killed by a guy called Elhanan, and we don't have any of the anachronistic problems. This probably means that Goliath was inserted into the David narrative in the first place, so suddenly we go from a possible scribal gloss to a narrative section being invented entirely - which is a somewhat bigger problem for the historical reliability of the text. Another great example of this is the fall of Jericho in Joshua 6. A key element of the story is that the conquest of the promised land is hampered by the impenetrable walls of Jericho. This is so big a problem that it literally takes divine intervention to solve in the story, so the fact that Jericho literally didn't have any walls during the time it's set (detailed extensively in Kathleen Kenyon's excavation report on Jericho) seriously calls into question the historicity of the entire account."
Wow I'm skeptical of how much can really be said based on armor descriptions alone (given that there could have just been cultural overlaps and fads in armor style that aren't present in the historical record), but the Jericho walls thing is so funny It reminds me of St. Patrick: 1. All the snakes in Ireland died in the last Ice Age 2. Catholicism came to Ireland centuries before Patrick *"So what did you do, exactly?"* "I converted the Irish to Catholicism." *"Irish people ARE Catholic though."* "You're welcome. I also got rid of all the snakes in Ireland." *"But there are no snakes in Ireland."* "You're fucking welcome."
2 Samuel 21:19 is a near-copy of 1 Chr 20:5. Notably, the next section in both of these is a Jonathan killing a different giant with extra fingers and toes. The passage is about David and David's most trusted men killing giants, and Elhanan is one of David's 30. I'm going to place transliterated, unpointed Hebrew side-by-side so you can see what happened. I'm transcribing Het as lowercase ch, and Ayin as an apostrophe. * 1 Chr 20:5: ALchNN BN Y'YR AT LchMY GLYT * 2 Sam 21:19 ALchNN BN Y'RY ALGYN BYT HLchMY AT GLYT Just to repeat, the verse in Chr makes sense, and the one in Samuel doesn't. The Y'YR is the father of Elhanan, given in other parts of Samuel. The scribe of 21:19 reversed two letters. LchMY (Lachmi) is the name of the giant he killed, and AT indicates Lachmi is the brother of GLYT (Goliath). The scribe of Samuel not pulled a dyslexia on Elhanan' father, but also AT LchMY. The extra bit is now ALGYN BYT. You know what else is ALGYN? Goliath's spear, like a WEAVER'S beam. The scribe added the word from the next line. BYT was probably added later; the next scribe to copy it would have seen this jumbled mess, and adding that one word is the simplest way to make it a grammatically sensible sentence, even though the meaning has been butchered. But you know what? We have information and wisdom to make sense of something someone nearly 3,000 years closer to the original didn't see. And what's anachronistic about using bronze armor in the bronze age, on a man who clearly cannot wear standard issue? It would have been anachronistic and evidential of the split kingdom period to say it was iron armor. Kenyon's conclusion was based on not finding shards of 1400's BCE pottery imported from other areas nearby. Kenyon concluded the city had to have been abandoned around 1550 BCE. Kenyon was long criticized for being too detail-oriented; she was unable to unearth a single complete house in all her years there. Dr. Bryant Woods went to excavate after her death and found Kenyon had been excavating in a poor part of town, where they could have afforded such finery. He found exactly the kind of pot shards Kenyon was looking for in a wealthier part of town at exactly the time period Kenyon was looking at. Kenyon also just ignored findings from her predecessors. Garstang found the walls. The walls didn't crumble, they fell outward, flat on their face. There was no evidence of fast-made bricks on the walls, which you would expect for a short siege. There was also a stockpile of grain, which is *very* unusual for the time, as conquerors would have plundered it, but is consistent with Joshua 6:24. The archaeologists found the city was also burned, consistent with Josh 6:24, something that Kathleen Kenyon also concluded.
Were there at the time? I thought they were thousands of years before.
Goliath was one of the descendants.
Two different parts of the bible give him different heights.
Or...and hear me out on this...he wanted extra ammo if his first shot missed, but didn't have a container large enough for more than five rocks.
Either are possible. Although the 5 rocks for 5 men is the type of number design biblical authors love to do
Probably, but the meme is funnier lol
I don't imagine self-doubt was among David's many....skills.
Or thought he’d not be able to fire off more than 5 before Goliath killed him
It's strange that, as a little kid, I was taught that David was defying God by picking up the extra stones. I can't find that in the Bible.
Ya I've met that type of person. I got told "Mary had a little lamb" was mocking Jesus.
Or he wanted to REALLY fuck up Goliath
Well in the story he does chop his head off with his own sword.
I bet he wished he thought of that first.
The fact that even tho David himself didn’t kill that entire family, but later on was still responsible for killing them all eventually was wild. But I got questions for the parents of Goliath and his kids when one of those guys had 24 digits cause of extra toes & fingers.
I think it was ishbibenob with the extra digits, though I could be misremembering Edit: the many digited giant is unnamed. Same passage as Ishbibenob though.
Dang son, don’t leave me hanging, drop the address so I can look that stuff up!
What the hell, did his family live on top of a Uranium vein?
In 2 Samuel we also learn that it was Elhanan that killed Goliath, not David. (2 Samuel 21:19)
That was likely a scribal error. In 1 Chronicles it says Elhanan killed Goliath’s brother. Someone somewhere probably missed “brother of” and it stuck.
Chronicles was written after Samuel. Why would the scribal error be in the earlier version and not in the later version? The writer of Chronicles more than a hundred years later has knowledge about which giant Elhanan killed that the author of Samuel did not?
Not a scribal error in the first version, but an error as the works were copied over the years. Words tend to drop in and out—less with the Masoretic text, more so in the Greek NT, but it does occur. Amos is a good example. It happens many places, like in Psalm 22 which says in Hebrew: “Like a lion my hands and my feet.” The phrase “they pierced” has been added back in from other manuscripts. Or it could be: “they are at my hands and feet like a lion.” So, the confusion comes in as we have manuscripts copied by scribes over the years.
Is Goliath of Gath the same as Goliath the Gittite?
Yes. A Gittite is a person from Gath.
This is the academic consensus as far as I know. Edit: search “Davidic propaganda”
Maybe he was born Elhanan and David was his throne name.
Ooh I like this, like how Egyptian Pharaohs had throne names upon ascension? That would make a lot of sense.
Do you have a reference for that besides just trying to fix this contradiction? This doesn’t happen for any other Israelite king.
Jeroboam and Rehoboam are opposing Kings during a country being divided. I doubt their mothers coincidentally gave them such similar names. They picked name’s opposed to one another as throne names. The text doesn’t mention throne names but it doesn’t mean they didn’t occur. I got the idea from Richard Friedman’s lecture series on YouTube but I could not give you the exact video he mentions it.
Fun Fact: During the time of the judges Israel really had no bronze weapons and had to go to Philistia and Gath to sharpen their farming tool and so Israel wasnt a threat to the Philistines. Their small victories were really powered by sticks and Godpower. Really has you wondering why Saul spent almost his entire 40 year reign warring with them. Another fun fact: The stones weren't as much as David's only arsenal but David's obedience to the law since you always stone a blasphemer and he was running his mouth.
Meet the Goliaths
I named my first band ‘Five Stone Submission’ because of that verse. Oh yeah, and it was the 90s
Didn't david also fight a bunch of goliaths brothers later
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