Carrie Dedrick, the editor at "Christian Headlines" has written a story about the upcoming "David and Goliath" movie. Apparently the director has decided not to use CGI gimmicks to create the illusion of a giant and has, instead, hired 7'5" tall Jerry Sokoloski to play the part of Goliath. The director says, "Goliath stood at nine feet, so Jerry was about a foot and
four inches shorter than the real thing. He adds an incredible,
realistic dimension."
Commenters seem to be just as excited: Annette Krecek of Oakland Community College says, "This will be true to history and the biblical account," and Shira Levin of Richfield High School writes, "That is awesome! Too few Biblically correct movies these days."
But what do those devout Christians really know about the "biblical account"? Probably a whole lot less than they could ever imagine.
Full story here:
Commenters seem to be just as excited: Annette Krecek of Oakland Community College says, "This will be true to history and the biblical account," and Shira Levin of Richfield High School writes, "That is awesome! Too few Biblically correct movies these days."
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But what do those devout Christians really know about the "biblical account"? Probably a whole lot less than they could ever imagine.
Let's start with the size of Goliath:
Carrie Dedrick says Goliath was nine feet tall and she probably got that idea from the modern bibles that have been translated from a copy of the Masoretic text which dates back to about 1,000 years after the death of Christ. In that text 1 Samuel 17:4 says:
A champion named Goliath, who was from Gath, came out of the Philistine camp. His height was six cubits and a span.
But we have original texts among the Dead Sea Scrolls that go all the way back to the time when Jesus was still alive, and in those scrolls (4Q S1) 1 Samuel 17:4 says that Goliath was four cubits and a span tall, or just six feet six inches.
So what happened?
At the time when 1 Samuel was originally written the average height was not much over five feet and therefore, when six feet six inches Goliath arrived on the scene, he was regarded as a "giant". In later centuries, however, the copyists decided to make the story a bit more exciting and they upped the height of Goliath from six feet six inches, to nine feet six inches!
It is worth noticing, by the way, that these figures are not based on mere conjecture. Right now, today, we have the 2,000 year old Dead Sea Scrolls saying Goliath was four cubits and a span, plus the 1,000 year old Masoretic text saying that he was six cubits and span. There is no doubting the authenticity of those texts and there is no doubting the mendacity of the religious copyists who made the changes.
At the time when 1 Samuel was originally written the average height was not much over five feet and therefore, when six feet six inches Goliath arrived on the scene, he was regarded as a "giant". In later centuries, however, the copyists decided to make the story a bit more exciting and they upped the height of Goliath from six feet six inches, to nine feet six inches!
It is worth noticing, by the way, that these figures are not based on mere conjecture. Right now, today, we have the 2,000 year old Dead Sea Scrolls saying Goliath was four cubits and a span, plus the 1,000 year old Masoretic text saying that he was six cubits and span. There is no doubting the authenticity of those texts and there is no doubting the mendacity of the religious copyists who made the changes.
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But the bible story gets even more complicated when it comes to the question of who killed Goliath:
In the original Hebrew text 1 Samuel 17:50 says that David killed Goliath, but 2 Samuel 21:19 says that Elhanan killed Goliath.
Years later when the book of Chronicles was being written, the author noticed the contradiction between 1 and 2 Samuel and he tried to fix it by saying (in 1 Chronicles 20:5) that Elhanan killed Lahmi the brother of Goliath
Well that certainly solved the 1 and 2 Samuel contradictions, but then it created a brand new one because 1 Chronicles 20:5 now contradicts 2 Samuel 21:19. One story says Elhanan killed Goliath while the other says Elhanan killed the brother of Goliath!
In many of today's modern versions of the bible these discrepancies still exist, but there are some versions which have tried to solve the problem by adding "the brother of" to 2 Samuel 21:19. Those words do not appear in any of the original Hebrew texts, but what do modern fundamentalist Christians care about the truth when they are defending their God against accusations of errancy?
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Christians apologists try to explain the whole mess at this website:
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Just for the record, however, you should bear in mind that there are many scholars (and I'm talking about well respected Christian scholars, not atheists) who say that David never existed and neither did Goliath. They think the whole story is a myth. Fundamentalists, of course, say otherwise.
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