Encyclopedia
Goliath is a
Philistine warrior mentioned in the
Hebrew Bible and a descendant of Rapha. He is famous for his battle in the 11th century BC with
David, the young Israelite boy who would later be chosen by God and anointed by Samuel to become the King of Israel. He hailed from Gath, one of five ancient city states in Philistia.
Account in the Hebrew Bible
According to the First Book of Samuel in the
Hebrew Bible, the Philistine army marched into southern
Israel to make war on the
Israelites, but instead of immediately engaging in battle, went into camp in the Valley of Elah. The Israelites under
King Saul made camp nearby. Goliath, who is described as a "champion" in the Biblical text, positioned himself between the two armies and challenged the Israelites to send out a warrior to challenge him. If that man won, the Philistines would become the subjects of Saul's army. If Goliath won, the converse would occur. For forty days, in both the morning and evening, Goliath issued his challenge. However, no man came forward to accept it.
David, who was born approximately 1030 B.C., was the youngest of the eight sons of the Bethlehemite Jesse. When delivering roasted grain and bread to his brothers on the battlefield, David heard Goliath's haughty challenge and burned with anger. The youth came before Saul and offered to fight the giant, who stood six cubits and a span . Though initially skeptical of David's capacity to defeat Goliath, Saul was persuaded to allow the match after the young Bethlehemite detailed his previous victorious encounters with a bear and a lion. David rejected the king's offer of armour and a sword and went out to fight Goliath with a staff and five smooth stones he had taken from a nearby stream.
Goliath mocked the young Hebrew for coming against him with "sticks," cursed him by the names of the
Philistine gods, then closed in to attack. However,
David drew a stone from his bag and used his sling to send it flying into the giant's head thereby killing him. When Goliath fell to the ground, David drew the Philistine's sword from his scabbard and cut off his head as he previously stated he would. The text states that he died from the the stone, not from the sword. When the
Philistines saw their champion was dead, they ran from the field, and the Israelite army pursued them out of Judah.
Textual conflicts
David may not have been the one to kill Goliath. Elhanan, the son of Jaare-oregim the Bethlehemite, is given credit for killing Goliath in 2 Sam 21:19. The
KJV adds the phrase "the brother of" before Goliath's name in order to avoid contradicting the story of David's victory.
The KJV insertion is justified by the parallel account of Elhanan's deed at 1 Chron 20:5b, which states that "Elhanan the son of Jair slew Lahmi the brother of Goliath." The word "Jair" here is "Jaare-oregim" at 2 Sam 21:19b; "oregim" is Hebrew for "weavers," which also appears at the end of both verses. Also, "Lahmi" in the former becomes "behth hal·lach·mi´" in the latter. Hence many scholars view 2 Sam 21:19b to be the result of two scribal errors, with 1 Chron 20:5b as the correct account.
However, other scholars argue that Elhanan may have been the victor over Goliath, but that David was later credited with the deed in order to enhance his reputation. It has been contended that, because of David's introduction to Saul in 1 Samuel 16:19-23, Saul should have known who David was in 1 Samuel 17:55-58 and would not need to ask whose son David is, especially since Jesse, David's father, is also mentioned in the earlier passage.
One response to this is to argue that the earlier passage only implies that the servants of Saul knew that David was the son of Jesse. There is no reason to believe Saul had to have known that Jesse was David's father two years later in Chapter 17.
Another problem is that David is said to have brought Goliath's head to Jerusalem , though Jerusalem belonged to the Jebusites at the time, which casts some doubt on this detail of the story.
The following websites provide Biblical-literalist accounts for the discrepancies.
http://www.carm.org/diff/1Sam17_50.htm
http://www.carm.org/diff/1Sam16_19.htm
http://www.tektonics.org/af/callahanproph.html#2sam
Extra-Biblical evidence
Archaeologists digging at
Tell es-Safi in central Israel, the accepted location of the biblical home of Goliath have unearthed a shard of pottery bearing an inscription, written in
Proto-Semitic letters, consisting of two names "alwt" and "wlt"), which are etymologically quite similar to the name Goliath, and most probably are semitizised versions of an
Indo-European name . This find demonstrates that the biblical description of the figure Goliath , fits in with the cultural millieu that existed in the Southern Levant during the Iron Age IIA .
The shard dates back to around 950 BC, within 70 years of when biblical chronology asserts
David squared off against Goliath, making it the oldest Philistine inscription ever found, the archaeologists said.
Scientists made the discovery at
Tell es-Safi, a dig site in southern Israel thought to be the location of the Philistine city of Gath.
Islam
Goliath is also mentioned in the
Qur'an under the
Arabic name
????? Galut .
Medical speculation
Some intriguing medical hypotheses have been made concerning Goliath's size and general health. Given his grossly abnormal height , some have suggested that he suffered from
gigantism due to a
growth hormone-secreting pituitary adenoma. Given the pituitary's position adjacent to the optic chiasm, pituitary masses also tend to impinge on the decussating fibers delivering images from both peripheral visual fields. This causes
bitemporal hemianopsia. Some have suggested that this may have allowed David to sneak up on Goliath and deliver a fatal sling shot to the Philistine.
Machiavelli
Niccolò Machiavelli, in
The Prince, states that we should learn this lesson from David and fight with our own weapons, using our own strengths, and not try to borrow or hire those of others.
Idiomatic use
"David and Goliath" is now a proverbial expression of a small force defeating a larger one.
The advantage of the sling
The sling may be simple but it is also an effective weapon. Modern sling entheusiasts can hit targets 200 meters away and record distances exceed 400 meters. Once a stone is in the pouch of a sling, it can be shot with full force in only a second; dramatic twirling isn't necessary. This is a weapon fully comparable to a bow and arrow except that the slinger can't easily hide behind objects to protect himself.
Despite the popular hype about his size and strength, Goliath was "out-gunned" when it came to weaponry. Considering the legendary scoffing about a boy with a
stick, David may have been concealing a pre-loaded sling until he was close enough to Goliath to use it.
Filmography
The Italians used Goliath as an action superhero in a series of Biblical adventure films in the early 1960's. He was possessed of amazing strength, and the films were similar in theme to their Hercules and Maciste movies. After the classic "HERCULES" became a blockbuster sensation in the film industry, a 1959 Steve Reeves film was retitled "Goliath and the Barbarians" in 1960 in the USA, and the film was so successful at the box office, it inspired Italian filmmakers to do a series of 4 films featuring a beefcake hero named Goliath.
.
The titles in the Italian "Goliath" peplum series were as follows:
- Goliath Against the Giants starring Brad Harris as Goliath.
- Goliath and the Rebel Slave starring Gordon Scott as Goliath .
- Goliath and the Masked Rider starring Alan Steel as Goliath.
- Goliath at the Conquest of Baghdad starring Peter Lupus as Goliath.
The name Goliath was also used in the film titles of a few other Italian movies that were retitled for distribution in the USA in an attempt to cash in on the Goliath craze, but these films were not originally Goliath movies in Italy.
Both "Goliath and the Vampires" and "Goliath and the Sins of Babylon" actually featured the famed superhero Maciste in the original Italian versions, but American distributors didn't feel the name Maciste had any meaning to American audiences. "Goliath and the Dragon" was originally an Italian Hercules movie called "The Revenge of Hercules", and it is a mystery to this day why U.S. distributors didn't market the film under that title, since Hercules films always tended to do much better at the box office than "Goliath" movies.
External links
References
- Kirsch, Jonathan King David: the real life of the man who ruled Israel. Ballantine. ISBN 0-345-43275-4.
- See Wikipedia entries on Samson, Hercules, Maciste, Ursus and Sons of Hercules
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