How Tall Was Goliath?
Analysis of the historical evidence derived from the Holy Scriptures, Septuagint, Dead Sea Scrolls, and Flavius Josephus indicates Goliath was approximately nine feet tall. Goliath was a gigantic soldier from Gath, in Philistia, who, as representative of the Philistines, challenged the Israelites to send a champion warrior against him so that the issue of the war between the two tribes might be settled by a battle of champions. Goliath was a skilled warrior who probably killed many men in single combat because the biblical writers describe him as a champion warrior. Goliath was killed by a stone thrown from David’s sling, the youthful champion of the Israelites and their greatest warrior king (1 Samuel 17:50). Elsewhere in the Old Testament Hebrew Scriptures, Goliath’s brother was also a giant and he was killed by Elhanan, who was an Israelite warrior in the service of David (see 2 Samuel 21:19,1 Chronicles 20:5).
According to the Septuagint Greek Bible of 275 BCE, the Dead Sea Scrolls narratives of 200 BCE, and the writings of historian Flavious Josephus of 100 CE, the height of Goliath was “four cubits and a span, which makes the giant warrior about six feet nine inches tall assuming that all ancient cubits were only 18 inches in length and all spans were exactly nine inches long or a half a cubit in length. However, many of these ancient sources based their measurements upon the 24 inch cubit. Therefore, four 24 inch cubits would equal eight feet and one span would equal 12 inches, which makes Goliath about nine feet tall.
Additionally, many modern English Bibles were translated from the Hebrew Masoretic Bible in tenth century CE. The Masoretic Bible used an 18 inch cubit for most of its measurements. Hence, six cubits would equal nine feet and one span would equal nine inches. Thus, the weight of biblical and historical evidence indicates that Goliath was somewhere between nine feet and nine feet nine inches in height. Therefore, the Masoretic Hebrew Bible concurs with earlier versions of the Holy Scriptures.
Goliath
David en Goliath gladiatoren?
Een slingerende David