DescentBB

i just saw a light documentary exploring the Hebrew tale of Goliath. while it was quite interesting, something that i pricked up my ears to was this:

it said that while the Hebrew scriptures (and therefore also the Bible) puts Goliath at about over 3 meters tall - relevant texts from the Dead Sea Scrolls put him at only around 2 meters tall.

now... i was not previously aware that the Dead Sea Scrolls disagreed with the Bible on such factual points.

it seems to me that this is evidence that the Bible's books - like any long told story - are quite capable of getting more and more amazing as time goes on. When a 2 meter tall man becomes a more fantastic man of over 3 meters - it seems just like any normal non-god-inspired story that "gets better everytime".

To answer the question in the thread title:

Neither.

Well, a man's average height has been increasing over the years - so a man 2 meters tall back then would probably seem like a giant if everyone else's average height was 5'3.

i can tell you unequivocally that the fundamentalist Christian position would be that the bible is correct and the dead sea scrolls are incorrect. this despite at 3 meters, goliath would be by far the tallest man to ever live.

in the Jewish faith the question would not be so important. At 2 meters, Goliath would still be huge. Jews are more concerned with the message than the medium. The literal truth of the bible is not as important as following gods laws as established in the covenant. Generally, Jews would focus on the point of the story, which (for those not versed) is that David overcame Goliath's superior size, strength, and weapons by being cunning, nimble, and god's choice to succeed Saul as King of Israel.

Palzon wrote:in the Jewish faith the question would not be so important. At 2 meters, Goliath would still be huge. Jews are more concerned with the message than the medium. The literal truth of the bible is not as important as following gods laws as established in the covenant. Generally, Jews would focus on the point of the story, which (for those not versed) is that David overcame Goliath's superior size, strength, and weapons by being cunning, nimble, and god's choice to succeed Saul as King of Israel.

That would also be the position of many Christians, myself included. A detail like Goliath's exact height doesn't change the message of the David vs. Goliath story, as Palzon said. I mentioned the same thing about the unnaturally long lifespans attributed to many ancient Isrealites in Genesis in a recent thread. The exact age isn't important, but the concept of having a long and healthy life due to God's grace is.

(referring to King James version)

Book of Genesis 6:1 "There were giants in the earth in those days..."

Numbers 13:33 "And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers..."

Deuteronomy, 2:20 "(That also was accounted a land of giants: giants dwelt therein in old time; and the Ammonites call them Zamzummims..."

Joshua, 12:4 "And the coast of Og king of Bashan, which was of the remnant of the giants, that dwelt at Ashtaroth and at Edrei..."

2 Samual mentions (repeatedly) "the sons of the giant" and "born of the giant"

Just a few references in the Bible to "giants". I doubt Goliath was all that unique, just not many of his kind remaining at that time. What was his precise size? "Big" works for me.

Nobody can even say exactly how long in meters a cubit is/was anyways.

As I recall, Goliath had several brothers. All large and all were killed by David.

Who wrote the Dead Sea scrolls, do they pre-date all other sources? Was this passage wholly in tact when translated or were peices missing that some guess work was needed. (a farily common occurance with the scrolls as large portions are missing or degraded.)

Who has the scrolls now and how are they being reconstructed?

Jeff I believe you're right. It's an estimated length.

Ah.. here.

check out the footnote.

Duper wrote:Who wrote the Dead Sea scrolls, do they pre-date all other sources?

The dead sea scrolls predate the bible in terms of being an original source.

Tricord wrote:To answer the question in the thread title:

Neither.

Troll alert!

But yeah, as pointed out, his exact height isn't such a big deal - 2 metres is still a lot larger than most people of that time.

Sirius wrote:

Tricord wrote:To answer the question in the thread title:

Neither.

Troll alert!

Really? With all these posts about faith and existential uncertainty popping up all over the place, I felt like offering a curt but descisive answer to the question at hand.

Palzon wrote:

Duper wrote:Who wrote the Dead Sea scrolls, do they pre-date all other sources?

The dead sea scrolls predate the bible in terms of being an original source.

Plazon, The bible is complied from over 10,000 ancient sources. The NIV and NAS are examples of the process while each are constructed using different schools of translation. When translating the scriptures there is two major schools of thought: Transliteration (that is to translate in the most literal sense) And translating to modern relevance (that was really poor definition) That is that you kind of sum-up what is being said and put it in the vanacular (?). the Living bible or "The Book" are good examples of this form.

there are terms for each of these, it's just been too long since I've studied it to remember.

For the sake of discussion, does anyone know how old the DS scolls are?

Jeff250 wrote:Nobody can even say exactly how long in meters a cubit is/was anyways.

Yes they can.

A cubit is a linear measure roughly corresponding to the distance from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger. (De 3:11) There are indications that the Israelites commonly used a cubit of about 44.5 cm (17.5 in.). The Siloam Inscription, for instance, gives 1,200 cubits as the length of the water tunnel built by King Hezekiah. According to modern measurements, this tunnel is 533 m (1,749 ft) long. Thus, when taken at face value, these figures yield a cubit of 44.4 cm (17.49 in.). Also, numerous buildings and enclosures excavated in Palestine can be measured in whole numbers of this unit, giving further basis for reckoning the cubit at about 44.5 cm (17.5 in.).

Duper wrote: For the sake of discussion, does anyone know how old the DS scolls are?

The Dead Sea Scrolls were most likely written by the Essenes during the period from about 200 B.C. to 68 C.E./A.D.

More info here:

http://www.centuryone.com/25dssfacts.html

Another interesting link:

http://www.stevequayle.com/books/gen6cover.html

i have a book here called who's who in the old testament by joan comay. and i happened to read, just prior to your question being posted, the entry for the prophet Isaiah. So when the question was asked I had read this just minutes before:

WWITB wrote:[The dead sea scrolls] turned out to be some two thousand years old, older than any Hebrew biblical documents known till then...Before the discovery of these scrolls, the earliest known version of the Hebrew Bible was the Masoretic Text, completed in the 9th century AD. Written a thousand years earlier, the Isaiah scrolls are nearly identical with the Masoretic version.

So in 1947 they were the oldest original source material. Regarding the books of Isaiah, both the Masoretic Text and Dead Sea scrolls had some type of common ancestor. If there have been any older source materials found since 1947, my book does not mention it.

Duper you should read the "Dead Sea Scrolls" link in the original post. It's to the wikipedia article on the Dead Sea Scrolls so gives a good HIGHLY SKIMMABLE (;)) overview of them (incl their date of writing and historical/religious significance).