Biblical Tall Tales

Watching a show on "Giants" in the History Channel.They brought up an interesting fact -Biblical accounts of Goliath puts him at over 9 ft. all - clearly giganticHowever, the Dead Sea scrolls put him at about 6'9", still extremely tall, and amoung people standing 5'5" or so, very impressive.But this once again raises questions of the veracity of Biblical account.Was Goliath actually 9ft tall for the Creationists?If so, who were the giants that Moses' scouts found? Are those accounts to be taken literally?If we can't take these historical accounts on face, why take any of the numbers given in the Bible as anything more significant than Grampa's old story about the catfish that got away?abe - thread name changeThis message has been edited by Nuggin, 12-30-2005 12:40 PM

Hello, Nuggin! This seems like a good topic for discussion! Why not rename it "Tall Tales?"Which forum do you want it to go to?

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Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

Curious. Which scroll among the DSS has this height, and do you know for sure that the Hebrew is different from the Hebrew in the OT texts in common use, or is it a difference in how it was translated into English? (Most reports on the DSS show that the OT books found there are identical to those we have, with only minor differences, mostly negligible errors).This message has been edited by Faith, 12-30-2005 12:24 PM

One among many examples of exaggeration of the casualties that were so common in the OT is I Samuel 6:19 - How long does it take for 50,070 guys to look in a box? And how big a town was Bethshemesh to have 50,070 men to look in one?

King James"4And there went out a champion out of the camp of the Philistines, named Goliath, of Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span."
1 Samuel 17:4 IBSS - Biblical Archaeology - Dead Sea ScrollsHere's a bit to help on the "4QSama" thing And more confusion - who killed Goliath? It's getting murkier!Being called away from computer will post more later

Things get exaggerated.So, no. we can't depend on the stories to be more than tall tales without independant confirmation.I had heard previously that the 4 cubits and a span was 6'4".It was an article that was discussing the possiblity that Goliath had Marafans syndrome.This message has been edited by ramoss, 12-30-2005 01:05 PM

***Note - Faith, I'm not trying to draw you into a debate or be tricky or anything here. Just replying to your post since the quote is from you. I understand and respect your position. I'm not trying to change your mind. It's just that this stuff irks me***re: Dead Sea Scrolls I'd be inclined to believe that that is true. I'm sure that if you were to do a content comparison of those passages in the Dead Sea Scrolls which also appear in the Bible, they come out around 80% or higher. That's pretty good given translations.However, the sticking point here is the "minor differences".Personally, and philosophically, I don't think the story of David & Goliath is a story about how to kill a specific type of monster.Let's assume that the people and events are true. Then it's a historical recollection of how a future king gained noteriety while defeating the head of an opposing force.Let's assume that it's fictional (like George Washington and the Cherry Tree). Then it's a story about how this great ruler, as a child, showed cunning and bravery in the face of great danger. And, how he managed to defeat an evil that plagued his people.Either way, I think the story works fine.The problem is that an account of Goliath being 6'6" sounds a whole lot more factual than an account of Goliath being 9'9" (Or I've seen some calculations that put him at 10'2").I think everyone can agree that the Dead Sea Scrolls predate the KJ Bible. And, I think we all know how tales grow in the telling. It seems likely to me that the writers of the Dead Sea scrolls got Goliath's height right and that the story was embelished upon in later years.Again, by my recogning, no harm done.However, the problem lies in this idea that every single letter in the modern Bible was guided by God - and therefore factually accurate.If people can't get the height of Goliath right, what else is wrong? The number of loaves and fishes? The number of people Samson killed? The size of the Ark?Personally, I take all of these stories as having a message - and that message is not about the actually number of loaves. I think that the Bible can be 100% true without being 100% fact. And that divorcing Truth from fact would end almost all the debate on these boards.my 2c

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Biblical accounts of Goliath puts him at over 9 ft. all - clearly gigantic

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There was an accident on the corner of Main and Walnut. Twenty people witnessed the mess. Twenty people gave their account of what they saw. Twenty different stories, about the same accident. Twenty descriptions of the people involved in the accident, all different.Tell me, does it negate the event?Giants or no giants, the plan of salvation is straight from Adam to Christ.
Most Christians build their life on it.
Some Christians are drawn into and quibble over incidentals.

Yes i'd agree most christians do build their life upon the salvation. And there is nothing wrong with that. However, being that committed to the idea of christianity, if contravailing ideas or anything counter to their commitment arises it threatens the core of who the christian is. Making it fundamentally impossible to talk about contravailing ideas.Its even more strained for those who believe the bible is the innerrant word of God because (as demonstrated by the number of threads about it on this particular forum) which bible is to be believed?

Some Christians insist that every incidental is crucial to their faith. That if the Bible is not "literally" and "completely" true then their faith is somehow damaged. That is part of the point of this thread.You are, then, one who agrees that the Bible does not have to be and is not literally true and not 100 % accurate.

Let me ask you this. If 20 different people swear that their account of the accident is the Word of God and therefore infalible, how do you figure out who is right?

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Biblical accounts of Goliath puts him at over 9 ft. all - clearly gigantic

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However, the Dead Sea scrolls put him at about 6'9", still extremely tall, and amoung people standing 5'5" or so, very impressive.

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But this once again raises questions of the veracity of Biblical account.

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Was Goliath actually 9ft tall for the Creationists?

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If so, who were the giants that Moses' scouts found? Are those accounts to be taken literally?

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If we can't take these historical accounts on face, why take any of the numbers given in the Bible as anything more significant than Grampa's old story about the catfish that got away?

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I'm not sure why this is considered a big problem. I googled this and found a site that says, not just the Dead Sea Scrolls, but Josephus, as well as some Septuagint copies say, "4 cubits and a span" as well.http://www.challies.com/archives/001344.php Also from what I can gather, the precise measurement of a cubit is not perfectly known. Thus all foot, inches figures given, are only estimates anyways.From my own experience with studying Jospehus and the differences between the Mazoretic, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the Septuagint, I'm inclined to agree with the 4 cubits 1 span measurement.This, however, in no way invalidates the Bible or makes it's claims dubious, since this discrepency amounts to nothing more than a copyist error. I'll concede that it is possible that some copier of an early Hebrew copy of the passage may have deliberately altered the figure. But this isn't neccessary to assume as fact. Neither does it prove Biblical innerancy, since the argument for it is that it was innerant at it's incpetion, not after it was copied many times.There are other passages in the Bible that clearly have copyist errors. Many are known. Likely some are not known. But as a whole, due to textual comparisons, we know that the Bible is remarkably well preserved.Simply put, copyist errors don't prove the Bible is not innerant.

I don't claim that "every single letter in the modern Bible was guided by God." I subscribe to the view that the ORIGINAL TEXTS (or autographs) were inspired by God and not down to every single letter but to the meaning.As for the DSS height for Goliath, there is no reason whatever to assume that that scroll is correct and ours incorrect simply because it predates ours. It may be, it may not be. Ours certainly didn't come down from the DSS. Those mss were off in their own little hideaway, from which copies were not necessarily made except for their own use. There were always many copies of Bible scrolls in circulation among the synagogues all over the Greek and Roman world at any given time. An error could show up anywhere. It could be perpetuated by further copyists. But there would always be other lineages of copies that could eventually be used to correct such an error. Eventually the OT was copied and circulated among the Christian churches too. There are enough preserved remnants of various Bible books going back to the 2nd century for it to be possible to determine which readings are most likely errors. Age has nothing to do with it, since they are all copies of copies of copies in any case. The originals are long long gone.And, after writing this I went back and read my original post and see that you didn't answer it. Oh well.This message has been edited by Faith, 01-01-2006 02:57 AM

The Bible is only copies. We have no originals.