Archaeological finds reveal: Goliath was not as tall as you thought - Walla! Tourism

2020-11-25T14:26:46.241Z

According to several scholars, the Philistine giant killed in the battle with King David was not as huge as previously thought (about 3 meters according to the Bible) and in fact was not much taller than the average basketball player.

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Archaeological findings reveal: Goliath was not as tall as you thought

Biblical scholars claim: The skull of Goliath is buried in the place where Jesus was crucified - and can be found

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Excavations at biblical sites often reveal evidence that a large portion of the Bible was based on exaggerated facts to create a dramatic effect.

This is how Goliath is described in some versions of the Septuagint at a height of only "four forearms and a little finger" which is about 1.90, but in any case the final height determination is complicated because according to recent revelations her mother had different interpretations and lengths in different parts of the world in those years.

According to Dr. Elisha Freund, Goliath's height was generally about 190 cm (mother = 30 cm and 10 cm). This height was also unusual in those days, assuming that most of the population did not reach the height of the ascendant. About 150 cm. (See also chapter E in Genesis, about the dimensions of Noah's ark: if her mother is about 50 cm, then the length of Noah's ark was about 150 meters - about the average destroyer length) ".

Prof. Berginer, a neurologist at Ben-Gurion University who studied the subject of Goliath's dimensions, concluded that he suffered from a disease now known as "acromegaly" or "gigantism."

The syndrome is due to a benign growth in the pituitary gland that secretes the growth hormone.

Excessive secretion of the hormone causes larger-than-normal body dimensions (including a large and sometimes distorted skull).

In addition, the tumor causes pressure on the optic nerves, which leads to a disturbance in the visual field. "

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Now there seems to be an end to the controversy over its height - or at least another possible answer.

Excavations conducted last year at Tel a-Tafi (Tel Tzafit), a mound near the village of Menachem identified as the Palestinian winepress - Goliath's city, revealed a gate whose walls were 2.38 meters apart - or the modern equivalent of four amot and zarat.

Archaeologist Jeffrey Chadwick of Brigham Young University in Utah says this is a possible proof of Goliath's height.

"The biblical writers wanted to illustrate the immense size and power of the warrior and therefore compared it to the defensive barrier of winepress," Prof. Chadwick said at the virtual annual meeting of American Oriental Studies Schools held last week on November 19. "The biblical writer used measure. "A true architect from that period to describe Goliath's height, presumably to indicate that he is as large and strong as the walls of his city," he said. His theory was accepted only by other biblical scholars, although researcher Gary Arbino said that Prof. Ch. Dwick "will have to do more research for it to be anything more than an interesting idea," the Daily Star reported.

According to him, it is also necessary to state that "four amot and zirat" was a common expression at the time that meant large and strong.

Did King David win a giant or just a tall man?

(Drawings by Gustave Dore)

"Only giants were able to lift such stones"

For the past 23 years, Prof. Aharon Meir of Bar Ilan University has been digging in the winepress and last year he found evidence that the city of Gat was even larger before the 10th century, probably in the 12th-11th century (Early Iron Age) as well as before the story of David and Goliath. Occurred in the 10th century.

According to the latest findings, the size of the winepress during the Goliath period in the 11th century was about 500 dunams - twice as large as any Palestinian city in the area - and the stones used to build the city were larger - up to two meters per stone - than half a meter in later periods.

"We know that the Tzafit mound is a Philistine winepress - Goliath's house - and for years we thought the site reached its peak in the 10th century BC," Prof. Meir told Walla! "But we discovered that the city is even larger than we thought and built in a monumental way.

Therefore, in the Bible, in the context of Goliath and other figures in the winepress described as giants, they did not really live, but it was a mythology that came later, but the question is how that mythology grew. "

According to Joshua chapter 11/22, winepress is one of the three cities of the Philistines Where giants remained, after Joshua had cut them off throughout Israel: "There are no giants left in the land of the children of Israel; Hazael, King of Aram Damascus, saw the remains, which included fortifications large built of large stones - and gave the interpretation remains the largest of these were built by giants could move large stones.

According to him, this interpretation, that associates the construction of large sites giants is nothing new, and is drawn from various cultures throughout antiquity "We have examples of this from other ancient cultures, such as in ancient Greece where they saw Mycenaean culture and its type of construction as Cyclops (giant human-like creatures with one eye from Greek mythology - ZR).

This is also true of other cultures, such as the pyramids that were thought to have been built by people from outer space, "Meir explains.

" The impressive remains of Gat are probably what led to this myth, and we have no such parallels in other Philistine cities, "Meir says. A large part of it does not sit again so people thought for years that the large fortifications were associated with giants and that only they were able to move and lift these large stones. "From this, the inhabitants of Judah who lived in the winepress during Hezekiah (8th century BC) and Goliath period, that giants did indeed live in the ancient winepress.

Aerial photograph of the winepress fortifications in the days of Goliath (Photo: Prof. Aharon Meir, the excavation delegation to Tel Tzafit / Gat)

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Source: walla

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Archaeological finds reveal: Goliath was not as tall as you thought - Walla! Tourism

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