Rocks - Scholarly Article

Yes, the story is historically plausible.
It fits known ancient warfare practices and geography.
Archaeology also supports the existence of David and his setting.

The story of David and Goliath is historically credible on several levels.

First, the setting and details match what we know of the ancient Near East. The idea of “representative warfare,” where champions fight on behalf of armies, is well attested. Pre-battle taunts and challenges were also common in that culture.

The geography in 1 Samuel 17 accurately reflects the Elah Valley region.

Key locations like Socoh, Azekah, and Gath align with archaeological findings.

The book of Samuel itself shows signs of early composition. It reflects a time before Assyria and Babylon became dominant powers. It also accurately describes Philistine control of metal technology in that period.

Archaeology supports the existence of David as a historical figure. The Tel Dan Stele refers to the “House of David,” confirming a Davidic dynasty. Additional inscriptions, such as the Mesha Stele, likely reference David as well.

The name “Goliath” also fits the cultural and linguistic context of Philistine society.
An inscription from Gath shows similar names from the same period.

Goliath’s size, while unusual, is not impossible. Cases of gigantism are well documented in both ancient and modern times.

A sling, like David’s weapon, could be deadly even against armored opponents.

In summary, the story fits its historical, cultural, and archaeological context well.
While dramatic, it does not require legendary assumptions to be credible.

The biblical story of David defeating Goliath contains many indications that it is historically credible.

The story of David and Goliath fighting as the champions of the Philistine and Israelite armies is historically plausible.

The internal evidence indicates that the book of Samuel was composed in or soon after the tenth century B.C.E. (albeit with some later editing). Old Testament scholar V. Philips Long argues there are “good reasons to assume that the bulk of the book was composed early, perhaps during the reign of David’s son Solomon in the tenth century.”[377] He points out that:

the book of Samuel makes no reference to the major powers, Assyria and Babylonia, that begin to dominate in the ninth century; Samuel’s description of kingship in 1 Samuel 8 is appropriate to its setting but not to later periods when monarchy was more developed; geographic details and war strategies are accurately described; “one cannot find in the book any significant influence of the Aramaic language that later became an international means of correspondence” . . . the Philistine monopoly on “metal weaponry and agricultural tools” mentioned in 1 Samuel 13: 19–23 existed only in the eleventh century BC after which Israel had such items; references in 1 Samuel 27 to settlements in the Negev wealthy enough to yield spoils of war make little sense after the tenth century, as they were destroyed during Shishak’s campaign in 926 BC, after which the Negev hills “remained desolate until the Persian Period”.[378]

Moreover, theologian Scott Hann points out that: “the Books of Samuel do little to idealize the personalities of Samuel and David but relate their sins and shortcomings with a warts-and-all honesty that inspires confidence in the objectivity and antiquity of their sources.”^[379]

The story of David and Goliath in 1 Samuel 17 portrays a practice from the ancient world known as “representative warfare.” As theologian R. F. Youngblood explains, this sort of one-on-one fight was:

an attempt at representative warfare effected by means of a contest of champions . . . . Whether this kind of radical limitation on warfare is ever sincerely accepted by either side remains in itself a matter of dispute . . . . It is clear, however, that contests of champions (to be carefully distinguished from duels, which are individual combats not representing larger groups) such as that between David and Goliath . . . were not uncommon in ancient times . . .[380]

Both the Israelites and Philistines would have acknowledged divine intervention in warfare:

The idea that God [or gods] fought as a partner in battle was a common theme in the ancient Near East. Victories were attributable to deities in both Egypt and Mesopotamia . . . . it was recognized in these societies that the gods also participated through the use of individual agents who had been commissioned to do the god’s bidding in battle. This aspect is clearly seen in contemporary Greek literature as the various gods aid and protect their favourites in the Illiad.[381]

The exchange of pre-battle insults between Goliath and David reflects “a common rhetoric in these types of confrontations that is found throughout the Near East.”[382]

We have several pieces of archaeological evidence demonstrating the existence of David. For example, the 9^th century B.C.E Tel Dan Stela references the kingdom of Judah as “the house of David.” Eric Cline, a Professor of classics, anthropology and history at George Washington University, explains that: “the finding of this inscription brought an end to the debate and settled the question of whether David was an actual historical person . . .”^[383]

Fig. The Tel Dan Stela, with the “House of David” highlighted (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:JRSLM_300116_Tel_Dan_Stele_01.jpg).

As Christopher Eames reports:

after much examination and questioning, retranslating and re-questioning, the Tel Dan Stele has been accepted as a genuine piece . . . . And while it is the most certain of all references to King David, there are two other artifacts that, with near certainty, make similar mention of the king.[384]

One of these artifacts is the Mesha Stele:

This victory stone belonged to another man mentioned in the Bible—the Moabite King Mesha. This stone celebrated Moab’s rebellion against the king of Israel around the middle of the ninth century B.C.E (2 Kings 3). Toward the base of the inscription, the same phrase used on the Tel Dan Stele can be found: “house of David.” Although, due to damage, the initial “D” is missing (i.e., BT[D]WD). According to epigrapher and philologist André Lemaire, who carefully studied the artifact, any reading other than “David” would be an awkward fit.[385]

Fig. The Mesha Stele (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesha_Stele#/media/File:P1120870_Louvre_st%C3%A8le_de_M%C3%A9sha_AO5066_rwk.JPG)

The final artifact of relevance is:

an Egyptian inscription dating to around the end of the 10th century B.C.E., which describes a part of Israel’s Negev desert region as the “Heights of David.” Leading Egyptologist Kenneth Kitchen translated the Egyptian inscription as H[Y]DBT DWT. The first word indicates “heights,” or “highlands.” The second word presents more of a problem at first glance. The name “David” is properly written on the first two inscriptions as DWD. So what of DWT? Kitchen came across a sixth-century A.D. inscription from Ethiopia, which referred to David as Davit. Hence, for this general region, there is a precedent for the name DWT, Davit. As with the Mesha Stele, “David” seems to be the best-fitting translation. Naming this area of the Negev as the “Heights of David” also makes sense because it was in the area to which David fled and commanded while on the run from King Saul.[386]

This Egyptian Topographical List dates to 925 B.C., around 45 years after David’s death, which as Kitchen notes is “within living memory of the man.”^[387]

David’s claim that as a shepherd he’d had to kill “Both the lion and the bear” (YLT) is not undercut by the absence of such animals in present day Palestine, since:

excavations in Palestine have uncovered both the lion and the bear in Iron Age levels (early first millennium B.C.). Bears were typically found in the hilly wooded areas of the central hill country, were caves and forests provided their habitat. Similarly the lion would have made its home in the central hills, which were more heavily forested during this period.[388]

As a shepherd, David would likely have been well versed in using both his shepherd’s staff and his shepherd’s sling. According to a 2017 forensic science paper on “The traumatic potential of a projectile shot from a sling”:

projectiles shot from unconventional weapons such as a sling have serious traumatic potential for unprotected human beings and can cause fractures of the trunk, limb and facial skull bone, causing blunt trauma of moderate to critical severity, depending on the weight and shape of the projectile and on the distance from the source of danger.[389]

Of course, Goliath was wearing armour and was equipped with a shield.

In 2005, excavations in the Philistine city of Gath (Tell es-Safi), revealed a Semitic inscription dating to the 10^th to mid 9th centuries BC, bearing two Indo-European names that resembled “Goliath.” Gath was “Goliath’s hometown, located five miles due west of Azekah. The first of two names on the sherd isʾlwt, which excavator Aren Maeir notes is similar to, and indeed may be the equivalent of, the name Goliath . . .”^[390] At the very least, as Maeir says, this inscription: “shows us that David and Goliath’s story reflects the cultural reality of the time.”^[391]

Having compared the biblical description of Goliath with a wide variety of extra-biblical sources, Jeffrey R. Zorn argues that:

it makes a great deal of sense to view Goliath as a Canaanized Philistine chariot warrior equipped with just the sort of panoply that one might well expect in this region in this era. His equipment shows that he was not some common soldier dragooned from the ranks for this combat. Clearly he was an elite warrior, perhaps one of the most well equipped in the Philistine army (fitting, indeed, for the army's champion in a ritual duel), and the elite warriors of this era came from the maryannu chariot warrior class. [392]

Contemporary scholarship suggests a height for Goliath somewhere between 6 foot 9 and 8 foot 11 inches tall (see Episode 12, Question 2), in a culture where the average man stood around five and a half feet tall. He may have had “a hereditary pituitary disorder . . . causing early onset and familial acromegaly or gigantism.”[393]

Perhaps the most famous modern example of someone with a pituitary disorder was Robert Wadlow of the United States (1918–1940), who stood at 8 foot 11.1 inches (272 cm) when he died (with no sign he’d stopped growing): “His great size and his continued growth in adulthood were due to hypertrophy of his pituitary gland, which results in an abnormally high level of human growth hormone . . .”^[394]

Fig. Robert Wadlow (1918 – 1940).[395]

Geneticists Deirdre E Donnelly & Patrick J. Morrison observe that “Pituitary giants look impressive in terms of stature, but may not have speed and agility to match their perceived strength.”[396] Having such a disorder could have caused Goliath to lose his some of his peripheral vision, or to develop double vision. However, it seems unlikely that Goliath suffered such debilitating side-effects.

Goliath is presented in 1 Samuel 17 as an experienced, “champion” warrior (1 Samuel 17:4 & 33), equipped with an impressive array of weaponry and armour (including a helmet and large shield), upon whom the Philistine’s are willing to place their bet for success through one-on-one “representative warfare.” As James M. Rochford observes:

Several people throughout history have grown to extreme heights as a result of gigantism (e.g. Potsdam Giants [i.e. 18^th century Prussian infantry regiment], [18^th century Swedish/Finnish giant] Daniel Cajanus [c. 7 foot 8], [wrestler and actor] Andre the Giant [7 foot 2], Robert Wadlow [8 foot 11.1], John Middleton [a 17^th century English bodyguard who probably 7 foot 9]). While gigantism and acromegaly often lead to clumsy and uncoordinated people (e.g. Robert Wadlow), this is not always the case. The soldiers in the Potsdam Giants, Andre the Giant, and [wrestler] Big Show [7 foot] are all examples of incredibly strong and coordinated men who were highly athletic.[397]

Likewise, Olivier Rioux (b. 2006) is a Canadian college basketball player. In 2024, Rioux stood at 7 foot 9 inches (2.36 m) tall.[398] American sideshow performer Willie Camper (1924-1943) was 8 foot 7 (262 cm) at his death.

Fig. Willie Camper (1924-1943)[399]

There is a debate about where the original text of 1 Samuel intended its audience to understand that David hit Goliath with a stone flung from his shepherd’s sling. V. Philips Long comments:

Where did David’s well-aimed stone strike Goliath (v. 49): on the “forehead” (mēṣaḥ) or at the bronze greave (miṣḥâ) covering Goliath’s shin (v. 6)? “Forehead” is the traditional understanding, but “greave” has been argued, given how similar the two words are in Hebrew (Deem 1978). Fokkelman (1986: 2.186) follows Deem in assuming that the stone entered just above the greave in the space necessary for walking and lodged between the greave and the shin, causing Goliath to fall forwards (v. 49) not backwards, as would likely have been the effect of a stone to the forehead.[400]

The socio-geographical details of the narrative accurately depict Israel in the Iron Age. Long notes that the first three verses of 1 Samuel 17:

map well onto the known topography of the Elah Valley (Wadi es-Sant), which lies some 12 miles west of Bethlehem. The Elah Valley was a major corridor descending from the Judean hill country westwards towards Philistine territory along the coast and was of great strategic importance. Sokoh lies to the south of the Elah Valley, almost 15 miles west of Bethlehem, while Azekah is 3 miles north-west of Sokoh. Gath (Goliath’s home town; v. 4) is 5 miles west of Azekah.[401]

Likewise, archaeologist Yosef Garfinkel and co-authors highlight “the basic and fascinating correspondence between the location of the important Philistine centers that emerges from archaeological-historical research and the geographical location of the biblical traditions.”^[402] For example, the biblical story of David and Goliath relates how the Philistine army camped near the city of Socoh before retreating to the cities of Gath and Ekron after David killed Goliath:

If the story was written at the end of the 7^th century BCE, during the Persian or Hellenistic period, when these cities no longer existed, its author would probably have noted Ashdod, Ashkelon, and Gaza as the cities from which the Philistine forces originated. It is thus clear that the biblical author had access to historical information originating in the 10^th and 8^th centuries BCE.^[403]

The apparent contradiction can be explained in several plausible ways.
Most likely, Elhanan killed Goliath’s brother, not Goliath himself.
Textual and scribal factors help explain the difference.

At first glance, 2 Samuel 21:19 appears to say that Elhanan killed Goliath. This seems to contradict 1 Samuel 17, where David kills Goliath. However, there are several reasonable explanations.

First, the context shows these are different time periods. David kills Goliath while serving Saul, but Elhanan’s battle occurs later, when David is king.

Second, 1 Chronicles 20:5 provides an important clarification. It states that Elhanan killed “Lahmi, the brother of Goliath.” This suggests that the Samuel text may contain a scribal issue. The Hebrew words for “Bethlehemite” and “Lahmi” look very similar. Scholars argue that a copying error could have caused confusion between these terms. Another likely error involves similar-looking Hebrew words meaning “brother of” and a grammatical marker. Taken together, these small textual shifts can explain how the wording changed.

It is also worth noting that ancient scribes did not always harmonize texts. This supports the idea that differences could arise accidentally rather than deliberately.

A consistent reconstruction is that Elhanan killed Goliath’s brother, not Goliath himself.

In summary, the passage does not require a contradiction. Textual transmission issues provide a plausible explanation for the difference.

There are a number of plausible ways to avoid the uncharitable reading of 2 Samuel 21:19 as contradicting the story about David killing Goliath earlier in the biblical book of Samuel.

According to 2 Samuel 21:19: “And there was again war with the Philistines at Gob, and Elhanan the son of Jaare-oregim, the Bethlehemite, struck down Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam.” (ESV). At  first glance, this seem to contradict 1 Samuel 17. However, 1 and 2 Samuel are a single source (the “book” of Samuel was only later divided into two “books”), and it seems unlikely that the book of Samuel would have either been written, or accepted by others, with a glaring contradiction in it on such a significant issue. Indeed:

the context of 2 Samuel 21:19 makes it clear that it is describing an entirely separate event from David’s slaying of Goliath in 1 Samuel 17:50. Second Samuel 21:11–14 puts the passage after the death of Saul, who was alive when David killed Goliath (1 Samuel 17:31–39, 55–58). Second Samuel 21:15–17 indicates that Elhanan killed “Goliath” when David was the king of Israel, not when he was a servant of King Saul.[404]

Consequently, we should avoid attributing a self-contradiction to the author/s of the book of Samuel if there is a plausible way to avoid doing so. According to theologian Edward D. Andrews, “the discrepancies between the accounts could be attributed to either a scribal error or the existence of two distinct Philistine warriors. In either case, these accounts do not necessarily contradict each other . . .”[405] Theologian Joyce G. Baldwin affirms that “in view of the textual problems, it is a precarious argument to insist that 2 Sa. 21:19 contradicts 1 Sa. 17.”[406]

Interestingly, 1 Chronicles 20:5 states that “ . . . Elhanan the son of Jair struck down Lahmi the brother of Goliath the Gittite.” Actually, there could be some textual corruption in this text, which may have originally said “. . . Elhanan son of Jair the Bethlehemite killed the brother of Goliath the Gittite . . .” How do these puzzle pieces fit together? A detailed treatment of the textual issues here is given by Dr Kaspars Ozolins, Assistant Professor of Old Testament Interpretation at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary:

A comparison of [2 Samuel 21:19 and 1 Chronicles 20:5] raises two questions: First, who is the Israelite hero, and secondly, who is the Philistine giant?

The first problem is somewhat easier to solve. Notice that the family name of the hero, Elhanan, differs slightly in both verses. The second half of a name is missing in 1 Chronicles 20:5:  ͗ōr^əḡîm. This word actually means “weavers” and it is found at the end of both verses in Samuel and Chronicles as a descriptor of the spear carried by the giant whom Elhanan slew (“…the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver’s [ ͗ōr^əḡîm] beam”). . . it is likely that Elhanan’s father (or ancestor) did not bear such a compound name and that this extra ōr^əḡîm has crept into the text of Samuel by a process called homoioteleuton (a scribal error caused by visual oversight of two similar endings) . . . .

. . . the identity of the Philistine giant, is harder to untangle. Because of the way the Hebrew text is laid out, this problem partly overlaps with the issue we just addressed: the identity of Elhanan. Notice that in Samuel, Elhanan is identified as a Bethlehemite, but not in Chronicles. Conversely, in Chronicles, the giant’s name is given as ‘Lahmi’, whereas in Samuel, this name is missing. Notice further that these two features occur in precisely the same position in the Hebrew text, and that both words look very similar: Chronicles has laḥmî “Lahmi” (presumably the giant’s name), while Samuel has [bêṯ] hallaḥmî “[Beth-]lehemite”. The full form bêṯ hallaḥmî is technically called a gentilic (a place name assigned to an individual) and in a form of this type, the second half normally bears the definite article ha-.

These names leave us with three possibilities: (1) “Lahmi” really was the name of the Philistine giant, and therefore ‘Bethlehemite’ has later crept into the text of Samuel, (2) Elhanan really was a Bethlehemite, and therefore we have a scribal error at Chronicles (i.e., “Lahmi” wasn’t the name of the Philistine giant), or (3) both were true: Elhanan was a Bethlehemite, and “Lahmi” really was the name of the giant he slew.

. . . . in 2 Samuel 23 (and in its parallel in 1 Chronicles 11), the same Elhanan shows up, and the text there explicitly mentions that he comes from Bethlehem. This is therefore very likely the same Elhanan as our giant-slaying hero. (Nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible do we see the name Elhanan appear.)

If Elhanan really was a Bethlehemite, then what should we make of the Philistine giant’s name “Lahmi”? Could it be a Philistine name? Although we don’t know much about the language(s) the Philistines spoke . . . it is likely that they were part of invading “Sea peoples” who entered the land of Israel in the late second millennium, BC. These were non-Semitic speaking peoples, yet it is interesting to note that the putative name “Lahmi” contains a sound (the “h”, phonetically /ħ/) which is very characteristic of Semitic languages yet is not found in other Ancient Near Eastern languages.

Let’s recall a few other things about this name: (1) it only occurs in the Chronicles parallel, (2) it occurs in precisely the same place that the word “[Beth-]lehemite” is found in the Samuel text, (3) it looks very similar in terms of its visual look in Hebrew (הלחמי vs. לחמי) and even its sound (hallaḥmî vs. laḥmî). On balance, these three factors should make us seriously consider the possibility that the name “Lahmi” has accidentally entered the text of Chronicles as a scribal confusion of the (second half of the) place-name “Bethlehemite”.

. . . . the word  ͗ēṯ (which has no equivalent in English) is a marker in Biblical Hebrew of the direct object (the word(s) which receive the action of a verb: “John hit the ball”). In the texts we’re looking at, the word  ͗ēṯ precedes the name of the individual whom Elhanan killed. Notice that although it occurs in each verse, its placement in both differs. The  ͗ēṯ of 2 Samuel 21:19 is paralleled by  ͗ăḥî “brother of” in Chronicles. Visually, both words look very similar in Hebrew (את vs. אחי), even though they have very different meanings. Conversely, the ͗ēṯ of 1 Chronicles 20:5 is paralleled by the very similar-sounding bêṯ (“house of”), which occurs as the first half of the gentilic “Beth-[lehemite]” . . .

. . . . the same three factors mentioned above are at play here: (1) ͗ăḥî “brother of” is found only in Chronicles, whereas we find ͗ēṯ (a sign of the direct object) in Samuel, (2) both ͗ēṯ and ͗ăḥî occur in the same place in the text when we align both verses, (3) both ͗ēṯ (את) and ͗ăḥî (אחי) strikingly resemble each other visually. This same kind of complementary distribution should make us suspect that one of these words may be some kind of scribal alteration of the other. So was ͗ēṯ deliberately changed to ͗ăḥî “brother of” in Chronicles by some scribe in order to avoid an embarrassing contradiction? Or, instead, was this simply an accidental visual oversight, in which a scribe misread ͗ăḥî (אחי) “brother of” as ͗ēṯ (את) in Samuel? We ought to favour the latter, for at least two reasons: (1) visually similar words are most naturally explained as accidental (not deliberate) scribal errors, (2) scribes who copied Samuel apparently were not bothered by the resulting contradiction . . . . [Thus] one plausible option is that Elhanan the Bethlehemite actually killed the brother of Goliath, who himself was left unnamed. That this giant was unnamed should not be seen as something unusual, since the very next mini-episode in 2 Samuel 21:20–21 mentions another giant (this time slain by Jonathan the son of Shimei), who is likewise not given a name in the narrative.[407]