Wednesday, July 6, 2022

The Goliath story is late

The Philistines were recalled as hosting some giants, especially at Gath. The Mycenaeans, also, were recalled as having hired [one-eyed] giants to build their cities. Gath is being excavated. Its walls were found (in 2019) pretty big... in the 11th century BC. [h.t Cerno.]

Gath got more Iron-Age so more in tune with the Canaanite and Israelite model, as of when Hazael found it (and trashed it) during Biblical times.

This is telling me that the story in 1 Samuel of David (or Elhanan) facing down the giant of Gath, is a late story. I mean, besides that the giantslayer became David; and besides that there survive two versions of this story even as a David story between LXX and (merged-into) MT.

The purest Goliath story, which is preLXX almost certainly starring Elhanan, might date to about the same time as the Elisha stories date. Anyway the Goliath story was written down (finally) after the fall of Gath, when there survived no literate citizens of Gath.

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