How many Goliath are there in the bible?

Answer 1

Millions of young children have been taught the famous story of David slaying the Philistine giant, Goliath, to guide them to understand the greatness of David and, perhaps, his God. But the legends of Goliath were already ancient when The Bible was written, resulting in confusion and duplication.

The most famous account is to be found in 1 Samuel 17:58, where David slew Goliath with a slingshot, winning the gratitude of the Hebrews and demonstrating the courage to become king.

Another episode, at 2 Samuel 21:19 casts further light on the legend of Goliath. The Hebrew Bible in English (JPS 1917 Edition) says: "And there was again war with the Philistines at Gob; and Elhanan the son of Jaare-oregim the Beth-lehemite slew Goliath the Gittite, the staff of whose spear was like a weaver's beam." In other words, there seems to be another, probably older, tradition that Elhanan killed Goliath.

1 Chronicles, written later and apparently dependent on the Deuteronomic History, attempted to resolve this in two ways. First, there is no mention of David killing Goliath, even though the Book of Kings presents this at the most important single feat leading to David being accepted as a potential king. Second, at 20:5, the book says that Lahmi (Elhanan) killed the brother of Goliath. 1 Chronicles 20:5 is a later rewrite of 2 Samuel 21:19, so the 'brother' should be discounted: Lahmi killed the same Goliath as in 2 Samuel.

The King James (KJV) translation altered 2 Samuel 21:19 (in line with 1 Chronicles), adding 'the brother of' [in italics to indicate that this was not an exact translation], but most other English translations of the Book of Samuel seem to have more faithfully followed the Hebrew Bible version.

In summary, the various stories are really about the same Goliath, but are told in different forms.