Great article. Makes one wonder what will become of the profession of archeologists thousands of years from now. While today they dig up the past in search of clues in the bones of ancient peoples civilizations around the globe... What bones of their own civilizations will they leave buried for their future predecessors? Probably none to very little. As cremated ashes whether that of nuclear war or other means, will leave none.
Teeth whitening popularity in western cultures and elsewhere may give future archaeologists a good chuckle about 21st century narcissism :) Can you imagine a such a cemetary, excavated to reveal brightly, whitely smiling skulls.
Not all Philistines were giants, but there was a race of giants called the Nephilim. Their bones will be found eventually. Over the years, archaeologist have found evidence of places and people of the bible that "experts" insisted didn't exist.
Daniel--Just because archaeologists have found evidence of places and people described in the Bible, it doesn't prove that supernatural beings described in the Bible actually exist. The Iliad describes places that archaeologists have found (Mycanea, Troy, Sparta), but that doesn't prove that the supernatural beings (Zeus, Apollo) described in the Iliad actually exist. It was common to mix fact with fiction in writings from the Mediterranean Basin during the Biblical era.
There are vast differences of detail, honesty and humility between the two books. The Iliad doesn't shine a candle. There is also history and prophecy that underpins the bible. I read the Iliad as a child. I also read the bible as a child. As an adult, I have studied the Holy Scriptures for over thirty three years. Have you even read the bible completely? You are entitled to believe what you wish. I know what I know.
??? where were they originally from or will man still deny that their is a GOD an that there was Giants which we call fallen angels , who minga, yes we are haters of evil led with the earthlings . that is why there was a flood that wiped out the evil DNA that was in most of the people at that time . ands now the Arabs want to kill all the Jewish people , just like Herod tried to kill the CHRIST Child , JESUS an satan is still trying to get rid of the Jewish people . but they will not be wiped - out , they are GODs chosen people , they and the land belong to GOD . Islam is not the friend of Israel or the Arabs or any people group , JESUS said it plainly your father is the devil , not Abraham or GOD . I think that says it all the nonbelievers of this world are fallowing the ways of the world and not the ways of GOD . yes we are haters of the evil in this world , but not the people that are fallowing the wrong spirit , JESUS said that they hated ME an they will hate you to and the truth of MY WORD .
Dude, I have studied the bible extensively and what you are referring to is a belief held by some Jewish sects that the Giants mentioned in Genesis were descended from angles mating with humans. It should be noted that the Bible never calls them Angels. They are "sons of God". But yes, some Jews think that this refers to Angels since the idea of a human being called a child of God is quite alien to them. For Christians there is a big problem with that theory. Jesus says that those in heaven will be as the Angels and not be married or have spouses. I would warn you that when you get into theology of scripture, beliefs can go off into many strange directions. It is better to stick with literal scripture and not cherry pick and not accept as absolute a theory that contradicts another direct teaching of Christ. A "giant" may not have been anything like we imagine today or see in sci fi or in fairytales. The person might merely have been larger and stronger than average with great fighting skills. I have no doubt that there were people who existed who were considered giants by others but not Jack and the Bean Stalk Giants.
re: "We know here in Ashkelon that these Philistines were completely destroyed by (Babylonian king) Nebuchadnezzar in December of 604 BC,"
Time and again in school, I learned of civilizations being wiped out by invaders. That was 50 years ago. Come to find out that more than not, civilizations slowly adopted to new ways or assimilated into "invading" cultures. Not to say that conquest didn't play a part some time, but the complete genocide of an entire country was very rare.
Actually if you had bothered to listen more, and I taught this in school, have a doctorates in history, you would have found out that the ancient Romans, the Syrians and the Babylonians were known to either displace or wipe out nations or a people that resisted their rule. It was this iron fist and the promise of ruthless attacks sanctioned by the empires that kept their people in check.
First, when dealing on this site not dealing with a college class. So yes, I referred to them as Syrian, although we both know that there is no connection between the modern day Syrians and the ancient Assyrians, today’s Syrians, just like the so called “Palestinians” or Arabs that migrated to the area from Arabia.
Now, no genocide, and it was not common? Actually you show by this statement that you have no clue what you are talking about. First the Romans, they went into Carthage twice, wiped out everyone in the city. Then they wiped out over 5 million Jews,
Amazing as quote Tacitus "Auferre, trucidare, rapere, falsis nominibus imperium; atque, ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant"
(They plunder, they slaughter, and they steal: this they falsely name Empire, and where they make a desert, they call it peace.)
Now the Assyrians, suggest you look into the writings by Richard Frye, Simo Parpola, and Rémi Brague, these are the best authority on this subject, seems they totally disagree with you. They openly supported that the Assyrians wiped out whole people when they refused to submit, the ancient kingdom city states of Israel was a perfect example, they have found through digs the remains of Syrian arrows, found documentation from Babylon and Syria concerning their siege and destruction of these people, how they killed the majority of them and expelled the rest.
Do you want me to get into the Babylonians next? Oh wait, you have studied this much longer then I, have to ask, what exactly is your degree in? I have a doctorate in history, have studied this for over 35 years, taught it for 25 years. Would be happy to discus this with you.
You don't think anyone is buying that do you? You've been exposed. And have now trying to claim that I said "extermination of the odd city never happened" [which I did not]
You can continue to award yourself academic laurels and quoting unrelated random irrelevancies all you like. Move your goal posts without me.
annoying, no doubt. so what happened to our people when these f'ing settlers got to our continent? BIG TIME BUMMER that's for sure! they suffered a holocaust - we are reminded of that every turn of the school books... but the native people of our continent? oh yea, no need to talk about them... Better yet, the Israeli govmt assisted the local thugs in creating death squads to ensure the land was bare when they steal it from us... like those in the path of moses, our people have been constinuously murdered since 1492. go rob someone else, yes? always conditioning truth to conform with their objectives... aj'ho.
I don't get the big deal. Multiple ancient cultures have spoken of giants. Nephilim and Annunaki are the ones that are most spoken of. The Anunnaki which were supposedly aliens mated with humans to create "half-breeds" which are the Nephilim. The Sumerians which was the first human civilization were on average around 6'5-6'8. This is considered tall in today world but normal or average back then. The Annunaki is jus folklore more or less. However I believe there's a perfectly explainable scientific reason for so called "giants" ad why we don't have none anymore. Millions of years ago, hell, even thousands of years ago the worlds oxygen supplies were much more concentrated then they are now. Literally everything was bigger. Trees, bushes, grass, animals, insects, and yes hominids were all much larger. Corse there's always the 1 percent chance folklore could be right.
Jackson, I have no reply for you. The cube-square law would've still held true. However higher oxygen means things were bigger. I personally think it's pretty difficult to confuse hominid bones with dinosaur bones.
No, the cube-square law can only represent the ratio of volume to surface area. If the surface area was much larger back then(hence more oxygen) then the volume would've been greater too. The rule still applies, except we just larger numbers, so to speak.
Uh. Barry? Think for 2 seconds. The additional volume means more mass. The extra WEIGHT makes it impossible for the skeletal structure (or muscle) to support it. The addition of the WEIGHT of more air in the lungs doesn’t help. Just the opposite.
And then there is the problem of stress on the heart. And of heat escaping the ‘blanket’ of extra meat and fat.
Organisms require homeostasis to survive. Bearing that in mind if there was extra weight due to more mass the skeletal structure would've been denser as well. More air in the lungs would've just meant the organs had higher capacity. However this is my theory, although other paleontologist share this same theory. In retro respect what you say makes perfect sense. Scientific laws can't be broken.
I gotta say you make sense barry. Even though your sort of drifting into pseudoscience some it may have very well been like that. But we can't prove it.
Actually my final grade in physical science was a 97. You are applying todays laws to yesterday's laws. Science is always changing, you can't simply apply what works today with a million years ago. Also, are you getting mad? There's no need to get rude.
You do realize you just spent a half dozen posts displaying your ignorance of physics, don't you? Claiming that the laws of physics have changed in 3000 years is pretty much the final nail in your coffin.
"You do realize you just spent a half dozen posts displaying your ignorance of physics, don't you?" Nope, not once did I say this or even inferred this. All I'm suggesting is the parameters of which these laws allow was different due to a drastically different environment with higher concentrations of certain elements.
OXO, in the case no they did not. However they have found remains of people that were much larger then we are today. They've examined these bones, which, were found to be more dense then ours. Case in point, my argument against buzzkills.
Big Daddy, where have you read that? Nearly every skeleton we've found of the Sumerians, provided a few exceptions, have been 6 foot or greater. These were tall people by today's standards.
Robert Wadlow reached nearly 9 feet tall. Andre Rasimov was commonly called Andres the Giant; a pro wrestler who reached over 7 feet tall. I saw a picture of an Asian man who must have been over 7 feet tall.
A giant will appear every once in a while due to hormonal abnormalities. This proves the Philistines could have had a giant warrior, and that's all it proves.
Anthropologists have narrowed the origins of Semites to the Skhul V Cave of Mount Carmel Israel. Here around the end of the ice age it is believed Sapiens as originated in South Africa evolved into Cro Magnon and hybridized with Neanderthal. These quite large craniums fused into a encephalized forehead and truncated occipital lobe. The browridge of most Semites appears to be absent on these skulls photos and may prove them through DNA to be of a purely sapiens population alien of course to Samson or Hagar.
Of course there are other theories besides interbreeding after the ice age upon migration which is more consistent with Darwin as inbreeding in isolated groups. But the birth defects of gender, gigantism and dwarfism have more to do with the absent male chromosome in the archaic genetics of modern humans.
Think you got a lot of stuff confused, Fort. Not that all of it is 100% genuwine facts not subject to tweaking and new theories based on new evidence. For one thing, the last ice age started and ended well after the demise of the last Neanderthal. Some interbreeding had already taken place in the West and in Asia but not in Africa (tho' there are a couple of tiny pockets even there).
Very interesting article. I am not familiar with the research that has been going on there in the Ashkelon cemetery. I wonder why it is ending now after 30 years. Do they feel they are finished or did their agreement/funding end? Just curious.
The problem is more ultra orthodox Jews. Once this is released these fools will start to protest all digging, they do not believe any remains should ever be dug up.
More and more archaeology is digging up part of a site & then leaving the remainder in the ground. Many of the earliest archaeologists destroyed sites digging for artifacts & not realizing how much information was being lost while they dug. Things like pollen grains among skeletons, which could provide information about the crops, or diet of the people. Now they leave part of sites undisturbed so that if new methods are discovered in the future, there will still be some of the site still in pristine condition.
Huh? How do you figure that? Harry Potter talks about the Salem Witch Trials. So if they dig up proof of that in New England, would that prove that magic is real? Just because the bible used some actual facts in no way validates all of it. Especially since there has been no proof whatsoever of any of the supernatural stuff. The miracles, the global flood, etc. We know there are places in the world that have never been underwater, especially as recent as when the global flood would have occurred. The reason the people who wrote the story of Noah's Ark thought there had been a global flood can easily be explained. First, I read that the black sea or another body of water near the middle east had flooded the area near it. And since people only knew of the small area around which they lived back then, to those people it seemed like a Global Flood. I'm not entirely sure about that. What I am sure about is that people found fossils of aquatic creatures up on mountains and didn't know why. The only way they could explain it in their minds was a global flood. But now we know about tectonic plates and how they shift. So what is now a mountain top with fossils of aquatic life was once the floor of the ocean.
The bible cannot be true. NASA proved that last century when they sent men into space. The bible says that penetrating the earth's atmosphere will actually allow you to enter heaven. That's why god couldn't let the people in Babel build the tower. So there literally is a 0% chance that the bible is accurate.
Sam - where does it say you can enter Heaven through the atmosphere? Also, God destroyed the tower of Babel because it showed the extreme pride of men's hearts, i.e. they thought they alone could figure out a way to get back to God, but in fact they can't. God has to reach out to us, which He did through Christ. Man can't make himself good enough or worthy enough to be in God's presence, so He bridged the gap for us. And btw, if you want to use science to try to disprove the Bible, you can (and should) also use it to prove. The Bible talks of a round earth about 1500 years before Magellan, it talks of the Earth circling the sun about 1000 years before Copernicus, it talks about blood being the source of life and death long before diseases were understood, etc etc. And so far archeology has confirmed 100% of Biblical names and places. Check it out...
I hate to imagine what the far future will think of us when they dig up a great many young skeletons with bullet markings indicating how they died. They will probably remark how glad they are that they did not have to live in such a violent kind of atmosphere.
All generations has had a very violent period there time. Before it was knives and swords then came gun powder thus guns, bombs and the sorts. Who knows next gen it might be guns and robots.
yeah because bullets are way worse then arrow tips, or a stroke from a club, or a gash from a sword, or......i mean grow up dude. this is the world we live in
It also doesn't mean an outlier could have been taller.
Still, the odds are high that the Israelite's were a Canaanite tribe in the Jerusalem Hills, occasionally fighting different invaders. When the Babylonians wiped out just about everybody on the coast, the Israelite's expanded. Of course "We won victory in battle" sounded better at the time than "We were goat herders and moved into empty areas."
Actually it depends on the climate and food sources more than anything, if there was meat, cheese, milk and plenty of protein available in the diets the peoples tended to larger, if diets were more along the grain and vegetable sides they were smaller and slimmer, then there the lack of food which was always a worry back then due to famine, war, ect, those generations tended be much shorter and slimmer due to growing up without proper nutrition.
Your average Roman was not very tall 5'2 to 5'4, while you average Kelt or German were 5'9 and heavier in build simple due to their high protein diets which was good for short burst of activity but wore out quickly, but the diets of fish and vegetables, grain left gave the Romans a body type that was made for activity over a long period of time.
Your average Viking was between 5'6 to 5'8 in Norway and Denmark, the Swedes were 5'10 simply because they have better lands to raise cattle and crops on and had access to better protein sources than there neighbors.
Of course there was always a few people who grew bigger than the others we still see that today.
When you work out with weights the lifting and technique, are only part of the process, diet is the main key.
Then I guess Gen. G. A. Custer was a vegan. His uniform would fit a 5th grader. We have been growing for many reasons-protein,vitamins, LACK OF BAD THINGS and the need to put up with sliding ads. As for Romans/Germans-why are northern deer and moose so much bigger than warm weather animal of the same species? Hell, if I knew what I was talking about, I'd be rich and doing something better than this.
At 5'8" Napoleon Bonaparte was above average in height for that era, like a 6 footer today. But thanks to a mistranslation in French units of measure, his enemies pounced on the idea that he was a dwarf. Tolstoy in "War and Peace" has Napoleon appear in the story and describes him basically as a midget. Even today we speak of a pushy short man as having a "Napoleon Complex".
David T, when the Babylonians wiped out the Philistines, they were also destroying Jerusalem and the temple and deporting the upper classes of Judah (Israel had already been defeated decades earlier) back to Babylon. Only the poorest survived and were left behind, according to the Bible. The prophet Daniel was among those who were taken into captivity. The prophet Jeremiah was among those who were left behind.
Actually, this isn't true entirely. The agricultural revolution had a drastic effect on height. Prior to the agricultural revolution, and remaining in hunter gatherer societies, people were much taller. In fact, we didn't reach the average size of the average hunter gatherer until the second half of the twentieth century.
The problem is that cereal grains are actually not a particularly good food for humans.
Different invasion, Lee. There have been a few. Israel is on the main route between Africa and Asia and lots of people have conquered it.
The Babylonian exile was what you said it was. However, my understanding is that the Philistines were wiped out by earlier invaders from the same area.
Goliath's height was specifically stated at 4 cubits and a span. That translates to 6'-9" or a little over two meters. So, if true, he would be very tall at any period in humanity's existence.
There are always men and women who by a combination of good genes, healthy habits and plain old luck, defy the limitations of the age. The Viking warlord Harald Hardrada was 7 feet tall. The Greek orator Isocrates was writing great speeches in his 90s.
I visited the Medici palace in Florence, there was a display of actual clothes worn by the people hundreds of years ago and I was shocked at how small they must have been to fit into them.
France's King François I was about 6ft5 I believe - his armor is heads taller than anyone else's in the display cases (if I may say, ahem). Some princess from the Siberian steppes 5000 years ago was 5ft8. The potential for even most 'average' people of being fairly tall is always there, but there are so many things that can and do happen to prevent realizing that potential.
The biblical narrative says there -in this case -was only one giant and that was Goliath. It never refers to the Philistines as being a race of Giants!
Or it is possible that the physical size of the Philistine people was blown out of proportion in order to exaggerate the accomplishment of the young King David.
Not necessarily a lie. History embellishment is a common practice across cultures, especially when it involves prominent individuals. It is used to enhance or degrade one's image. Whatever the true account is, it accurately captures the society's perception of the person. In modern terms, it would be called a bias. The only difference is that they tend to do it more liberally in the past.
I am Joe Kwok Sing Wong, the author of " A Discovery Of The Ancient Common Language And A New method Of Teaching English." The word of Goliath is in the Chinese language it means ' Tall People Are." The word Li is like in the word Israeli. Li means people. I think Philistine, Phil means Phoenix, colorful, tine means relative just like in the word Latin. Latin means late relative. Chinese people considered White people are very tall and have long arms. So, Philistine are White people. I have moved back from Socorro New Mexico to Flagstaff Arizona in January 2014. Flagstaff Arizona is my home town since 1961. I am now 76 years old..
There are number of medical conditions which can cause gigantic growth in some individual and large guy would be often fighting champion of the tribe. However, big guy with some armor, shield and sword, would have difficulty hunting down young shepherd with sling. David wasn't nicest guy buy he was talented in military tactic, and knew how to use his advantage.
David was a 17 year old shepherd boy when he went up against Goliath. Too young for war. He offed the armor and sword given to him by King Saul, stating "I am not proven with this...".
He used his sling and some smooth stones taken from a brook, with which he was experienced. Bopped Goliath in the head with a stone. When Goliath fell, David took Goliath's sword and cut off his head.
The actual events are written in 1 Samuel 17. A good read.
Goliath of the philistines, was actually embued with the leftover giant dna of the anakim, the angels who left their place and mated with daughters of men..Hence why he was so incredibly large. we still see some of that very same dna on the occasion today...however it has deteriorated so much, those poor folk don't live very long.
