Goliath

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Goliath ( gə-LY-əth) is a legendary Philistine warrior of giant stature attested to in the Biblical narratives of 1 and 2 Samuel. The scholarly consensus holds that, of the two accounts of Goliath in Biblical scripture, the older text depicts Goliath as being killed by Elhanan, son of Jaare-oregim, as described by the author of 2 Samuel 21:19. In 1 Samuel 17 Goliath plays a more expansive and pivotal antagonistic role within the biography of King David. According to this narrative, Goliath challenges the Israelites to send forward a champion to defeat him in single combat. David, then a young shepherd, takes up the challenge. He fells Goliath with a stone slung from a sling before beheading the fallen giant with his own sword. The narrative crediting David with the feat in 1 Samuel has become the more popular and well-known, but the account in 2 Samuel 21 crediting Elhanan is generally considered to be the older, source text that the author of 1 Samuel drew from to fold Goliath into David...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Osmar Schindler (1869-1927), Public domain