Even sitting down, he’s huge…
I’ve been thinking about giants lately. Were they real? Could they ever have been real?
The Bible has giants in it, throughout the Old Testament–lasting into historical times, in places like Gath, Hebron, and Bashan. Greek and Norse mythology is full of giants. And folklore all over the world offers tales of giants.
What is a giant? At 5’11”, Herman Melville was the tallest man aboard a certain whaling vessel. At 7 feet tall and change, Wilt Chamberlain dominated professional basketball. But if it gets much taller than that, you’re probably talking about a glandular or a genetic defect that’s going to keep you from reaching your 70th birthday: thank of Andre the Giant.
The giants in the Bible are truly colossal; and although no one has ever found a giant’s skeleton, or a giant’s weapons or armor, the Near East has several sites where normal-sized men created facsimiles of giants’ footprints, carving them in stone and placing them near public buildings.
Just because people lived a long time ago doesn’t mean they were stupid. So why did so many of them believe in giants, if there was no such thing as a giant? If no one could ever have seen a giant, why did so many different peoples, all over the world, preserve and hand down so many stories about giants?
These prints are obviously not real. But why did someone go to the trouble of carving them? Why display them in a busy public area?
Then again, maybe the whole thing was just some kind of advertising.
But how could there have been so many stories about giants, and no giants? Is it possible for a human body to function, beyond a certain size? Or did people in Biblical times use “giants” as a metaphor? Metaphors have probably been around even longer than giants.
We accept the Bible as being always true. But we grant that Bible writers sometimes used figures of speech that are not meant to be taken literally. Nor would Bible writers living 3,000 years ago have needed to explain certain things to their audience–things that only confuse us today. A lot of knowledge can be lost in three millenia.
I add, finally, that even as a little child, I never believed the Jolly Green Giant was real.
Why don’t you look up L.A.Marzulli if you want to find out if there have been bones of giants found (the “powers-that-be” have “conveniently” hidden them from mass-public information sources). Yes, there were giants, and the Bible does talk about them and where they came from.
I don’t buy into “forbidden archaeology” conspiracy theories. I need to see giants’ bones that have been brought out into public and examined by real scientists (who are almost as rare as the giants themselves).
I think it depends upon how giant is defined. There are unusually large humans out there. I’ve even seen some for myself, such as a man that was 8’3″ tall (and very slender) that I saw at a grocery store promotion, when I was a child.
I’ve heard rumors of people much taller, but I’m skeptical. As something become bigger, it becomes weaker. A 9′ tall human, proportioned like a 6′ tall person, would be very prone to broken bones, etc. When something, actually anything, increases in size, the proportion of that thing that has to be devoted to supporting the weight of the object has to increase. A hen’s egg is actually very strong, but no egg can be much larger than football sized, because it would be so flimsy that it wouldn’t be able to protect the embryo inside. Dinosaur eggs weren’t much bigger than an ostrich egg.
So a truly huge human, 20′ or 30′ tall, would have to be ponderous, like a pachyderm, in order to support itself. I’ve heard rumors about such findings, but no one has come forward with anything approaching proof and I wouldn’t be even slightly surprised if that never happens, because a 30′ tall creature could not resemble the form of a human without being exceptionally delicate.
According to the Masoretic text, Goliath was about 9′ 6″. According to the Septuagint, he was about 6′ 6″. That would still be formidable, and less problematic than 9′ 6″.
Six-foot-six would be way above average height in those days.
Yes, and realistic.
One of the best books I’ve read at least from a textual perspective is Reversing Hermon by Mike S. Heiser of Logos Bible Software. He makes a compelling case that The Book of Enoch, which is about giants, had a bigger impact on the New Testament writers than anyone realizes. He said that elements of Genesis 6:1-4 are accounted for in Mesopotamian material regarding giants and the flood, and that same context was persevered the in the Second Temple Jewish book of 1 Enoch. It doesn’t constitute as evidence per say, but it does prove that the Bible is talking about literal giants and not metaphorical giants.
As for lack of evidence, well that’s a valid argument. There are rumors of course that the evidence is being suppressed because it would disprove evolution. Make of that what you will. But I do note that not even bones last forever and only a small fraction of them becomes fossilized. It takes just the right conditions for them to be preserved. I’ve done my own study of giants and the ones in the Bible are generally 8 to 10 feet tall, give or take. They’re are amazing quite a lot of flood traditions around the world that involve giants, too many to be a coincidence.
I could accept 8’ to 10’ as feasible. I’ve seen 8’ with my own eyes, and know it’s possible. Andre the Giant was an a for and wrestler who was 7’ 4” and weighed over 500 pounds. He was pretty amazing and compared with an average human, certainly impressive.
The pre-Flood account of the Nephilum is said by some to describe giants, although there are other points of view, as well. If there were unusually large humans before the flood, it’s no surprise that we wouldn’t find fossils. Fossils only form under certain conditions and there aren’t a whole lot of human fossils to be found. Most fossils are plants, algae or marine creatures. A very small proportion are dinosaurs and an even smaller proportion are mammals.
The Flood destroyed everything and it’s the rare exception to find anything in the ground from before that time. It is believed that thousands of feet on sediment swept over the land masses. It’s quite possible that most of what was destroyed in the Flood is buried very deeply and quite possibly pulverized beyond recognition. In my opinion, the dinosaur bones found, are rare exceptions, and most are single bones, not complete skeletons.
I think that there are some open questions with this one. I revert to my first comment, regarding how a giant is defined. The differences between the Masoretic text and the Septuagint leave some room for questioning which description is accurate to the original text. Perhaps more will be revealed in time.