Posted on 01/13/2012 4:43:10 AM PST by TSgt
FRiends,
Simple question to resolve a debate I'm having with a family member. How did David kill Goliath? Was it with the stone from his sling or with the sword when he cut off his head?
He’s hoping you’ll post a coroner’s report.
HorseHockey!
"biblical evidence" to prove a biblical "fact" is a prime example - tho certainly not the only one - of using circular logic to prove a statement.
"Eye witness" "testimony"???? You've got to be kidding, right?? There is just so much wrong with that little piece of "proof" that there isn't room here to write it all down.
And if using the bible to "prove" biblical "fact" is your only weapon....you're un-armed.
Miracles are facts. Personally obseved by thousands of witnesses and historically recorded.
Whose job was it to check and see if these guys were uncircumcised? No way I want that job.
Far too broad a statement - "all miracles are facts". First, you have to define "miracle", then get agreement from the "eyewitnesses", then allow knowledge gained over time to prove - or disprove - the supposed "miracle".
Were you born or hatched? Present empirical evidence.
I submit you were hatched. My evidence is that you are a turkey.
Well, I know that 84 angels can dance on the head of a pin, and I can prove it!
Not true at all. A miracle is defined as a supernatural occurance. We do have agreement from eyewitness. Many eyewitness and no witnesses disputing them. That is evidence of proof in any court in the land. 2000 years have gone by and nobody has been able to disprove them yet. You merely beg the question by assuming miracles can't occur. A position which is supported by neither logic or reason.
When we were kids in Sunday School, this was such a nice story about a little guy killing a giant. Good thing they never told us about, or showed us a picture of, David standing there holding the giant’s bloody head. Ha! Go, David!!!!
Yes.
I've always read this passage to mean that David incapacitated Goliath with the stone. Goliath's fate was sealed. David then used the sword to deliver the coup de grace.
When someone commits suicide by jumping off the top of a building, what kills him - the jump, or the sudden impact with the sidewalk? The former renders the latter inevitable.
Alternatively, the stone killed Goliath, but when David decapitated him, that just made it certain.
Goliath was probably laying on the ground twitching, or unconscious when David took the sword and did him in.
The stone delivered a mortal wound but David used the sword to kill him before Goliath had time to die from the stone's wound.
It seems to me that both of these older translations are incomplete.
Read the NIV and the answer is simple. David killed the giant with a stone.
1 Samuel 17:50-51
New International Version (NIV)
50 So David triumphed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone; without a sword in his hand he struck down the Philistine and killed him.
51 David ran and stood over him. He took hold of the Philistine’s sword and drew it from the sheath. After he killed him, he cut off his head with the sword.
When the Philistines saw that their hero was dead, they turned and ran.
We’ll have to agree to disagree. Since the word slay did not mean “to kill”, but rather “to strike” at the time that that word was used in translating the Bible, it’s unacertainable from the text provided. In fact, even from the original hebrew there is some debate because the word for “forehead” is akin to another word (IIRC the leg, or greaves, something like that), implying that the stone caused Goliath to fall, but was not dead (again, the word “slay” didn’t mean “kill”). Also probable is the scenario that another FReeper mentioned, in that the wound may have been mortal, but Goliath was not necessarilly “fully” dead. In fact there are multiple stages of death.
In any event, I think as someone else posted, it probably doesn’t matter. Having said that, God answers all prayers. The best answer one can receive is the one received by the Holy Spirit after prayerful study and meditation, and I’ll leave that as a personal issue.
Impossible to resolve.
Maybe the stone killed him. For sure the sword removed all doubt.
Why argue about such a thing?
David was doing what all those folks in horror films should do, but don’t: They whack the guy and see him go down but don’t go back and make sure he can never get up again. David showed good sense. He used the weapon of his choice to put his enemy into his hands and then finished him off with the sword so it would be completely evident to the guy’s comrades in arms that their champion was totally lost.
It can be used as an allegory to describe Jesus, the Rock, and how he smote Satan, Sin, as promised by God to Adam and Eve. Yes, it’s a stretch, but is important.
Sorry, but I put about as much faith in the NIV being accurate to the original texts as I do a guy from the government showing up unrequested at my door saying he’s here to help me.
Did you know David and Goliath were cousins by marriage? It’s true!
Most likely Goliath was dead when he hit the ground. Not too long ago I ran a slinging scenario through a ballistics calculator and found very surprising answers.
It appears that someone who is good at it can produce 500 to 650 Ft/lbs with an appropriate pebble of somewhere between 1/7th and 1/4 pound. I started at 450 fps and ran it up to 650 fps.
Earlier on it is reported that David killed lions with his sling and that result is consistant with the ballistics data.
He probably produced more than 450 fps as he little else to do out there on the sheep range. Current slingers will go 450 fps on a fairly regular basis and David could probaly go considerably more. Because he was a pro.
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