Giants in the Bible? How tall?

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The Bible lists two examples with measurement: (1) king Og of Bashan and (2)Goliath.

Concerning king Og:

Deuteronomy 3:11 KJV

For only Og king of Bashan remained of the remnant of giants [that lived on the east of the Jordan]; behold, his bedstead was a bedstead of iron; is it not in Rabbath of the children of Ammon? nine cubits was the length thereof, and four cubits the breadth of it, after the cubit of a man.


Concerning Goliath:


1 Samuel 17:4 KJV

And there went out a champion out of the camp of the Philistines, named Goliath, of Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span.


Now the definition of a cubit is the length from the tip of the elbow to the tip of the middle finger.

A span is the length between the spread out pinky tip and the tip of the thumb, which is roughly a little more than 1/3 of a cubit.


These vary widely between people, but in ancient times there were standard cubits. Since we're dealing with Hebrew records the most likely used cubit would be the Short Hebrew (17.5 inches) and the Long Hebrew (20.4 inches).


This would make Goliath, who is 6.34 cubits tall, have a range of 9.25 feet to 10.8 feet in height.


As for king Og, whose bed (or possibly coffin) is 9 cubits long, he has an upper range of 13 feet to 15 feet of height.


Although this is beyond the norm for people today, it is not outside the realm of possibility that there were fewer harmful mutations affecting people back then; the genome could have had fewer mistakes in the past.


As for whether their height applies to the other giants in Scripture, conferring with Deuteronomy 2:20-23 (where it describes the different types of giants and says their heights are "as tall") and Joshua 11:21-22 (where the Anakim flee to Gaza, Gath, and the other Philistine cities, hence possibly Goliath's ancestry) I can say that it most likely does apply. As for Numbers 13:33 I reply that the cowardly spies were exaggerating their story in order to discourage the camp of Israel.


Thus Biblical giants were possibly 9 to 15 feet tall.*



*The tallest man in recent history was 8 ft 11.1 in. To read about him:
http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/records/human_body/extreme_bodies/tallest_man.aspx

Is there any mention of basketball in the Bible?

Interesting question - here's some more info - one thing I can tell you for certain - and this has been verified - the Children of Israel were told NOT TO FEAR THEM no matter what!


—Biblical Data:

A pre-Canaanite tribe, dwelling (according to Josh. xi. 21, 22, and Judges i. 10, 20) in the hill country of Judah and in the Philistine plain (Hebron, Debir, Anab, Gaza, Gath, Ashdod). Three clans are mentioned: Sheshai, Ahiman, and Talmai (Judges, i. 10; Num. xiii. 22). These names seem, from their form, to be Aramaic; but what this fact signifies is not clear. The Anakim are said to have been conquered by Caleb (Josh. xv. 14; Judges, i. 20), who received their territory. In Deut. ii. 11, the Anakim are called a branch of the Rephaim, which is perhaps a generic term. The Hebrew of Num. xiii. 33classes them also with the Nefilim; but the clause is not in the Greek, and is probably a late gloss. In Judges, i. 10, the conquest is ascribed to Judah. How far the Anakim had been absorbed by Canaanites and Philistines is uncertain. On the genealogy in Josh. xiv. 12-15 and xv. 13, see Hebron and Kirjath Arba. T.

—In Rabbinical and Hellenistic Literature:

According to rabbinical tradition (Gen. R. xxvi.), the Anakim are of the same Titanic race as the Rephaim, Nefilim, Gibborim, Zamzummim, and Emim. The name (as though containing the element 'anak = neck) is explained in the Midrash (Gen. R. xxvi.) as indicating that they wore "neck-chains heaped upon neck-chains," or, as if from the verb "to press," "force," that they seized the solar disk and cried, "Send us rain," or that "they squeezed their heads into the sun" (Soṭah, 34b; see Rashi on Yoma, 10a). Of the three sons of Anak who filled the spies with awe and fear by their gigantic stature, Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai (Num. xii. 22-33), the first is represented in Num. R. xvi. and Tan., Shelaḥ, 7, ed. Buber, 11, as challenging passers-by, saying: "Whose brother will fight with me?" (a play upon "Ahiman" = brother of whom); the second stood there stolid as a block of marble (a play upon shesh = marble), and the third made deep furrows (a play upon telamim = furrows) in the soil with every step. (Compare Soṭah, 34b; Yoma, 10a, which has a somewhat different and possibly corrupt version; see Buber, notes to Tan. l.c.) And when the spies saw these men towering up to the sky and looking as if piercing the sun, they were afraid and said: "We are not able to go up against these people, for they are stronger than He []; that is, stronger than even the Lord Himself!" (Num. xiii. 31).

Of the size of the Anakim, a Midrash fragment—found by Schechter in a Pentateuch commentary of the thirteenth century, and published by him in "Semitic Studies in Memory of Alexander Kohut," p. 492—gives the following description:

"The daughter of Anak had gone into her father's garden and taken a pomegranate, which she ate, after having peeled off the skin and cast it aside. Then the twelve spies came and, seeing her father, were struck with fear and hid themselves under the pomegranate-skin, believing it to be a cave. The daughter of Anak in the meantime came back and, seeing the pomegranate-skin still lying there, was afraid lest her father might scold her for lack of neatness. She therefore took the pomegranate-skin, with the twelve spies hidden therein, and cast it out of the garden, noticing the weight added by the men no more than if the skin had been the shell of an egg." The legend bears a striking resemblance to the story of the giant's daughter reprinted in Grimm's "Kinder und Hausmärchen" (compare Chamisso's "Riesenfräulein"). K.

—Critical View:

The origin of the Anakim is unknown, and they have left no trace in history. On possible (but uncertain) remains of them, compare Nowack, "Hebr. Arch." § 16. The name "Anak" (so the Greek), or "the Anak" (Hebrew), is an etymological puzzle. The meaning of "bene ha-Anak" is uncertain. It is interpreted by some as "the long-necked"; by others, as "the necklace-wearers." It is perhaps non-Semitic.

Josephus ("Ant." iii. 14) relates that the spies found at Hebron the posterity of the giants; and this tallies with Josh. xiv. 15, according to which Hebron was the city of Arba, "the greatest man among the Anakim" ("the father of Anak," Josh. xxi. 11; the Septuagint has the "brother" of Anak). See Moore, "Judges," pp. 24 et seq. and Driver, "Commentary on Deuteronomy," pp. 23, 40 (note); the letter refers also to Goliath as one of the sons of Rafa, the giant of Gath.


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Click on the Giants part from this link
http://www.stevequayle.com/

God in the old testament is often critised for instucting the Israeliteis to wipe out whole nations including the women and children, maybe he was trying to eradicate the DNA of the fallen angels/demons from Mankind.

That's a good one! They would make a great team. Thanks Sand!

Nambo, yes the ten spies do refer to them as the Nephilim, but that is not the reason for the conquest.

JJStar, that is some excellent research into Rabbinic literature. However, as a Christian, I hold all sources and commentaries as secondary to the Bible. Good work though.

http://www.wrongplanet.net/modules.php? ... highlight=


http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt44588.html

and this.....
http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt46763.html

http://www.freewebs.com/iamnotaparakeet/fallacies.htm

Nice to see you back IANAP, you haven't been here for two weeks.

I decided to take a break and do some housework. Now I have a room again. Yeah!

I guess you didn't have your own room then, so you were working on it specifically these days? I would have big trouble sleeping with other people in a same room.

off-topic

Found a Church too (one that actually cares what the Bible says. Those are difficult to find in Minnesota.) I was sleeping on the couch for the last six months. My alarm clock were the birds (when the sun comes out they fly to me and pester me until I give attention.) How are you greenblue?

Fraud and artistic propaganda on the general side of an issue disprove the issue? That's fallacious.


1 Chronicles 11:23 KJV
[23] And he slew an Egyptian, a man of great stature, five cubits high; and in the Egyptian's hand was a spear like a weaver's beam; and he went down to him with a staff, and plucked the spear out of the Egyptian's hand, and slew him with his own spear.

5 cubits * 1.5 ft/cubit = 7.5 ft

1 Samuel 17:4 KJV
[4] And there went out a champion out of the camp of the Philistines, named Goliath, of Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span.

6.4 cubits * 1.5 ft/cubit = 9.6 ft

Tallest man in medical history was 8 ft 11.1 in

Are these heights unbelievable and why or why not?

^^ If humans were giants then why the religious ppl don't show their bones on TV . You don't believe that teh actual humans are descendants of ape-like humanoids despite the many skeletons shown of these humanoids , despite their logical order of skull size evolution with the line of time ..... yet you believe that humans were giants from few thousands years ago!! So ....well where are their skeletons ? We must see thousands of them everywhere underground and in the maya/aztec/phoenician/egyptian ruins ! I am from Lebanon and I saw some phonetician stone tombs in the oldest discovered Phoenician ruins in Tyr ...the stone coffins' sizes prove that they had the same heights of us I don't recall any giant tomb there , that's not a surprise tho they were homosapiens too ! As for "the tallest man in the world" ...such people suffer from Gigantism ....they usually have weak hearts and they die young, it is a hormone disorder.

Last edited by LePetitPrince on 28 Oct 2007, 5:09 pm, edited 2 times in total.

the giants on earth where from the aliens having sex with women

Genesis 6:1–4 describes the origin of the Nephilim:

“ When men began to multiply on earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of heaven saw how beautiful the daughters of man were, and so they took for their wives as many of them as they chose. Then the LORD said: “My spirit shall not remain in man forever, since he is but flesh. His days shall comprise one hundred and twenty years.” At that time the Nephilim appeared on earth (as well as later), after the sons of heaven had intercourse with the daughters of man, who bore them sons. They were heroes of old, men of renown.

Robert Pershing Wadlow.


People who are that tall have a growth disorder, excesive growth hormone in the pituitary, I believe, as this is a genetic disorder, this condition seems to carry other health problems.