The Sean McDowell Show - Who Really Killed Goliath? The Bible’s “Contradiction” Explained

Episode Date: February 3, 2026

Most people think that David kills Goliath with a sling and then cuts off his head (1 Samuel 17). But there’s a lesser-known biblical tension that surprises a lot of readers. 2 Samuel 21:19 seems to say that Elhanan killed Goliath. Is this a contradiction? Today, I invite on Old Testament (and Hebrew scholar) Dominick Hernandez to help us make sense of this seeming contradiction. READ: Who Really Killed Goliath? (https://textandcanon.org/who-really-killed-goliath/) READ: Engaging the Old Testament by Dominick Hernandez (https://amzn.to/49PqD54) *Get a MASTERS IN APOLOGETICS or SCIENCE AND RELIGION at BIOLA (https://bit.ly/3LdNqKf) *USE Discount Code [smdcertdisc] for 25% off the BIOLA APOLOGETICS CERTIFICATE program (https://bit.ly/3AzfPFM) *See our fully online UNDERGRAD DEGREE in Bible, Theology, and Apologetics: (https://bit.ly/448STKK) FOLLOW ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA: Twitter: https://x.com/Sean_McDowell TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@sean_mcdowell?lang=en Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmcdowell/ Website: https://seanmcdowell.org Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.

Most marriages aren't falling apart. They're being refined. Tried and True is a scripture-based marriage guide for couples who want a resilient, faith-filled marriage, especially in seasons that feel ordinary, difficult, or stretched. Through 12 and perfect biblical marriages, this book shows how God uses trials to strengthen connection, not destroy it. Learn more at Tridentrue Marriagebook.com or find Tride and True everywhere books are sold. Life Audio Dave and Goliath is my favorite story. Many people are not aware that there's a significant controversy about who actually killed Goliath. The part that we all know about is that David has a sling on this first shot, slays the giant, and then cuts his head off. Now, that's the weird part of you saying that this is your favorite story. Now, this version that you described to me is from 1st Samuel chapter 17.

Is that the consistent story? we have in the biblical text. This is the consistent story that we have in the biblical text. What we can say is in 1st Samuel 17, we have this story. But the issue lies elsewhere. Comes into another passage and a seemingly different version of the death of Goliath in 2nd Samuel 2119. It's like a contradiction. It looks like there's something else going on here.

So the story he's read first Samuel 17 says it's David. Now we've got somebody else here, El Hanan, who kills him. What's going on? The story of David and Goliath is one of the most well-known and beloved stories in the entire Bible. Many people are not aware that there's a significant controversy about who actually killed Goliath. Here to help make sense of it is my colleague, my friend, Old Testament professor Dr. Dominic Hernandez. You ready to rock and roll? I'm ready, Sean. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.

Oh, my goodness. This is an issue. I've been trying to make sense of myself because David and Goliath is my favorite. favorite story. I love it. As a kid, I'd listen to this record over and over again, a story about Dave Glythe that's captured my heart. So when textual challenges come up like this, I want to know it myself. You're my Old Testament guy. So let's dive in and take a look at this. Let's roll. All right. So before we get to the surprising debate about the death of Goliath, can you remind us to the basic details of the story and the traditional belief about how Goliath died? So here are the basic details. The Israelites and the Philistines are perpetual enemies. And this particular chapter outlines a battle between the Philistines on one hill in the valley of Ella and, I'm sorry, close to the

valley of Ella and the Israelites on another hill. And down between those hills is the valley of Ella. All right. So David is sent out by his father. He's the youngest of the brothers that he has. And he's sent out by his father to go take provisions to his brother, his brothers, plural, who are fighting in Saul's army, who was the king of Israel at that time. And while David is out taking provisions to his brothers, he hears Goliath, a Philistine giant, insulting the Israelites. And David hears this, and he says, who is this uncircised Philistine? That is, who is this non-Israelite?

Circumcision was an Israelite thing, right? Who is this non-Israelite that's talking smack about our people and by way of that, our God? And so he decides that he is going to fight this. giant and also that there's going to be certain provisions given to him if he could beat the giant, right? So he goes out and he decides that he's going to fight this giant. And the part that we all know about is that David has a sling and he puts, and on this first shot, he dramatically kills the giant, slays the giant, and then cuts his head off, decapitates him. Now, that's the weird part of you saying that this is your favorite story, but that is what the biblical text tells us.

So in this particular text, in Samuel, it's David who kills a giant named Goliath. It was a Philistine that would perpetually insult the Israelites and by way of that their God. Excellent summary. And of course, what this really highlights is the tension between David and Saul. David starts to rise to prominent and Saul becomes jealous, eventually replaces them as king. Now, this version that you described to me is from 1st Samuel chapter 17. Is this the consistent version we have in ancient text? If we go to the Dead Sea Scrolls, Maseretic text, Septuagint, et cetera, is there consistency?

There might be some differences in some of the details. But as a whole, the way you describe that, is that the consistent story we have in the biblical text? This is the consistent story that we have in the biblical text, though we're about to move into some things that are gapped in, for example, the Samuel text from the Dead Sea Scroll. So what we can say is in 1st Samuel 17, we have this story. But the issue lies elsewhere. Okay, good. So the debate is not about understanding 1st Samuel 17 when it comes to the death of Goliath. Comes into another passage and a seemingly different version of the death of Goliath in 2nd Samuel 2119.

So I'll go and read a force. And I'll want you to kind of explain why this matters. It says, and there was, again, war with the philipal. Holstein's at Gob, and El Hanan, the son of Jairi, Oregon, and you can correct all of my mispronunciations, please, the Bethlehemite, struck down Goliath, the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver's beam. So the story he's read for Samuel 17, says it's David. Now we've got somebody else here, El Hanan who kills him. What's going on? Yeah, so this is a wonderful issue to talk about, or this particular verse is a good starting point to talk about several major issues that we need

to confront as people who love the Bible, right? First of all, many of us look at this and think theologically, oh my gosh, like what if this is, what is this verse saying about God's word theologically if it's like a contradiction? It looks like there's something else going on here, right? So that's where we start. But then there are other ways that we can work through this, not by simply pop apologetic saying, oh, this is what's happening or that's what's happening. Not that way, but actually by analyzing and going through what we call lower criticism or textual criticism.

So I'll just pause here for a second and say the following. I totally understand the knee-jerk reaction against using the word criticism and Bible together, like we are criticizing the Bible. But that's not what all criticisms of a text mean. what textual criticism, what's frequently called, or used to be called lower criticism as opposed to higher criticism, what lower criticism refers to is that we are studying the versions that we have to get back to the putative original form. That's what we want. We all want to get back to as much of an original form as possible because we don't have the originals.

So people like me and you and others, Biblicists, we look at the texts that we have, and we try to do our best based upon what we have, based upon what we know about, humanity, what we know about scribal activity, based upon all of these factors to try to get back to what could be the most original text. Now, since we have different biblical books written by different people in different periods of time, and then they were copied, sometimes we actually come across an issue like this, where we're like, hold up a second. That doesn't seem to sound like what I read maybe earlier. So is there a text critical issue here? That is. is there an issue with the wording in the text? In this case, the Hebrew, maybe some of the Greek or maybe some of the other versions,

that might help us work through what a scribe received and just copied. And in this case, yeah, I think that that's the way to go. So, wait, did I answer? Yeah, no, no, you did. I want a couple of different ways there. No, that's really helpful. So the tension is between 1 Samuel 17, Goliath is killed by David, And then we have another book, Second Samuel 21, which is years later David is now king.

And the story is told that it's El Hanan who strikes down Goliath. And it says the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver's beam. So this isn't somebody else named Goliath. So in the biblical text, there at least appears to be a tension, appears to be a contradiction. How do we make sense of this? Now, before we're going further. There's one other verse that just adds to the complexity of this. 1 Chronicles 20 verse 5 says and there was again war with the Philistines and Elhanem the son of Jaya struck down Lachmi the brother of Goliath the Gittite the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver's beam so now it seems like we have three accounts of what happens here so before we jump in like

where are we at looking at this issue the complexity of it good thank you That's where I was going before I just started to talk a lot about sexual groups, which I love. So there's a couple of different types of criticisms as we were just talking about. Those that are more into what we call higher criticism would immediately look at these three sources or three verses and say, oh, there might be different sources for these three accounts. Okay. Now, we're not totally against there being sources and compiled books in the Bible. Obviously, Proverbs is compiled, Psalms is compiled.

There are other sections of the Bible that we know are compiled. Not against that. There could be different hands in different books that don't have authors. Like, we don't know exactly who wrote Chronicles. We're not totally against that. But we do have a text, a traditional text that was passed down to us. So we want to say, we want to exhaust the options that we have in the traditional text that's been passed down to us to try to figure out what's going on here. And I think that we can do this by looking at what the text says and how it could have been maybe a little bit jumbled.

by the scribes of the Masoretic text, the particular Masoretic text that we have, that we get our Old Testament from. So here is the issue. It seems that the scribe confused a couple of words between the second Samuel account and the First Chronicles account. Now, what do I mean by that? It's reasonable to assume that Samuel is an earlier book. We don't know exactly who wrote Samuel, but much of Samuel is repeated, as we know, in First Chronicles. And so it's reasonable to assume that Chronicles, I'm sorry, that Samuel was a prior book. We get to Chronicles and we're like, okay, there was probably a tradition, maybe even already

a written tradition of Samuel by the chronicler, the person that's, we don't know who wrote it, right? So the chronicler. So there was probably a written tradition. Now, by recognizing that there was probably a written tradition, we go back to the Hebrew and we see if there's a couple of things that could potentially be confused in the Hebrew orthography, so the way of writing. And the answer to that is there's a couple of things that may have been confused by the chronicler from the Samuel passage. So I just will bring up now that there's a really good article. Before you read this, let me just, I want to clarify for our viewers and listeners that when,

many people in higher criticism see these differences. The automatic assumption is there's different sources weighing into Samuel versus Chronicles. And you're saying we don't want to shut that down, but we don't want to assume it. Is there a way to reconcile this internally by looking at the books that we had that makes sense of it before we assume that there's different sources going into this? And instead of looking at like the context and saying, well, maybe this is a, different Goliath. You're saying the way this was copied textually gives us clues to make sense of the differences. Is that a fair summary? That's an excellent summary. Why didn't I say it like that?

That's a great summary. You know, but this is what I do for a living. I talk about these things. So sometimes I talk about them a little. Yeah, but, but this is, that's a great summary. Okay. Now, now, just to add on to that summary, I want to emphasize, I don't want to shut down the idea that there may be different contributors some places in the Bible. But what I do want to, what I'm, what I'm saying when I'm admitting is that methodologically, I'm making a decision here. And I'm saying, let's see if the text that we have, let's see if we can reconcile internally with the text that we have, with the three texts that you made up, and that you brought up, better stated, you didn't make them up, with the three texts that you brought up. And I think that there's a way of doing it.

Now, I mentioned the word orthography. And what I'm really making reference to is, you're is how words were written down, right? So scribes obviously wrote with a hand, a quill, and they wrote, right? And sometimes those scribes confuse certain things. Scribes hardly ever made intentional amendations to text, but sometimes they made accidental changes to texts. And I think that that might be what we're seeing here. And I think that that's, now it's time to bring up this article. Okay, so tell me what's going on with this article. So this is a very good article by Casper's Ozzolins, who was a professor at Southern Seminary, where you did your degree. I did. Yes, exactly. And this is an abbreviated version that's on the Texan canon site. It's a very good abbreviated version of another article that's a more academic article that he published in Vetus Testamentum, which is a big, that's a big deal in our field. It's a good journal. It's a top-ranked journal.

and some of the things that I'm going to put forward now, he puts forward in a, this is a nine-page article, it's not that long, but in a concise way as well, in a popular-level way as well. So what I would say, some of this is what Casper says as well, what I would say is that we can look at a couple of words in the Chronicles text and say,

oh, that was written later, and that may have been confused, from the Samuel text, right? So let me just give you an example. First, I want to do us a favor here. I teach a course called Critical Issues in the Study of the Old Testament, where the whole course is dedicated to issues like this. So we talk about the Pentatouca composition of the Pentateau,

composition of Isaiah, composition of Daniel, composition of Zachariah. We work through these issues. And one of the things that I say at the beginning of that, of that class, and it's cross-listed as an apologetics class, one of the things that I say at the beginning of that class, and I want you to hear me out here, I want you to get mad at me, is that this is not a course in pop apologetics. We're not just going to say the right thing and forget about the issues. Sometimes these issues, we got to put in the hard work to work through some of these issues, right? So even apologists, real apologists, are not into pop apologetics. We can't just say

the same thing and pretend that this just goes away. Sometimes we look at these issues and we're like, oh, they're real issues. So, like, let me just read the NIV's rendering of this. This is 2nd Samuel 2119. And here's what the NIV does. In another battle with the Philistines at Gob, El Hanan son of Yai'ir,

now it takes out the Orgim part here. The Hebrew text has Orgim. So Ben, it has Yaiir Orgim. The NIV takes that out. And then it says, the Bethlehemite killed the brother of, and now it adds the brother of Goliath the Gittite, who had a spear with a shaft like a weaver's rod.

So the reason why I bring up the pop apologetics thing here is because with the NIV... If you ever read a passage of the Bible and thought, what is going on here? You're not alone. Sightline ministry, formerly Josh McDowell ministry, is all about helping people cut through cultural confusion so they can see Jesus clearly. They've just launched a new on-demand learning center. are called Sightline View.

Right now, you can take a free course there called Why Did God Do That? Confronting Hard Passages in the Bible. The course is hosted by my friend Matthew Tingblad, and based on the book he wrote with my dad, Josh McDowell. They watch through some of the toughest passages in Scripture, the ones that seem harsh, violent, and unloving in terms of God's character. Both historical context and careful interpretation, Matthew shows how these passages actually point to God's goodness and his redemptive love.

By joining Sightline You and taking this course, you'll gain confidence in God's character, strengthening your trust in scripture, and get access to a library of free resources to help with even more difficult texts. You can take the course for free right now by heading to sitline ministry.org slash Sean. Check out why did God do that at siteline ministry.org slash Sean.

Javier's done here, and by the way, I really like the NID. I read it all the time. But what it's done is it's tried to reconcile the issues for us in that verse. Okay, did you read the Chronicles, passage or you read Second Samuel. Oh, okay. So that's why it took potentially what was in Second

Chronicles. Exactly. Added in for us and tried to read. Okay, it did. Got it. So now we can talk about why the translators of the NIV did that. Now, by the way, I reiterate. I read the NIV all the time. I like the NIV. I read the ESV, NIV. I read lots of different versions, okay? So

I'm not version hating here. But as I was studying for this, I came across the fact that there is already a version that does the pop apologetics for us. It's true. It tries to reconcile it for us. So the issue here ends up being, there ends up being an issue Ogim. Now, Ogim means weavers. So, so this shows up at the end of the verse, the weaver's rod. And so it's likely, it's likely that the second mentioning of Ogim is a copying mistake. That is, it seems that it was copied twice and it should have only been there once at the end of the verse.

That makes total sense to people that study textual criticism. Why is Weaver showing up next to this name? That doesn't seem to make sense. It may have been accidentally copied twice. That's reasonable. That's one of the things. So maybe when we have the version that say, let's see, the versions that say, yeah erie or gim, so this is the ESV,

that particular version should probably just say, Yajir or Yajur. So he is the El-Hanan is the son of Yaiir or Y'ur, which there's also an issue with the name, but we don't need to get into that. The Bethlehemite. Now, let's talk about the Bethlehemite here. That's also an issue. Because one of the versions say, that is the first chronicles 20, verse 5, says that El-Han killed a son of Yaiir killed Lakhmi. That's what it's, it's killed a person. named Lachmi or that is El-Hanan killed a person in Lachmi. Here's the issue. The Bethlehemite in Hebrew is Beth Lachmi. The Bethlehemite, Beth Lachmi or Betha-Lachmi is better stated. Right.

So Hebrew has a direct object indicator that's not translatable. Whenever you see the word et in Hebrew, the next word is the direct object. So here we have, in the Samuel passage, we have 2nd Samuel 21 verse 19, that Elhanan killed, the Bet Lahmi, he struck down Goliath, but in the first chronicle version, we have he struck down at Lachmi, which sounds a lot like Bet Lachmi. So there could be, and even orthographically it could look very, similar. There's a one consonant difference. Now if you follow it all that,

you see why this is not just a pop apologetic issue, right? Like you got to get it, got to dig into it a little bit. You got to figure out what's going on. And textually, if you were to put these texts next to each other in Hebrew, you would see, or and you were to read them out loud, you were to say, oh, it's Lachmi,

Betalachmi, they sound similar. Maybe the scribe, maybe the chronicle scribe thought Lachmi was a person, and and put it, which sounds very much like Bet, and actually shares one consonant with Bet.

Okay. Maybe that person was et lachmi, that is et, and then the name Lachmi instead of Bet Lachmi, which actually says that El Hanna was from Bethlehem. Hence the Bethlehemite. Beheathlehemite. That translation makes more. That translation does make more sense. It does make more sense, yes.

Oh, my goodness. Okay. So let me take a step back and try to explain for people what's going on. What you describe pop apologetics is maybe just a quick way of going, oh, here's an easy way to reconcile it and move on. Totally. Yeah. And not recognize the complexity underlying textual criticism and tradition and mistakes that are made. And we shouldn't be afraid of leaning into these difficult issues.

Once all said and done, really what you're doing and Casper does in this is say, we've got to make our best guess. we've got to come up with a reasonable explanation for why one seems to say El Hanan killed him. One seems to say it was Goliath. And the best guess, you think, is to go back to the Hebrew language itself and think there's not an intentional, but an accidental change in one or two places shifts the meaning. And the NIV does that work for us and adds the brother. Yeah. Yeah, and that's a great summary. And I would say that, you know, and I don't want anybody getting mad at me.

I read the NIV. I reiterate this. The third time I've said that. Yeah. But what, and I don't want anybody getting mad at me about the pop apologetics thing. But what's important to note is that there are some things that we encounter that were, you know, biblical issues that look like apparent contradictions, where we can come up with a very quick answer. We have the tools, like most people have the tools to be able to come up with quick answers. And issues like this, sometimes they transcend the popular level tools.

And so we need to dig into that. And that's what we do here at Talbot, right? We help prepare people to go to transcend and to transcend sort of these popular level tools to be able to get into texts like this one and to form opinions without simply going to commentaries. And sometimes we don't know exactly what we're going to get in a commentary. If we don't have the ability to be able to critique what the commentaries. writer is writing about or how the commentary writer goes about solving issues.

Super helpful. Let me ask it this way. Early on, you're saying, I'm open to different sources being behind the different writings and different traditions. But maybe there's another way to address this, which is a more evangelical Christian and maybe historically Christian way of approaching this, probably apart from the higher criticism. The criticism might come back and say, okay.

Dr. Dominic Hernandez, Alba School of Theology Professor, you're also bringing your own biases and assuming that there's a way to reconcile this and it's the word of God and it's inerrant. What would you say to somebody who had pushed back and saying you're making the same mistake but in the opposite way? I would say it's not a mistake and I'm totally admitting it. See, that's the issue, right? That's one of the things that makes us evangelical. We admit what we believe about the Bible when we study. it. And so that doesn't mean that we run from issues. There are issues. It means this is the reason why we have

courses like critical issues in the study of the Old Testament. We're not just preparing people to do these quick answers, but we're digging into these real serious issues that have been, and when I say real serious, I mean genuinely serious issues that are associated with the Bible and authorship, the historicity of certain things within the text. So I don't think, here's the thing, once we admit as much as we can what we presuppose or suppose about the Bible, then we can argue about which suppositions are more reasonable. It's those that don't admit what they believe that then I think sometimes it's difficult to have conversations with those people. And that's not just higher critics. And that could be evangelical.

or our critics or anybody else. So hence the reason why I was like, don't get freaked out by the word criticism here. Because sometimes as evangelicals, believing that the Bible is the word of God, when we hear a word like criticism, we go, wait a second, the word of God

is perfect. It is a shield of those who trust in him, right? That's one of the proverbs that. We do that and we're not saying that God's word is imperfect. What we are saying is we want to do are best to establish texts that are the most original as possible. And in order to do that,

you have to dig into some of these issues that look like apparent contradictions. So you recently did a presentation on the Dead Sea Scrolls, I believe at the, was it the Nixon Library? It was the Reagan Library. The Reagan Library. Yes. Okay. I did two, and that was most excellent. There was a whole, whole section of the Dead Sea Scrolls there. Amazing. And I partly draw attention to that, because you've done work. in the Dead Sea Scrolls. So on this issue, does the Dead Sea Scrolls help reconcile it at all? It doesn't, as Casper's points out, there's a gap here in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

And so the Dead Sea Scrolls doesn't really help here. And all the copies are in First Samuel 17. There's a gap on... Yeah. In this particular issue, there's a gap. There isn't a... We don't have a section of the Dead Sea Scrolls that's going to help us with this issue because there's a gap in this issue.

Okay, so you've... Or a gap in this area. In this area. So obviously you've studied the Old Testament and more depth in the original language than I have. This on its surface can be jarring to people, but I think you've offered a plausible explanation for it. Where would you place this on some of the difficulties in the Old Testament? Is this mid-range? Is this an easier one?

Is this one of the harder ones? Where would you kind of place it in comparison with some of the other challenges of the 39 books of the Old Testament? Well, if you read the NIV, there's no issue here. But I'll say those that are interested in reading the entirety of the Bible will eventually come across issues like this. Now, this is a historic issue and many times some of the historical issues can be explained by way of what the author is doing or striving to do for the particular audience that the author is really. writing for. So for example, the chronicler that came late, some scholars would say the chronicler is just trying to, the chronicler is changing this text in order to make it more reasonable for the audience that the chronicler's writing to later. And sometimes, right, that's one way of

looking at it. But what I would say is, in terms of like how serious of a problem this is, this is not one of those issues that we look at and go, this is faith changing for me. Like, did David kill Goliath? Oh, yeah. First, you know, First Samuel says he did. Wait, hold on a second. Was it Goliath's brother that's died?

Like, was it like Lachmi? Is that the name? Are there two scenarios? Like, there are different ways of thinking through this that aren't like Jesus didn't rise from the dead. You know, right? So I'm not sure if that's the type of answer you're looking for, but what we need to do as we go through these particular issues is see how close this is to a fundamental of the faith. And that's why I bring up the resurrection. Obviously, we believe that God's word as it was given is an expression of God's self. And so we don't believe that there's going to be these mistakes and these. errors, but we also believe in a very human side of transmission.

And if we admit the human side, an issue like this is not nearly as much of an issue as an evangelist saying that Jesus potentially didn't rise from the dead. That's fair. And you're not saying the human side of inspiration. You're saying the human side of transmission. And so this story, roughly 1,000 BC is roughly where we would place it. there's 3,000 years of transmission. The very fact that we have some of the texts line up so closely and have some of these smaller differences,

I think it's pretty remarkable all things considered. But I'm with you, at least I would phrase it this way. We do a disservice to people when we act as if the Bible just floated down from heaven and there's not textual questions. Totally. There are. Let's invite them. Let's look at them.

And I don't think anything's wrong here with saying, hey, we don't know exactly what happened, but we can construct and try to make sense of a reasonable explanation. I think you've laid one out that's sufficient. So how confident are you if I said, Dominic, you're probably not a betting man. You can correct me if I'm wrong. You can bet on this. You don't even have to give me a number. But how confident are you in this reconstruction compared to other ways to reconcile this?

text. Well, every reconstruction needs to be, and maybe we shouldn't say reconstruction, because that might scare some people as well in terms of like we, we're not reconstructing the biblical text. What we're trying to do is we're trying to look and see if there is a plausible reason as to why these verses look like they contradict each other. So maybe a little bit less reconstruction, much more just sort of putting a puzzle together. And I like to look at it in that sense. That makes sense? And everybody loves to kind of figure out. Everybody likes to put in the last piece of the puzzle. So let's use a puzzle. So let's use a puzzle. as an analogy, if that's okay. I would say this.

Every time that we put a puzzle together like this, we can generally get the big picture. So if it's a thousand piece puzzle, we're getting like 900 pieces, and we see the panorama, but we have to be humble and leave open other opportunities, other potential explanations. By the way, the first step to being a good Bible reader,

if you believe it's the very word of God, is humility, is thinking through, you know, recognizing our own limitations. And so I would say there is a plausible explanation for this. There could be others, but I would bet on the fact that there is a – you're ready for this? I would bet on the fact that there is a plausible explanation of this that holds up the historicity in 1st Samuel 17. Hold on a second. Hold on a second. holds up the historicity but still recognizes that the author of 1st Samuel 17 is writing for an audience and striving to write.

for striving to communicate theological themes and purposes through the narrator's writing or the narrator. Does that make sense? So none of the Bible, so I'm saying I'm using the word historicity. If you've ever been asked or have asked yourself, why did God do that when reading the Bible? This is for you. Sightline ministry, formerly Josh McDowell ministry, exists to help cut through cultural confusion so people can see Jesus clearly. They just launched a new on-demand learning center called Sightline You.

And right now, they're offering a free course called Why Did God? do that confronting hard passages in the Bible. It's hosted by Matthew Teingblad and based on the book he co-wrote with my dad Josh McDowell. The course walks step by step through difficult passages that often seem to portray God as harsh or unloving. But instead of avoiding those texts, Matthew shows how careful study and proper context will reveal God's goodness, justice, and redemptive love, even in the most difficult sections of the Bible. You'll come away with greater confidence of scripture and a deeper trust in God's character. Plus, when you join Sightline you, you get access to library of free resource designed to help you tackle even more challenging passages. You can take the

course for free right now at sightline ministry.org slash Sean. Check out why did God do that today and get equipped to see God's goodness even when the text feels hard. Head over to sitelamistry.org slash Sean. None of the Bible is written exclusively for history. So what we have in 1st Samuel 17, I would say, is historical. And we have a reason, I would bet on a reasonable, reasonable solution to holding up that historicity, but it's not exclusively historical. That's fair. Yeah. All right.

So humor me on this one. Doesn't have to be perfect. I got you. How old are your kids, by the way? My son is 14, and my daughter is 9. Perfect. So your 14-year-old son comes up to you and goes, Adam, I was reading the Old Testament.

And 1st Samuel 17 says that David killed Goliath, but 2nd Samuel 21 says it was Elhanon. and you're in the car and you got like 90 seconds or two minutes to explain your 14-year-old son. And you can't say, we'll talk about this at dinner. What would be, I'm forcing you, your pop apologist response in that setting? That's funny. A couple of things about my son. First of all, he wouldn't ever ask this question.

So whatever. No. No. So this is not just filler. This is a very good question that I think actually brings, it should intentionally open a can of worms for us. Because if we give a quick response in the car, certain, like as certain as we are of the resurrection, this could potentially lead to issues when younger people realize that we need to nuance things.

So I struggle with this. I always, even in a minute or two, I want to leave open some nuance. Does that make sense, like the ability to nuance? So I would say, popi, that's it. That's his nickname. He's little poppy now. Pretty soon he'll be big poppy, but I say poppy. Sometimes in the Bible, because of how the Bible was written, there are these types,

there are these issues like this. What we can do is, you're ready for me? We can go and look at the Hebrew later because my son reads Hebrew pretty well. Wow. But, well, he went to school in Israel for a couple of years and speaks Hebrew pretty well and reads Hebrew pretty well. But in all seriousness. And I would say, it looks like first. Samuel is telling a historical account. The other accounts that we see, they need to be

reconciled with what we see in First Samuel, which is probably an earlier text. So what we'll do later on, if I can, is I'll show you a couple of words that may have been mistaken and we'll work from there to a potential better solution, I guess you could say. I love it. That's fair. Here's, as I'm thinking about this on the spot, I think I would say to my son and my son, you've had him in class, he's 21 years old, but I've another son who's 13, close to the edge of yours. I'd say, son, first off, I love that you read the Bible and asking these questions. Ask them.

Good for you. Yeah. I'd say you're right. On the surface, there's a tension in what seems to be a different story here. So we ask the question, what best explains it. The traditional stories you're right, is that David killed Goliath. So why when we go to 2 Samuel do we have a difference? I think what happened is when you look closely in the Hebrew text, some of the words are so close that a simple change mistake accidentally could communicate that we're not talking about the Goliath himself, but his brother who did it.

We can look at the Hebrew later, but I think that best probably explains it, which is why the NIV translates it the way that it does. Now, that'd be my quick response. No, that's an excellent response. And you have a 21-year-old, so you clearly have some experience with this. But what I will say is I love that response. And also, things that we haven't gotten over, and maybe we'll do this some other time. But there are a couple of other potential explanations, right? And so it's important to let people know as we work through this that sometimes there are issues.

They can be nuanced. there could be a couple of reasonable explanations. So, for example, ah, the word ah, brother. So in one version it's brother, brother of. Achi, it looks very much like et, which is the direct object marker again. So those two words may have been also maybe conflated. And by the way, they look a lot alike.

So you have alif chet and alif tav. They look very similar, right? So for those people that know Hebrew, right? You have Alev Chet Yud and Aleph Tav, they look very, very similar. So there's an issue with that that Kaspers also brings up in his very good article that I would recommend if you're interested in a little bit more. One thing I want to say that I think is very important for those people asking questions. That is reading the Bible and asking these types of questions is by no stretch of the imagination a lack of faith. Amen.

Yeah, it's not, it isn't. which is, I think, why you were saying you would compliment your child, right? Exactly. It means you're a close reader. It means you're picking up on some of these things. And frequently, when you read the Bible and you pick up on some of these issues, frequently, there is a relatively quick way to respond to things because people have been reading these texts for so many years. You're not the first one to think of some of these things.

The introduction of the Dead Sea Scrolls changes things a little bit. But I'll just say, this copy of the Hebrew Bible that I have here, as you can see. See, this copy of the Hebrew Bible, it's all torn up. I need to get it rebound. This copy of the Hebrew Bible comes from a manuscript that comes from 1008 or 1009 AD, which means that, and the Old Testament, Old Testament is written. This top text is just one text. It's called the Masoretic text.

And the Bibli Habreica, Stuttcartensia, it was edited in Stuttgart, It really is just one text with the notes of editors at the bottom. So what we do in passages like this is we look at what the text says here, the text that's only about a thousand years old, and we compare it to some of the notes at the bottom. Okay, we have a text that's a thousand years old but records texts from over a thousand years before that. Of course there's going to be an issue or two or three like this. there's more than two or three issues, but you get the point. Noticing these types of issues means that you're reading that text well, but also, let's give this the benefit of the doubt. This is a later text, one complete text, there's going to be notes.

Let's look at the notes. Let's see what's going on. Let's try to start here first with what the Bible says, even some of the textual issues. Let's try to start there first instead of going maybe outside of the Bible and positing that there were other sources that contributed to really a historical. of an event that we consider to be historical. I love it. And the reason I said that to my son is I want him to know, I'm not afraid of these questions. So be a careful reader, and let's go to the text. I do want to amend my answer. The last thing I'd say to my son is not, we'll look at the Hebrew.

I'm going to call my man Dominic. Maybe he'll give me 10 minutes to explain it. By the way, I do have one rule that guests cannot dress better than I am, and you just blew that rule out of the water. Yeah, but you dress cooler than me. I don't know about that. You're looking sharp, man. Thanks for the work to pretext. prep on this. So interesting. I learned a ton

myself. And to viewers and listeners, let me know this is a little bit more of a nuanced deep dive on a particular topic than you often hear in this channel. Is this helpful? Is this interesting? Do you want more of these kind of deep dives? Give me your honest feedback and we'll try to come minister to you. We'd love to have you come study with us at Talb School Theology. Dom teaches in Old Testament. I teach, of course, in apologetics. and make sure you hit subscribe to this podcast and this YouTube channel. We have some other shows on archaeology and another one on Goliath coming up as well.

You won't want to miss. Thanks for tuning in. Hey, friends, if you enjoyed this show, please hit that follow button on your podcast app. Most of you tuning in haven't done this yet. And it makes a huge difference in helping us reach and equip more people and build community. And please consider leaving a podcast review. Every review helps. Thanks for listening to the Sean McDowell Show, brought to you by Talbot School of Theology at Biola University, where we have on-campus and online programs in apologetic, spiritual formation, marriage and family, Bible, and so much more.

We would love to train you to more effectively live, teach, and defend the Christian faith today. And we will see you when the next episode drops. Do you ever hear sayings make their way through the culture and the church that seem nice in theory, but are actually theologically problematic? My name is Sharah Donahue, and I'm the host of the Bible, Never Said That, a podcast where we examine these popular sayings under the lens of biblical truth. We cover sayings like, God won't give you more than you can handle. Time heals all wounds. And follow your heart. We also spend time exploring how people use Bible verses out of context.

If you want to grow in discernment and truth, join us and subscribe at lifeadio.com.