Goliath's Height: Reassessing Ancient Giant Claims

The Masoretic Text gives Goliath's height as six cubits and a span - around nine feet nine. The Dead Sea Scrolls read four cubits and a span, about six feet six. Virtually all scholars consider the Scrolls reading the better one.
Six and a half feet sounds unremarkable now. It was not then. The average height of an ancient Israelite in the patriarchal period was around five feet. Goliath would have loomed over that army.
A related correction: Og's bed is not a measurement of his body. It is a piece of cultic furniture, which is a different argument altogether.
And reducing the numbers does not reduce the claim. The giant clans are still described as having a supernatural origin, and that belongs to the text whatever the cubits say.
Scripture links:
- 1 Samuel 17:4 - Goliath's height, with a significant textual variant.
- Joshua 11:21-22 - Anakim remaining in Gaza, Gath and Ashdod.
Getting the measurements right is not debunking the story. It is taking it seriously enough to check.