@Kairos - I have to side with Harte on this one. Goliath was tall for his time, but certainly not beanstalk-worthy. Somewhere between 6'5" and 7" - depending on the cubit.
We arguing two different things. He is arguing about some actual guy the text is writing about. I am not. I am arguing about the context and religious tradition of the text, in which the people in Gazan had Nephilim blood in them. He was a giant because he really was partly inhuman in the context of the texts.
Could you share the text in question, please? Or provide a link? I'd like to see the connection between the people of Gath and the Nephilim.
In the beginning...
Genesis 6:4 (NIV)
The descendants of these children of Nephilim were the giants that show up later in the bible. When Moses sent the twelve spies into Canaan, the promised land (before the 40 years of wandering), they reported back of giants in the land:The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.
Numbers 13:33
There's another reference to them in 2 Samuel:We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.”
2 Samuel 21:20
Goliath, himself, was a Philistine. He was also known as the "Goliath of Gath". Gath was one of the five city-states of Philistine.In still another battle, which took place at Gath, there was a huge man with six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot—twenty-four in all. He also was descended from Rapha.
1 Samuel 17:23 (NIV)
Because we know that Goliath was from Gath (from 1 Samuel) and that the giants in Gath were descendants of the Nephilim (from 2 Samuel) it's pretty safe to assume he was one of those.As he was talking with them, Goliath, the Philistine champion from Gath, stepped out from his lines and shouted his usual defiance, and David heard it.
It's also safe to assume some possible genetic issues (due to the six fingers and toes).
Wikin Greek and Roman Mythology, the Giants, also called Gigantes (jye-GAHN-tees or gee-GAHN-tees; Greek: Γίγαντες, Gígantes, singular: Γίγας, Gígas), were a race of great strength and aggression, though not necessarily of great size, known for the Gigantomachy (Gigantomachia), their battle with the Olympian gods.[2] According to Hesiod, the Giants were the offspring of Gaia (Earth), born from the blood that fell when Uranus (Sky) was castrated by his Titan son Cronus.[3]