4
deleted material, most proponents of the MT accept that the Septuagint/4QSam
a
tradition
is earlier, but argue that this tradition reflects merely an unfinished stage in the literary
development of the text.
Of course, source critics have had a wonderful time trying to figure out how these
two different accounts developed. This is one of the few places in the OT where the
source critics actually have real manuscript evidence indicating literary development.
Unfortunately, the issues relating to the height of Goliath usually get buried in the larger
complicated discussion of literary development. The assumption is made--usually
without any evidence and often without any discussion--that the change in Goliath's
height occurred at the same time as the large literary changes in the rest of the chapter
occurred. Whoever added in the twenty plus verses that are in the MT must have
increased Goliath's height at the same time, perhaps to heighten the bravery and
miraculous victory of David. Or, on the other hand, if somebody deleted all these verses
to produce the shorter Septuagint reading, then he changed Goliath's height at the same
time to bring the story into the realm of the believable. Or so the argument goes.
Separate the Text Critical Problem from the Literary Problem
In my opinion, both of these approaches are wrong and are based on faulty,
unsubstantiated assumptions. The verses introducing Goliath and describing his height
are in both the long account (MT) and the short account (LXX and 4QSam
a
). There is no
evidence that the height change occurred at the same time that the expansion (or deletion)
took place. Thus there is no evidence linking the height of Goliath variation to the
literary development issue. Therefore, the variant readings for the height of Goliath