The Land of Giants

A champion named Goliath, who was from Gath, came out of the Philistine

camp. His height was six cubits and a span. 5 He had a bronze helmet on his head and wore a coat of scale armor of bronze weighing five thousand shekels; 6 on his legs he wore bronze greaves, and a bronze javelin was slung on his back. 7 His spear shaft was like a weavers rod, and its iron point weighed six hundred shekels. His shield bearer went ahead of him (1). The classic story of David and Goliath has intrigued many science minded people since Sunday school as children. Goliath is described as an intimidating warrior who stood six cubits and a span, which equates to 9.75 feet. Although this account was documented in the Old Testament book, 1st Samuel, Old Testament history has been archeologically documented as well. Years after David slays the giant he grows up to be King of Judah, found to be in 1010 BCE. David first became king of Judah, when he was 30. This would mean that David slayed Goliath approximately 15 years before, when he was somewhere around 15 years old (2). Although, there is not enough data to conclude what the average height of men was in 1000 BCE, one could reasonably assume that over nine feet is well above average for any human population. But even today, we have modern day giants for example: Robert Wadlow was recorded as the tallest person in history, confirmed by Guinness World Records, who stood at a height of 8 feet and 11 inches (3). He suffered from a

medical condition called gigantism. According to A.D.A.M. Medical Encyclopedia1, gigantism is abnormally large growth due to an excess of growth hormone during childhood, before the bone growth plates have closed. But Goliath is documented to be well over 8 feet tall. Could this have been an anomaly where Goliath was an exception? Goliath is not the only giant named in the bible, as there were several tribes who were described as giant people. Here are a few examples: "And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight." (Numbers 13:33) (1)The Emims dwelt therein in times past, a people great, and many, and tall, as the Anakims;
11

Which also were accounted

giants, as the Anakims; but the Moabites called them Emims. (Deuteronomy 2:10-11) (1), And the border went up by the valley of the son of Hinnom unto the south side of the Jebusite; the same is Jerusalem: and the border went up to the top of the mountain that lieth before the valley of Hinnom westward, which is at the end of the valley of the giants northward (Deuteronomy 15:8) (1). Many people use such ridiculous stories of giants in the Bible to discredit the word and not believe it could possibly be true. But is that a valid reason to discredit a story? Not necessarily. Through a few biological and evolutionary concepts, giants of all different species have been observed through history and experiments. One huge factor that makes all of these scientific evidences plausible is how humans were, and are socially structured. It is widely acknowledged that genetic drift can have significant effects on small populations (4). Until recent centuries the human population was significantly smaller than todays six to seven billion people, as it grows exponentially.
1

Medline Plus [Internet]. National Library of Medicine. [12/11/11 update] Available from: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/001174.htm

Along with that, humans have divided themselves up into smaller populations based on tribes, religion, ethnicity, or location. Within those small populations, many found it to be inappropriate for a member of one group to marry an individual from another group. That belief is still practiced in many religions today. For example Jewish people still follow the rule that no person should marry outside of the faith. Therefore with no outside copulating, the genes in that particular population have the potential to become magnified. There are two types of gigantism described in the following paragraphs: gigantism the medical condition caused by a genetic mutation and gigantism caused by the island effect. The word gigantism is rarely related to those who are merely tall or above average, whose heights appear to be the fit product of normal genetics and nutrition. Gigantism is typically caused by a brain tumor on the pituitary gland (7). In some instances the condition can be passed on genetically through a mutated gene. In the case of Goliath, he was the Philistines main weapon based on his size that could intimidate enemies. Based on this, the Philistines were not a large people, and Goliath was an exception to the population. Which one could conclude that Goliath was not from a population of large people that developed over time, but an abnormality most likely caused by a gene mutation. Another source of body size deviance comes from a principle called the island rule. It states that populations of species become smaller or bigger, over time, depending on the resources accessible in the ecosystem. This is the central idea of the study of island biogeography (6). This idea can be applied to gigantism. In a study by Olson he concluded: The island was colonized by large vertebrate predators that created selection

pressure for large size and rapid growth in the snails (8). The isolated gene pool of snails was a product of natural selection in that particular environment. To apply that same theory to Biblical stories, in Deuteronomy chapter two Gods people were led to a land of milk and honey which was plentiful. But giants also inhabited the land. One could connect the ideas that possibly the population of people in that land were the product of natural selection and grew in size because of the plentiful land and or other ecological contributions to select the bigger size. A combination of the two different definitions of gigantism could hypothetically be applied as well. If the a small population were isolated, physically or socially, and the gigantism gene was introduced into the gene pool, the trait has the potential to become amplified much like the side effects of inbreeding. In the past, humans have repeatedly cast out undesirables from their populations such has witches, handicapped, and even potentially victims of the gigantism mutation. It would be reasonable to think, that if a group of people who inherited the gigantism mutation were cast out of a population, and began copulating themselves, that the mutation could then become amplified, therefore creating a population of giants. I am not writing this to conclude that my connections of these evolutionary concepts and Biblical history are indeed fact, but instead opening the door of scientific reasoning to explain the Bible. Many people feel like science and the Bible are comparable to oil and water. But in fact, it is not the case at all. The idea of giants to people today is seen as a mythical being that never existed. Therefore, if there are giants in the Bible, it must be a myth as well, furthermore discrediting the whole entire book.

But in fact, science and Biblical beliefs can be mixed together to create a reasonable explanation for documented events.

Cited Literature
1. Biblica. 1973, 2011. Holy Bible. New International Version, NIV Biblica 2. Finkelstein, I., Asher,N., Silberman, B. 2006. David and Solomon: In Search of the Bible's Sacred Kings and the Roots of the Western Tradition. Simon & Schuster Ltd. 32 3. Glenday, C. 2012 Guinness World Records. Tallest Man Ever. 4. Hallatschek,O., Hersen,P., Ramanathan,S., Nelson, D.R. 2007. Genetic Drift at Expanding Frontiers Promotes Gene Segregation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 104. 19926-19930 5. Lomolino, M. V. 2005. Body size evolution in insular vertebrates: generality of the island rule. Journal of Biogeography. 32. 16831699. 6. Lomolino, M. V., Sax, D. F., Palombo, M. R. and van der Geer, A. A. 2012, Of mice and mammoths: evaluations of causal explanations for body size evolution in insular mammals. Journal of Biogeography. 39. 842854. 7. Moran, A., Asa, S.L., Kovacs, K., Horvath, E., Singer, W., Sagman, U. 1990. Gigantism Due to Pituitary Mammosomatotroph Hyperplasia New England Journal of Medicine 323. 322-327. 8. Olson, S., Hearty,P. 2010. Predation as the primary selective force in recurrent evolution of gigantism in Poecilozonites land snails in Quaternary Bermuda. Biology Letters 6 807-810