LittleNipper wrote:This is a very logical explanation: Pulpit Commentary
No, it's a presuppositional explanation that tries to rationalize away the demonstrable fact that the Bible contradicts itself.
LittleNipper wrote:Verse 19. - Elhanan the son of Jaare-oregim, a Beth-lehemite, slew Goliath the Gittite. The words "the brother of" are inserted by the Authorized Version in order to bring this place into verbal agreement with 1 Chronicles 20:5, where we read that "Elhanan the son of Jair slew Lahmi the brother of Goliath the Gittite."
And this text in Chronicles is corrupted. Y'see, in Hebrew, "the Bethlehemite" looks an awful lot like "Lahmi the brother of." Since the original text said that Elhanan slew Goliath, and since the editors of Chronicles already had another portion of Samuel in front of them that said David slew Goliath, they needed to figure out how to make the texts agree. They found out they could change "the Bethlehemite" to "Lahmi the brother of" without doing much damage at all to the text. This made it seem like they had fixed the problem, but "Lahmi," meaning "My Bread" is a nonsensical name that doesn't fit any ancient naming convention. It's also Semitic, which is not a name a Philistine would give to their children. Lastly, we know from other texts that Jair was a Bethlehemite, so the other text in Samuel is most definitely original. This text in Chronicles has been manipulated to agree with the David tradition. Originally, however, David was not the one who killed Goliath. Elhanan was.
LittleNipper wrote:The Jewish Targum had the same reading as that still found in the text, but regards Elhanan, "God is gracious," as another name for David, and, instead of Jair or Jaare, reads Jesse. Its translation is as follows: "And David the son of Jesse, the weaver of veils for the sanctuary, who was of Bethlehem, slew Goliath the Gittite."
And that's just a laughable attempt to take a demonstrable contradiction and make it not a contradiction.
LittleNipper wrote:Possibly the Authorized Version is right in concluding that the present text is a corruption of that in 1 Chronicles 20:5. For, first, the repetition of oregim, "weavers," is suspicious, the Hebrew being, not "weaver's beam," but the plural "weavers' beam," menor oregim. Next, Jaare is a transposition of the letters of Jair (in the Hebrew) made probably in order that the compound Jaare-oregim may obey the rules of Hebrew grammar. More important is it to notice that Lahmi is part of the word "Bethlehemite" (Hebrew, Beth-hallahmi), and might thus easily suggest to the eye of a scribe the completion of so well known a word. We must add that among the thirty Gibborim is "Elhanan the son of Dodo of Bethlehem." Whoever slew Goliath's brother would certainly attain to high rank among the heroes, but if the name Jair is right, the Elhanan there spoken of is not the person who slew Lahmi.
More presuppositional attempts to weasel out of having to admit that the biblical authors manipulated the texts because they too could just not accept that the Bible contradicted itself.
LittleNipper wrote:I believe that Goliath had a brother or brothers and that they were all big boys is the logical explanation. There was more than one giant and Goliath became the name meaning huge.
You can believe whatever makes you happy, but your belief is demonstrably wrong and illustrates just how much someone has to plug their ears and cover their eyes and shout "La, la, la! I can't hear you!" when the Bible clearly contradicts itself.