Actually, the real Goliath is most likely a Nephilim. Nephilim were a cross breed of Angel and Man. Goliath's kind were so big that they made regular men seem like small grasshoppers in their sight.
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Nah, that evidence was stolen by Lucy when she planted all those false fossils.
Actually, the real Goliath was probably just a big dude who was a really good fighter and earned himself a rep. When history is passed on by old men sitting around a fire telling stories, it's not that hard to believe that a 6 foot tall elite fighter became a 12 foot tall giant berserker, after a few thousand years of retelling.
When Robert the Bruce was still alive, rumors about him included that he was 9 feet tall, could breathe fire, and could kill men with a glance.
According to Genesis, the Nephilim were the result of the sons of God - Jesus's brothers, I suppose - having sexual relations with the daughters of men. Nothing about angels there.
The oldest texts of the Bible say Goliath was "four cubits and a span" (6'9"), which was quite enormous, especially for a region and time when the average man would have been a few inches over five feet. Goliath would have been <i>almost a foot and a half taller than average</i>. Apparently "six cubits and a span" was a copying error or a scribe's exaggeration.
Goliath was (not "is", he died about 3000 years ago) a Philistine, but the Bible says or at least implies he was of Anakim descent, who were a tribe of very very large men - so-called "giants". (I believe there's also a reference to a few of them being six-fingered; that kind of supports the idea they might have been a real, and genetically weird, human population.) Anakim are said to be descended from Nephilim.
No one really knows what Nephilim were, there are a billion theories, but whatever they were, if they were real, Goliath would have had a couple distant Nephilim ancestors, not been one himself.
@ NonHomogenized
Ever read Yankee Thunder ? It's a collection of such stories about the legendary Davy Crockett. Might as well believe in Pecos Bill and Paul Bunyan.
As an interesting point: the Hebrew phrase bnei elohim 'sons of God' applied to the fathers of the Nephilim is not really equivalent to the Greek phrase huios tou theou 'son of God' applied to Jesus. The Hebrew 'elohim' is a vague word that can mean -with a singular verb- 'God', or with a plural verb, 'powerful ones', 'heavenly beings', 'gods', etc. In the Bible it's applied to the judges of Israel, the gods of other cultures, the spirit of Samuel after his death, etc etc.
'bnei elohim' might be better translated 'sons of the powers/powerful ones'; it might well just be poetic for 'the heavenly beings' (i.e. "the sons of the 'elohim'" parallelling "the daughters of men", in which case it might just mean "male 'elohim'", whatever 'elohim' means here.)
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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