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2 Samuel 21 says Elhanan killed Goliath which conflicts with 1 Samuel 17 where David kills him. 1 Chronicles tries to resolve this by saying Elhanan killed Goliath’s brother, and the Greek Septuagint harmonizes them by removing details from 1 Samuel.
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2 Samuel 21:19
Hebrew Bible
18 Later there was another battle with the Philistines, this time in Gob. On that occasion Sibbekai the Hushathite killed Saph, who was one of the descendants of Rapha. 19 Yet another battle occurred with the Philistines in Gob. On that occasion Elhanan the son of Jair the Bethlehemite killed the brother of Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam. 20 Yet another battle occurred in Gath. On that occasion there was a large man who had six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot, twenty-four in all! He too was a descendant of Rapha.
Date: 6th Century B.C.E. (Final composition) (based on scholarly estimates)
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LXX 2 Samuel 21:19
Septuagint
18 And after this still another battle happened in Gob with the foreigners; there Sibbecai the Hushathite struck down Saph who was among the offspring of the Raphah. 19 And there was a battle in Gob with the foreigners and Elhanan son of Jaare-oregim the Bethlehemite struck down Goliath the Gittite and the wood of his spear was like a weaver’s beam. 20 And there was still another battle in Gath and there was a man of Madona and the fingers on his hand and the toes on his feet were six and six, twenty-four in total and indeed he was born from the Raphah.
Date: 1st Century B.C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... What is unusual about the LXX translation to 1 Samuel 17-18 is the way in which the text was reworked: unlike the Masoretic text, it was not harmonized by means of explanatory additions; instead, it was boldly and thoroughly abridged. Although such a reworking might appear highly irregular, an examination of its components makes it quite understandable. Drastic interventions for the sake of harmonization are extant in the Book of Chronicles. 1 Chronicles 20:5 relates that Elhanan son of Ya‘or killed “Lahmi the brother of Goliath the Gittite”, thereby removing the contradiction between our story and the passage in 2 Samuel 21:19, which attributes the victory over Goliath to Elhanan of Ya‘re the Bethlehemite. And one by one, 1 Chronicles 21 does away with the three contradictions found in the story of the pestilence in 2 Samuel 24. First it deals with the duration of the plague, then the way in which it was halted, and finally the reason why Araunah’s threshing floor was consecrated as a place of worship.10 chronicles also shows examples of drastic abridgement: it omits the entire reign of Ish-boshet (2 Samuel 1-4) and the scandals at David’s court (2 Samuel 9-20), all in order to enhance David’s image. What is new about the shorter version of 1 Samuel 17-18 is neither that it was harmonized nor that it was abridged, but that here, the two processes went hand in hand: the harmonization was achieved by means of a comprehensive abridgement. This sort of phenomenon should not be considered a completely unreasonable freak occurrence in scripture, and we may safely reach the conclusion that the mt is closer to the original, whereas the shorter LXX version consists of a later abridgement. From all indications, what was abridged was a Hebrew text which later became the vorlage of the Greek translator ..."
Rofé, Alexander
David Overcomes Goliath (1 Samuel 17): Genre, Text, Origin, and Message of the Story
(pp. 66-100) Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2015
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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