Was Goliath the underdog?

The writers.

A spaceship?

Don’t you people watch TV? Goliath was the underdog because Xena was there and she made the whole thing possible.

(of course later in the series she was Caesars lover, that girl really got around the timeline!)
:wink:

Having thrown many stones with a sling as a lad, I can tell you that it’s really hard to aim your throws in anything more than a general way. Rocks tend not to be prefectly round. When thrown from a sling, they catch wind and curve in unexpected ways. So the shot to the forehead was pretty lucky.

Given the unpredictability of stone trajectories, I’d still call David a heavy underdog.

While this is true, if you read the Biblical account two things are clear:

  1. David boasts to Saul about his previous expertise with the weapon (so we can assume he’s a real expert); and

  2. David carefully selects “five smooth stones” prior to the battle - presumably, the most round he can find, and was prepared for at least five shots …

::snort

Naw. :slight_smile: He had a boy shepard with a stone and a leather sling (+2 to hit giants, +4 moral bonus from the smell, him being a shepard and all). I’ll take the Duke with his 6 Guns of Limitless Ammo and his hat of Never Miss with a Hand Gun (+20 to hit in a vital spot regardless of the angle of the shot, no negative bonus regardless of the conditions its fired from, etc), along with his Tireless Horse That Can Run All Day.

-XT

Goliath couldn’t be the underdog. Goliath was a Great Dane! And he was almost as tall as Davey! So, he had to be the overdog.

Joseph Heller wrote a life of David - it was called ‘God Knows’

It adds little to the sling debate, apart from saying that for a bored shepherd with plenty of time to practise, zapping Goliath was like shelling peas.

But it is a good read - I strongly recomend it.

But only for those already on a Hell-bound train.

So Goliath, David and Rocky-Balboa-in-his-prime, all in a three way- who would have won?

How does one win a three…oh you meant a fight. Never mind.

Oh, I see, Heller’s last book, I did not ‘catch’ the amusing reference to that park.

It gets worse. Goliath was also slain by someone named Elhanan of Bethlehem, who in a different passage is supposed to have picked off Goliath’s brother Lahmi. (Neither Elhanan nor Lahmi get any other mentions than these.)

Flippin’ giant had more lives than a video game character with cheat codes! :stuck_out_tongue:

There may be a snippet of truth in CCTH’s post, see the wiki article again for health problems people with gigantism suffer. People taller than average aren’t necessarily stronger than average.

[Shatner]
What does god need with a spaceship?
[/Shatner]

[QUOTE=Pushkin]
There may be a snippet of truth in CCTH’s post, see the wiki article again for health problems people with gigantism suffer. People taller than average aren’t necessarily stronger than average.

Assuming a minor degree of accuracy, the Philistines would have considered Goliath a pretty mean piece of work.

  • well it kind of figures, you don’t stick up a loser as your ‘champion’

The guy was probably great in a melee, preferably in some sort of barroom brawl.

A pygmy with a curare tipped dart from a blow pipe could have had him.

I was going to mention this too. I saw on discovery channel ( I think it was ) that his giantism might have made him very vulnerable to a head bump.