In case you’ve never seen the Bible Unboxed channel on YouTube, it’s created by an up-and-coming Australian scholar named Lachlan who covers a variety of Bible-related topics much like I do. For his latest video, he graciously asked me to chat with him about David, Elhanan, Goliath and what it means when Bible stories contradict each other.
A longer version of our conversation without the flashy graphics can also be seen here. I think the highlight is around the 18 minute mark where we discuss weaver’s beams and why they’re important to the Legend of Elhanan.
For general background, see my earlier article on David and Goliath.
Is That in the Bible? 
A longer version of our conversation without the flashy graphics can also be seen here.
Was it intentional or coincidental that in discussing a story that has both a long version (MT) and short version (LXX), there is both an abridged and unabridged video version too? 😉 I infer from a comment in your 2014 article about D&G that you think that the LXX translators of 1 Samuel 16-18 were translating from a Hebrew manuscript that was “missing” the material in the MT which creates the doublets and inconsistencies, rather than that the translators excised those verses to remove inconsistencies. Is this still your view? In the article, you cite an article by Emanuel Tov in which he makes the case that this is what best accounts for the shorter LXX version: http://www.emanueltov.info/docs/papers/23.1%20Sam17.1999.pdf
(I’m reproducing the link for the benefit of anyone who didn’t see the article; it’s definitely worth reading.) In the video, Lachlan asked why the tradition that Elhanan was allowed to stay in Samuel even after his exploit was appropriated by the better-known David. Really, the fact that two separate versions of the *entire* David-and-Goliath story were allowed to stand, tensions and all, testifies to the mindset of the scribes regarding the handling of conflicting traditions when each was considered important.
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Yeah, it makes the most sense to me that the LXX translators were working from a Hebrew manuscript that didn’t have those missing portions. This appears to be the majority position, although there are a few scholars who think the LXX removed those portions.
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Here is an interesting article by Professor Jeremy M. Hutton, which proposes another explanation for the discrepancies between the MT and the LXX: the corruption-replacement hypothesis.
https://www.thetorah.com/article/why-is-david-and-goliaths-story-40-longer-in-the-mt-than-in-the-lxx
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I only read it quickly, but it doesn’t seem all that different. Professor Hutton seems to be proposing that there was an early LXX translation from the Hebrew that only had one version of the story just as the “Addition Hypothesis” says, and then there a later LXX translation from the MT with both versions, but it was damaged and repaired with a manuscript that only contained the first version.
It’s an interesting idea. I would still go looking for other potential explanations for the two details that he thinks challenge the standard Addition Hypothesis.
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It’s interesting how textual versions of Biblical books can tell us a lot about the development of the text itself and how they were ordered. For example Kipp Davis in his series discussing the DSSs gives out this little known fact about the famous Great Isaiah Scroll (link here: https://youtu.be/qH-9byDf7p8?t=1032).
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Good point! I should write more about that sometime. (I fixed your comment, by the way.)
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Paul you are one good-looking smooth-talking cat.
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You must have me and Lachlan confused. 🙂
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