Goliath

David and Goliath, on the Sistine Chapel ceiling, by Michelangelo. Source: WikiMedia Commons

How to use a rock sling. Source: Art of Manliness

If I'm being honest with you, dear reader, I arrived at the Convention of the Vertically Gifted woefully unprepared. I had no prior experience with giants (to be quite frank I grew up not believing they existed), and as such had no idea what to expect. Entering the Great Hall was intimidating to say the least. The seats of the chairs came up to my collarbone, and the tabletops sat well above my head.

Finding my table was a difficult enough task--try as I might, I could not get a good view of the name placards at each spot. Fortunately, a cyclops by the name of Polyphemus noticed my predicament and offered his help locating my seat (he had remarkably good sight for having just the one eye).

Having found my seat, I worried getting into it would be an equally strenuous venture, but as it turned out, the organizing committee had been quite thoughtful and provided me with a human-sized highchair (complete with a step-ladder to access it). Upon making it into my chair, I discovered that my tablemates were already seated. I was not made aware of who they would be beforehand as you have been in the introduction to this series, so I was quite shocked to see the all-star cast assembled before me.

After a round of introductions (including awkwardly explaining what a regular human was doing at a giant convention only to find that my new friends had been made aware of the situation and were just leading me on) I mustered up the courage to ask if they would like to go around the table and share their stories, for the record, before the opening ceremonies began.

Surprisingly enough, the giants were quite happy to oblige. Goliath immediately took the reins, declaring, "Well, seeing as I'm the oldest, I suppose I should go first!"

Antaeus did not take kindly to this, snapping back, "Just because they wrote you down first doesn't mean you're older!" but conceded the first speaker position nonetheless.

"You'll have to forgive me if I get a little heated," Goliath started. "I mean, I'll try my best to be composed, but the events of this story kinda sucked for me, y'know?" The other giants at the table nodded in understanding.

"Gosh, where to start? I guess you already know the context. Israelites and Philistines were sitting around waiting to duke it out over who knows what. Anyway, we're camped up a little ways from each other and we're looking pretty even so no one wants to make the first move...you just know, whoever wins, a lotta people are gonna get hurt...so I go to the king and ask if I can go out there and challenge them. They send out a guy to meet me. Mano a mano, winner takes all, nobody (well, just about nobody) needs to get killed. He agrees, so out I go." Saying this, Goliath lets out a heavy sigh, preparing himself for the next part of the story.

"So. I walk out onto the field between our camps and call out the challenge, loud and clear. No response. I sit around all day waiting for them to send someone, and I'm about to pack it in when out comes this little shepherd's kid. And I'm talkin' a kid, couldn't've been more than sixteen, seventeen at the time, not even carrying a sword. And then, get this, HE starts insulting ME."

"Well, given how it ended..." Antaeus mumbled in my general direction. Goliath didn't seem to hear.

"...At this point I'm just pissed, and the sun in my eyes isn't helping, so I think, 'what the hell, let's get this over with,' and I start walking towards him. I see him fiddling with something in his pocket, he raises his arm up, and next thing I know, I'm in a tent and everyone's telling me I lost! Turns out the kid, David was his name, brought a sling, and not no rinky-dink slingshot either, a sling. Nailed me right between the eyes with it. Now that don't seem too fair to me, but it's more my fault for not laying out any ground rules so I wasn't gonna protest for a rematch...plus, he turned out to be a pretty nice guy. I guess they made him king or something on account of they were mad at the old one for not fighting me himself, and he actually ended up footing my medical bill 'cause he felt bad about the whole thing."

I couldn't help but note, "Wow, you don't read that in the books!"

Goliath was right on it, "No, you don't! Y'know, me and David actually became pretty good friends. Then, a couple centuries later, they put it down in writing, and not only do they omit that part, they say that he killed me! That's right, killed me! Chopped my head clean off. They even threw in some extra jabs between us that were much worse than anything that was actually said just to add insult to injury." Goliath pressed a palm to his face, shaking his head in disbelief, and sighed again. "Well, that's me, chief. I probably shouldn't hog all the talkin' time. If you want to go now," Goliath said, looking at Antaeus, "it's all you, Old Man."

Story Source: The Orthodox Study Bible - 1 Kingdoms (1 Samuel) 17

Author's Note: For my first story, I knew I needed to do a bit of exposition and setting of the scene as it were. The introduction lays out how these stories are going to be told, but it is from the point of view of the editor, not the journalist who will be narrating these stories, so I figured I should take the time to let the readers a) get used to the new narrator, and b) situate themselves in the space where these stories are being told (the convention hall). For this reason, I chose the simplest story which I figured the greatest percentage of readers would know already: David and Goliath.

David and Goliath is a story so classic, the idea of something being a "David and Goliath" situation has become an idiom with its own life outside of its origin in Abrahamic religion. Everyone loves an underdog tale, big vs small, and David and Goliath is one of the first ones. Ever since hearing an NPR segment about the efficacy of slings, however, I've always kinda questioned "is it really though?" I mean, David basically brought the ancient equivalent of a gun to a knife fight, so did it really matter how small he was? Goliath never even got the chance to put his hands on him. Plus, it was war, so although he was the bad guy of the story, it's not like Goliath was necessarily a bad guy. That's where this retelling comes in, how did Goliath see the fight?

P.S. for those who don't know, Polyphemus is the name of Odysseus's Cyclops foe

Image Credit: David verslaat Goliath, 1791, by Jacob Folkema. Rijks Museum