Biblegems #119
Question:
According to 2 Samuel 21:19, Elhanan killed Goliath, yet 1 Chronicles 20:5
states that Elhanan killed the brother of Goliath. Who is Elhanan, how does
this relate to David and Goliath, and how is this apparent discrepancy
explained?
All right folks,
buckle up your Bible Gems seatbelts—this one gets a little technical—but its
well worth the ride!
The solution to the
problem lies in the translation of the various Hebrew and Greek (LXX) texts
available. It is important to remember that when translators talk about the
“original text,” they are not referring to one single document that everyone
agrees on as being the original. Instead, they are referring to the original
language used in the most ancient and authoritative copies of the original
document.
The fact is, truly
“original” documents from Moses, David, Paul, etc., are called “autographs,”
and none of them are in existence (so far as we know) today. What we do have
are hundreds, sometimes thousands of copies, and copies of copies made by
professional scribes, in varying degrees of completeness and condition. Some of
these copies are very ancient, some are much more recent (archeologically
speaking). All of this can lead to difficulty in accurately translating what
the passage actually says, and therefore in translating what was in the
original autograph.
The role of the
Jewish scribe was to act as kind of a human copy machine, duplicating the
Scriptures from one document to a new document so there would always be fresh
copies for future generations. Scribes would occasionally make mistakes, and
sometimes those mistakes were not caught in the proofreading process and would
end up in the new edition of the Scriptures. Such is the case with 2 Samuel
20:19. Accounting for scribal error, a more accurate translation of 2 Samuel
20:19 would be:
“the Bethlehemite [killed] Lahmi the brother of
Goliath.”
Today, Bible scholars
have the advantage of comparing these ancient texts, finding scribal errors,
and determining which reading is closest to the original autograph. Part of
determining the accuracy of a copied text also includes comparing that text
with similar passages in Scripture. For instance, we already know without
dispute that David the son of Jesse from Bethlehem killed the giant Goliath
(1 Sam 16:1, 18; 17:58; 1 Sam
17:51, 57; 18:6; 19:5; 21:9).
We also have this parallel
account concerning Elhanan:
1 Chr. 20:5 In another battle with the
Philistines, Elhanan son of Jair killed Lahmi the brother of Goliath the
Gittite, who had a spear with a shaft like a weaver’s rod.
The Word of God is perfect and without
error in the original manuscripts. The translation process, however, from
ancient times until now, is a human endeavor and subject to error. Fortunately,
those errors are miniscule and do not affect doctrine and the Truth of God’s
Word. And where there are human errors, God in His grace gives us the tools and
talented people to uncover those mistakes and provide correction. So, between
the testimony of Scripture and the use of translation skills and resources not
available to earlier generations, we are increasingly able to unravel the confusion that
arises from a simple human mistake, and God still gets the glory!
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