Yahoo news story

Quote:

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JERUSALEM - Archaeologists digging at the purported biblical home of Goliath have unearthed a shard of pottery bearing an inscription of the Philistine's name, a find they claimed lends historical credence to the Bible's tale of David's battle with the giant.
While the discovery is not definitive evidence of Goliath's existence, it does support the Bible's depiction of life at the time the battle was supposed to have occurred, said Dr. Aren Maeir, a professor at Bar-Ilan University and director of the excavation.

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"What this means is that at the time there were people there named Goliath," he said. "It shows us that David and Goliath's story reflects the cultural reality of the time." In the story, David slew Goliath with a slingshot.

Some scholars assert the story of David slaying the giant Goliath is a myth written down hundreds of years later. Maeir said finding the scraps lends historical credence to the biblical story.

The shard dates back to around 950 B.C., within 70 years of when biblical chronology asserts David squared off against Goliath, making it the oldest Philistine inscription ever found, the archaeologists said.

Scientists made the discovery at Tel es-Safi, a dig site in southern Israel thought to be to be the location of the Philistine city of Gath.

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The article is really stretching the value of the find - which is done by these archaeologists because that is how they get funding and visibility... but it is interesting all the same.

Just because I find a newspaper fragment containing the name "Paul", it does not mean that I have added much credibility to the idea that Paul Bunyan had an ox named Babe!

/Bevin

Thank you, Bevin, for this interesting tidbit! Appreciate that

As a former resident of Minnesota, I hope no one is going to bring into question whether or not Paul Bunyan was real Next they will be questioning

The meaning of the name Goliath is, "exile"