Most everyone knows the name, Goliath, who faced off against David and lost his head. According to 1 Samuel 17:4 the arrogant Philistine from Gath stood “six cubits and a span” before receiving his mortal blow from David’s slingstone. Translated from cubits into feet and using the conventional measurement of eighteen inches for a cubit, Goliath towered 9 feet, 9 inches tall.

Then there’s King Og of Bashan in Deuteronomy 3:11 who is presented as the last surviving descendant of the Rephaim, a race of giants as suggested by the purposeful mention of the length of Og’s iron bed frame, thirteen feet long. Other giants mentioned in the Bible include a slain Egyptian over seven feet tall (1 Chronicles 11:23) and a second man from Gath “of great stature … born to the giant,” described as having twelve fingers and twelve toes (2 Sam. 21:20; 1 Chron. 20:6).

Given that the average height of men living in the second millennium B.C. has been estimated at around 5 feet, 4 inches, then the aforementioned men were enormous by comparison. The existence of very tall men today demonstrates that it is not biologically impossible for there to have been ancient races of unusually tall men who can be reasonably labeled as giants, and adding in the possibility of changing climatic conditions over the last several millennia, it hardly seems fair or even scientific to dismiss outright the Bible’s description of giant men.

-Daniel McCabe

Trivia

Life in the Land: Home Front Command App

My good friend Dani lives with his family in Tzur Hadassa just west of Bethlehem, and thankfully no Iranian or Hezbollah rockets have landed near his home, but that didn’t stop the alarms from coming. I know that for a fact because at the start of the war I downloaded an app to my phone, created by Israel’s Home Front Command, which notifies Israeli citizens of any incoming threats, and I set my “Area of Interest” to Dani’s hometown. The alerts started immediately and came by the dozens. I have the luxury of turning off the jarring audio alarms so that I won’t be awakened from sleep, but Dani doesn’t safely have that option.

My first alarm message read, “In the next few minutes, alerts are expected in your area. You need to find a better location that will provide the best protection in your area, Tzur Hadassa. If an alert is received, enter the protected space and stay there until further notice.” The Home Front Command can’t possibly know initially if the incoming rocket will be intercepted or exactly where it will land, so they routinely err on the side of caution, sending out the alert to wide areas. However, here’s one that I received which made my heart jump a bit more, “Rocket and missile fire, Tzur Hadassa. Time of arrival to the protected room – one and a half minutes. Enter the Protected Space.”

Every home constructed in Israel since 1992 is required to have a “Protected Space,” called a mamad, which offers some protection from the danger, of course, but which can’t safely survive a direct hit as we sadly learned on the first day of March when an Iranian ballistic missile struck a public shelter in Beth Shemesh, approximately six miles from Dani’s home, killing at least two people inside. Seven others, who didn’t make it to their shelter were killed from the blast.

Even after an incoming threat has been neutralized by Israel’s Iron Dome, residents are required to stay inside their protected spaces for at least another ten minutes over concerns of falling debris. Finally, when the immediate danger has passed, they will receive a message like this one, “The event has ended, Tzur Hadassa. You can leave the protected space. It is required to adhere to the Home Front Command guidelines.”

Can you imagine living under such a threat. What if you had small children? What if you were taking care of a sick or elderly family member with limited mobility and you had just 90 seconds to get from your older home (with no mamad) to the public shelter a block away? For the Israelis it has become a normal part of life, but never an easy one!

-Daniel McCabe

Christology—the Offices of Jesus, part 7

Jesus fulfilled some very important, well-known offices or roles throughout biblical time. For example, Jesus is the Messiah of Israel, the Anointed One, who did the special work of securing our salvation. He’s the great Son of God and Prophet of God, the source of all prophecy in some way. We see this in John 1:1 and Hebrews 1:1-2. He knows and reveals God to mankind and was anointed with the Holy Spirit to prophesy. He fulfilled the role of Messiah, having revealed God the Father to all of us. He also fulfills the role of priest, the great High Priest, offering sacrifice to God and representing all those who believe in Him. He even prays and intercedes for believers continually. We see this in Romans 8:34 and 1 Timothy 2:5. What a wonderful comfort that Jesus intercedes for us and blesses us! So, He’s Messiah. He’s a prophet, and He’s a priest.

Some priests in the Old Testament were prophets. Nobody was a prophet, priest, and king. Some kings were prophets. No kings were priests. Jesus alone was prophet, priest and king. It’s amazing! He’s the King of the Jews, according to Matthew 2, Acts 17 and a billion other Bible verses to which we can refer. He offered His Kingdom to Israel when He came in His humiliated state as the Messiah. It was a genuine offer of the Kingdom. Of course, now we understand that in God’s plan it was not going to be accepted, but it wasn’t a pretend or fake offer either. It was a genuine offer, but it was rejected. Being the King of Israel, He’s also King over the entire world. We know that Israel will one day receive their promised glorious Kingdom, but as God, He is also King over the entire world. He sits on the throne of God right now, reigning over the entire universe, but one day He will return to sit on the throne of David, inaugurating His earthly Kingdom in Jerusalem.

There’s something fascinating to me about this! Let me briefly walk you through it. In Jeremiah 22:28-30, there’s a prophecy against King Jeconiah, given not long before Babylon comes to take the Kingdom of Judah from him. Jeconiah was not a good king, nevertheless, he is in the line of good King David—in fact, Jeconiah is the last in the line of David before the Babylonian captivity—and one would naturally expect any future kings to descend directly from that line through Jeconiah. But Jeremiah 22 tells us that God cursed Jeconiah, stating unequivocally that none of his descendants would ever sit on the throne. This is rather interesting, for who is prophesied to come from that line? Jesus, of course, who will come one day to inaugurate His Kingdom on earth, ruling and reigning from Jerusalem, yet Jeconiah and his descendants were cursed, so how can this be?

Well, have you ever wondered why there are two different genealogies of Jesus, one in Matthew 1 and one in Luke 3? The first traces Jesus through Solomon, the son of David, and the second traces Jesus through Nathan, another son of David. That’s interesting! The genealogy in Matthew 1 traces Jesus through Joseph, Mary’s husband, and Luke 3 traces Jesus’ lineage through Mary, His physical mother. Both Joseph and Mary descended from David. Both were from the tribe of Judah, but even this was necessary in God’s plan. I’ve written before that it was necessary for Jesus to be both God and man, but His dual lineage was also necessary for His kingship. Let me explain.

Jesus received His legal kingship through Joseph from Solomon, David’s son, who was the continuation of the Davidic Covenant, which promised that David would always have a son on the throne, even ultimately into the Kingdom forever and ever. David’s son, Jesus, will sit on that throne. So Jesus received His legal right of kingship through the Solomonic line that ran through His dad, Joseph, His legal earthly father. Jesus also received His physical, genetic descendancy from David through Mary, which avoids the curse of Jeconiah altogether and gives Jesus the ability to rule and reign sufficiently, for Jesus did not descend physically from Jeconiah. He descended physically from David through Mary. But He did descend through Jeconiah in the legal line of kingship through Joseph.

It stands to reason then that Jesus would have found an occasion during His earthly ministry to present this fact, particularly during His interactions with those who questioned Him. The Gospels can only record so much of what Jesus said, but it certainly seems reasonable to think that when His opponents would sling mud at Him that Jesus found just the right moment to say, “I am the rightful King. I have the legal right to rule and reign as King through Jeconiah, and since I didn’t descend physically from him, I have avoided the curse. Yet I’m still physically descended from David through my mother Mary.”

God sees to every detail when making all of His plans, which emphasizes how thorough and just He is. He works everything together so wonderfully!

-Adam Keim

Archaeology—the John Rylands p52 Papyrus

Similar to thick paper, papyrus is an ancient writing material made from the pith of the papyrus plant. For thousands of years separate pieces of papyrus were sewn together side by side and rolled into a scroll, or sometimes the pieces of papyrus were bound together to form the pages of a codex, similar to our modern books. No bigger in size than a credit card, Papyrus p52 is a small fragment of a page from a very old codex, and evidently it is the only surviving piece of the entire codex.

Papyrus p52 is unique to say the least, for it is the oldest surviving copy of any portion of the New Testament. First discovered on the Egyptian market by a well-known Egyptologist in 1920, it measures only 2½ by 3½ inches at its widest, and it contains seven lines of Greek writing on both its sides from the Gospel of John 18:31-33 and vs. 37-38, respectively. By studying the size of the letters as well as their spacing and assuming that this papyrus was once part of a complete copy of the Gospel of John, it can be determined that the book would have been approximately 8 inches tall, 8 inches wide, and 130 pages in length.

But how old is it? The very first scholar to examine the writing style of p52 proposed a date of 100-150 A.D. There are a few scholars who propose a date of 90 A.D. or even earlier, and others propose a date to the late second century or early third century, but consensus seems to have settled on 125-150 A.D. In any event this papyrus is exceedingly old, and given that the Apostle John is thought to have written his gospel as late as 90-95 A.D., then researchers have a copy of the New Testament in their possession that dates to within as little as five years from the time of its writing. Take that in for a moment! That’s stunning, and the papyrus shows remarkable agreement with later copies of the book of John, proving yet again how God has preserved the writing of his Word.

-Daniel McCabe

Answer to the Trivia

C. They are removed semi-annually and buried on the Mount of Olives