² An evening paper recently aadvertised a series of articles under the title of (one might have expected it) ‘The Bible is True’. It promised to devote one of its contributions exclusively to showing that Goliath was a giant; new discoveries had made it possible to tell within half an inch how tall he was. It is difficult to conceive what such discoveries might be, but even the discovery of a document describing the colour of his boost could not hide the fact that Goliath is a very secondary detail inside one account of David's rise to fame, and that there is a second account which does not even mention him. There is even a third record at the end of David's story which puts down Goliath's death to one of David's generals. The biblical author could hardly have made it clearer that the reader must make his own judgment about the Goliath story (and if necessary about his height).