Did Giants Ever Exist?

Are giants real? Depends on how you look at it...

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[lilykep]

I mean when the average height of a population is 5 foot, I imagine seeing a bunch of people with an average height of 6-7 foot plus they'd 100% look like Giants.

[jennycraigadventures]

Fun fact: If you watch all of the videos from all of Simon’s YouTube channels on a 55” OLED screen, it’s pretty much like he’s moved in with you and never shuts up. 😁

[mickaleneduczech]

A note on Goliath. In the earliest versions of the story that have been found, he was 6 1/2 feet tall. At a time when the Israelites were probably 4-5 feet tall, he'd have been huge. Only in later versions did he become 9 1/2 feet tall.

And a sling can easily kill a person with a head shot. In the hands of someone who knows what they're doing, they're lethal.

[Kroggnagch]

Dude, you could ABSOLUTELY kill someone with a sling. Not a wristrocket, while fun and dangerous, a true sling with the proper ammo could be devastating to an opponent that just stood there. I think someone back then carrying a sling, likely knew how to use it, and use it well.

[dustinshadle]

I worked with a guy who was 7ft 3 inches tall. I'm 6ft even. He still made me feel small. Unfortunately, he fell ill with classic problems for tall people like him. Ironically, I'm from Fort Dodge Iowa. That's where the gypsum that the Cardiff Giant came from.

[video_enjoyer]

I'd love to see y'all make a video about the "Paul is dead" joke/urban legend/whatever (about how the Beatles' bassist secretly died and was replaced with a lookalike). I was fascinated with it when I was young and I think Simon and the team would have a lot of fun exploring it. Big fan of the show, keep up the great work!

[jonathantillian]

I think Red Dwarf has the proper answer to, "did aliens make the pyramids."

RIMMER: No, Lister, I mean like the pyramids. How did they move such massive pieces of stone without the aid of modern technology?
LISTER: They had massive whips, Rimmer. Massive, massive whips.

[liamwinter]

Amerigo Vespucci documented an encounter with a tribe that had exceptionally tall members and that the chief of one of the tribes along with his son were the tallest men he'd ever encountered. The estimated height was just over 8'

[canadianatheist]

I have a coworker who is definitely close to 7 feet tall, his wife is also taller than myself at 6 feet. From what I've learned they are from at region in Africa where persistence hunting (chasing animals until they pass out) was still used until modern times

[Xeno]

"Is that backstory canon?" Made me chuckle for much longer than I should have been

[MrSpartanicus]

“Andre the giant” spent his life in pain because of his size. Being tall is great, being a giant though just sounds horrible

[purpleprose]

Sometimes, I listen to Simon say "People don't really believe this do they?" about the Bible and all I can think is "Yes, I'm sorry, but yes." I grew up Southern Baptist and eventually out of it, but the largest evangelical denomination in America has a ton of people who believe that the Bible is the literal word of God.

[yensid]

At a time when the average height of women was 5'2" & men was 5'6" anyone over 6ft tall would seem huge. Add into that exaggerating how fierce/big/savage your enemies were made vanquishing them all the more heroic in retelling.

[nightleopard]

Here's a funny thing. I have a master's in biological anthropology and we have scientific articles about giants. There were several sets of human skeletal remains found in North America, several in Ohio near Zanesville that measured around 9 to 10 feet tall. My father's childhood friend is the historian that runs and maintains the Zanesville Historical Society where they have verified papers signed by the Smithsonian Institution where they transferred these giant remains to the Smithsonian. And yes, the papers label how big the remains were.
The man in charge of the Smithsonian at the time (Charles Walcott I think) mysteriously misplaced these remains. Which sounds convenient but guess what else that same man did...falsified and destroyed any Smithsonian records that suggested that humanity originated in Africa.
Not saying giants were real, but the "expert" in charge of collecting and preserving archaeological artifacts and remains for the Smithsonian bought up every set he could find and then they systematically vanished only for the same man several decades later to be exposed for destroying human remains and the remains of our ancestors to fit his Eurocentric viewpoint.

[kjs]

The average height at the time of David and Goliath was 5ft, meaning that a cubit was much smaller than the modern cubit.
Goliath gets a fair bit shorter when you adjust for the smaller cubit.
Also, the dead sea scrolls give his height as 4 cubits and a span, not 6 cubits and a span, which is MUCH shorter

[markeddy]

I havn't seen this pointed out yet, but the oldest versions of I Samuel (Dead Sea Scrolls) and the Septuagent put Goliath at *four* cubits and a span -- in other words, about 6' 9" or 2.1m. That's still a giant by ancient standards, but no where near impossible.

[paulbarnett]

A cubit is around 18 inches. It makes Goliath about 9 feet tall. Robert Wadlow in the Guinness Book of records is listed as 8 feet 11 inches. Goliath probably had gigantism.

[riaclerica]

Well Simon, I've a friend who did all the honors sciences in school and was raised...oh some kind of Protestant. I forget. Atheist now. I asked her about that, literally believing the bible, including Adam & Eve at church and science/evolution at school. She gave me a simple answer. "Cognitive dissonance."

[snarewizardgroulx]

Simon Should start a "Bible reaction channel"/"Decoding the Bible" where he reads and reacts to Bible stories... pretty simple concept but could be HILARIOUS

[alexandercorey]

My construction supervisor actually thinks the world is 6000 years old and constantly said the craziest stuff. He had 18 different Bibles in his car