Was Goliath killed twice?

[tonychanyt]

David killed Goliath in 1 Samuel 17:

50 So David triumphed over the Philistine [Goliath] with a sling and a stone; without a sword in his hand he struck down the Philistine and killed him.

1 Samuel 21:

9a The priest replied, “The sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom you [David] killed in the Valley of Elah,

But then, Elhanan killed Goliath in 2 Samuel 21:

19 In another battle with the Philistines at Gob, Elhanan son of Jaare-Oregim the Bethlehemite killed Goliath the Gittite, who had a spear with a shaft like a weaver’s rod.

2 Samuel 21:19 made some scribal errors. The better text is in 1 Chronicles 20:

5 And there was war again with the Philistines; and Elhanan the son of Jair slew Lahmi, the brother of Goliath the Gittite, whose spear staff was like a weaver's beam.

Barnes explained:

The Hebrew text is manifestly very corrupt. First, for "Jaare-oregim," 1 Chronicles 20:5 gives us the reading Jair. "Oregim" has evidently got in by a transcriber's error from the line below, where "oregim" is the Hebrew for "weavers." Again, the word the "Bethlehemite" is very doubtful. It is supported by 2 Samuel 23:24, but it is not found in the far purer text of 1 Chronicles 20:5, but instead of it we find the name of the Philistine slain by Elhanan, "Lahmi the brother of Goliath the Gittite." It is probable, therefore, that either the words "the Bethlehemite," are a corruption of "Lahmi," or that the recurrence of "Lahmi," and the termination of "Beth-lehemite" has confused the transcriber, and led to the omission of one of the words in each text.

 

[okay]

Interesting post. I was just reading 2 Samuel 21 today and dove into the notes in The Jewish Study Bible (2nd ed) that I am using. They offer a few explanations:

One is along the lines of what you wrote, involving corruptions of the text in Samuel. Your source has much more explanation of this view, though.

A second is a rabbinic tradition that Elhanan and David are the same person.

A third is that the two accounts in Samuel reflect two different traditions, and the authors of Chronicles are trying to harmonize them. This is the one that the commentator seems to think is most likely.