Certainly his brothers thought he was a "cocky little git."  Consider, he comes out to the camp with some food for his brothers, and hears Goliath ranting down in the valley, asks what is going on, and is incensed that the army of Israel is too chicken to answer the challenge!  He says, "Who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living God?" -- and his eldest brother basically says, "Shut up and go tend the sheep, youngster!" and David replies, "What did I say? What did I say?"

David was not well liked by his brothers, I think.  Some months previously the prophet Samuel had come to his home, looking for the man who would be King over Israel after Saul.  Samuel had looked at all of Jesse's sons, and God said to him "Not this one."  Finally Samuel asked Jesse if he had any more sons, and Jesse said, "Well, my youngest is out tending the sheep."  When David was brought in from the field, Samuel anointed him with oil.  This anointing was an honor in their culture, and it probably rankled his brothers that David received this honor and they did not (in their culture, the oldest brother was normally held in the highest esteem, the youngest in lightest esteem).  So it is not surprising that his eldest brother snarled at him when he came out to where the army was camped.

I think, though, that what his brothers took as a cocky attitude, was really an attitude of faith that he would prevail.  God had brought his people through many trials, and He would bring them through this one.  They just needed someone to stand up and act on his faith in God.  Since no one else was doing that, David decided that he would.

LoboHunter, I also typically carry five stones around with me these days.  But unlike David, I would need all five in order to hit something!  Oh, well, David had probably been slinging for seven or eight times as long as I have been.

I am not sure whence came the idea that the stones were flat.  All the translations I have looked at, read "five smooth stones from the brook."  That would be nice, rounded rocks.

it has nothing to do with haste - if he'd been tending the sheep - a prime part of the job being to fend off predators - he'd be permanently armed for bear & wolf at all times.

If you're looking at this story as being true then you also have to factor in everyday life at the period in question. And who wrote down exactly what words were said ?
Nobody at the time - so any conversations are total hearsay :-)

I personally believe just about every story in the old testament is simply that - a story. Some may have historical basis. But you have to bear in mind that none of them were documented at the time - certainly not down to the level of individual conversations.
Everything in the bible was written much later by people who were not present at the events in question.
In some cases centuries later. So that which isn't made up is only loosely based on any kind of historical accuracy.

:-)
Whether the existence of a god [i](and depending on your faith there are hundreds and hundreds of individual dieties - I see no reason to distuinguish between the validity of the hindu pantheon and the islamic/judean god (same dude) )[/i] or not is irrelevant - the testaments were writen by people with human agendas.
And have been rewritten several thousand times by other humans with their own agendas.

Even if the first biblical historian was inspired by a god (a god not THE god) all the other copiers, translators and manuscript reproducers over the years were under nothing but human motivations.

My original statement still stands :-)

Fellow Slingers,

Let's keep in mind that we are united by a common interest in slinging and allow for the fact that we may have widely divergent views on just about everything else.

I personally think that the story of David and Goliath is essentially true, especially given that there is nothing fantastic about it. What is there to disbelieve? A very competent slinger kills a man in battle; nothing miraculous about that. The only thing I find surprising is that none of the military types on both sides seemed to be aware of the sling's potential, which is the very reason why David had such an easy victory.

Check out the article in the "History" section by Ludwik Siedlecki and post your comments.


Aussieslinger

I think that there is every possibly the story happened. However, as has been pointed out, all stories can be slanted.
  The big thing is that I think that the size of Goliath is wrong. 9 cubits and a span. A cubit is the length of your forearm, now regarded as 13 inches. A span is a handspan, 4 to 5 inches. That would mean that Goliath would have been at least 10 feet tall.
  Even Robert Wadlow Evans, the tallest man that ever lived, wasnt that tall. Plus, at that height, so many physical problems occur that the chances of Goliath actually fighting are slim. He may have been good for psychological effect, though.

We should also remember that the cubit was defined using a living man as the standard of measure: it was the length of the King's forearm from tip of middle finger to elbow.  A cubit was not a precisely-defined length, especially over a period of time.  In general, if people were shorter, then the cubit also was shorter.  Thus it were actually more precise to say that Goliath was half again as tall as a normal man, than to assert that he was 9 ³/₄ feet tall.

I can't help but thinking that Goliath, if he had any brains and experience at all, must have known he was in trouble as soon as he saw the type of warrior he faced... light, extremely mobile and in possession of a long range weapon David could run circles around Goliath until he took him down.  Korfmann seemed to have the same opinions in his 1973 Scientific American article The Sling As A Weapon.  Scriptural truths are only made known, according to those scriptures, my studying them and asking God if they are true.  I for one believe it all happened pretty much as described.  Before I discovered the power and accuracy of the sling I'm not so sure it really seemed plausible to me but after demonstrating them to myself it all seemed like a no-brainer.

That's one cool video, Techstuf!