Goliath: the Giant of Palestine

Book excerpt: Uglier than Hugo's Hunchback; more terrifying then Shelly's Frankenstein and yet more affable then Steinbeck's Lenny Small is Goliath: the Giant of Palestine. Not the renowned Old Testament villain but a child unwittingly manipulated into the rogue Goliath. While stopping short of suggesting another slinger on a grassy knoll is an intriguing skeptical dissecting of I Samuel's telling of history's most famous one-on-one battle. How and why the ancestors of present day Palestinians and Israelis came to struggle for the same land sheds new light on the argument of "Just whose land is it anyway?" Goliath, a seven-year-old boy trapped in the body of a fierce giant, endures many fantastic adventures at the hands of history's greatest mariners, the Phoenician and ushered throughout the Mediterranean as pirate and circus attraction. The storyline returns to his homeland where his people continually clash with the Tribes of Israel. Initial terrorism, conspiracy, assassination and all-out war of this first Middle East conflict are accurately depicted and fueled by current headlines. Presented also is a tender love story of the granddaughter of the eminent biblical Ruth and a displaced Philistine. After all the necessary covenants are fulfilled a marriage takes place. Ten years of research based on historical evidence, biblical events and well-worn theories depicts the cultural, religious and technological differences of the two peoples.