[ExI] david statue coincidence

[Keith Henson]

 On Sun, Aug 21, 2016 at 8:37 AM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

snip

> Second idea:  Consider what David was about to do in that sculpture.  Faced
> with this enormous adversary (Goliath)

The sling was a widely used military weapon over much of the ancient world.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sling_%28weapon%29

The talk page is as interesting as the article.  The world record
distance, 437 m requires a launch speed of over 70 m/s.

I suspect that I am the only one on this list who learned how to use a
sling and thus has some idea of the real miracle of David killing
Goliath.  From the talk page, "Julius Ceasar tells of a badly wounded
centurion hit in the face . . ."

They are _hard_ to aim.  The timing for letting the knot slip between
fingers and thumb is in the ms/sub ms range.  At the release point the
projectile is moving fast in a fairly small circle.  They take a great
deal of skill to hit anything, it takes starting young and long
practice.  They are the classical weapon of shepherds; a predator will
abandon sneaking up on sheep when a rock smashes into the ground near
him even if he is not hit.  Idle shepherds have a lot of time to learn
to use them.  There is still a lot of luck involved in hitting a small
target with a sling.

Keith

PS Philistine news.

http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/archaeology/1.729879