Science & Scripture · Biology

One man was a full foot taller than every single other person in his entire nation.

Biology 59 passages in this field

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The cited passage

What current science says

Height follows a bell curve in any population. Even in a small nation of 50,000–100,000 people, you'd expect a range of heights with many people clustered near the tallest. Being a full foot taller than every other person in a nation would make you a statistical impossibility — like a 7'6" person in a country where nobody else breaks 6'6". Even the tallest people in recorded history (like Robert Wadlow at 8'11") had contemporaries within inches of their height in much larger populations.

What the text says

This comes from 1 Samuel 9:2. It describes the first king of Israel as standing head and shoulders above everyone in the country — literally taller than every single person in the nation.

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