14. “Giants” in the earth could be an enormous mistranslation that rewrites many of the Bible’s stories
The word giant appears a multitude of times in the King James Version of the bible, nearly always implying persons of enormous size, when the Hebrew word so translated does not refer to stature, but rather character. One example is in the book of Job, when that symbol of extraordinary patience laments, “He breaketh me with breach upon breach, he runneth upon me like a giant”. The English word giant is a mistranslation of the Hebrew word gibbor which more accurately translated means a mighty man or a mighty warrior. The word appears accurately translated in Genesis, an indication of the problems input into the King James bible by its manners of creation.
Not all of the committees which produced different books of the King James Bible were staffed with men of equal ability and knowledge of the ancient languages to which they referred. Often nuanced words of Hebrew, which had at one time become nearly extinct, were improperly translated, and when confronted with a Hebrew word of which the committee had insufficient knowledge the corresponding English word in the existing English translations was used. The technique meant that in some books the correct Hebrew meaning was achieved while in others an incorrect meaning prevailed, and still prevails. Newer translations which strive to be more reflective of the original Hebrew and Greek thus detract from the KJV, causing its celebrants to claim they are distorting God’s inerrant word.