I Tested the Most Deadly Weapon in the Bible

[00:00:00]Watch what happens to this watermelon.

[00:00:04]Oh, you got it.

[00:00:07]How did a shepherd boy take down a giant? The Bible says that David defeated Goliath with a smooth stone.

[00:00:14]And he did it using a sling. So, to prove that this story isn't just made up, I've asked my friend Dash Rendar, who is a skilled expert in ancient weaponry.

[00:00:26][music] To help me, a complete beginner, sling a stone at a ballistic gel head. This is meant to replicate human flesh, muscle, and the actual skeleton. And we're going to test some other biblical weapons along the way.

[00:00:43]My goal is to land a fatal shot at this dummy just like David did to Goliath.

[00:00:50]But there's only one problem. I'm actually terrible at slinging. Aw. The first time I tried to sling was in Israel at the Valley of Ela, the same exact valley where David fought Goliath.

[00:01:03]So naturally, when our tour guide asked the group who wanted to try to sling a rock here, I immediately volunteered.

[00:01:09]But then this happened.

[00:01:11]>> Where is it? Where'd it go? Where is it?

[00:01:12]>> It's right there.

[00:01:17][laughter] >> All right. All right. Well, the good news is that it was only up to go from there.

[00:01:21]>> But what Dash doesn't know is that a couple days earlier, I started practicing on my own with tennis balls, but I couldn't even keep it in the sling. So, I tried switching slings, one that was a little more similar to the kind that David might have used. Oh, [laughter] >> David's sling most likely would have looked something like this. It was basically a thin rope with a leather pouch attached to the middle, which was where the stone was placed. As the sling spins, centrial force keeps the stone moving in a tight circle. When the timing is right, the slinger lets go of one cord, the pouch opens, and the stone flies straight toward the target. Sounds simple enough, but after about 50 tries, I couldn't even hit this giant wooden board once. Ah, how was I going to hit my Goliath dummy head? So, the tennis balls were pretty light, so I'm going to try rocks.

[00:02:16]>> Yeah, I'm sure it's just the tennis ball's [music] fault. But I was determined to hit at least something that day, no matter how long it took.

[00:02:27]O, look at the dent I put in this thing so far. All right, so you see I already put a couple dents in this wood, but I still haven't hit the target. So, let's go try again. [music] Now, I had only been practicing with the sling for about an hour at this point, but David would have trained with this weapon his whole life.

[00:02:46]It was common for shepherds in ancient times to use a sling to defend their flock from predators. Even today, in some parts of the Middle East, shepherd boys are trained to use a sling to protect their sheep. This is probably why when David volunteered to fight Goliath, he told the king of Israel that he had already struck down a bear and a lion. All that time in the shepherd's field alone with his sheep must have given him a ton of time to practice until he was ready for the giant, but I was still struggling pretty bad. So close. All right, so we've been out here for a couple of hours, and as you can see, I've not made a whole lot of progress. The reason I set out to do this was because of my son. This is my son, and this is a video of him with a tiny [music] sling pretending to defeat cartoon Goliath because it's his favorite story of all time. The truth is, I was the first to volunteer to try slinging in Israel because I wanted to show my 3-year-old son a video of his dad slinging a stone just like his favorite person in the Bible. And so that's the reason why I'm out here today is because I want my son to see that the Bible is accurate, the Bible is true, and that his dad can hit a simple target with a stone and a sling.

[00:03:59]>> And thankfully, after trying a few more 50 tries, this happened.

[00:04:11]Woo! We did it.

[00:04:16]>> [laughter] >> OH my gosh. Look at that.

[00:04:21]Yes. [music] Yes. Woo.

[00:04:27]That only took 3 hours. But the excitement of landing my first shot quickly faded when I reviewed the footage of my slinging with the pro slingers I saw online. Okay, you guys. I just reviewed the footage and realized that I was rotating the sling in the completely opposite direction. So, that just means I'm going to have to do a lot more practice if I'm going to actually do any damage to our Goliath dummy. Wish me luck. I really thought that all hope was lost, even though I had already promised my son a video of his dad defeating Goliath. When suddenly, I came across this guy on YouTube. He was slinging stones upwards of 100 mph [music] and accurate too, even breaking concrete. He even trained the actor who played David from the hit series House of David on Amazon Prime. So I sent him an email and to my surprise, he only lived 4 hours from me and was down to teach me how to sling like David. And so here we are today.

[00:05:30]>> This is called an executioner sword. So this was used No, no, straight up. This was used specifically. There's no actual tip on it.

[00:05:36]>> No way.

[00:05:37]>> So, it's actually used four executions meant literally just to chop off a head.

[00:05:41][snorts] >> That's the full sole function of it.

[00:05:43]>> Wow.

[00:05:44]>> I had like six bones stacked up and it went straight through like it was just >> like some fake fake bones.

[00:05:50]>> It's no real no.

[00:05:52]>> Yeah. Yeah. Cow bones.

[00:05:54]>> I am so happy to hear him say cowbones.

[00:05:57]We're going to test out some of these weapons later, but first I need to learn how to use a sling the right way. Not going to lie, I'm a bit nervous. We only have today for me to become an expert slinger like >> master. All right. Very good. Okay. So, what we're going to be using today, this is a baleric style. So, there's actually not a pouch or a [music] hammock in the back. It's just two splits right there.

[00:06:17]>> This Beric sling actually got its name from the Balieric Islands where [music] the most deadly slingers lived. Ancient sources say they trained from childhood.

[00:06:27]Their parents would even make them knock down their bread with a [music] sling before they could eat dinner. Balieric slingers carried three slings for three different distances, short, [music] medium, and long. These island warriors became so famous for their skill with a sling that the Roman Empire even hired them to help them fight in their military campaigns. Their job was to attack first before the opposing army could reach them with their swords. So, it makes sense that this would have been David's choice weapon up against someone he didn't stand a chance against in close combat. The sling was definitely not a kid's toy. It was a deadly device, and I was about to find out just how deadly it could be.

[00:07:11]>> All right, so we're going to start just with the actual release and how it works. So, the way you have is have it just down next to your side.

[00:07:17]>> Should I put a rock in there? No. No.

[00:07:19]Okay. Okay. No. No.

[00:07:20]>> We'll [clears throat and laughter] get there. We'll get there. Dash went over some of the fundamentals with me, like how to rotate the sling in the right direction this time. And to my surprise, after some practice, I actually started slinging some stones with what felt like a good amount of power.

[00:07:36]>> Oo, there. That was good.

[00:07:37]>> That one felt a little more powerful.

[00:07:38]>> Powerful. Had >> maybe not enough to defeat a giant, but [laughter] >> I'd be like, "Ow, the heck, man." And now that I have at least some power behind my swing, I need better accuracy if I'm going to destroy Goliath. So, we set up multiple clay pots. But even though I was slinging my rock faster, I couldn't quite hit the targets. Oh. So, while I try to hit these clay pots, Jonathan from the future is going to tell you about the sponsor of today's video, Incogn. Over the past few years, I've seen an exponential increase in the amount of spam calls that I've been getting. You might have noticed this, too. But the problem is actually way worse than just some annoying spam calls.

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[00:09:48]OH, DUDE, [laughter] that was sick.

[00:09:52]>> Okay, I'm honestly getting worried at this point. I can't even hit a clay pot from 7 ft away.

[00:09:58]>> All right, we got a watermelon here. See what kind of damage we can do to this guy. I think uh Goliath's head would have been about this size, maybe.

[00:10:06]>> Yeah, probably a little bigger.

[00:10:07]>> So, I even have a a smaller target than David had. And these watermelons are our last targets before I face Goliath. I asked Dash to try to hit the first watermelon because I wanted to watch his form and I thought it would look pretty cool in slow-mo.

[00:10:27]>> Oh, you got it. I wasn't wrong.

[00:10:30]But now it was my turn. Think >> you got this, man. Just repeatable, repeatable movements. You're there.

[00:10:35]>> All right. This is a stone right here.

[00:10:37]It's going through Goliath's watermelon head. [music] Oh, >> that was so close.

[00:10:44]>> That almost went through.

[00:10:45]>> So close.

[00:10:46]>> But eventually after a few more tries, >> this happened.

[00:10:57]>> Woo!

[00:10:58]>> Heck yeah, man.

[00:10:59]>> Well done, dude. Yes.

[00:11:01]>> Oh my gosh. Let's look at it. Look at the stone. Look at this stone.

[00:11:07]It literally went into the watermelon skull. Anybody want some watermelon?

[00:11:14][laughter] >> But even though I made contact with the watermelon, my speed was pretty low, which is why we didn't see any flying chunks like when Dash hit his. I was going to need a lot more speed for Goliath. But honestly, just the fact that I made contact at all with the target is making [music] me feel like I'm finally ready to face my giant. But right before I was about to face Goliath, some of our cameras overheated and shut down. All right, so it's pretty hot out here. We've [snorts] been out here for a couple hours trying to hit these targets. You guys, this is a lot harder than it looks. So, while most of our cameras cool down, Dash is going to show me four main weapons that were absolutely terrifying to the armies of the Bible. Starting with one of the most brutal weapons of all, the Copesh. These curved swords [music] were primarily used by the Egyptians and as you're about to see are super deadly. You can actually go to Egypt today and see the copesh all over the walls of their ancient temples. It's likely that the Egyptians were carrying these exact weapons when chasing Moses and the Israelites to the edge of the Red Sea in the Exodus. Imagine being surrounded by angry Egyptians, waving these human slicers around. No wonder they were afraid.

[00:12:31]>> And so this is a slashing, slicing weapon. It's gonna chop through just about anything. So, >> okay.

[00:12:37]>> All right.

[00:12:38]>> Up [music] and down.

[00:12:42]>> Oh. Oh, I got it.

[00:12:44]>> Yeah.

[00:12:47][laughter] >> Yeah. This thing works, man.

[00:12:50]>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:12:51]>> But now it was time for me to try out another ancient weapon I have absolutely no business using.

[00:12:57]>> Wa! Look at that thing. So you can launch big rocks. Ready?

[00:13:01]>> Yeah.

[00:13:04]>> Whoa. The staff sling is like the big brother of the sling and the little brother of the catapult. It was mainly used during biblical times to hurl larger stones over the fortified walls of ancient cities. Like when the Assyrians invaded King Hezekiah's kingdom, the Bible says that King Sinakarb of Assyria brought his army into the land of Judah and took the city of Lakesesh. Now, it's not certain that the Assyrians were using staff slings in this battle, but based on the time period, it's definitely possible.

[00:13:37]However, we do know that regular slings were used by the Assyrians to conquer the city of Lakesish. This is because the king of Assyria constructed massive wall reliefs depicting his victory over Lakish at his palace [music] in Nineveh.

[00:13:51]Wall reliefs that have been discovered and preserved to this day at the British Museum. And guess who is depicted on the walls along with the captives of [music] war and Assyrian archers? Assyrian soldiers using slings. [music] Archaeologists even found rounded slingstones the size of a human fist at the remains of this ancient city. One of the hardest parts of slinging is that [music] every time you pick up a new stone, you have to adjust to its weight and shape. This makes it really hard to be accurate, which is why the armies of the ancient world would provide their warrior slingers with artificially rounded stones [music] like these. But if you just wanted to cause chaos, the staff sling was the way to go.

[00:14:34]>> THERE YOU GO. OH, but can I use a staff sling to hurl a big stone like the ancients? Okay.

[00:14:42]>> Ready?

[00:14:42]>> Ready.

[00:14:43]>> I don't know why I'm nervous.

[00:14:44]>> It makes me nervous. Just [laughter] >> Yeah. Okay.

[00:14:47]>> Well, if you're nervous, you're good. [laughter] You're good. I would have told you that was so terrifying, dude. All right, I'll leave that one to you. Okay, my camera guy just told me that the cameras are almost cooled down, which is perfect because Dash just has two more weapons to show me. Third is the star maze. You do not want to get hit by one of these.

[00:15:11]>> So, this is mostly an Egyptian weapon.

[00:15:13]>> Yes. [music] I mean, that mean it was used by No, it could very much a Philistine as well. That was like prevalent of the time. The idea of a mace had been around for a long time.

[00:15:21]This is one of the weapons that the Canaanites could have been using against Joshua and his army as they entered the promised land. In the Bible, God even calls Babylon his battle axe, his choice weapon [music] for punishing the nations. This Hebrew word literally means a weapon used for smashing. And based on what you're about to see, I think God had a star mace in mind for his analogy.

[00:15:44]>> Okay, ready?

[00:15:46]>> Ready.

[00:15:49]>> Oh my gosh. I did not think that this was gonna have that much power.

[00:15:53]>> Yeah. Now, Dash just has one final weapon to show me before it's time for me to face Goliath. And it's one of the weapons that Goliath himself was armed with when David walked out on the battlefield, the spear.

[00:16:06]>> So, if you just have a spear, let's say David was that far, you could easily just >> throw a spear just as far, right? It's not hard. That's going to be an easy throw. [music] The spear that Dash just threw has a spearhead that probably weighs about 2 lb, which was the average size of a spearhead in David's time. But the Bible says that Goliath's spearhead weighed 14 lb. That's 7 times more heavy than the average. And since Goliath was a 9- ft giant, I have no doubt that he could throw that thing hard. It's true that a sling can do some damage, but compared to Goliath, who was a seasoned warrior covered in bronze armor, David really didn't stand a chance. Woo!

[00:16:52]>> If he had a large shield, right? Like it's like, "Oh, don't it's going to bounce off most likely, right?" So, you have one little opening and one shot to make it happen. I do feel like there was a huge factor of the miraculous in that to make to thread that needle. But even though it was seemingly impossible for David to defeat Goliath, he still had the courage to trust God and go to the battle anyways. He didn't just talk about his faith in God, he demonstrated it. And that's [music] the kind of man I'm praying my son will become one day.

[00:17:24]>> So that's what I hope to do for my kids is not tell them cuz I words don't mean much. I want to show them what [music] it is to be a good man, to be kind, patient, and loving. And that's exactly the kind of teacher Dash was for me.

[00:17:37]From the moment we met, he had been encouraging me every step of the way.

[00:17:43]>> Nice, man. You're getting good at that.

[00:17:45]>> He even asked if we could pray before we got started. But now it's time to see if his teaching was enough. Everything I've learned now comes down to this. Can I defeat Goliath?

[00:17:59][cheering] Here [screaming] we go. [music] [music] Oh, not even close. If I was David, that would have been it for me. But even though I do have some more tries, >> better. That was better.

[00:18:33]>> I don't have too many more because the [music] ballistic gel on the Goliath dummy head is starting to melt under the hot sun. And so am I. It's actually a full body effort to sling these rocks and I'm really getting exhausted.

[00:18:52]>> You're all right. Okay. Okay. So, you're going to fall out.

[00:18:55]>> H. My slinging is only getting worse.

[00:18:57]And honestly, I'm worried that all my training has been for nothing. Oh, that was like so close.

[00:19:15]>> Yes.

[00:19:16]>> Woo! Add it, kid.

[00:19:23]>> Let's see what it did.

[00:19:24]>> Square in the face.

[00:19:26]>> Oh, man. There you go. Come over here.

[00:19:29]Take a look at this. O.

[00:19:33]So, it definitely took a chunk off.

[00:19:35]>> Yeah. So, right there, [music] that's the orbital bone, right? So, that's that bone right here. So, it fractured the orbital bone.

[00:19:41]>> It went back into [music] here. And so, I mean, that's it's probably going to fracture. Yeah. See, it went all the way back almost to the ear.

[00:19:47]>> Oh my gosh.

[00:19:48]>> And so, [music] that's going to be basically at that point, right? We talk about the story about how he fell, but that's like an inoperable injury, [music] right? cuz you have tons of little lots of little chunks and powder.

[00:20:00]>> So if you're inside here like this, these are going to be basically fragment off.

[00:20:04]>> And so if it hits in that spot, like you don't really recover from that.

[00:20:09]>> Just like that, I had landed a fatal wound to our Goliath dummy. But before we left, Dash had a swing at our test dummy, too. Oh, >> and delivered a very similar wound to the kind the Bible describes David giving Goliath.

[00:20:27]>> Oh, that hit right here.

[00:20:28]>> It skinned him.

[00:20:29]>> Yeah, but it broke his skull.

[00:20:30]>> What?

[00:20:31]>> Like, it just was enough to dig in there and break it off on the side. I'm proud of you. I'm proud of you.

[00:20:37]>> After today, I have no doubt that the story of David and Goliath is 100% accurate. Now, there's only one more thing to do.

[00:20:47]It goes.

[00:20:49]>> Yay.

[00:20:51][music]