Was Goliath an Atlantean?

I caught an old rerun of History's Mysteries tonight where they were talking about Atlantis. They presented a few different theories, but the first and most prominent one they pushed for was the Santorini one.

Well, most of the historians they interviewed actually pushed for the "Plato was just telling a Morality Tale" point-of-view, but they also seemed pretty excited about Santorini's being a major influence on the creation of the myth.

What I thought was interesting was that History's Mysteries wasn't as quick as Mystery Hunters to dismiss Santorini on the basis that it was pretty obviously a Minoan culture before the volcano erupted. When I watched that Mystery Hunters story, I sort of scratched my head when they said that it couldn't have been Atlantis because they found no Atlantean artifacts. What exactly - I wondered - do Atlantean artifacts look like?

History's Mysteries' take is that what we call Minoan civilization may have actually been Atlantean. Which is even more fascinating because of the link between the Minoans and the Biblical Philistines (including Goliath). Plato wrote that Atlantis sunk in part because the Atlanteans had given up their peaceful, utopian ways and had become warlike. Is it possible that these warriors scattered and that one of them - a nine foot tall giant - fought and was killed by the future king of Israel?

Well, probably not, but it's still fun to think about.

A couple of other theories History's Mysteries explored were that Atlantis was actually Troy and that maybe it's in the Caribbean near Bimini. They didn't present any convincing evidence for either of those, but I understand that the Sci Fi Channel did a special on Atlantis that likes the Bimini theory, so I'll try to track that down and watch it. The Bimini Road certainly is an odd formation.

The show also spent some time talking about Ignatius Donnelly's fanciful Atlantis, the Antediluvian World. It was an influential piece of research even if it involved a lot more speculation and mysticism than historical data. Donnelly believed that the Atlanteans were the ancestors of all the ancient cultures including the Incas, Mayans, Aztecs, and Egyptians. You can read the whole book online.

So now I'm torn. A couple of week's ago, I was into the idea that Atlantis became South America. Now I'm back to Santorini. I can see myself switching to Bimini with the right push.

The real problem of course is that I don't want any of these to be true. I want Atlantis to be at the bottom of the Atlantic and inhabited by fish people. Gimme the Sub-Mariner or Aquaman's Atlantis over Santorini and Bolivia any day.