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{{short description|Final books of the Hebrew Bible}}
{{BPOVbecause|Modern critical scholars take the view that Chronicals was an Aaronid response and rival to the Deuteronomic history, copying it but re-editing and giving it a suitable spin}}
{{redirect-multi|2|Book of Chronicles|Paralipomenon}}
{{Tanakh OT |Ketuvim |historical}}


The '''Book of Chronicles''' ({{langx|he|דִּבְרֵי־הַיָּמִים}} {{transl|he|Dīvrē-hayYāmīm}}, "words of the days") is a book in the Hebrew Bible, found as two books ('''1–2 Chronicles''') in the Christian ]. Chronicles is the final book of the ], concluding the third section of the Jewish ], the ] ("Writings"). It contains a genealogy starting with ] and a ] up to the ] in 539 BC.
{{Books of Ketuvim}}
The '''Book of Chronicles''' is a book in the ] (also see ]). It was originally written as one book, but at some time the book came to be divided into two, probably in accordance with more managable ] sizes, and thus in Christian bibles it is usually published in two parts, ''I Chronicles'' and ''II Chronicles''.


The book was translated into Greek and divided into two books in the ] in the mid-3rd century BC. In Christian contexts Chronicles is referred to in the plural as the '''Books of Chronicles''', after the Latin name {{lang|la|chronicon}} given to the text by ], but is also referred to by its Greek name as the '''Books of Paralipomenon'''.<ref>{{CathEncy|wstitle= Books of Paralipomenon |volume= 11 |last= Bechtel |first= Florentine Stanislaus |author-link= Florentine Bechtel |short=1 }}</ref> In ]s, they usually follow the two ] and precede ], the last history-oriented book of the Protestant Old Testament.{{sfn|Japhet|1993|p=1-2}}
In ] the title of this book is ''Divre Hayyamim'', i.e., "History of the Days." ], in his ] translation of the Bible (]), titled this book ''Chronicon''; in English this word translates as "Chronicles."


==Summary==
In the ] ] the book is also divided into two parts; here it bears the title ''Paraleipomêna'', i.e., "things omitted," or "supplements", because it contains details not found in the ] and the ]. In the ] translation the books are accordingly styled the "Books of Paralipomenon".
]]]
The Chronicles narrative begins with Adam, ] and ],<ref>{{bibleverse|1|Chronicles|1:1|HE}}</ref> and the story is then carried forward, almost entirely through ], down to the founding of the ] in the "introductory chapters", 1 Chronicles 1–9.<ref>Barnes, W. E. (1899), on 1 Chronicles, accessed 29 January 2020</ref> The bulk of the remainder of 1 Chronicles, after a brief account of ] in chapter 10, is concerned with the reign of ].<ref>1 Chronicles 11–29</ref> The next long section concerns David's son ],<ref>2 Chronicles 1–9</ref> and the final part is concerned with the ], with occasional references to the northern ] (2 Chronicles 10–36). The final chapter covers briefly the reigns of the last four kings, until Judah is destroyed and the people taken into ]. In the two final verses, identical to the opening verses of the ], the ] king ] conquers the ], and authorises the restoration of the ] and the return of the exiles.{{sfn|Coggins|2003|p=282}}
{{clear|left}}


==Structure==
The book is divided into four parts:
]'' (1862 facsimile)]]
#The first nine chapters of Book I contain a list of ] in the line of ] down to the time of King ].
Originally a single work, Chronicles was divided into two in the ], a Greek translation produced in the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC.{{sfn|Japhet|1993|p=2}} It has three broad divisions:
#The remainder of the first book contains a history of the reign of David.
# the genealogies in chapters 1–9 of 1 Chronicles
#The first nine chapters of Book II contain the history of the reign of King ].
# the reigns of David and Solomon (constituting the remainder of 1 Chronicles, and chapters 1–9 of 2 Chronicles); and
#The remaining chapters of the second book contain the history of the separate ] to the time of the return from ].
# the narrative of the ], focusing on the ], in the remainder of 2 Chronicles.


Within this broad structure there are signs that the author has used various other devices to structure his work, notably through drawing parallels between David and Solomon (the first becomes king, establishes the worship of Israel's God in Jerusalem, and fights the wars that will enable the Temple to be built, then Solomon becomes king, builds and dedicates the Temple, and reaps the benefits of prosperity and peace).{{sfn|McKenzie|2004|p=}}
The time of the composition of the Chronicles is believed to have been subsequent to the Babylonian Captivity, probably between ] and ]. The contents of this twofold book, both as to matter and form, correspond closely with this idea. The close of the book records the proclamation of ] permitting the ]s to return to their own land, and this forms the opening passage of the ], which is viewed as a continuation of the Chronicles, together with the ]. The peculiar form of the language, being Hebrew in vocabulary but Aramaean in its general character, harmonizes also with that of the other books which were written after the Exile. The author was likely contemporary with ], details of whose family history are given (1 Chronicles 3:19).


1 Chronicles is divided into 29 ] and 2 Chronicles into 36 chapters. Biblical commentator ] suggests that the division into two books introduced by the translators of the Septuagint "occurs in the most suitable place",<ref>Ball, C., J. (1905), in ''Ellicott's Commentary for Modern Readers''</ref> namely with the conclusion of David's reign as king and the initiation of Solomon's reign.
According to Jewish tradition, ] the scribe was regarded as the author of Chronicles. There are many points of resemblance between Chronicles and the Book of Ezra which seem to confirm this opinion. The conclusion of the one and the beginning of the other are almost identical in expression.


The ] considered Chronicles one book.<ref name="BB15a">{{Cite web|url=https://www.sefaria.org/Bava_Batra.15a.2?ven=William_Davidson_Edition_-_English&vhe=William_Davidson_Edition_-_Vocalized_Aramaic&lang=bi&with=all&lang2=en|title=Bava Batra 15a:2}}</ref>
In their general scope and design these books are not so much historical as didactic. The principal aim of the writer appears to be to present moral and religious truth. He does not give prominence to political occurrences, as is done in ] and ], but to religious institutions, such as the details of the temple service. "The genealogies, so uninteresting to most modern readers, were really an important part of the public records of the Hebrew state. They were the basis on which not only the land was distributed and held, but the public services of the ] were arranged and conducted, the ]s and their descendants alone, as is well known, being entitled and first fruits set apart for that purpose." The Chronicles are an epitome of the sacred history from the days of ] down to the return from Babylonian Exile, a period of about 3,500 years. The writer gathers up "the threads of the old national life broken by the Captivity." In the Hebrew bible, where the book of Chronicles is usually the last book, it can be said to fulfil a role similar to the end credits of a modern movie: To mention all those also-rans without whom the preceding wouldn't have been possible.


==Composition==
The sources whence the chronicler compiled his work were public records, registers, and genealogical tables belonging to the Jews. These are referred to in the course of the book (1 Chr. 27:24; 29:29; 2 Chr. 9:29; 12:15; 13:22; 20:34; 24:27; 26:22; 32:32; 33:18, 19; 27:7; 35:25). There are in Chronicles, and the books of Samuel and Kings, forty parallels, often verbal, proving that the writer of Chronicles both knew and used those other books (1 Chr. 17:18; comp. ] 7:18-20; 1 Chr. 19; comp. ] 10, etc.).


===Origins===
As compared with Samuel and Kings, the Book of Chronicles omits many particulars there recorded (2 Sam. 6:20-23; 9; 11; 14-19, etc.), and includes many things peculiar to itself (1 Chr. 12; 22; 23-26; 27; 28; 29, etc.). Often the Chronicles paint a somewhat more positive picture of the same events, in comparison to the (compared to other books of their time) unusually critical books of Samuel and Kings. This corresponds to their time of composition: Samuel and Kings were probably completed during the exile, at a time when the history of the freshly wiped out Hebrew kingdoms was still fresh in the mind of the writers, and it was largely considered a colossal failure. The Chronicles, on the other hand, were written much later, after the restitution of the Jewish community in Palestine, at a time when the kingdoms were beginning to be regarded as the nostalgic, rosy-coloured past, something to be at least partially imitated, not something to be avoided.
The last events recorded in Chronicles take place in the reign of ], the Persian king who conquered Babylon in 539&nbsp;BC; this sets the earliest possible date for this passage of the book.


Chronicles appears to be largely the work of a single individual. The writer was probably male, probably a ] (temple priest), and probably from Jerusalem. He was well-read, a skilled editor, and a sophisticated theologian. He aimed to use the narratives in the Torah and former prophets to convey religious messages to his peers, the literary and political elite of Jerusalem in the time of the ].{{sfn|McKenzie|2004|p=}}
Twenty whole chapters of the Chronicles, and twenty-four parts of chapters, are occupied with matters not found elsewhere. It also records many things in fuller detail, as (e.g.) the list of David's heroes (1 Chr. 12:1-37), the removal of the ] from Kirjath-jearim to ] (1 Chr. 13; 15:2-24; 16:4-43; comp. 2 Sam. 6), ]'s ] and its cause (2 Chr. 26:16-21; comp. 2 Kings 15:5), etc.


]]]
It has also been observed that another peculiarity of the book is that it substitutes more modern and more common expressions for those that had then become unusual or obsolete. This is seen particularly in the substitution of modern names of places, such as were in use in the writer's day, for the old names; thus ] (1 Chr. 20:4) is used instead of ] (2 Sam. 21:18), etc.


Jewish and Christian tradition identified this author as the 5th-century BC figure ], who gives his name to the ]; Ezra is also believed by the ] to have written both his own book (i. e., ]) and Chronicles up to his own time, the latter having been finished by ].<ref name="BB15a"/> Later critics, skeptical of the long-maintained tradition, preferred to call the author "]". However, many scholars maintain support for Ezra's authorship, not only based on centuries of work by Jewish historians, but also due to the consistency of language and speech patterns between Chronicles and Ezra–Nehemiah. Professor Emeritus Menahem Haran of the ] explains, "the overall unity of the Chronistic Work is … demonstrated by a common ideology, the uniformity of legal, cultic and historical conceptions and specific style, all of which reflect one opus."<ref>{{Cite web|date=2004-05-25|title=Menahem Haran |url=https://www.baslibrary.org/authors/menahem-haran|access-date=2020-11-05|website=The BAS Library |language=en}}</ref>
The Books of Chronicles are ranked among the ''kethubim'' or ], the third section of the ], and they usually occupy the final position in Hebrew bibles. They are alluded to, though not directly quoted, in the ] (] 5:4; ] 12:42; 23:35; ] 1:5; 11:31, 51).


One of the most striking, although inconclusive, features of Chronicles is that its closing sentence is repeated as the opening of Ezra–Nehemiah.{{sfn|McKenzie|2004|p=}} In antiquity, such repeated verses, like the "catch-lines" used by modern printers,<ref></ref> often appeared at the end of a scroll to facilitate the reader's passing on to the correct second book-scroll after completing the first. This scribal device was employed in works that exceeded the scope of a single scroll and had to be continued on another scroll.<ref>{{Cite web|date=2015-08-24 |author=Menahem Haran |title=Explaining the Identical Lines at the End of Chronicles and the Beginning of Ezra |url= https://www.baslibrary.org/bible-review/2/3/6|access-date=2020-11-05|website=The BAS Library |language=en |quote=These repeated verses at the end of Chronicles are called "catch-lines." In ancient times, catch-lines were often placed at the end of a scroll to facilitate the reader's passing on to the correct second book-scroll after completing the first. This scribal device was employed in works that exceeded the scope of a single scroll and had to be continued on another scroll.}}</ref>
{{eastons}}


The latter half of the 20th century, amid growing skepticism in academia regarding history in the Biblical tradition, saw a reappraisal of the authorship question. Though there is a general lack of corroborating evidence, many now regard it as improbable that the author of Chronicles was also the author of the narrative portions of Ezra–Nehemiah.{{sfn|Beentjes|2008|p=3}} These critics suggest that ''Chronicles'' was probably composed between 400 and 250 BC, with the period 350–300 BC the most likely.{{sfn|McKenzie|2004|p=}} This timeframe is achieved by estimates made based on genealogies appearing in the Greek ]. This theory bases its premise on the latest person mentioned in Chronicles, Anani. Anani is an eighth-generation descendant of King ] according to the ]. This has persuaded many supporters of the Septuagint's reading to place Anani's likely date of birth a century later than what had been largely accepted for two millennia.{{sfn|Kalimi|2005|pp=61–64}}
]
]


===Sources===
]
Much of the content of Chronicles is a repetition of material from other books of the Bible, from ] to ], and so the usual scholarly view is that these books, or an early version of them, provided the author with the bulk of his material. It is, however, possible that the situation was rather more complex, and that books such as Genesis and ] should be regarded as contemporary with Chronicles, drawing on much of the same material, rather than a source for it. Despite much discussion of this issue, no agreement has been reached.{{sfn|Coggins|2003|p=283}} It is also likely that Chronicles preserved ancient heterodox traditions regarding Israel's history.<ref name="Frankel">{{Cite web |last=Frankel |first=David |date=April 8, 2015 |title=The Book of Chronicles and the Ephraimites that Never Went to Egypt |url=https://www.thetorah.com/article/the-book-of-chronicles-and-the-ephraimites-that-never-went-to-egypt |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240207090032/https://www.thetorah.com/article/the-book-of-chronicles-and-the-ephraimites-that-never-went-to-egypt |archive-date=February 7, 2024 |website=TheTorah.com}}</ref>
]

]
=== Genre ===
]
The translators who created the Greek version of the Jewish Bible (the ]) called this book ''Paralipomenon'', "Things Left Out", indicating that they thought of it as a supplement to another work, probably Genesis–Kings, but the idea seems inappropriate, since much of Genesis–Kings has been copied almost without change. Some modern scholars proposed that Chronicles is a ], or traditional Jewish commentary, on Genesis–Kings, but again this is not entirely accurate since the author or authors do not comment on the older books so much as use them to create a new work. Recent suggestions have been that it was intended as a clarification of the history in Genesis–Kings, or a replacement or alternative for it.{{sfn|Beentjes|2008|p=4–6}}
]

]
==Themes==
] theologian Paul K. Hooker argues that the generally accepted message the author wished to give to his audience was a theological reflection, not a "history of Israel":
# God is active in history, and especially the history of Israel. The faithfulness or sins of individual kings are immediately rewarded or punished by God. (This is in contrast to the theology of the ], where the faithlessness of kings was punished on later generations through the Babylonian exile).{{sfn|Hooker|2000|p=6}}
# God calls Israel to a special relationship. The call begins with the genealogies,<ref>chapters 1–9 of 1 Chronicles</ref> gradually narrowing the focus from all mankind to a single family, the Israelites, the descendants of ]. "True" Israel is those who continue to worship ] at the Temple in ] (in the southern ]), with the result that the history of the historical ] is almost completely ignored.{{sfn|Hooker|2000|p=7-8}}
# God chose David and his dynasty as the agents of his will. According to the author of Chronicles, the three great events of David's reign were his bringing the ] to Jerusalem, his founding of an eternal royal dynasty, and his preparations for the construction of the Temple.{{sfn|Hooker|2000|p=7-8}}
# God chose a site in Jerusalem as the location for the Temple, the place where God should be worshiped. More time and space are spent on the construction of the Temple and its rituals of worship than on any other subject. By stressing the central role of the Temple in pre-exilic Judah, the author also stresses the importance of the newly rebuilt Persian-era ] to his own readers.
# God remains active in Israel. The past is used to legitimize the author's present: this is seen most clearly in the detailed attention he gives to the Temple built by Solomon, but also in the genealogy and lineages, which connect his own generation to the distant past and thus make the claim that the present is a continuation of that past.{{sfn|Hooker|2000|p=6-10}}

==See also==
{{Portal|Bible}}
* ]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Bibliography==
* {{cite book |last= Beentjes |first= Pancratius C. |title= Tradition and Transformation in the Book of Chronicles |year= 2008 |publisher= Brill |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=rLFXnQ6b9v4C&pg=PR3
|isbn= 9789004170445}}
* {{cite book |last= Coggins |first= Richard J. |editor1-last= Dunn |editor1-first= James D. G. |editor2-last= Rogerson |editor2-first= John William |chapter= 1 and 2 Chronicles |title= Eerdmans Commentary on the Bible |year= 2003 |publisher= Eerdmans |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=2Vo-11umIZQC |isbn= 9780802837110}}
* {{cite book |last= Hooker |first= Paul K. |editor1-last= ANONYMUS ABSOLUTUS |editor1-first= Adam G. |title= First and Second Chronicles |year= 2000 |publisher= Westminster John Knox Press |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=QDwEOzTXvb8C&pg=PA12 |isbn= 9780664255916}}
* {{cite book |last= Japhet |first= Sara |author-link= Sara Japhet |editor1-last= ANONYMUS |editor1-first= Adam G. |title= I and II Chronicles: A Commentary |year= 1993 |publisher= SCM Press |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=V0WjzZB2V7cC |isbn= 9780664226411}}
*{{cite book |last= Kalimi |first=Isaac |title=An Ancient Israelite Historian: Studies in the Chronicler, His Time, Place and Writing|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kmk5CDRsbwMC&pg=PA62|date=January 2005|publisher= Uitgeverij Van Gorcum|isbn=978-90-232-4071-6}}
* {{cite book |last= Kelly |first= Brian E. |title= Retribution and Eschatology in Chronicles |year= 1996 |publisher= Sheffield Academic Press |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=p7ui2JwhdzEC |isbn= 9780567637796}}
* {{cite book |last= Klein |first= Ralph W. |author-link= Ralph W. Klein |title= 1 Chronicles: A Commentary |year= 2006 |publisher= Fortress Press }}
* {{cite book |last= Knoppers |first= Gary N. |author-link= Gary N. Knoppers |title= 1 Chronicles: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary |year= 2004 |publisher= Doubleday }}
* {{cite book |last= McKenzie |first= Steven L. |title= 1–2 Chronicles |year= 2004 |publisher= Abingdon |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=s3weTW7ylToC |isbn= 9781426759802}}

==External links==
{{Wikisource|1 Chronicles}}
{{Wikisource|2 Chronicles}}
{{Commons category|Books of Chronicles}}

'''Translations'''
* translation ]'s commentary] at Chabad.org
* translation ]'s commentary] at Chabad.org
*
*
*
*

'''Introductions'''
*Tuell, S.,

'''Audiobooks'''
* {{librivox book | dtitle=Bible: Chronicles| stitle=13 Chronicles}}

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{{First Book of Chronicles}}
{{Second Book of Chronicles}}
{{Books of the Bible}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Chronicles, Books Of}}
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Latest revision as of 14:25, 25 October 2024

Final books of the Hebrew Bible "Book of Chronicles" and "Paralipomenon" redirect here. For other uses, see Book of Chronicles (disambiguation) and Paralipomenon (disambiguation).
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The Book of Chronicles (Hebrew: דִּבְרֵי־הַיָּמִים Dīvrē-hayYāmīm, "words of the days") is a book in the Hebrew Bible, found as two books (1–2 Chronicles) in the Christian Old Testament. Chronicles is the final book of the Hebrew Bible, concluding the third section of the Jewish Tanakh, the Ketuvim ("Writings"). It contains a genealogy starting with Adam and a history of ancient Judah and Israel up to the Edict of Cyrus in 539 BC.

The book was translated into Greek and divided into two books in the Septuagint in the mid-3rd century BC. In Christian contexts Chronicles is referred to in the plural as the Books of Chronicles, after the Latin name chronicon given to the text by Jerome, but is also referred to by its Greek name as the Books of Paralipomenon. In Christian Bibles, they usually follow the two Books of Kings and precede Ezra–Nehemiah, the last history-oriented book of the Protestant Old Testament.

Summary

Rehoboam and Jeroboam I, 1860 woodcut by Julius Schnorr von Karolsfeld

The Chronicles narrative begins with Adam, Seth and Enosh, and the story is then carried forward, almost entirely through genealogical lists, down to the founding of the United Kingdom of Israel in the "introductory chapters", 1 Chronicles 1–9. The bulk of the remainder of 1 Chronicles, after a brief account of Saul in chapter 10, is concerned with the reign of David. The next long section concerns David's son Solomon, and the final part is concerned with the Kingdom of Judah, with occasional references to the northern Kingdom of Israel (2 Chronicles 10–36). The final chapter covers briefly the reigns of the last four kings, until Judah is destroyed and the people taken into exile in Babylon. In the two final verses, identical to the opening verses of the Book of Ezra, the Persian king Cyrus the Great conquers the Neo-Babylonian Empire, and authorises the restoration of the Temple in Jerusalem and the return of the exiles.

Structure

Greek translation: Paralipomenon 9:27–10:11 in Codex Sinaiticus (1862 facsimile)

Originally a single work, Chronicles was divided into two in the Septuagint, a Greek translation produced in the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC. It has three broad divisions:

  1. the genealogies in chapters 1–9 of 1 Chronicles
  2. the reigns of David and Solomon (constituting the remainder of 1 Chronicles, and chapters 1–9 of 2 Chronicles); and
  3. the narrative of the divided kingdom, focusing on the Kingdom of Judah, in the remainder of 2 Chronicles.

Within this broad structure there are signs that the author has used various other devices to structure his work, notably through drawing parallels between David and Solomon (the first becomes king, establishes the worship of Israel's God in Jerusalem, and fights the wars that will enable the Temple to be built, then Solomon becomes king, builds and dedicates the Temple, and reaps the benefits of prosperity and peace).

1 Chronicles is divided into 29 chapters and 2 Chronicles into 36 chapters. Biblical commentator C. J. Ball suggests that the division into two books introduced by the translators of the Septuagint "occurs in the most suitable place", namely with the conclusion of David's reign as king and the initiation of Solomon's reign.

The Talmud considered Chronicles one book.

Composition

Origins

The last events recorded in Chronicles take place in the reign of Cyrus the Great, the Persian king who conquered Babylon in 539 BC; this sets the earliest possible date for this passage of the book.

Chronicles appears to be largely the work of a single individual. The writer was probably male, probably a Levite (temple priest), and probably from Jerusalem. He was well-read, a skilled editor, and a sophisticated theologian. He aimed to use the narratives in the Torah and former prophets to convey religious messages to his peers, the literary and political elite of Jerusalem in the time of the Achaemenid Empire.

First page of Chronicles in a 10th- or 11th-century Greek manuscript acquired by Robert Grosseteste

Jewish and Christian tradition identified this author as the 5th-century BC figure Ezra, who gives his name to the Book of Ezra; Ezra is also believed by the Talmudic sages to have written both his own book (i. e., Ezra–Nehemiah) and Chronicles up to his own time, the latter having been finished by Nehemiah. Later critics, skeptical of the long-maintained tradition, preferred to call the author "the Chronicler". However, many scholars maintain support for Ezra's authorship, not only based on centuries of work by Jewish historians, but also due to the consistency of language and speech patterns between Chronicles and Ezra–Nehemiah. Professor Emeritus Menahem Haran of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem explains, "the overall unity of the Chronistic Work is … demonstrated by a common ideology, the uniformity of legal, cultic and historical conceptions and specific style, all of which reflect one opus."

One of the most striking, although inconclusive, features of Chronicles is that its closing sentence is repeated as the opening of Ezra–Nehemiah. In antiquity, such repeated verses, like the "catch-lines" used by modern printers, often appeared at the end of a scroll to facilitate the reader's passing on to the correct second book-scroll after completing the first. This scribal device was employed in works that exceeded the scope of a single scroll and had to be continued on another scroll.

The latter half of the 20th century, amid growing skepticism in academia regarding history in the Biblical tradition, saw a reappraisal of the authorship question. Though there is a general lack of corroborating evidence, many now regard it as improbable that the author of Chronicles was also the author of the narrative portions of Ezra–Nehemiah. These critics suggest that Chronicles was probably composed between 400 and 250 BC, with the period 350–300 BC the most likely. This timeframe is achieved by estimates made based on genealogies appearing in the Greek Septuagint. This theory bases its premise on the latest person mentioned in Chronicles, Anani. Anani is an eighth-generation descendant of King Jehoiachin according to the Masoretic Text. This has persuaded many supporters of the Septuagint's reading to place Anani's likely date of birth a century later than what had been largely accepted for two millennia.

Sources

Much of the content of Chronicles is a repetition of material from other books of the Bible, from Genesis to Kings, and so the usual scholarly view is that these books, or an early version of them, provided the author with the bulk of his material. It is, however, possible that the situation was rather more complex, and that books such as Genesis and Samuel should be regarded as contemporary with Chronicles, drawing on much of the same material, rather than a source for it. Despite much discussion of this issue, no agreement has been reached. It is also likely that Chronicles preserved ancient heterodox traditions regarding Israel's history.

Genre

The translators who created the Greek version of the Jewish Bible (the Septuagint) called this book Paralipomenon, "Things Left Out", indicating that they thought of it as a supplement to another work, probably Genesis–Kings, but the idea seems inappropriate, since much of Genesis–Kings has been copied almost without change. Some modern scholars proposed that Chronicles is a midrash, or traditional Jewish commentary, on Genesis–Kings, but again this is not entirely accurate since the author or authors do not comment on the older books so much as use them to create a new work. Recent suggestions have been that it was intended as a clarification of the history in Genesis–Kings, or a replacement or alternative for it.

Themes

Presbyterian theologian Paul K. Hooker argues that the generally accepted message the author wished to give to his audience was a theological reflection, not a "history of Israel":

  1. God is active in history, and especially the history of Israel. The faithfulness or sins of individual kings are immediately rewarded or punished by God. (This is in contrast to the theology of the Books of Kings, where the faithlessness of kings was punished on later generations through the Babylonian exile).
  2. God calls Israel to a special relationship. The call begins with the genealogies, gradually narrowing the focus from all mankind to a single family, the Israelites, the descendants of Jacob. "True" Israel is those who continue to worship Yahweh at the Temple in Jerusalem (in the southern Kingdom of Judah), with the result that the history of the historical Kingdom of Israel is almost completely ignored.
  3. God chose David and his dynasty as the agents of his will. According to the author of Chronicles, the three great events of David's reign were his bringing the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem, his founding of an eternal royal dynasty, and his preparations for the construction of the Temple.
  4. God chose a site in Jerusalem as the location for the Temple, the place where God should be worshiped. More time and space are spent on the construction of the Temple and its rituals of worship than on any other subject. By stressing the central role of the Temple in pre-exilic Judah, the author also stresses the importance of the newly rebuilt Persian-era Second Temple to his own readers.
  5. God remains active in Israel. The past is used to legitimize the author's present: this is seen most clearly in the detailed attention he gives to the Temple built by Solomon, but also in the genealogy and lineages, which connect his own generation to the distant past and thus make the claim that the present is a continuation of that past.

See also

References

  1. Bechtel, Florentine Stanislaus (1911). "Books of Paralipomenon" . Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 11.
  2. Japhet 1993, p. 1-2.
  3. 1 Chronicles 1:1
  4. Barnes, W. E. (1899), Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges on 1 Chronicles, accessed 29 January 2020
  5. 1 Chronicles 11–29
  6. 2 Chronicles 1–9
  7. Coggins 2003, p. 282.
  8. Japhet 1993, p. 2.
  9. ^ McKenzie 2004.
  10. Ball, C., J. (1905), The Second Book of the Chronicles in Ellicott's Commentary for Modern Readers
  11. ^ "Bava Batra 15a:2".
  12. "Menahem Haran". The BAS Library. 2004-05-25. Retrieved 2020-11-05.
  13. catchline
  14. Menahem Haran (2015-08-24). "Explaining the Identical Lines at the End of Chronicles and the Beginning of Ezra". The BAS Library. Retrieved 2020-11-05. These repeated verses at the end of Chronicles are called "catch-lines." In ancient times, catch-lines were often placed at the end of a scroll to facilitate the reader's passing on to the correct second book-scroll after completing the first. This scribal device was employed in works that exceeded the scope of a single scroll and had to be continued on another scroll.
  15. Beentjes 2008, p. 3.
  16. Kalimi 2005, pp. 61–64.
  17. Coggins 2003, p. 283.
  18. Frankel, David (April 8, 2015). "The Book of Chronicles and the Ephraimites that Never Went to Egypt". TheTorah.com. Archived from the original on February 7, 2024.
  19. Beentjes 2008, p. 4–6.
  20. Hooker 2000, p. 6.
  21. chapters 1–9 of 1 Chronicles
  22. ^ Hooker 2000, p. 7-8.
  23. Hooker 2000, p. 6-10.

Bibliography

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