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Final books of the Hebrew Bible

The Book of Chronicles (Hebrew: דִּבְרֵי־הַיָּמִים Dīvrē-hayYāmīm ) is a volume in the Hebrew Bible, found as two books (one–2 Chronicles) in the Christian Former Testament. Chronicles is the final volume of the Hebrew Bible, concluding the tertiary section of the Jewish Tanakh, the Ketuvim ("Writings"). Information technology contains a genealogy starting with Adam and a history of ancient Judah and State of israel upward to the Edict of Cyrus in 539 BCE.

The book was divided into 2 books in the Septuagint and translated mid 3rd century BC. In Christian contexts Chronicles is referred to in the plural every bit the Books of Chronicles, after the Latin proper noun chronicon given to the text by Jerome. In Christian Bibles, they unremarkably follow the ii Books of Kings and precede Ezra–Nehemiah, the last history-oriented book of the Old Testament.^[i]

Summary [edit]

The Chronicles narrative begins with Adam, Seth and Enosh,^[two] and the story is and so carried forward, almost entirely through genealogical lists, down to the founding of the first Kingdom of Israel.^[iii] ^[4] The bulk of the remainder of i Chronicles, after a brief account of Saul in chapter ten, is concerned with the reign of David.^[five] The side by side long section concerns David'south son Solomon,^[vi] and the final part is concerned with the Kingdom of Judah, with occasional references to the second kingdom of Israel (2 Chronicles ten–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 Volume 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.^[7]

Structure [edit]

Originally a unmarried work, Chronicles was divided into two in the Septuagint, a Greek translation produced in the third and 2nd centuries BC.^[eight] It has three wide divisions:

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

Inside this broad construction in that location are signs that the author has used diverse other devices to construction his work, notably through drawing parallels betwixt David and Solomon (the start becomes rex, establishes the worship of Israel's God in Jerusalem, and fights the wars that will enable the Temple to be built, and then Solomon becomes king, builds and dedicates the Temple, and reaps the benefits of prosperity and peace).^[9]

Biblical commentator C. J. Ball suggests that the partition into two books introduced by the translators of the Septuagint "occurs in the almost suitable place",^[ten] namely with the conclusion of David'due south reign as king and the initiation of Solomon's reign.

1 Chronicles is divided into 29 chapters and two Chronicles into 36 chapters.

Limerick [edit]

Origins [edit]

The last events recorded in Chronicles accept identify 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 utilise 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.^[nine]

Jewish and Christian tradition identified this author equally the 5th-century BC figure Ezra, who gives his proper noun to the Volume of Ezra; Ezra is as well believed^[11] to accept written both Chronicles and Ezra–Nehemiah. Later critics, skeptical of the long-maintained tradition, preferred to call the author "the Chronicler". Still, many scholars maintain support for Ezra's authorship, not only based on centuries of work by Jewish historians, simply also due to the consistency of language and speech patterns between Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah. Professor Emeritus Menahem Haran of the Hebrew Academy of Jerusalem explains, "the overall unity of the Chronistic Piece of work is … demonstrated past a common ideology, the uniformity of legal, cultic and historical conceptions and specific style, all of which reverberate one opus."^[12]

One of the well-nigh hit, although inconclusive, features of Chronicles is that its closing sentence is repeated as the opening of Ezra–Nehemiah.^[nine] In artifact, such repeated verses, similar the "catch-lines" used by modernistic printers,^[13] often appeared at the terminate of a scroll to facilitate the reader's passing on to the correct second book-scroll afterward completing the first. This scribal device was employed in works that exceeded the scope of a unmarried gyre and had to be connected on another curlicue.^[14]

The latter half of the 20th century, amongst 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^{[ quantify ]} now regard it as improbable that the author of Chronicles was also the writer of the narrative portions of Ezra–Nehemiah.^[15] These critics suggest that Chronicles was probably composed between 400 and 250 BC, with the menstruation 350–300 BC the well-nigh likely.^[nine] This timeframe is achieved by estimates fabricated based on genealogies actualization in the Greek Septuagint. This theory bases its premise on the latest person mentioned in Chronicles, Anani. Anani is an eighth-generation descendant of Male monarch Jehoiachin according to the Masoretic Text. This has persuaded many supporters of the Septuagint's reading to place Anani'south probable appointment of birth a century later on than what had been largely accepted for two millennia.^[16]

Sources [edit]

Much of the content of Chronicles is a repetition of textile from other books of the Bible, from Genesis to Kings, and so the usual scholarly view is that these books, or an early on version of them, provided the author with the bulk of his material. It is, notwithstanding, possible that the situation was rather more complex, and that books such every bit Genesis and Samuel should be regarded as contemporary with Chronicles, cartoon on much of the same fabric, rather than a source for information technology. Despite much word of this issue, no understanding has been reached.^[17]

Genre [edit]

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 information technology as a supplement to another work, probably Genesis-Kings, but the thought seems inappropriate, since much of Genesis-Kings has been copied well-nigh without change. Some modernistic scholars proposed that Chronicles is a midrash, or traditional Jewish commentary, on Genesis-Kings, but once again this is not entirely accurate since the author or authors practice not comment on the older books so much every bit use them to create a new piece of work. Recent suggestions take been that it was intended as a clarification of the history in Genesis-Kings, or a replacement or culling for it.^[18]

Themes [edit]

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 State of israel":

God is active in history, and especially the history of State 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).^[19]
God calls State of israel to a special relationship. The telephone call begins with the genealogies,^[20] 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 State of israel is almost completely ignored.^[21]
God chose David and his dynasty as the agents of his will. According to the author of Chronicles, the three smashing 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.^[21]
God chose a site in Jerusalem as the location for the Temple, the place where God should be worshiped. More than time and infinite are spent on the construction of the Temple and its rituals of worship than on any other subject. By stressing the central office of the Temple in pre-exilic Judah, the author also stresses the importance of the newly rebuilt Persian-era Second Temple to his ain readers.
God remains agile 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 ain generation to the distant by and thus make the claim that the present is a continuation of that by.^[22]

Run across as well [edit]

History of ancient State of israel and Judah

References [edit]

^ Japhet 1993, p. 1-2.
^ one Chronicles 1:1
^ in the "introductory chapters", 1 Chronicles i–nine)
^ Barnes, West. E. (1899), Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges on 1 Chronicles, accessed 29 January 2020
^ 1 Chronicles 11–29
^ two Chronicles 1–9
^ Coggins 2003, p. 282.
^ Japhet 1993, p. 2.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d McKenzie 2004.
^ Ball, C., J. (1905), The Second Volume of the Chronicles in Ellicott'south Commentary for Modern Readers
^ "Bava Batra 15a:2".
^ "Menahem Haran". The BAS Library. 2004-05-25. Retrieved 2020-eleven-05 .
^ catchline
^ Menahem Haran (2015-08-24). "Explaining the Identical Lines at the End of Chronicles and the Offset of Ezra". The BAS Library . Retrieved 2020-xi-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 roll to facilitate the reader's passing on to the correct second book-gyre afterward completing the commencement. This scribal device was employed in works that exceeded the scope of a single scroll and had to be continued on another coil.
^ Beentjes 2008, p. iii.
^ Kalimi 2005, pp. 61–64.
^ Coggins 2003, p. 283.
^ Beentjes 2008, p. four-6.
^ Hooker 2000, p. 6.
^ chapters ane–ix of one Chronicles
^ ^a ^b Hooker 2000, p. 7-viii.
^ Hooker 2000, p. vi-10.

Bibliography [edit]

Beentjes, Pancratius C. (2008). Tradition and Transformation in the Volume of Chronicles. Brill. ISBN9789004170445.
Coggins, Richard J. (2003). "ane and 2 Chronicles". In Dunn, James D. 1000.; Rogerson, John William (eds.). Eerdmans Commentary on the Bible. Eerdmans. ISBN9780802837110.
Hooker, Paul Thou. (2000). ANONYMUS ABSOLUTUS, Adam G. (ed.). Outset and Second Chronicles. Westminster John Knox Printing. ISBN9780664255916.
Japhet, Sara (1993). ANONYMUS, Adam Thou. (ed.). I and II Chronicles: A Commentary. SCM Press. ISBN9780664226411.
Kalimi, Isaac (Jan 2005). An Aboriginal Israelite Historian: Studies in the Chronicler, His Time, Place and Writing. Uitgeverij Van Gorcum. ISBN978-90-232-4071-6.
Kelly, Brian E. (1996). Retribution and Eschatology in Chronicles. Sheffield Academic Press. ISBN9780567637796.
Klein, Ralph West. (2006). i Chronicles: A Commentary. Fortress Press.
Knoppers, Gary N. (2004). ane Chronicles: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. Doubleday.
McKenzie, Steven L. (2004). 1–ii Chronicles. Abingdon. ISBN9781426759802.

External links [edit]

Translations [edit]

Divrei Hayamim I – Chronicles I (Judaica Printing) translation [with Rashi'southward commentary] at Chabad.org
Divrei Hayamim II – Chronicles 2 (Judaica Press) translation [with Rashi'due south commentary] at Chabad.org
1 Chronicles at Biblegateway
2 Chronicles at Biblegateway
1 Chronicles at Bible-Book.org
two Chronicles at Bible-Book.org

Introductions

Tuell, S., ane & two Chronicles

Audiobooks [edit]

Bible: Chronicles public domain audiobook at LibriVox

Books of Chronicles History books
Preceded by Ezra–Nehemiah	Hebrew Bible	End
Preceded by 1–2 Kings	Western Old Testament	Succeeded by Ezra
Preceded by 1–2 Kings	Eastern Old Testament	Succeeded by 1 Esdras

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Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Books_of_Chronicles