Chronicles

Abstract

Biblical scholars sometimes assess and value texts, especially ostensibly historiographic texts like Chronicles, based on their perceived or demonstrated historical accuracy. Based on that criterion, Chronicles has not fared well. When compared to Samuel-Kings, a version of which it likely employs as a source, and certainly when compared to inscriptions and other extrabiblical sources, Chronicles has been devalued as a late, tendentious, sanitized, and overly schematized text. This negative opinion of the text has pervaded not only academic circles but even religious communities. Rabbis and Christian theologians, past and present, have criticized Chronicles for its perceived inaccuracies, its late production, its derivative nature, and its penchant for pedantry in genealogical records and lists.