The Synoptic Problem in the Chronicler's History

Abstract

During the last two decades there has been a considerable revival of interest in the Chronicler's history. A number of articles, as well as the appearance of several commentaries on the books of Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, bear impressive testimony to this fact. In the light of these concerted efforts, one might be tempted to think that we are well on our way to a consensus of opinion in regard to the basic problems of this segment of O. T. literature. Unfortunately, this is not the case at all. There still exists a wide divergence of opinion on such basic questions as date, authorship, and intent. This lack of agreement is graphically illustrated by two recent German commentaries which appeared within a year of each other, namely those of Wilhelm Rudolph and Kurt Galling. Whereas the latter considers the Chronicler's history to be the work of two successive editions, one dating from ca. 300 B.C., the other from ca. 190 B.C., Rudolph views it as essentially the work of one man writing during the early decades of the 4th century B.C. More recently, D. N. Freedman has argued for an even earlier date, placing it around 515 B.C., i.e., during the time of Haggai and Zechariah. It goes without saying that such differences in authorship and date would, of course, also lead to considerable differences in one's views regarding the purpose and theology of the Chronicler's history.