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xviii or Kings or wherever their original setting may be. The remainder of Chronicles presents an intricate but interesting problem. It has been held that there are no sources involved in this remaining portion but that the whole is the free composition of the writer who quoted or adapted the passages from earlier books of Scripture referred to above. According to the view taken in this volume, sources other than these "canonical" books were utilised in the formation of Chronicles, although for reasons suggested in § 5 (q.v., pp. xxxvi f.) such sources are not easy to distinguish from the work of the compiler himself. The little which can be said regarding the origin and history of these supposed sources may conveniently be reserved for the section dealing with the Sources (§ 5). The question, therefore, which is before us in this section is the date of the editorial process to which we owe the present form of Chronicles. Fortunately the answer is simplified by one important fact, namely the remarkable homogeneity of Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah. To such a degree are these books characterised by unity of style, vocabulary, standpoint and purpose (see below; also § 2 and § 6), that we may safely conclude they are essentially the product of one mind: they have reached substantially their present form in the course of a single editorial process. Conceivably the work was achieved by a small body of Levites (see below under Authorship), contemporaries, sharing the same training and outlook; but it is much more reasonable to infer the activity of a single writer—the Chronicler. It is his date which we proceed to consider. The evidence may be grouped under three heads, of which the last two (B, C) are of chief importance.

(A) (1) In 1 Chr. xxix. 7 a sum of money is reckoned in darics, a Persian coinage introduced by Darius I (521-486 ).

(2) In 1 Chr. iii. 19b-24 (see note ad loc.) according to the Hebrew the line of David's family is traced to the sixth generation after Zerubbabel (circa 520 ). Hence, reckoning a generation as about 20 to 30 years, this passage would indicate a date not earlier than 400 or 340  The Greek, Syriac,