Page:The Books of Chronicles (1916).djvu/23

Rh and Latin Versions, however, differ from the Hebrew by extending the line to the eleventh generation after Zerubbabel. That would imply a date possibly as late as 200 and not earlier than about 300, but it is very doubtful whether we can here rely upon the text of these Versions, and obviously it was easy for a translator or scribe to carry the list on to his own date. This piece of evidence, therefore, for the later date cannot be pressed, although it is worthy of notice.

Since, as we have said (§ 2), Ezra-Nehemiah formed originally one book with Chronicles, evidence for the date of Chronicles is also furnished by any indications of date which occur in Ezra-Nehemiah.

(3) In Neh. xii. 22 we find the significant phrase "to the reign of Darius, the Persian." Now as long as the Persian empire stood such a description would have no point when written by a Jewish writer. For two hundred years down to 332, when Syria and Phoenicia fell into the hands of Alexander the Great, the rulers of Judea were all "Persians." But from 332 onward Greek monarchs were the rulers of Palestine, and nothing is more natural than that a Jewish chronicler writing under their rule should refer to a king of the older régime as "the Persian."

(4) Further, in Neh. xii. 26, 47 the phrase "in the days of Nehemiah" occurs, implying that for the writer Nehemiah belonged to the past, but, as one cannot say how near or how distant a past, the point carries little weight.

(5) Again, in Neh. xii. 10, 11 and 22, 23, a list of high-priests is given, concluding with the name of Jaddua, whom the Chronicler evidently (and correctly, cp. Josephus, Ant. xi. 7, 8) knew to have been the high-priest about 332, at the end of the reign of Darius (Darius III, Codomannus), when the Persian Empire collapsed before the attack of Alexander the Great.

These details, indicative of the date of composition, are as numerous as we have any right to expect in a work of the nature of Chronicles, which deals with past history. Their