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xxii standard of its own age, the Hebrew of Chronicles is clumsy and displeasing in many ways.

From this cumulative evidence we infer that the Chronicler was certainly a post-exilic writer later than the period of Ezra-Nehemiah and in all probability not earlier than about 300—250 This is a valuable and definite conclusion, but it is important to observe that it does not fully answer the problem of the date of the present form of Chronicles. It remains to ask whether the text as it has reached us (the Masoretic Hebrew) is precisely the text which left the Chronicler's hands, and, if not, what changes have been introduced. It is safe to say that the Hebrew text has been almost unchanged since about 150, but between that date and the time of the Chronicler is a long and sometimes stormy period. The subject, though in many ways important, is too intricate to be discussed here at length: a few remarks must suffice. (1) Like all other books of the O.T., Chronicles has suffered from the usual accidents of scribal errors in the course of transmission; but the changes due to this cause, being unintentional, are as a rule unimportant and can often be detected and corrected (see § 10, Text). (2) More serious are alterations made by revisers or scribes who were anxious to bring the narrative of Chronicles into conformity with that of Samuel and Kings. In the last two chapters of 2 Chron. the Heb. text can be compared with an old Greek Version (1 Esdras—see § 10, Greek Versions), and the comparison indicates that changes of text (see notes on 2 Chr. xxxv. 8, 15) and a harmonisation of Chron. with Kings (see note on 2 Chr. xxxvi. 5; cp. also ver. 15) have occurred in that brief section.

Except in these two chapters the old Greek Version has unfortunately perished, and for all the rest of Chronicles comparison can only be made with a much later Greek Version, which is a translation of a Hebrew text almost identical with the present, Masoretic, form. Even so, differences are found, notably a substantial passage deleted from the Hebrew in 2 Chr. xxxv. 19 (where see note). It is a legitimate conjecture