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xxxvi utilise them. On this view, then, the sources of the Chronicler were:

(a) The canonical books.

(b) Variant forms of a few narratives in Kings; traditions of South Judean origin, recording movements of population and hostilities with southern tribes; popular midrashic tales; family statistics and genealogies, particularly of the Priests and Levites; records or traditions relating to the Temple, the fortifications of Jerusalem, and the repair of certain Judean towns—some of this material being really independent of the traditions in Kings.

The problem raised by the stylistic uniformity of the new passages in Chronicles must now be considered. Probably the material indicated in (b) above may at times have crystallised into definite midrashic writings. (Thus, when the Chronicler speaks of the "History of the Kings of Judah and Israel," we may believe that he refers to some such document, one that was either extant in his own age or was generally known to have existed.) Probably, however, it was also to a large extent in a fluid oral condition—matter of common knowledge and of common talk in Levitical circles. Certainly it is legitimate to think that with this material, written or oral or both, the Chronicler was intensely familiar; and that he could easily have related it in his own words. We may surmise that his procedure was somewhat as follows: He made the well-known narrative of Samuel-Kings the basis of his version, altering its words as little as possible, yet, if necessary, exercising great freedom, so as to make it fully orthodox in accordance with the ecclesiastical standards of his time. Into this groundwork he wove with admirable skill new material of fact and narrative, drawn from the sources set forth in (b) above; and all this new material he selected, revised, and related in such a fashion as might best serve the very definite religious, moral, and ecclesiastical ends (§ 6) which his history was designed to meet. It passed, in fact, freely and effectively through the medium of his mind; so that it appears, if not wholly in his own words, at