The book of Chronicles: Another look

Abstract

This article explores several aspects of the study of the book of Chronicles as a written document meant to be read and reread by a specific readership. First, it proposes that the book shows a more subtle, balanced and sophisticated position than the (in)famous theology of immediate, personal retribution. Second, the article deals with the book as a new historiographical work interacting in various ways with earlier works, and representing a singularly important document for understanding the intellectual history of Yehud in the Persian period. Third, the article addresses Chronicles' construction of ideological and discursive events that enable readers to reframe and readjust their social memory in the context of their society. It claims that this process led to, and was reflective of a formulation of a main social memory that served to frame the identity of the authorship and readership of the book in terms of (a) motifs such as Exodus, Sinai, Moses, tabernacle, and (b) such as David, Zion, temple. The article explores the importance of Chronicles as a contribution to the creation of such a social memory within the frame of Yehud. Finally, the article discusses how Chronicles' genealogies reminded the literati for whom the book was primarily written that common social boundaries (including those of gender and ethnicity) have, at times, been transgressed in the past, and that the results of those transgressions have been quite positive.