The Retelling of Chronicles in Jewish Tradition and Literature

The Retelling of Chronicles in Jewish Tradition and Literature PDF

Author: Isaac Kalimi

Publisher: Penn State Press

Published: 2009-06-23

Total Pages: 416

ISBN-13: 1575066025

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Isaac Kalimi reveals the history of the book of Chronicles from Hellenistic times to the beginning of critical biblical scholarship at the dawn of the 17h century. This comprehensive examination focuses, first and foremost, on the use of Chronicles in Jewish societies through the generations and highlights the attitudes and biases of writers, translators, historians, artists, exegetes, theologians, and philosophers toward the book. The reader is made aware of what the biblical text has meant and what it has “accomplished” in the many contexts in which it has been presented. Throughout the volume, Kalimi strives to describe the journey of Chronicles not only along the route of Jewish history and interpretation but also in relation to the book’s non-Jewish heritage (namely, Christianity), demonstrating the differences and distinctiveness of the former. In contrast, the majority of commentaries on Chronicles written from the mid-19th century to the present day have contained little or nothing about the application, interpretation, and reception history of Chronicles by Jews and Christians for hundreds of years.

Tradition and Transformation in the Book of Chronicles

Tradition and Transformation in the Book of Chronicles PDF

Author: Pancratius Cornelis Beentjes

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 229

ISBN-13: 9004170448

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This monograph contributes to a better understanding of the Book of Chronicles. The past forty years have seen a complete transformation in the study of the Book of Chronicles. The former domination of Chronicles by parallel texts in the Books of Samuel and Kings made way for studying the historical, sociological, literary, theological, and ideological aspects of Chronicles in their own right. This book/document is now increasingly recognized as being of major interest to the Second Temple Period. Reading the book of Chronicles, it appears that the Chronicler is constantly transforming Israel's tradition(s) into a new theological and ideological system. In this study, attention is, therefore, paid both to specific texts, such as 1 Chronicles 17; 21; 2 Chronicles 20; 26, and to particular central themes, such as the special function of Jerusalem, and the peculiar way of how the Chronicler presents prophets, war narratives, and genealogies.

History, Literature and Theology in the Book of Chronicles

History, Literature and Theology in the Book of Chronicles PDF

Author: Ehud Ben Zvi

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-12-05

Total Pages: 329

ISBN-13: 1317491459

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History, Literature and Theology in the Book of Chronicles presents a new way of approaching this key biblical text, arguing that the Book employs both multiple viewpoints and the knowledge of the past held by its intended readership to reshape social memory and reinforce the authority of God. The Book of Chronicles communicates to its intended readership a theological worldview built around multiple, partial perspectives which inform and balance each other. This is a worldview which emphasizes the limitations of all human knowledge, even of theologically "proper" knowledge. When Chronicles presents the past as explainable it also affirms that those who inhabited it could not predict the future. And, despite expanding an "explainable" past, the Book deliberately frames some of YHWH's actions - crucial events in Israel's social memory - as unexplainable in human terms. The Book serves to rationalise divinely ordained, prescriptive behaviour through its emphasis on the impossibility of adequate human understanding of a past, present and future governed by YHWH.

I And II Chronicles

I And II Chronicles PDF

Author: Sara Japhet

Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press

Published: 1993-11-01

Total Pages: 1105

ISBN-13: 1611645891

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This volume, a part of the Old Testament Library series, explores the books of I and II Chronicles. The Old Testament Library provides fresh and authoritative treatments of important aspects of Old Testament study through commentaries and general surveys. The contributors are scholars of international standing.

Monotheism and Institutions in the Book of Chronicles

Monotheism and Institutions in the Book of Chronicles PDF

Author: Matthew Lynch

Publisher: Mohr Siebeck

Published: 2014-03-25

Total Pages: 332

ISBN-13: 9783161521119

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Matthew Lynch examines ways that the one God became known and experienced through institutions according to the book of Chronicles. Chronicles recasts Israel's earlier histories from the vantage point of vigorous commitments to the temple and its supporting institutions (the priesthood and royal house), and draws out the numerous ways that those institutions mediate divine power and inspire national unity. By understanding and participating in the reestablishment of these institutions, Chronicles suggests that post-exilic Judeans could reconnect to the powerful God of the past despite the appallingly impoverished state of post-exilic life. However, Chronicles contends that God was not beholden by those participating in the temple system. As such, it constitutes a via media between two regnant perspectives on the relationship between biblical monotheism and particularism.

Ancient Israelite And Early Jewish Literature

Ancient Israelite And Early Jewish Literature PDF

Author: Th. Theodoor Christiaan Vriezen

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 777

ISBN-13: 9004124276

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This introduction to the Old Testament (Hebrew Bible) offers a literary and historical-critical approach, containing some religio-historical or theological explanations where appropriate.

A Teacher for All Generations (2 vols.)

A Teacher for All Generations (2 vols.) PDF

Author: Eric F. Mason

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2011-10-28

Total Pages: 1098

ISBN-13: 9004224084

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This collection of essays honors James C. VanderKam on the occasion of his sixty-fifth birthday and twentieth year on the faculty of the University of Notre Dame. An international group of scholars—including peers specializing in Second Temple Judaism and Biblical Studies, colleagues past and present, and former students—offers essays that interact in various ways with ideas and themes important in VanderKam's own work. The collection is divided into five sections spanning two volumes. The first volume includes essays on the Hebrew Bible and ancient Near East along with studies on Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls. Essays in the second volume address topics in early Judaism, Enoch traditions and Jubilees, and the New Testament and early Christianity.

Chronicles and the Politics of Davidic Restoration

Chronicles and the Politics of Davidic Restoration PDF

Author: David Janzen

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2017-05-18

Total Pages: 306

ISBN-13: 0567675491

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David Janzen argues that the Book of Chronicles is a document with a political message as well as a theological one and moreover, that the book's politics explain its theology. The author of Chronicles was part of a 4th century B.C.E. group within the post-exilic Judean community that hoped to see the Davidides restored to power, and he or she composed this work to promote a restoration of this house to the position of a client monarchy within the Persian Empire. Once this is understood as the political motivation for the work's composition, the reasons behind the Chronicler's particular alterations to source material and emphasis of certain issues becomes clear. The doctrine of immediate retribution, the role of 'all Israel' at important junctures in Judah's past, the promotion of Levitical status and authority, the virtual joint reign of David and Solomon, and the decision to begin the narrative with Saul's death can all be explained as ways in which the Chronicler tries to assure the 4th century assembly that a change in local government to Davidic client rule would benefit them. It is not necessary to argue that Chronicles is either pro-Davidic or pro-Levitical; it is both, and the attention Chronicles pays to the Levites is done in the service of winning over a group within the temple personnel to the pro-Davidic cause, just as many of its other features were designed to appeal to other interest groups within the assembly.

Hezekiah and the Dialogue of Memory

Hezekiah and the Dialogue of Memory PDF

Author: Song-Mi Suzie Park

Publisher: Fortress Press

Published: 2015-03-01

Total Pages: 332

ISBN-13: 1451494343

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Hezekiah is a critical figure in the Hebrew Bible, which credits him with major political, social, and religious reforms in Judah’s history and the weathering of a major crisis in the invasion of the Assyrians under their emperor, Sennacherib. Examining the different accounts of Hezekiah’s reign in 2 Kings, 2 Chronicles, and Isaiah, Song-Mi Suzie Park describes a “Hezekiah complex” that developed over a long time, in which the figure of Hezekiah served as a symbol for the vicissitudes of Judah’s history. The king could be understood as a positive reformer of the “pagan” ways of the country, or as a sinner, at least partly responsible for the threats and disasters that befell Judah, from Sennacherib’s invasion through the Babylonian exile more than a century later. By showing how the stories about Hezekiah developed over time through a process of response and counterresponse, forming at the end a dialogue of memory, Park elucidates the ways in which biblical stories in general function as loci of continual dialogue, dispute, and discussion.