Zur Geschichtsschreibung des Chronisten: Literarisch-historiographische Abweichungen der Chronik von ihren Paralleltexten in den Samuel- und Konigbuchern.

• Author: Seters, John Van

This monograph is a revised 1989 doctoral dissertation for the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In it Kalimi sets forth a major aspect of the Chronicler's historiography, viz., the ways in which the Chronicler deliberately deviates from his sources in the parallel texts of Samuel-Kings. The literary characteristics of this divergence are presented with the conviction that all other aspects of Chronicles, e.g., text-critical issues, its ideology, its unity, its use of additional sources, and their historicity, are ultimately based upon an understanding of these literary features. Kalimi's work is offered as the first full-scale presentation of the Chronicler's literary techniques in his reworking of his sources in Samuel-Kings.

In the introduction Kalimi briefly surveys the earlier research literature dealing with the Chronicler's use of Samuel-Kings and then sets forth his working hypothesis that the whole of Chronicles (with the exception of a few verses) is a single literary and historiographic composition that made direct use of Samuel-Kings as its primary source. While some previous scholars examined the distinctive theological and nationalistic perspectives of the Chronicler thematically and others made isolated observations upon variants between the Chronicler and his sources, a systematic literary treatment of the parallels had not yet been attempted. While Kalimi does not offer a detailed text-critical study based upon the comparison of Chronicles with Samuel-Kings as some earlier works have done, he nevertheless identifies some important implications that his literary study has for text-critical issues.

In the following nineteen chapters Kalimi lays out in order the various literary and historiographic features of the Chronicler's style that account for his deviation from the parallel sources in Samuel-Kings. In each case the specific feature or technique is identified and described and then illustrated with multiple examples in which the Chronicler uses the particular technique deliberately to modify his source in Samuel-Kings. Those having to do with historiography are: (1) ways in which episodes recounted separately in Samuel-Kings are given a literary or chronological connection; (2) correction of contradictions within Samuel-Kings or between Samuel-Kings and the Pentateuch, or modification of the Chronicler's sources to fit his own understanding of Israelite history; (3) expansion of material drawn from Samuel-Kings using other...