However, many scholars maintain support for Ezra's authorship, not only based on centuries of work by Jewish historians, but also due to the consistency of language and speech patterns between Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah. Later critics, skeptical of the long-maintained tradition, preferred to call the author " the Chronicler". Jewish and Christian tradition identified this author as the 5th century BC figure Ezra, who gives his name to the Book of Ezra Ezra is also believed to be the author of both Chronicles and Ezra–Nehemiah.
His intention was to use the narratives in the Torah and former prophets to convey religious messages to his peers, the literary and political elite of Jerusalem in the time of the Achaemenid Empire. He was well-read, a skilled editor, and a sophisticated theologian. The writer was probably male, probably a Levite (temple priest), and probably from Jerusalem. The last events in Chronicles take place in the reign of Cyrus the Great, the Persian king who conquered Babylon in 539 BC this sets the earliest possible date for the book.Ĭhronicles appears to be largely the work of a single individual. Ball suggests that the division into two books introduced by the translators of the Septuagint "occurs in the most suitable place", namely with the conclusion of David's reign as king and the initiation of Solomon's reign.ġ Chronicles is divided into 29 chapters and 2 Chronicles into 36 chapters. Within this broad structure there are signs that the author has used various other devices to structure his work, notably through drawing parallels between David and Solomon (the first becomes king, establishes the worship of Israel's God in Jerusalem, and fights the wars that will enable the Temple to be built, then Solomon becomes king, builds and dedicates the Temple, and reaps the benefits of prosperity and peace).
the genealogies in chapters 1–9 of 1 Chronicles.Originally a single work, Chronicles was divided into two in the Septuagint, a Greek translation produced in the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC.
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