ISAAC KALIMI, Zur Geschichtsschreibung des
Chronisten: Literarisch-historiographische Abweichungen der Chronik von
ihren Parelleltexten in den Samuelund Konigsbuchern (BZAW 226; Berlin/New
York: de Gruyter, 1995). Pp. x 400. DM 188.
Kalimi offers a systematic, classified presentation
of the literary and historiographical techniques employed by the
Chronicler as he incorporated earlier materials from the Deutoronomistic
History into the work we call 1 and 2 Chronicles (Ezra-Nehemiah is a
separate work). K. finds that some of the supposed textual variations
between Samuel-Kings and Chronicles are a product of the literary
strategies of the Chronicler rather than the result of later additions or
errors made by this author or someone else. Still, K. concludes from his
study of the author's methods that people were free to change the biblical
text before the time of the masoretes. Many variations between the source
texts and the Chronicler's work are merely the result of the Chronicler's
literary techniques and, therefore, do not stem from ideological or
theological reasons. The better a text fits the Chronicler's literary
techniques, the less worth it has for ascertaining the Chronicler's
ideological position. The similar literary and historiographical
techniques employed throughout the work convince K. that the whole work
stems from one hand, except perhaps 2 Chr 36:22-23. K. also concludes that
the author of Chronicles was a creative writer with considerable literary
and historiographic talent, and that the neglect of this work observable
in the history of interpretation has been a serious mistake.
These conclusions are based on meticulous
discussion of hundreds of examples divided into nineteen different
categories. They can only be sampled in this review. K. notes that the
Chronicler makes an immediate connection between the joint prayer of
Hezekiah and Isaiah in 2 Chr 32:20 and the visit of the angel of the Lord
in 2 Chr 32:21. Hezekiah's prayer in 2 Kgs 19:15-19 is longer than in
Chronicles, and it is followed by a prophetic response by Isaiah in 2 Kgs
19:20-34. Only then does the destruction of the 185,000 soldiers occur.
Since the Chronicler asserts that God's response came immediately after
the joint prayer, he has omitted the words "It happened that same night"
from 2 Kgs 19:35.
At other times, the Chronicler has resolved
contradictions present in his sources. According to 1 Kgs 5:27-28 Solomon
recruited 30,000 forced laborers from all Israel, but this is contradicted
by 1 Kgs 9:20-22, which denies that Israelites ever participated in forced
labor. The Chronicler, omitting an equivalent to 1 Kgs 5:27-28, reports
only that the labor gangs came from remnants of the pre-Israelite
population (2 Chr 8:7-9). Sometimes new material added in Chronicles has
forced a harmonization. In 2 Chr 35:18 the author of Chronicles has
changed the text of 2 Kgs 23:22 by omitting the information that no king
of Judah previous to Josiah had celebrated a Passover, since the
Chronicler added a Passover celebration earlier, under Hezekiah, in 2
Chronicles 30. The Chronicler states that they cooked (literally,
"boiled") the Passover in fire (2 Chr 35:17), thus harmonizing Exod 12:8
and Deut 16:7.
The Chronicler, occasionally made expansions from
other places in the Bible. His depiction of the Egyptian killed by Benaiah
(1 Chr 11:23 112 Sam 23:21) had been supplemented with details from the
incident involving Goliath (1 Sam 17:4,7). K. also believes that the
Chronicler added "his hand" in 1 Chr 13:7, lacking in 2 Sam 6:6. Since
this reading appears in 4QSama, K. proposes that the Qumran
text may have been influenced by Chronicles. This conclusion seems
unlikely, since the ancient versions of Samuel all contain "his hand." P.
K. McCarter (II Samuel [AB 9; New York: Doubleday, 1984] 164) is surely
correct in identifying the omission of "his hand" in the MT of Samuel as a
simple mistake.
The Chronicler omitted information for a variety of
reasons. While the Deuteronomistic Historian claimed that Manasseh made
altars for Baal and an Asherah, just as Ahab had done (2 Kgs 21:3), the
Chronicler omitted the comparison with Ahab in 2 Chr 33:3, for he had
already omitted Ahab's improper construction projects (1 Kgs 16:32-33).
Again, 2 Sam 21:15-21 speaks of four giants, but since the Chronicler
tells only three stories about them, he provides no specific number in 1
Chr 20:8.
Though there is room for quibbling on details
throughout the book, A will be indebted to K. for his clear categorization
of the Chronicler's literary and historiographic procedures, including
newly proposed chiasms, large and small, and incidences of Wiederaufnahme,
K. himself suggests that his methodology could be extended to study other
parallel texts within the Bible or in other ancient Near Eastern
literature.
~~~~~~~~
By Ralph
W. Klein, Lutheran
School of Theology at Chicago, Chicago, IL 60615