History, Literature and Theology in the Book of Chronicles

Ehud Ben Zvi is a professor (History & Classics, and Religious Studies) at the University of Alberta. A former president of the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies, his publications include, Hosea (forthcoming, 2005); Signs of Jonah: Reading and Rereading in Ancient Yehud (2003); Micah (2000) and A Historical-Critical Study of The Book of Obadiah (1996) as well as many articles on the historical books of the Hebrew Bible in which he explores the ways in which ancient Israelites construed their past and the significance of these images of the past for them. He is also a co-author of Readings in Biblical Hebrew. An Intermediate Textbook (1993).

• Part 1 Introductory Essays; Chapter 1 Introduction; Chapter 2; Part 2 Chronicles and the Rereading and Writing of a Didactic, Socializing History; Chapter 3 Observations on Ancient Modes of Reading of Chronicles and their Implications, with an Illustration of their Explanatory Power for the Study of the Account of Amaziah (2 Chronicles 25); Chapter 4; Chapter 5; Chapter 6; Chapter 7; Part 3 Chronicles and Theology as Communicated and Recreated Through the Rereading of a Historiographical, Literary Writing; Chapter 8; Chapter 9, A. Labahn; Chapter 10 Ideological Constructions of Non-Yehudite/Peripheral Israel in Achaemenid Yehud: The Case of the Book of Chronicles; Chapter 11; Chapter 12; Part 4 Chronicles and Literature: Literary Characterizations that Convey Theological Worldviews and Shape Stories about the Past; Chapter 13;

"Ben Zvi's readings of individual passages are sensitive, and his sense of the overall themes and ideological construction of Chronicles is acute." - The Bible and Critical Theory "By approaching Chronicles through three different lenses - the historical, the theological, and the literary - Zvi makes the case that Chronicles is best understood by valuing the insights derived from each lens in proportion to those derived from the other lenses, or, in other words, by balancing the insights from each lens and allowing them to inform and enhance each other... each makes a contribution and, taken together, the understanding produced is greater than the sum of their parts. - the same is true for other biblical books as well, that units within a book, even seemingly contradictory parts, inform and balance one another, and yield the greatest understanding when they are considered not independently of each other but from an inclusive perspective." - Biblical Interpretation