3. The Sources of the Chronicles.
The genealogical list in 1 Chron 1, which gives us the origin of the human race and of the nations, and that which contains the names of the sons of Jacob (1Ch 2:1 and 1Ch 2:2), are to be found in and have been without doubt extracted from Genesis, to be placed together here. For it is scarcely probable that genealogical lists belonging to primeval time and the early days of Israel should have been preserved till the post-exilic period. But all the genealogical registers which follow, together with the geographical and historical remarks interwoven with them (1 Chron 2:3-8:40), have not been derived from the older historical books of the Old Testament: for they contain for the most part merely the names of the originators of those genealogical lines, of the grandsons and some of the great-grandsons of Jacob, and of the ancestors, brothers, and sons of David; but nowhere do they contain the whole lines. Moreover, in the parallel places the names often differ greatly, so that all the variations cannot be ascribed to errors of transcription. Compare the comparative table of these parallel places in my apolog. Versuch über die Chron. S. 159ff., and in the Handbook of Introduction, §139, 1. All these catalogues, together with that of the cities of the Levites (1 Chron 6:39-66), have been derived from other, extra-biblical sources.
