that, if the old Greek Version were extant throughout Chronicles,considerable variations between the earlier and the present text might be disclosed. (3) Finally, internal evidence suggests that a few passages are of a secondary character; i.e. interpolations by a writer later than the Chronicler: such perhaps are 1 Chr. vi. 50—53; viii. 29—38; xxiv. 20—31; 2 Chr. xv. 16—19 (see note ver. 17); xx. 33 (see note xvii. 6); xxxi. 17—19.
Interpolations on a large scale are not likely to have been made. Yet it must be borne in mind that Chron.-Ezra-Neh. were once a continuous work, and study of Ezra-Nehemiah shows that those writings have undergone a complex literary process, involving serious omissions and transpositions. This heightens the possibility that Chronicles also, before or after its separation from Ezra-Nehemiah, was treated with freedom. Thus "the recurrence of 1 Chr. ix., Neh. xi. [both giving a list of inhabitants of Jerusalem] in a single work hardly looks like an original feature; like the more remarkable repetition of Ezra ii., Neh. vii., the feature seems to point to the combination of sources which were primarily distinct" (Cook, 1 Esdras, in Charles' Apocrypha, p. 19, but see note on ix. 17). On the other hand the homogeneity of style and purpose in Chronicles tells strongly against the probability of large interpolations, and it is reasonable to believe that in the present text we have substantially the work produced by the Chronicler.
(II) Authorship. Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah contain no hint whatsoever of the name of their author, and external evidence fails us equally. From the contents and tone of the work we can infer with comparative certainty that he belonged to the Levitical order, and in all probability was a member of one of the Levitical guilds of musicians and singers (see, e.g. 2 Chr. xxxiv. 12, note). His character and conceptions can also be discerned from the nature of his work. That he was a man of strong intellect and vivid imagination is shown by his qualities as a narrator (see p. xxi) and by the consistency and power with which the whole work has been designed and carried through (see below, §§ 5, 6, 8). Beyond this it is futile to conjecture.
