Kings without privilege

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For almost two centuries biblical scholars have operated in the shadow of de Wette's judgement that the books of Chronicles are derived from and (hence?) historically inferior to the books of Samuel - Kings. Without disputing de Wette's historical feel for the unreliability of the Chronicler, Graeme Auld suggests a fresh model for understanding the interrelationships of these two accounts of the Bible's kings: each had supplemented, quite independently of the other, a common inherited text that had told the story of Judah's kings from David to the fall of Jerusalem. He reconstructs and explains this shared source. . This fresh study shows that the author of Samuel-Kings was no less partisan than the Chronicler when retelling older traditions of Israel and Judah. Sometimes the two books diverge considerably, as over King Hezekiah. At other times the differences are slighter, yet quite as telling: after forty shared verses of petition in Solomon's prayer at the dedication of the Jerusalem Temple, the version in Kings ends by appealing to the Exodus and mentioning Moses by name; but Chronicles, as often more traditionally, names David and quotes a Psalm.