The Historical Reliability of Chronicles

A LL students of the Bible are aware of L \\ the fact that in the Old Testament JL JL may be found two parallel accounts of the history of Israel—Samuel and Kings, on the one hand, and Chronicles, on the other. At many points Chronicles is clearly dependent upon and repetitive of the Sam-uel-Kings account. On the other hand, Chronicles at times presents material which we do not find else-where. For example, our biblical sources for the closing twenty-two year period of Judah's history are as follows: II Kings 23:28-25:30 (end of book) and II Chroni-cles 35:20-36:21. A quick glance at the ma-terial soon reveals that there is more detail in Kings than in Chronicles and yet the Chronicler's account of Josiah's last days gives us some information lacking in the text of Kings (compare II Kings 23:28-30 with II Chronicles 35:20-27). Some scholars have raised the question of the reliability and usefulness of the Books of Chronicles in matters historical both in this instance and generally. In the case of Josiah's death such a usually reliable scholar as T. H. Robinson dismisses the Chronicler's account stating, "Doubts, however, have arisen dur-ing the last few years, and there is a growing feeling that the story is not to be trusted."1 In this statement Robinson followed R. H. Kennett (his view unpublished) and Adam C. Welch who had earlier set forth the posi-tion that Josiah had been summoned to meet Necho who had then, without further ado, killed him. He states his position as follows: "What happened at Megiddo was not so *H. NEIL RICHARDSON is at present the

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