In the article "The Chronicler as Historian: A Comparativist Perspective," Kenneth Hoglund attempts to situate the Chronicler as an historian of his times by comparing the techniques employed by the Chr and the roughly contemporary classical historians of the period. Hoglund deftly avoids the issue of direct or indirect influence that has plagued other attempts to compare biblical and classical histories. In doing so, Hoglund makes a strong argument that accepts the Chr’s work as historiography and rejects as anachronistic the accusations of plagiarism and deceit leveled against the Chr. Judged against his own thesis, Hoglund largely succeeds in his analysis of the problem.
However, Hoglund's arguments are not without their problems. The parallels in technique that Hoglund identifies between the Chr and the classical historians are not quite as compelling as they may seem. For instance, while it is true that Greek historians often demonstrated an interest in genealogies, there is no extant case, even in the examples Hoglund cites, of the type of sustained and prolonged genealogies found in 1 Chr 1-9. Furthermore, the genealogies of the Greek historians often did not have the same purpose as that which Hoglund attributes to the Chr's genealogies. The Greek genealogies were often theogonies and so, by definition, concerned with the origins of the gods or the relationship of a hero to a god or gods. While the general concept of origins and status play a part in the Chr's genealogies, the Chr's genealogies operate on a primarily human, rather than divine, plane. They also reflect broader concerns than simply origins and status. Hoglund quotes De Vries, who observes that the Chr’s genealogies are concerned with issues of social, economic, religious, military, and political organization. It is, therefore, important to recognize that the common interest in genealogies in the ancient world by no means reflects a common purpose in the use of them, particularly in written texts.
There is a similar problem in Hoglund's analysis of the role of prophets. In this case, Hoglund overlooks the fact that the wise counselors (as well as oracles) in Herodotus are primarily used to expose the causes (usually among others) for a certain action. As Herodotus writes in his proem, he is interested in the causes (aitie) that led to the wars of the Greeks and the Persians; oracles and the advice of wise counselors are among those causes. In contrast, the prophets of the Chr rarely serve this function. Rather, the prophets of the Chr, as interpreters of the divine will, present the consequences of a certain action.
In these cases and others, Hoglund does not adequately address the nuances that create significant differences in the parallels he draws. Even so, this failure on the part of Hoglund does not necessarily compromise the essential thrust of Hoglund's argument. One can easily anticipate Hoglund's rebuttal: the differences are only reflections of divergent ethnic, religious, socio-economic, and political milieus out of which biblical and classical historians arose. The strength of the parallels is sufficient to establish that, whatever the differences, both groups of historians employed a comparable genre, that is historiography. Indeed, this rebuttal may solve the problem but only if one additional problem, which Hoglund does not even address, is worked out: intent.
Of course, with the problem of intent, we encounter a quagmire, an investigatory nightmare. How do we recover the intent of a real, or even implied, author? Unfortunately, no matter how difficult it is to recover intent, this is the only criteria that can ultimately resolve the issue.
As Hoglund's article proves, there is a strong prima facie case to support the position that Chr is history. Not only does Hoglund observe in his introduction that Chr "presents us with a narrative more or less chronologically arranged and more or less focused on the political events affecting Jerusalem and the southern kingdom of Judah" and that "'history' would be an appropriate label for such a narrative," but Hoglund also demonstrates that "those well-known tendencies of the work that have given scholars difficulty in applying the designation 'history'" are explainable on the basis of the nature of ancient historiography itself. Yet, as compelling as this may seem, it is not very difficult to prove that throughout the history of literature, there are works that employ the genre of "history" but still are not history. While perhaps the stories of King Arthur and Robin Hood are the first to come to mind, the case can also be made with a simple appeal to the classical works of Homer or even to books within the biblical canon itself, such as Esther, Ruth, and Jonah. All these works conform to a definition of "history" that does not take into account intent. They are "more or less chronologically arranged" and give every appearance of attempting to describe or construct a past reality. (So much so, in fact, that there are still biblical scholars who defend the historicity of the biblical books just mentioned.) It is only once we entertain the notion of intent that genres such as historical fiction or fictionalized history, short story, legend, and myth are applied to these works.
So, how do we analyze the intent of an author? How do we recover the unrecoverable? If genre is a deceptive criterion, is historical accuracy a suitable criterion? Unfortunately, this does not work: bad history is still history. Unavoidably, regardless of any pretense of objectivity or applied methodology, the final determination is necessarily subjective. We must read Chr and compare it with other works as Hoglund has done and decide for ourselves if the narrative claims for itself the status of "history." Sometimes the character of the narrative makes it easier to make this determination. Most of the classical historians provided insight into their intent by writing in the first person and/or making programmatic statements concerning their aims and purposes (though one cannot always trust these statements either; it may simply serve the author's purpose to construct themselves in a certain way, e.g. as an historian). Herodotus, for instance, writes:
Herodotus of Halicarnassus here displays his inquiry (istoria), so that human achievements may not become forgotten in time, and great and marvelous deeds—some displayed by Greeks, some by barbarians—may not be without their glory; and especially to show why the two peoples fought with each other.
The rest of Herodotus's narrative, regardless of how one judges its historicity, demonstrates a strong and consistent antiquarian and ethnographic interest. Similarly, the character of Thucydides's narrative also suggests a work of history. Scholarly consensus confirms my own subjective opinion of these two classical historians.
Is the Chr an historian? I think so. Even though there is no proem in Chr comparable to the one Herodotus wrote nor is there any first person narrative, the character of the narrative suggests to me a genuine antiquarian impulse. Certainly, this antiquarian impulse is filtered through an especially strong ideological program but the commitment to the past remains a strong characteristic of the overall work. Perhaps, this is best illustrated when one considers the character of genealogies. While genealogies in tribal cultures are as much about the present as they are about the past, they nevertheless derive their significance in the present from the past. This axiom seems to characterize not only the Chr's genealogies but the entirety of the Chr's work. While Chr is a book as much about the Chr's present as about his past, it nevertheless derives the significance of the present from the past. In this respect, the Chr is a historian and Chr is history.
Note: I appreciate this is a somewhat perfunctory conclusion and warrants some further elaboration but the assignment for which this was originally written had a word count and this seemed the best place to leave off. Perhaps, I will expand on this short essay in a future blog entry.
The Book of Chronicles as History
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