Alright, so our study is consecrated in prayer. Let's begin with this first lesson. Now I should point out actually really quickly. This is gonna be a 10 part series on versus second chronicles, just like first and second Samuel was 10 lessons, first and second Kings was 10 lessons.
So why not let's do first and second chronicles into lessons as well? And we'll definitely need the time to do so. This first lesson is introducing the book, the both books, really, it used to be one book because I'll explain. So I might say that a lot, it's just one book.
But in any case, it's first and second chronicles. As one scroll is one story, if you understand what I'm saying. And this is where we're going to spend time, like we do in all the other Bible studies, just looking at the title and the canon authorship, the dating, things like that, the structure, the key themes, connections to the New Testament. That stuff is very important to spend a little bit of time on.
And that's why every single new Bible study, I spend just one, the first lesson, one hour, looking at all that stuff. Before I begin, I think it's worthwhile pointing out the syllabus and suggested reading, I have that for every study as well. You can consult that there in the audio library, where it lists all the titles of the different lessons in which chapters that we're studying. And of course, about a dozen or so, 10 to 12 different resources that you have time, you can consult, right, resources that I've leaned upon.
And again, there's no end of the amount of resources you can consult, but I think these are gonna be really, really special. There's usual studies and commentary, excuse me that I rely upon, especially the, well, you'll see them all there, right? You've got the English Catholic Study Bible, the Catholic Interaction of the Bible, the Old Testament, the Navarre Bible, some more older studies as well. But one thing that I'd really like to point out for you that's more of a theological commentary is by Dr.
Han, the Kingdom of God as Liturgical Empire. Definitely read this book if you have the time, but do not approach this book as you might approach a lot of his other books. Dr. Han is incredibly gifted, so he can write books very much for the popular audience, whether it's like Hail Holy Queen or so many other two dozen books that he has published.
But this book is a scholarly book, it's a little bit more intense. The popular book you can knock out in an afternoon or two over a cup of coffee, this book you really wanna soak in and read and read, perhaps and just kind of understand what you're saying. He's quoting a lot of scholars, really all the literature that's out there pulling this all together. It's really, really good.
I will rely on this a lot, provide a lot of great quotations as we go through this Bible study. But it is Dr. Han, he's fantastic, of course. The Kingdom of God as Liturgical Empire, read that in addition to a lot of the usual sources that Catholics have and you got yourself a really awesome foundation.
So there you go, just wanted to point out the syllabus and suggest the reading there, especially that book. So without any further ado, let's dive into an hour or so introducing these great books. First and Second Chronicles, which I have entitled The Kingdom of the Lord. Why I have entitled it, The Kingdom of the Lord, you'll find out really, really soon.
So let's begin with the title itself, which is very fascinating, especially if you have, you know, you got some more modern translations like the New American Bible, the Revise, the Catholic edition, the ESV, the English Standard Version. But the Duet Reams, a lot of my students have the Duet Reams version and they get really confused when we start talking about these books. So I'm gonna explain all that. It's pretty fascinating trivia.
So what are the titles? Well, as I said, actually a moment ago, like First and Second Samuel and First and Second Kings, the original Hebrew manuscript of First and Second Chronicles was one continuous book. All right, so that's why I might refer to it, it's just Chronicles and you'll have to bear with me if I end up saying that. So there are all one books.
This was no exception. It was called Vibre Chiamin, which means the events of the days in the sense of the historical records, or you can simply call it Chronicles, right? And why it's called Chronicles actually comes from Saint Jerome, which we'll get there in just a second year. So that's the title in the Hebrew.
It was one book. And then when the Jewish translators translated, you'll test them into Greek, the famous two-agent, which I've talked about a lot in many studies, it's always abbreviated as lx, x, if you see that in commentaries. That started roughly 200, you might see 250 to 200 BC, broad strokes, 200 BC. The Hebrew Testament was beginning to be translated into Greek because that was the language of the empire, many of the Jews were speaking Greek, so in God's providence that came to be.
And it was then that the book, the one book of Chronicles, the Vibre Chiamin, Chiamin, excuse me, that was then split into two books and the translators called it, this is a bit, this is a mouthful here. You gotta practice it when you're brushing, maybe that when you're brushing your teeth, and when you're sitting there doing the dishes, I'm gonna practice this in say it 20 different times, but Patale Pomena. Patale Pomena means the things left out, or the things emitted, which is very fascinating because what was left out. Presumably we're talking about Samuel and Kings, right?
The things left out of the books of Samuel and the books of Kings. Now I can't help but to think a little bit, maybe obvious here, but I think a light parallel is that when you look at the Gospels, John definitely focuses on the life of Christ in a very unique way. You got Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the Synoptics, and the very similar in many respects, and they have a difference for sure. But then Saint John comes along and 90 plus percent of his gospel has content that the other three gospel writers do not have.
Matthew, Mark, and Luke are similar, but John is a category of his own, right? So I kind of think of it loosely in that sense, right? So you have the books of Samuel and Kings, then Patale Pomena, all right? The things left out, first second chronicles, really takes a particular perspective that the other books don't have.
There's more of a theological history. I'll talk about this when we get to the key themes of really what these books are focusing on, specifically liturgical themes, liturgical things left out. We'll get there soon enough here. So I don't know, I think it's kind of a loose connection to how Saint John takes a look at what the other Gospels did and then provides a particular perspective.
That's what these books are doing here, right? Now when it comes to the Latin Vulgate, Saint Jerome just followed the Greek, right? The Septuagint version, and named them first and second, Patale Pomena on, right? So the things left out, he just followed right from the Greek there.
And the Duet Reims, great Catholic translation, is leading the Latin Vulgate. It's a lot of fun, it's great language. It's just a real treasure in Catholic tradition here. The Duet Reims translation follows the Latin in naming it Patale Pomena on.
So here's the little trivia that a lot of students, you may or may not know this, so bear with me. But a lot of students are kind of curious about and confused at first because I'm teaching live classes. We may, for example, we may be going to, first and second, second, second Kings. And let's say I say, hey, open up your Bible to first Samuel.
If you have your Duet Reims, you're gonna be like, I don't have first Samuel, right? And it's like, okay, that's interesting. And then if I say, oh, open up your Bible to first Kings. If you have the Duet Reims, well I have first Kings, but that's not the text that you're reading from.
And the reason is because, and I talked about this before in the previous Bible studies on Samuel Kings, that Jerome made first and second Kings as four books, basically. So first and second Samuel is first and second Kings in the Duet Reims. And first and second Kings is third and fourth Kings in the Duet Reims. And then chronicles, like I might say, all right, open up the first chronicles and it's gonna be like, I don't have chronicles, there's nowhere to be found.
Oh, that's because you have the Duet. And that's gonna be the Patalepomenon, right? So be aware of that. Not a lot of students have the Duet.
I encourage you, if you have the time, read something like the RSV or the ESV or something like that, the NAB. And then read the Duet right alongside of it. And it's just really amazing. It's interesting, different perspectives on the language there.
So that's what's going on here if you have the Duet Reims Bible. First through fourth Kings is parallel to Samuel Kings. If in chronicles, you're not gonna find it. It's gonna be called Patalepomenon, which you now know means the things left out, all right?
Now Saint Jerome also called these books, I have it here in your Latin. The Croony Con, Totsius Devina Historiae, which literally is the chronicle of the entire divine history. And it's called so called because we're gonna see the next lesson here, the various genealogies begin with Adam, right the bottom of the human race. So that's why he called it the chronicle the entire divine history.
But that word chronicon really comes to us here as chronicles. So that's why we call it chronicles, like the revised standard version, for example, it calls it chronicles because of this tradition that he called it the chronicles of the divine entire divine history. So I think that's all really, really interesting here. And again, the theology is important.
I always say that in Bible studies, when you look at the titles of these various books, those titles are reflecting something on purpose. So even if you go back to the Hebrew title, the things are, sorry, the events of the days, the historical books, that's really important because we're talking about really, Saint Jerome said, the chronicles of the entire divine history. This is a perspective, a historical perspective on all of salvation history, which is really fascinating. And then even the title is in Greek and Latin, the things left out, you kind of have to wonder, well, what are the things left out?
Is it just simply a couple of little stories here or there? Not really, there's kind of a, as we're gonna see in the key theme section here, quote unquote, retelling of sacred history of salvation history in a particular theological covenant away. So I'm excited to talk about that with you just down the line here. So we learn a lot from the titles, never forget that.
Now, the canonical placements. Now, if you have a typical Christian Bible, this doesn't always follow here because even modern translations differ in the canon or the table of contents you wanna put it that way, the organization of the books. But generally speaking, in Christian Bibles, the first and second chronicles are found in the historical books section, which is why chronicles are found in the historical books collection on the audio library here. So they are found in historical books.
They're before Ezra and EMIA because it's chronological, right? So you got first second Samuel, first second kings. Then you have a retelling of that history about the things left out in first and second chronicles. Then it continues with Ezra and EMIA.
That's generally the case, all right? So in Jewish Bibles, this is really interesting. In Jewish Hebrew Bibles, they're found at the end of the Bible. They're found at the end of what there's, what's called the writing section, the Ketuheem.
Now just remember, if you've listened to a lot of my studies, you know this pretty well, the Hebrew Bible has an acronym called the Tanakh, the T, the N, and the K, stand for the Torah, which is the books of Moses, the law, right? And then the N is the Nedim, which are the former prophets, like for second Samuel, Joshua for second kings, right? And then the Ketuheem are the writings, which is a collection of different books where you typically think of like the wisdom literature generally, which would be like the Psalms, sorry, Proverbs. But then it also has here what we think of as the historical books.
And at the end of the Ketuheem, which means it's the end of the entire Jewish Bible, you have the books of chronicles, which is a very interesting placement. Why wouldn't the Hebrew Bible just simply, certainly the Mesoretic texts? Why wouldn't they just place chronicles right after kings because it's retelling the history, right? Repeating a lot of stuff and giving you perspective, just like the Gospel of John follows Matthew, Mark, and Luke.
Well, this is very interesting. And your Catholic introduction to the Bible, the Old Testament, which I always call the Catholic introduction to the Old Testament, it has this little quote here, which I find fascinating, and very ironic actually. It says, quote, in this way, in the way of putting chronicles at the end of the entire Hebrew Bible, at the end of the Ketuheem, says in this way, the retelling of the history of Israel in the books of chronicles forms a canonical last word to followers of Judaism. And this brings the Jewish Bible to an end with the liturgical exhortation to go up to the city of Jerusalem and its temple to worship the God of Israel.
All right, that's the end of the quote. And that's the fact that you look at the end of second chronicles, chapter 36, verse 23, it's kind of a longer verse. But the last words of verse 23 is let him go up. So that's kind of the exhortation.
Like let's return to Jerusalem, let's return to rebuild the temple, let's return and worship God. So that exhortation to return back to God, to go up to Jerusalem and worship him again after you've been in exile, that's kind of how the entire Jewish Bible ends, which is very beautiful. It's the exhortation to all faithful Jews, the faithful remnant, to go back to Jerusalem and start over again and confess your sins, to shoove to return to God. All right, that's awesome.
Now what I find pretty ironic about this is if that's the end of the Hebrew Bible, let's go up back to Jerusalem, let's return to God. Historically, what comes after this, but the gospel. Jesus is the one who is going to bring us back to God. And in fact, and the more you think about this, the kind of more interesting it is, and I'm gonna think about this more myself.
Jesus, especially in Luke, it's very clear, there's this whole idea of going up to Jerusalem. Jesus as the new Israel is going back up to Jerusalem to worship God and then really to establish the new covenant in his own blood in the Paschal Mysteries, that he of the Passion, Death, Resurrection, and his ascension. He's gonna establish the new temple. He's gonna rebuild the temple himself in his body, which is the church and it goes on and on.
So I think that's pretty interesting how the last words of the Old Testament is to go up. And then Jesus, this whole public mission, his ministry is going up to Jerusalem to accomplish all the promises and covenants and types and hopes of the Old Testament in himself. Cause he's the new Israel, he's the new David, he's the new Moses, he's the new Solomon, and he's gonna rebuild the temple and bring all of God's faithful believers back up to God in himself. I think that's pretty awesome here.
And I could be wrong about this, dead wrong. In my own personal reflections, I kind of think that's pretty interesting there. So take it or leave it. So that's the canonical placement of the Jewish Bibles which I find pretty cool.
Now, authorship. Now there is a pretty strong tradition of Jewish tradition and kind of Christian tradition that Ezra, the great scribe Ezra who was involved in the reconstruction of the Jewish life after the Babylonian captivity, that Ezra was the author. We don't really know for sure. I mean, most commentaries will point that out that he was considered to be the author.
But since we don't really know all commentary say the author was just simply the broad chronicler. So chronicles was written by the chronicler, whether that was Ezra or not, we're not sure we'll find out when we get to heaven. Now, the chronicler also probably wrote Ezra and the Amaya, a lot of people speculate because second chronicles ends in the exact same way that Ezra begins. So I'll just read the example at the end of second chronicles and a little bit of Ezra and you'll see exactly what I mean if you're not aware of this.
So the very, very end of second chronicles, chapter 36, verse 22, it's the final paragraph of this entire long book which now we call first and second chronicles. It says, now the first year of Cyrus, King of Persia, the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be accomplished. The Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, King of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom and also put it into writing. Thus says Cyrus, King of Persia, the Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and he has charged me to build himself, build him a house at Jerusalem which is in Judah.
Whoever is among you of all his people, may the Lord has God be with him and let him go up. All right, go back to Jerusalem. Now, if you flip the page, in Ezra chapter one verse one, it begins in the exact same words. I mean, pretty much verbatim in the first year of Cyrus, King of Persia, that the word of the Lord by the mouth of the prophet Jeremiah might be accomplished.
The Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, King of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all this kingdom and put it in writing, thus says Cyrus, King of Persia, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. All right, so that's pretty interesting. It serves kind of like a link in my mind, right? Where first second chronicles ends with this very specific sign of hope of return.
It in Ezra begins in the exact same words, thus linking these books together. All right, that's pretty awesome here. So it's very possible scholars will speculate. We don't know for sure, but scholars will speculate that the author of versus second chronicles is the same as Ezra and Yamaya.
Now, it would make sense, of course, that, oh, I should have one more quick thing here. So in terms of authorship, so it's anonymous, maybe Ezra, maybe not. We call him the chronicler. He might be the same author as Ezra and Yamaya, but that's all we know except for one little thing of evidence, leads us to conclude he might be a Levite.
Why is that the case? Because as you read versus second chronicles, there's this immense amount of knowledge, awareness, and focus, and descriptions, detailed descriptions of everything liturgical. So the temple, the building of the temple, the sacrificial worship rights, and sacrifices themselves, the various singers in the temple that David had put together and hired him, think of David hiring musical directors, that's kind of what he did, right? So because of all this focus and description and knowledge of all things liturgical regarding the temple and sacrifice and the Levites themselves, it's pretty clear, I think, that many people think, I'm just following suit, that the chronicler was a Levite after the exile, so post-exilic Levite.
Now this still could still match Ezra, because Ezra was a Levite, he descended from Aaron. So Ezra was this incredible character, he is a scribe, he's very educated, he's very faithful, he is a priest, so that still would fit Ezra. I personally like to believe it was Ezra, I can't prove it, I think you can't throw away tradition all too easily, so just kind of like devotionally, it makes sense very much that this was Ezra, especially when you read his book, I mean the dude was very, very focused on the history of his, he tells us, I mean you read Ezra, and there's a lot of descriptions about how he teaches the people, and he goes through salvation history, and that's very much like versus in chronicles, right in any case we just leave it right there, because we don't really know. Now this author, we're just gonna call him the chronicler, I won't ever say it Ezra, it's just the chronicler, just to be fair about that.
He used a lot of sources in his work, which is really amazing, right, he's super thorough, he's pretty impressive, very thorough, it is very historical, don't let any liberal commentaries tell you otherwise, this is a historical document, it uses ancient sources, and he's telling history in a particular way, for a particular purpose, which of course is all covenants, and we'll talk about that in just a little while here. But as you go through, various commentaries will list the very sources that the chronicler used. Certainly there's Samuel and Kings, 100%, and well I just wrote them all out here for you in a little list just to make it simpler here. Now, just number one, it says, the book of the Kings of Judah and Israel.
Two, the book of the Kings of Judah. Three, the book of the Kings of Israel. Four, the chronicles of the Kings of Israel. Five, the commentary on the book of Kings.
All right, now, it's really hard to understand, you start diving into the weeds, and there's really, I think, little, you can conclude about this. I think for sure it's referring to the books of Kings, one in two Kings, which again was one document. Now, but it seems to be there are some other chronicles or commentaries or books on the Kings of Judah by themselves, or Israel by themselves, that this particular chronicler is relying on. Also, as you look in the notes here, number six, he mentions and quotes the records of the seer or the prophet Samuel.
Now, that probably refers to the first and second Samuel. But then there are other documents that we have no idea what he's talking about with their loss to us in history. The records of the prophet Nathan, remember Nathan was the great prophet that served King David. He was a great prophet who confronted David about his really triple wanny, mortal sin of less adultery and murder.
So we don't have any records of Nathan, but this chronicle is relying on them. That's pretty cool. Also, the records of the seer, Gad. We know very little about Gad, and it turns out he wrote a bunch of stuff that we don't know about.
Number seven, there are other documents, like from Edo, the seer, and the chronicles of Shami of the prophet, and Jehu, the Senapunani, and the story of Edo, the prophet, and the vision of Isaiah. So that might refer to texts that Isaiah himself wrote, the prophet Isaiah, that's pretty interesting. And there's a high judge, a Shilunai, and Uzziah written by Isaiah. So this is very clearly a historical document, historical records about God's people.
All right, so that's super fun. That's super fun to think about. I wish we had all this stuff. I mean, maybe it was lost in the Babylonian captivity, or I don't know, I've had it been after that.
Just interesting to speculate. So this is a very historical book, and it's the chronicleer who used these resources to write this incredible book, which now is do books. All right, moving on then. So dating, when did this happen?
Hey, this is Doc Neck. Thank you so much for listening to this course sample. If you enjoyed it and want to listen to the entire lesson, please become a student over at scriptureandtradition.com, where you can listen to this entire course, but also all the other courses that we have available in the S&T audio library, where you can listen to them on demand, however, and whenever you want. So thank you so much.
God bless you and keep studying your Bible.