Why was the Book of Chronicles Written?

The book of Chronicles, the final book of the Hebrew Bible in the Masoretic canon, is unique among the historiographical books of the Bible in several ways. It is longer than any other historiographical book. It "covers" the longest stretch if history, reaching from Adam to Cyrus. It utilizes several distinct literary genres, including, most famously, a nine-chapter long genealogical "introduction". And, most importantly, it covers material that had already been covered by previous biblical books, not only Samuel and Kings, but also parts of Genesis, of Joshua, of Psalms, of Ezra and others. In some cases, the Chronicler seems to have simple copied older material. In others, he seems to have reshaped it. And in yet others, he simply alluded to its existence. The question that this paper asks and attempts to answer is "why". Why did the author of Chronicles, whom we assume to have lived in the fourth century BCE, see a need to re-write earlier biblical materials, which were still known to his audience? Did he wish to replace the earlier material? To re-shape or to recontextualize it? This paper offers several suggested answers.

Yigal Levin is Professor of Biblical History at Bar-Ilan University and Chair of the Israel and Golda Koschitzky Department of Jewish History and Contemporary Jewry. His research focuses on the history, archaeology, and historical geography of ancient Israel and the southern Levant during the biblical and early Second Temple periods, with particular attention to the relationship between the biblical text, historical sources, geography, and archaeological evidence.

His major fields of research include Biblical Israel during the Iron Age, the Persian and Hellenistic periods, the society and religion of ancient Israel, biblical historiography, historical geography, biblical toponymy, and the use of biblical genealogies as sources for reconstructing the social and geographical world of ancient Israel. His work frequently brings textual interpretation into dialogue with archaeology and the wider historical context of the Ancient Near East.

A major focus of Levin's scholarship is the Book of Chronicles. His multi-volume commentary project provides new translations together with extensive historical, geographical, archaeological, linguistic, and literary analysis of Chronicles. In 2026, Bloomsbury published his latest volume, The Chronicles of David and Solomon: 1 Chronicles 10–2 Chronicles 9: A New Translation and Commentary. For additional scholarly research on Chronicles, see the Institute's work on Yigal Levin's research on the Book of Chronicles.

Levin has also participated in archaeological fieldwork at important sites in Israel, including Tel Beth Shemesh and Tell es-Safi/Gath, and has extensive experience teaching biblical-period history, archaeology, historical geography, and related fields.