Chapter 8 - A SENSE OF PROPORTION: AN ASPECT OF THE THEOLOGY OF THE CHRONICLER

Summary

1

As a contribution to the study of the theology or ideology conveyed by the book of Chronicles, this paper sets out to develop the idea that the Chronicler – defined as the author/s of the book of Chronicles – consistently set the lessons that the historical audience may have learned from some, or even many, of the individual accounts in the book in theological or ideological perspective by qualifying them with the message conveyed by other accounts. The Chronicler, thus, shaped within the text, and communicated to the audience, a sense of proportion that is integral to the thought and teachings conveyed by the book of Chronicles as a whole.

It is also the contention of this paper that the Chronicler did not claim or wish the audience to understand reported attestations of certain theological principles as proof that such principles are universally or absolutely valid. Rather than presenting to the audience a world governed by God according to a set of independent principles, whose relative importance may be abstracted from the number of reported attestations, Chronicles suggested to its historical audience a world in which God's principles are deeply interrelated and qualify each other, and therefore, a world in which God's rules cause a variety of possible effects, including those which are inconsistent with some of the divine principles themselves, had they been separate and universally valid.