John Jarick, 1 Chronicles: Second Edition, (Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2007),, pp 183, ISBN:978-1-905048-89-2.
Jarick’s brief commentary is part of a series Readings: A New Biblical Commentary, of which he is also the General Editor. The first edition was published by Sheffield Academic Press in 2002 and seems to be the same as this reprint, except for the pagination.
Jarick refers to the authors as The Annalists and their work as The Annals. He reads the final form of the text, and argues that the writing of this work was done by a group, not an individual. Jarick admits that The Annalists may have copied certain matters from the scrolls of Samuel and Kings (indeed!) or that the Samuel-Kings scribes made some use of these Annals (not so!). He makes no attempt to fix a precise date for this work, other than that it is no earlier than the Persian period. He uses the name Yahweh instead of LORD, but refers to god in lower case. The commentary is primarily based on the New Revised Standard Version, with occasional references to differences in the Hebrew text.
Jarick believes The Annalists have created a fantasy literature, in which things happen just so and that this work was meant to replace any other story of the house of David. He sums up the thesis of Chronicles as follows: “Only absolute commitment to a system instituted by an absolute monarch can bring about a perfect society.” He finds considerable artistry in their telling of the story, but refers to its supposed thesis as its “dark underbelly.” Current readers, he believes, will bring to a reading of the text notions from a real world that has experienced the horrors of totalitarianism and fundamentalism. Are those “isms” really apt comparisons to the ideology of The Annalists? Little attention is paid to a more primary concern in the study of Chronicles: The work finds its meaning in loyalty to the temple in Jerusalem and its rites but trades this for acceptance of the hegemony of the Persian empire. This may have been the only realistic option, but it is a dubious position in our post-colonial times.
Ralph W. Klein
Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago