fertile imagination could derive from the cuneiform inscriptions, admits that they form a "defective" and "inaccurate" history. They consist of "a series of extracts and abstracts from various [unauthenticated] sources which have been worked over from time to time by successive editors and freely handled by copyists" (Robertson Smith). The older narratives go back to the time of the Assyrian monarchy, but they have been so tampered with by successive editors, especially by the final Redactor in the exilic period, that, if they had any original value, it has become an uncertain quantity. The whole was revised from the priestly stand point, hence we are not to look for history in them, but, as Dr. Driver admits, "the philosophy of history"—from a sacerdotal point of view.
The books of Chronicles (together with Ezra and Nehemiah, in which the narrative is continued, and which are in the same style) are placed by the advanced critics in the same category as Exodus, Numbers, and Leviticus. They are forgeries in favour of the extension of priestly power and the ritualism of the temple. Ezra and Nehemiah may incorporate original memoirs, but the whole was written about the close of the Persian, and beginning of the Greek, period (fourth century B.C.). All critics agree that they are of no more value than the other sacerdotal elements of the Old Testament; they are utterly untrustworthy. The writer is either a priest or a tool of the priesthood—"not so much an historian," says R. Smith, "as a Levitical preacher;" he colours all events, and forces them into harmony with the Priestly Code, and writes fictitious genealogies of Levitical descent. Mr. Sayce's defence of him is characteristic. He says the writer is more trustworthy than critics allow; but, at the same time, completely destroys his credit. His chronology (according to Professor Sayce) is "an artificial scheme which breaks down before the facts of contemporary monuments;" between Archbishop Usher's version of it (the best of many) and Assyriology there is "an irreconcilable difference." "His use of documents is uncritical, his inferences are unsound, and he makes everything subserve his theory. His ecclesiastical tone cannot fail to strike us;" "from the historical point of view his unsupported statements must be received with great caution;" "he did not possess that sense of exactitude
