Wednesday Bible Study: More boasting

The first part of Ch. 9, the visit from the Queen of Sheba, is lifted from Kings. The rest is more ridiculous boasting about Solomon ' s possessions and the vastness of his empire, all of which comes from a parallel universe. The Chronicler gives a bibliography toward the end, but for some reason does not mention Kings:" Nathan the prophet, in the prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite and in the visions of Iddo the seer concerning Jeroboam son of Nebat. "  All of these books are lost. Presumably they are excerpted in Chronicles, but we have no way of knowing which is which. We do not know how the Tanakh was canonized, but it had to happen after Chronicles was compiled in the 6th Century BCE, and the Septuagint in the 4th Century. Since the Septuagint and the Masoretic Text are very similar in their overall structure (though they differ in some details), we can surmise that the Septuagint does represent the Hebrew Bible as it existed in the Fourth Century and came down in Hebrew form through subsequent scholarly tradition. However, we do not have the direct sources of the Masoretic Text from the Second Temple period, other than a few fragments in the Dead Sea scrolls. The Tanakh consists of what survived because its priestly custodians decided to preserve it.9 When the queen of Sheba heard of Solomon ’s fame, she came to Jerusalem to test him with hard questions. Arriving with a very great caravan—with camels carrying spices, large quantities of gold, and preciou...
Source: Stayin' Alive - Category: American Health Source Type: blogs