It's pretty clear from 2 Chron.9:29 & 10:15 that the Chronicler had 1 Kings 11
or an equivalent text & thus knew about Solomon's apostasy. But he doesn't mention it.
> or it might
> be that the chronicler was afraid for his head
Even more than the writer of Kings even though he was writing later?
> or it may be what you say.
> There is not a very great constraint on picking motives out.
But as I note above there are constraints & they speak against your suggestions.
It isn't just a free for all.
> I used to
> bluff my way through English classes by detecting symbolism. I could make
> stuff up out of novels that even the author didn't know was there. I kept
> getting A's until one class, English for non-English majors, where the Prof
> wanted Freudian analyses of the characters in Light in August by Faulkner.
> I had never taken Psych at the time, so I got a D in the class. THat was
> the last english class I took. But I will tell you I was quite good at
> making up motives and symbolisms for the various characters. All of which
> was bunk but useful bunk because it got me A's.
Sure, there's a lot of BS in freshman lit & literary criticism in general
& it ought to be slapped down more by teachers. But if it's impossible to convey
any meaning at all by literature, which is what your claim amounts to, then there's no
point to writing anything which isn't historical narrative - which seems indeed be your
view. But it's a bit limited.
What I've said about Chronicles doesn't require any arcane guesses about
Freudian symbolism &c. The "tendency" of a redacted history which systematically makes
one group all good & their enemies all bad is pretty obvious. You have a similar thing
with the Aeneid or Geoffery of Monmouth writing to legitimate & glorify the Augustan
empire or the Plantagenet dynasty. But from your standpoint you can't say that Vergil
was a great poet with a political agenda. He was just a credulous & sloppy historian.
& if its impossible to discern the meaning of non-historical texts then its
equally impossible to see any _meaning_ or existential significance to historical texts.
Who cares if there was as flood in the Mediterranean 5+ million years ago or in
Mesopotamia 4000 years ago? It's just a fact about the ancient world, & for any
theological significance you can read from it I can read from it another.
.....................
> The number inflation in the Bible does bother me. But it is minor compared
> to making up the army etc. It bothers me because it places doubts on the
> credibility of other things.
> That should be a concern to everyone. If our
> Bible isn't credible, then exactly what are we worshipping--our own
> imagination?
But of course that's exactly what the inerrantist could - & no doubt does -
say to you. If the numbers in the Bible aren't credible then doubt is placed on
everything else in the Bible.
George L. Murphy
gmurphy@raex.com
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/