The Text of 2 Chronicles 1-16 : A Critical Edition with Textual Commentary

Abstract: Textual criticism has for a long time been a somewhat neglected field of research within the discipline of Old Testament studies, at least as compared with New Testament studies and the field of Classics. With the exception of scholarly editions of the Hebrew text of the Old Testament, what have been analysed are individual passages rather than whole books. When text-critical matters concerning an entire book have been dealt with, it has been in scholarly commentaries. The scholarly editions of the Hebrew text (BHS and BHK) are diplomatic editions based on the text of Codex Leningradensis containing a critical apparatus where variant readings attested by Hebrew manuscripts or the versions, as well as proposed conjectural emendations, are presented and evaluated. In other fields of study textual critics normally present editions of the text established, i.e. critical editions, that are at least an approximation of the "original" text. Only some specimens of critical editions of this kind have appeared. The present dissertation attempts to establish the text of 2 Chronicles 1–16 with special emphasis on the parallel sections in 1 Kings.