Journal: Tyndale Bulletin
Volume: TYNBUL 28:1 (NA 1977)
Article: Eschatology In Chronicles
Author: H. G. M. Williamson

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TynBul 28:1 (1977) p. 115

Eschatology In Chronicles

H. G. M. Williamson

The Tyndale Old Testament Lecture, 1977*

* Delivered at Tyndale House, Cambridge, 15th July, 1977.

Introduction

The title of this lecture requires a rather careful explanation of both its main elements. The word “eschatology” has been deliberately chosen because of its appearance in the title of an influential book by O. Plöger, translated into English as Theocracy and Eschatology.1 Stated very briefly, Plöger’s thesis is that in the post-exilic community centred on Jerusalem there arose during the Persian and Hellenistic periods a sharp tension in which “the various attitudes to the eschatological question may be regarded as the decisive point of difference” (p. 46). On the one hand, Plöger finds evidence in a number of texts, principally Isaiah 24–7, Zechariah 12–14 and Joel, for a strongly eschatological faith which over the years developed the hopes of the earlier restoration prophecies into the apocalyptic expectations of the Hasidim of Maccabean times, expressed particularly in the book of Daniel. Quite opposed to these groups stood a theocratic party whose adherents believed that the purposes of God were realized in the present community to such an extent that there was little if any place for eschatological expectation. In seeking to establish his case, Plöger argues that “the non-eschatological view of the Chronicler . . . represents the official line within the theocracy” (p. 111).

In Old Testament scholarship, “eschatology” is used in a

TynBul 28:1 (1977) p. 116

wide variety of ways,2 so much so that some even try to avoid it altogether. As it is by no means my intention to add to this confusion, let it here be stressed that our title means to imply no more than to ask how far Plöger’s categorization is justified.

By “Chronicles”, I mean just that. For most scholars (Plöger included; cf. p. 37), the work of the Chronicler is thought to include either the whole or a substantial part of Ezra and Nehemiah.3 I do not share this view, for reasons which I have set out elsewhere.4 If I am mistaken in this view, then that ought not to affect the present study, for we would expect the conclusions which emerge from the major part of writer’s work at least not to contradict his viewpoint as a whole. At the same ...

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