Louis Jonker on the non-biblical sources the Chronicler Used (e.g., the works of Iddo) being "Prophetic," not merely "secular," Works

  

Prophets introduced by the Chronicler:

 

The following prophetic figures mentioned by the Chronicler are not known from other sources, inside or outside the Hebrew Bible: Iddo (2 Chron 9,29; 12,15; 13,22), Azariah, the son of Oded (2 Chron 15,8; 28,9), Hanani (2 Chron 16,7.10), Jehu the son of Hanani (2 Chron 19,2), the Levite Jahaziel, the son of Zecheriah (2 Chron 20,14), Eliezer (2 Chron 20,37), Zecheriah, the son of Jehojada (2 Chron 24,20), as well as a number of anonymous prophets (2 Chron 20,20. 25; 29,25; 33,18-19). (Louis Jonker, “The Chronicler and the Prophets: Who were his Authoritative Sources?,” Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament 22, no. 2 [2008]: 278)

 

 

We should admit that, for the majority of prophetic voices in Chronicles, we do not have any idea where they come from. Apart from the few known prophets which were taken over from the Deuteronomistic Vorlage (and with the exception of Jeremiah, to whom I will turn in a moment), we have no idea what the Chronicler’s authoritative sources were for those new prophetic voices. Until we get access to extra-biblical textual sources that can prove us wrong (remember the Balaam case!), Chronicles scholars may speculate in two directions: either, these prophetic voices are literary creations, or they reflect the presence of some cultic prophets during the Chronicler’s time. (Louis Jonker, “The Chronicler and the Prophets: Who were his Authoritative Sources?,” Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament 22, no. 2 [2008]: 289—in other words, either the Chronicler made up sources [lied, in other words] or were relying on prophetic [not merely secular] sources that are now lost—Evangelical critics of the “missing books” apologetic trap themselves between a rock and a hard place)

 

As one Latter-day Saint scholar recently noted on these sources:

. . . given the lack of preserved evidence it is impossible to prove one side or the other. However, again seeing that for the authors of these histories and their audience, these sources appear to not only be authentic but authoritative. I’m led to conclude that the cited sources did indeed exist in antiquity. (Joshua M. Matson, “The Enigmatic Solomon: The Rise and Fall of Israel’s Third King,” in From Wilderness to Monarchy: The Old Testament Through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade [Provo, Utah: BYU Religious Studies Center; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2025], 379 n. 16)