Summary
Date: 4th Century B.C.E.
The book of Chronicles is neither a chronicle nor an analytic work, but a complex theological-historical composition beginning with Adam and concluding with the Cyrus declarations (538 BCE). Chronicles should not be identified with the Annals of the Kings of Israel or the Annals of the Kings of Judah which are frequently mentioned in Kings, since Chronicles was written after Kings. Furthermore, even though in English Bibles, following the tradition of the Septuagint, Chronicles is divided into two books like Samuel and Kings, in the Hebrew tradition, it is a single book. It is thus proper to speak of the book rather than the books of Chronicles.