The age in which the Pentateuch and the several Historical Books (Joshua-Kings), the product of the long and obscure process which we have attempted to outline in the preceding chapters, were adjusted and connected so as to make a continuous history from the creation to the fall of the Judæan state, can be fixed only by the fact that the author of Chronicles (about 300 B.C. or somewhat later; see below) seems to have read these books in the order and, so far as his use of them permits a judgment, substantially with the contents of our present Old Testament. This arrangement, or edition, if we choose to call it so, as has been shown, did not put an end to additions and alterations, though they gradually became less frequent and less important in the following centuries. A standard and stable Hebrew text was established only in the second century after the Christian era. CHAPTER XII CHRONICLES By the side of this comprehensive history stands another which is in part parallel, in part supplementary, to it, Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah. It differs from the former in being the work of one author, whose characteristic conceptions, interests, and manner make it easy to distinguish his writing from the sources he incorporates. His peculiarities are the better known because there is so much of his own in the books--not far from half the matter contained in them. The succession of the high priests is brought down to Jaddua, who was contemporary with Alexander the Great, and lists of heads of priestly and levitical families are given in Neh. 12 for the reign of Darius (Codomannus), the last Persian king. The book can, therefore, not be put much, if any, before 300 B.C., and more probably it was written in the following century. The history begins with the death of Saul and the election of David as king by all Israel at Hebron (1 Chron. 10-11). The preceding chapters are filled with genealogies, beginning with Adam. Twenty-six verses bring us to Abraham, and the second chapter opens with the sons of Israel, while the third is a list of the sons of David and of his successors on the throne to the fall of the kingdom, with the descendants of the last king through several generations. These genealogies, to which historical notices of different kinds are frequently attached, are in part compiled from various places in the Pentateuch and Historical Books, in part more freely reproduced from such passages; but a large remainder has no parallel in the older work. The author, here as elsewhere, evidently attaches great importance to these lists, in particular to those which enabled the families of his own time, clerical and lay, or the inhabitants of towns and villages, to trace their pedigree back to remote times.