Altering Solomon’s Alternative Altar: Chronicles’ Revision of Kings in Light of Priestly Tradition

This paper examines the relationship between the Book of Kings and the Book of Chronicles through a focused case study: the depiction of the altar(s) in Solomon’s temple. While scholarly models vary—some positing a shared source, others viewing Chronicles as a revision of Kings—this analysis supports the view, associated with Wellhausen, that Chronicles reinterprets the Deuteronomistic History in line with the Pentateuch, particularly its Priestly layer. In Kings, Solomon’s two altars function within a hierarchical system that distinguishes between the royal and communal spheres. Chronicles, by contrast, aligns the temple’s cultic architecture with the Tabernacle model, presenting a single sacrificial altar alongside a golden altar with a different function. The Chronicler’s account reveals its secondary nature through both expansion and abbreviation of the Kings narrative, shaped by a theological agenda to harmonize Israel’s cultic past with the normative framework of priestly law.