Note 9 — VOLUME VI SLICE III Chitral to Cincinnati (continued 5)

The view that the chronicler invented such narratives is inconceivable, and in the present stage of historical criticism is as unsound as an implicit reliance upon those sources in the earlier books, which in their turn are often long posterior to the events they record. Although Graf, in a critical and exhaustive study (Geschichtlichen Bücher des A.T., Leipzig, 1866), concluded that the Chronicles have almost no value as a documentary source of the ancient history, he subsequently admitted in private correspondence with Bertheau that this statement was too strong (preface to Bertheau’s Commentary, 2nd ed., 1873).