The past couple of decades have seen the book of Chronicles go from being "the Bible's best-kept secret"1 to being one of the most studied and researched of all biblical books. One reason for this is a renewed interest in the Persian period and an acknowledgment of its importance in the formation of the biblical corpus as we know it today.2 Most recent commentators on Chronicles assume that the Chronicler lived in late Persian-period Yehud and have come to realize the importance of his book for our understanding of the ideology, theology, and historiography of this period.3 One particular aspect of Chronicles research that has returned to the forefront is that of the Chronicler's genealogies. These nine chapters serve as an "introduction" to the entire book, one in which the Chronicler lays out the historical, geographic, and demographic background for his entire composition.4 To quote one commentator, the genealogies "are like lions guarding the gates, driving away the fainthearted from the treasures inside."5 In a recently published article, I attempted to utilize these genealogies in order to elucidate the social setting in which the author of Chronicles operated and the audience for which he wrote.6 I concluded that the Chroniclers use of the genealogical genre, especially that of segmented lists of clans and their relationships, as well as the fact that the genealogies of the "central" tribes of judah, Benjamin, Ephraim, Manasseh, and (southern) Asher seem to reflect the reality of the Chroniclers own day, indicates that he was writing for an audience that was largely agrarian and clan-based and so would be able to relate to the genealogical genre as stemming from its own life experience. A second conclusion was that, although the author of Ezra-Nehemiah held an exclusive view of contemporary Israelite/Judean identity,7 the Chroniclers view was inclusive, regarding the descendants both of unexiled Judahite phratries and of the remnant "Samarian"8 clans as legitimately Israelite and drawing upon their surviving traditions as a source for his own composition.9 The purpose of the present article is to take this investigation one step further: to examine the ways in which the Chronicler, in constructing his genealogies, utilized and combined the various genealogical forms that he had at his disposal in order to create his story. In doing so, we shall focus especially on the linear portions of the genealogies, those that serve to supply movement in time, or chronological progression. I. The Structure of Late Iron Age and Persian Period Israelite Society and Oral Genealogies Many scholars of past generations assumed that the society of postexilic Yehud was fundamentally different from its preexilic predecessor. The society that produced such books as Ezra-Nehemiah has been described as an imperially instated "dominant elite of proven loyalty ... a semi-autonomous temple-community controlled by the dominant stratum of Babylonian immigrants."14 These "elite" were almost totally cut off from the local inhabitants, importing their own, Diaspora-developed way of life, which was less land-based and basically not a direct extension of preexilic society.15 However, more recently many scholars have argued that Persian-period Yehud was much more diverse and that the temple theocracy of EzraNehemiah represents only one facet of this society, perhaps even a minority one at that.16 The returnees from Babylon came to a land that was inhabited, albeit sparsely, by those whom the Babylonians had left behind.17 These "remnants" continued to lead their lives in the traditional manner, probably thinking of themselves as the "true" remnant of Judah.18 The arrival of the exiles to "reclaim" the land must have caused all sorts of tensions,19 but in time the two groups became drawn together.20 The Chronicler certainly makes no distinction between them, and no such distinction exists in later Hellenistic Judaism. …