Path: christian
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
From: jfb@macsch.com (John Baskette)
Subject: Re: apocrypha,book of jasher
Organization: The MacNeal-Schwendler Corporation
Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu

Sean.Grimm@m.cc.utah.edu (Sean Grimm) writes:

>I am seeking information on any "book of Jashers" floating about. a friend
>says he has one, and though i have not seen it, i am assuming it probably
>a strecth of someones imagination. in the bible there are only two
>references to a "book of jasher" so it is actually a "lost book" it would
>be interesting to see if any one else has bumped into one.

The following book discusses the book of Jasher:

(Third time this year I've given information from this book.)

  _Modern Apocrypha, Famous "Biblical" Hoaxes_ by Edgar J. Goodspeed
  (The Beacon Press, Boston, 1956) the Library of Congress catalog card
   number is 56-10075

Goodspeed was a first rate Biblical scholar, professor emeritus of the 
University of Chicago.  He made the first translation of the Apocrypha
directly from Greek into English in _The Apocrypha: An American Translation_.
He translated the New Testament in his _The New Testament: An American
Translation_ and has written a number of other books about the Bible or 
the history of Christian and Biblical literature.

Chapter Ten of the book discusses the book of Jasher.

According to Goodspeed there were Three medieval books name Jasher written 
by Jews in Hebrew as follows:

  1.)  A 1391 version by Rabbi Shabbatai Carmuz Levita, preserved in a 
       Vatican manuscript.  

  2.)  A book used as the introduction to the Hexateuch probably written
       by a Spanish Jew in the 13th century and published in Venice in 
       1625.

  3.)  A treatise on Jewish ritual written by Rabbi Tham who died in 1171;
       it was printed in Italy in 1544.

The second of these (the 13th century version) was translated into English by
a Mr. Samuel of Liverpool and published in 1840 in New York by Nash and Gould.

The version of the book of Jasher that you have seen is likely one that was
produced by a Jacob Ilive, a London printer, who published his own version of
the book of Jasher in 1751.  This version has been reprinted and circulated 
by the Rosicrucian order.  

Goodspeed cites several reviews from the late 18th and early 19th century 
that declared this book to be "a shameless literary forgery".

The book is described as "a condensation of portions of the first seven
books of the Old Testament".  One glaring omission is that nothing is 
said about David's dirge over Saul, which should be there according to 
II Samuel 1:18.

The title page of the book says. "translated into English by Flaccus Albinus
Alcuinus, of Britain, Abbot of Canterbury, who went on a pilgrimage into the
Holy Land and Persia, where he discovered this volume in the city of Gazna."

Alcuinus did live in Britain around 650.  One problem with this manuscript is
that it is written in an Elizabethan style English unknown to Alcuinus.  The 
first edition of this book claimed that Alcuinus had "learned in the       
University of Oxford all those languages which the people of the East speak."
The problem with that is that Oxford wasn't founded until 886, more than
80 years after Alcuin's death.  Subsequent editions omitted this remark.

Goodspeed gives a number of other reasons based on internal evidences in the
book why it is clearly an 18th century forgery and not genuine.

John Baskette  jfb@macsch.com  (or jfb@kaiwan.com)