Lost Books of the Bible (77 page)

               We learn how the power of Nimrod, the great hunter, arose. We are told how all animals were guided to the ark of Noah, and why the tower of Babel was attacked by God and angels. Such detailed accounts bring the Old Testament into an understandable focus.

               According to the Encyclopedia Judaica, Volume 14, p. 1099, Jasher was "probably written in the 13th century A.D." However, some scholars have proposed various dates between the 9th century and 16th century A.D.

               There are three separate and different books named Jasher, however the Mormon Church, otherwise known as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, considers this rendition of Jasher to be the book referenced in the Old Testament. The belief of the church leadership is bolstered by the preface in the 1625 version, which claims its original source came from the ruins of Jerusalem in 70 A.D.

               Jasher is held in high repute by many Mormons but is not officially endorsed by the Mormon Church. The official stance of the Mormon Church falls short of making Jasher part of their Holy Scriptures but does endorse the book as being valid and authentic.             The Mormon Church places the book of Jasher on the same level as other apocryphal writings and states in the church magazine,
The Ensign, After reviewing the standard scholarly analysis of how the book appears to have been composed of old Jewish legends, the book of Jasher is considered to be of great benefit to the reader. The article concluded with an injunction to treat it according to the Lord's advice on how to study the Apocrypha. The article goes on to quote the church stance on the Apocrypha.

    "Verily, thus saith the Lord unto you concerning the Apocrypha — There are many things contained therein that are true, and it is mostly translated correctly; There are many things contained therein that are not true, which are interpolations by the hands of men. Verily, I say unto you, that it is not needful that the Apocrypha should be translated. Therefore, whoso readeth it, let him understand, for the Spirit manifesteth truth; And whoso is enlightened by the Spirit shall obtain benefit And whoso receiveth not by the Spirit, cannot be benefitted. Therefore it is not needful that it should be translated. Amen." (D.&C. 91:1-6)

               In the early 1800s, Moses Samuel of Liverpool, England, was given a copy of the 1625 A.D. Hebrew work. Jasher, he found, was written in a theological or Rabbinical type of Hebrew, which is a more classical Hebrew. Samuel translated the text into English and in 1839 sold it to Mordecai Manuel Noah, a Jewish New York publisher, who published it in 1840.

               Copyright of the translation was obtained by J. H. Parry & Company in Salt Lake City, who published it in 1887.

               Samuel's translation was written in "Elizabethan or King James" English and contained archaic words, phrases, and idioms.

               The translation offered here is taken from the J. H. Parry translation with all archaic language and idioms edited and restated in modern English.

               According to Bernard Wasserstein, in the Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society of England Vol. XXXV, Samuel translated into English the pseudo-biblical Book of Jasher, a supposedly ancient Hebrew text which Samuel convinced himself was authentic. After failing to persuade the Royal Asiatic Society to publish it, he sold his translation for £150 in 1839 to the American Jewish newspaper-owner and philanthropist Mordecai M. Noah. It appeared in New York the following year but with Noah's name and not Samuel's on the title page. "I did not put my name to it as my Patron and myself differed about its authenticity", Samuel later explained. This was odd since Noah seems to have had a lower opinion of the work's authenticity than Samuel. The translation was accepted as accurate, but the publication provoked criticism by scholars who rejected the claims made on behalf of the text. It won acceptance, however, by the Mormon prophet Joseph Smith. (p. 2)

               The prophet, Joseph Smith’s attraction to the book was due in part to the history contained in the preface of the book.

               According to the history documented in the preface of the Book of Jasher, Titus destroyed Jerusalem in 70 A.D. but the book was miraculously rescued at that time. During the destruction of the Jewish temple a Roman officer named Sidrus discovered a Hebrew scholar hiding in a library. The officer took the scholar and all the books safely back to his estates in Seville, Spain. The manuscript was transferred to the Jewish college in Cordova, Spain. The book was kept there until its printings in Venice in 1625. 

               There is no evidence to substantiate these claims, but there is nothing to conclusively dismiss the claims either.

               In reality, it is possible that a Jew living in Spain or Italy may have penned the book, but we have no way to be definite regarding the date of writing of the original book. Part of the confusion arises from the fact that Jasher seems to be a compilation of several stories gathered by priests over many generations. Most of the stories and history contain reliable, authentic Jewish terms and traditions. It is the weight of these correct facts and references that lend credence to the authenticity of the seed literature that formed Jasher.

               Scholars view Jasher with much skepticism due to the absence of any evidence or mention of the book prior to 1625. The basis of the stories contained in Jasher are mythically old, but the book itself has not been found in its present form prior to the printing in the 1600s. However, it is the opinion of the editor that Jasher will offer some insight into the murky and sometimes sparse historical landscape of Genesis. At the least, we may state that the book reflects what the priestly scholars who wrote the book believed. 

               The texts presented here represents an accurate version of the Book of Jasher rendered in modern English. Although the book was translated in the 1800s, the translator chose to use the more stilted and less accessible Elizabethan or King James style of English in order to add weight and religious authority to the text. This made the book less than pleasant to read for the modern audience. In the translation before you archaic words and expressions were replaced with their modern counterparts. A word for word replacement was not attempted. When an archaic word needed to be replaced with a phrase for the purpose of clarity this technique was embraced so as to render the text readily understandable. It is our sincere hope our goal was accomplished and the reader will find this version interesting and easy to read.

The Book of Jasher

THIS IS THE BOOK OF THE GENERATIONS OF MAN WHOM GOD CREATED ON THE EARTH ON THE DAY WHEN THE LORD GOD MADE HEAVEN AND EARTH.

CHAPTER 1

1 God said, Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and God created man in his own image.

2 God formed man from the dirt, and he blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul with the capacity of speech.

3 And the Lord said, It is not good for man to be alone; I will make him a helper and a mate.

4 The Lord caused a deep sleep to come on Adam, and he slept. God took away one of his ribs, and he fashioned flesh on it, and formed it and brought it to Adam. Adam awoke from his sleep, and saw a woman was standing in front of him.

5 He said, This is bone of my bones and it shall be called woman, because it has been taken from man.  Adam named her Eve, because she was the mother of all living (mankind).

6 God blessed them and on the day he created them he called their names Adam and Eve. The Lord God said, Be prolific and reproduce and fill the earth.

7 The Lord God took Adam and his wife, and he placed them in the garden of Eden to farm it and to keep it. He commanded them and said, “You may eat from every tree of the garden, but you may never eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. On the day that you eat thereof you will certainly die.

 8 When God had blessed and commanded them, he departed from them. Adam and his wife lived in the garden according to the command which the Lord had commanded them.

9 The serpent, which God had created with them in the earth, came to them to incite them to go contrary to the command of God which he had commanded them.

10 And the serpent enticed and persuaded the woman to eat from the tree of knowledge, and the woman listened to the voice of the serpent, and she went contrary to the word of God, and took from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and she ate, and she took from it and gave also to her husband and he ate.

11 And Adam and his wife went contrary to the command of God which he commanded them, and God knew it, and his anger was set ablaze against them and he cursed them.

12 And the Lord God drove them that day from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which they were taken, and they went and lived at the east of the garden of Eden; and Adam had sex with his wife Eve and she bore two sons and three daughters.

13 She called the name of the first born Cain, saying, I have obtained a man from the Lord, and the name of the other she called Abel, for she said, Empty we came into the earth, and empty we shall be taken from it.

14 And the boys grew up and their father gave them a possession in the land; and Cain was a farmer of the ground, and Abel a keeper of sheep.

15 And it was at the expiration of a few years, that they brought a first-fruit offering to the Lord, and Cain brought from the fruit of the ground, and Abel brought from the firstlings of his flock from the fat thereof, and God turned and inclined to Abel and his offering, and a fire came down from the Lord from heaven and consumed it.

16 And to Cain and his offering the Lord did not turn, and he did not incline to it, for he had brought from the inferior fruit of the ground before the Lord, and Cain was jealous against his brother Abel on account of this, and he sought an opportunity to kill him.

17 Some time after, Cain and Abel his brother went one day into the field to do their work; and they were both in the field, Cain farming and plowing his ground, and Abel feeding his flock; and the flock passed that part which Cain had plowed in the ground, and it sorely grieved Cain on this account.

18 And Cain approached his brother Abel in anger, and he said to him, What gives you the right to come and live here and bring your flock to feed in my land?

19 And Abel answered his brother Cain and said to him, What gives you the right to eat the flesh of my flock and clothe yourself with their wool?

20 Take off the wool of my sheep with which you have clothed yourself, and pay me for their resources you have used and flesh which you have eaten, and when you shall have done this, I will then go from your land as you have said
.

21 Cain said to his brother Abel, Certainly if I kill you this day, who will require your blood from me?

22 And Abel answered Cain, saying, Certainly God who has made us in the earth, he will avenge my cause, and he will require my blood from you should you kill me, for the Lord is the judge and arbiter, and it is he who will repay man according to his evil, and the wicked man according to the wickedness that he may do on earth.

23 And now, if you should kill me here, certainly God knows your secret views, and will judge you for the evil which you did declare to do to me this day.

24 When Cain heard the words which Abel his brother had spoken, the anger of Cain was set ablaze against his brother Abel for declaring this thing.

25 Cain hurried and rose up, and took the iron part of his plowing instrument, with which he suddenly struck his brother and he killed him, and Cain spilt the blood of his brother Abel on the earth, and the blood of Abel streamed on the earth before the flock.

26 And after this Cain repented having slain his brother, and he was sadly grieved, and he wept over him and it troubled him greatly.

27 Cain rose up and dug a hole in the field, wherein he put his brother's body, and he turned the dust over it.