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SUBJECT: Book of Jasher
QUESTION: Is the book of Jasher an inspired part of
the Bible?
ANSWER:
The following is from 4 Bible dictionaries. It shows it to
be a book of history from those times, but clearly not the
inspirited Word of God.
JASHER
A book alluded to only in Joshua 10:13 as containing
Joshua's, miracle of commanding the sun and the moon to
stand still; 2 Samuel 1:18 as containing David's elegy over
Saul and Jonathan, entitled the "bow" song, celebrating
Jonathan famous for the bow (compare 2 Samuel 1:22 and Psalm
60), a national song to be "taught'" to the people (not "he
bade them teach the children of Judah (the
use of) the bow"): Deuteronomy 31:19. (See
DAVID). Jasher means upright. Jeshurun is the
upright nation (so in its
ideal), namely,
Israel. So Septuagint "the book of the upright one"; Vulgate
"the book of just ones"; the Syriac, "the book of praise
songs," from Hebrew yashiyr (OT:7604). Exodus 15:1, "then
sang." This Book of Jasher was a kind of national sacred
songbook, continued from age to age, according as great
crises moved Israelites to mighty deeds, and poets to
immortalize them; like the "chronicles" of the kings of
Israel often alluded to in later times. So the Book of
Psalms, beginning with David's, received fresh accessions
from age to age down to the time of the return from Babylon,
when it was completed. "The Book of the Wars of the Lord"
(Numbers 21:14-15) similarly records in sacred odes Israel's
triumphant progress; of these we have left the fragment as
to passing the Arnon, the song of the well, and that on the
conquest of Sihon's kingdom (ver. 17, 18, 27-30). The Targum
and Jarchi explain, "the book of the law." Jerome (on Isaiah
44:2) mentions that Genesis was called" the book of the
just." The only two specimens of the Book of Jasher extant
are rhythmical. In this respect, and in its being uninspired
or at least not preserved as part of our inspired canon,
this book differs from the Pentateuch; both alike record
successively the exploits of Jeshurun, the ideally upright
nation. ~from Fausset's
Bible Dictionary
JASHAR, BOOK OF
(ja'-shar), (jash'-ar) (cepher
ha-yashar; the King James Version Book of Jasher, margin
"the book of the upright"): The title of an
ancient Hebrew national song-book (literally, "book of the
righteous one") from which two quotations are made in the
Old Testament: (1) Joshua 10:12-14, the command of Joshua to
the sun and moon, "Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon. ....
Is not this written in the book of Jashar?" (see
BETH-HORON; Septuagint in this place omits the reference to
Jashar); and (2) 2 Samuel 1:18 ff, "the song of
the bow," or lament of David over Saul and Jonathan. (3)
Some conjecture a third extract in 1 Kings 8:12, "Then spake
Solomon, Yahweh hath said that he would dwell in the thick
darkness." The words of Yahweh are quoted by Septuagint in
verse 53 as "written in the book of the song" (en
biblio tes odes), and it is pointed out that the
words "the song" (in Hebrew
ha-shir) might easily be a corruption of ha-yashar.
A similar confusion ("song"
for "righteous") may explain the fact that the
Peshitta Syriac of Joshua has for a title "the book of
praises or hymns." The book evidently was a well-known one,
and may have been a gradual collection of religious and
national songs. It is conjectured that it may have included
the Song of Deborah (Judges 5), and older pieces now found
in the Pentateuch (e.g. Genesis 4:23-24; 9:25-27; 27:27-29);
this, however, is uncertain. On the curious theories and
speculations of the rabbis and others about the book (that
it was the Book of the Law, of Genesis, etc.),
with the fantastic reconstructive theory of Dr. Donaldson in
his Jasbar, see the full article in Hastings, Dictionary of
the Bible (five volumes).
~from International Standard
Bible Encyclopaedia
JASHER, BOOK OF
[JAY shur]-an ancient collection of verse, now lost, which
described great events in the history of Israel. The book
contained Joshua's poetic address to the sun and the moon at
the battle of Gibeon (Joshua 10:12-13) and the "Song of the
Bow," which is David's lament over the death of Saul and
Jonathan (2 Samuel 1:17-27; Jashar, NIV, RSV, NEB).
~from Nelson's Illustrated
Bible Dictionary
JASHER
JA'SHER, BOOK OF (ja'sher; RV and RSV, Ja'sher, the "book of
righteous"; NASB and NIV, "book of Jashar" [Joshua 10:13; 2
Samuel 1:17-18]). The book of the upright or righteous man,
that is to say, of the true members of the theocracy, or
godly men. From the two references given it has been justly
inferred that the book was a collection of odes in praise of
certain heroes of the theocracy, interwoven with historical
notices of their achievements. That the passage in Joshua
quoted from this work is extracted from a song is evident
enough, both from the poetical form of the composition and
also from the parallelism of the sentences. The reference in
2 Samuel 1:18 is to an elegy upon Saul and Jonathan in the
book of Jasher. Some suppose the book of Jasher to have
perished in the captivity.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: L. Goldschmidt, The Book of Jashar (1923).
~From The New Unger's Bible
Dictionary |