What is the Book of Jasher and should it be in the Bible?

Answer

Also known as the “Book of the Upright One” in the Greek Septuagint and the “Book of the Just Ones” in the Latin Vulgate, the Book of Jasher was likely a collection or compilation of ancient Hebrew songs and poems that praised the heroes of Israel and their achievements in battle. The Book of Jasher is referenced in Joshua 10:12-13 when the Lord halted the sun in the middle of the day during the battle of Beth Horon. It is also cited in 2 Samuel 1:18-27 as containing the Song or Lament of the Bow, the mournful funeral song that David composed upon the deaths of Saul and Jonathan.

The question arises: if the Book of Jasher is mentioned in the Bible, why was it excluded from the canon of Scripture? We understand that God guided the writers of the Scriptures to incorporate passages from various extra-biblical sources in composing His Word. The passage documented in Joshua 10:13 serves as a prime example. In documenting this battle, Joshua included excerpts from the Book of Jasher not as the sole source of the event but rather to assert, “If you doubt my account, then refer to the Book of Jasher. Even that book documents this event.”

There are other Hebrew works referenced in the Bible that God instructed the writers to utilize. Some of these include the Book of the Wars of the Lord «Wherefore it is said in the book of the wars of the LORD, What he did in the Red sea, And in the brooks of Arnon, », (Numbers 21:14), the Book of Samuel the Seer, the Book of Nathan the Prophet, and the Book of Gad the Seer «Now the acts of David the king, first and last, behold, they are written in the book of Samuel the seer, and in the book of Nathan the prophet, and in the book of Gad the seer, », (1 Kings 14:29). We also know that Solomon composed more than a thousand songs «And he spake three thousand proverbs: and his songs were a thousand and five. », (1 Kings 4:32), yet only two are preserved in the book of Psalms (72 and 127). Writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament, Paul included a quotation from the Cretan poet Epimenides «One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said, The Cretians are alway liars, evil beasts, slow bellies. », (Titus 1:12) and quoted from the poets Epimenides and Aratus in his speech at Athens «for in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring. », (Acts 17:28).

The point is that the divine Author of the Bible used materials chosen from many different sources, fitting them into His grand design for the Scriptures. We must understand that history as recorded in the Bible did not occur in isolation. The people mentioned in the Bible interacted with other people. For example, though the Bible is clear that there is only one God, the Bible mentions a number of the gods people worshiped both within Israel and in the nations around. Similarly, as in Acts 17:28 and Titus 1:12, we sometimes find secular writers being quoted. This doesn’t mean that these quoted writers were inspired. It simply means they happened to say something that was useful in making a point.

There is a book called “The Book of Jasher” today, although it is not the same book as mentioned in the Old Testament. It is an eighteenth-century forgery that alleges to be a translation of the “lost” Book of Jasher by Alcuin, an eighth-century English scholar. There is also a more recent book titled “The Book of Jashar” by science fiction and fantasy writer Benjamin Rosenbaum. This book is a complete work of fiction.

Another book by this same name, called by many “Pseudo-Jasher,” while written in Hebrew, is also not the “Book of Jasher” mentioned in Scripture. It is a book of Jewish legends from the creation to the conquest of Canaan under Joshua, but scholars hold that it did not exist before A.D. 1625. In addition, there are several other theological works by Jewish rabbis and scholars called “Sefer ha Yashar,” but none of these claim to be the original Book of Jasher.

In the end, we must conclude that the Book of Jasher mentioned in the Bible was lost and has not survived to modern times. All we really know about it is found in the two Scripture quotations mentioned earlier. The other books by that title are mere fictions or Jewish moral treatises.