The ever memorable events and transactions recorded in Scripture are with many others of the most interesting nature, comprehended in the Book of Jasher; and they are all arrayed in that style of simple, unadorned majesty and precision, which so peculiarly distinguishes the genius of the Hebrew language; and this, together with other numerous internal evidences, it is presumed will go far te convince the Hebrew scholar that the book is, with the exception of some doubtful parts, a venerable monument of antiquity; and that, notwithstanding some few additions may have been made to it in comparatively modern times, it still retains sufficient to prove it a copy of the book referred to in Joshua, ch. x., and 2 Samuel, ch. i. There are not more than seven or eight words in the whole book that by construction can be derived from the Chaldean language.
The printed Hebrew copy, in the hands of the translator, is without points. During his first perusal of it, some perplexities and doubts rose up in his mind respecting its authenticity: but the more closely he studied it, the more its irresistible evidence satisfied him, that it contained a treasure of information concerning those early times, upon which the histories of other nations are either silent, or cast not a single ray of real light; and he was more especially delighted to find that the evidence of the whole of its contents went to illustrate and confirm the great and inestimable truths which are recorded in divine history, down to a few years later than the death of Joshua, at which period the book closes.
In this extraordinary book, the reader will meet with models of the most sublime virtue, devotion and magnanimity, that cannot fail to raise his admiration, and, at the same time, to excite a generous feeling of emulation to follow the glorious examples set before him.
With these preliminary observations, the translator now respectfully proceeds to lay before the readers a few remarks upon the contents of the book. The title ספר הישר is literally, “the upright or correct record;” but because the book was not known, it was therefore termed the “Book of Jasher;” this has caused some persons, who are ignorant of the Hebrew language, to suppose that Jasher was the name of a prophet, or of one of the Judges of Israel; an instance of which appears in a publication which came from the press about the middle of the last century, and which purported to have been a translation into English of the Hebrew manuscript of Jasher, found at Gazna in Persia; which translation only was said to have been thence brought by Alcuin. When the translator wrote to the Editor of the London Courier, in November last, he was not aware that the copy of Jasher, announced in the Bristol Gazette as an
