1-Minute Case: Should the Book of Jasher be in the Bible?

3 min readApr 30, 2024

Is the once lost book still lost today?

Jasher appears in Joshua 10:13 and 2 Samuel 1:18–27. The Cepher Bible contains a 91 chapter Jasher, yet this is not the book referenced in the Bible. 2 Samuel 1:18–27 involving Jonathan, David and Saul is not found in Jasher. In fact, Jasher ch.91 ends with the death of Joshua well before the death of Saul and Jonanthan.

Gordon and Gaines contend Jasher was originally a wartime epic ranging from the Conquest to David’s reign. Jasher, unlike all other OT books except Esther, is not found in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Nor do we have any ancient manuscripts or fragments of Jasher anywhere else.

Chiel notes, it’s hard to find any Hebrew copies of Jasher earlier than 1625. Jasher, written in Rabbinical Hebrew (much later than OT Hebrew) likely dates back to 11th or 12th century AD, containing Medieval place names, Spanish, Arabic and Italian names (eg. Lumbardi 10:15).

In Jasher, Enoch functions as king of heaven (3:23), Joseph practises necromancy (42:30–41), God sends 15 plagues on Egypt (80:2–51) not 10, the Red Sea splits into 12 (81:38) not 2, Jacob flees to Eber’s home to escape Esau not Laban’s (Jasher 29:11), Moses was around 18(71:1–3) when he killed the Egyptian not 40 (Acts 7:23–24) and reigns in Cush from 27–67 (73:2) instead of being an alien in Midian at 40 (Acts 7:23–29).

Jasher contains Sulanuth from the sea, with long arms, removing locks and bolts in Egyptian homes (80:19–22), Satan appearing as a humble old and handsome young man (23) and half human half animal beasts that humans can kill (61:15).

Jacob Ilive published a 37 chapter forgery of Jasher in 1751 and was imprisoned for it. The once-lost Book of Jasher is still lost today.