Book of Jasher (Pseudo-Jasher)
{{Short description|18th-century literary by Jacob Ilive}}
The Book of Jasher, also called Pseudo-Jasher, is an eighteenth-century literary forgery by Jacob Ilive.Constitutional free speech defined and defended Theodore Schroeder - 1970 JACOB ILIVE — 1756.63 Jacob Ilive (1705-1763) was a type founder, printer, publisher of a magazine and a voluminous author, .. fictitious, and chimerical, and as a gross Piece of Forgery and Priestcraft, and thereby to weaken, enervate It purports to be an English translation by Flaccus Albinus Alcuinus of the lost Book of Jasher. It is sometimes called Pseudo-Jasher to distinguish it from the midrashic Sefer haYashar (Book of the Upright, Naples, 1552), which incorporates genuine Jewish legend.{{cite web|url=https://www.virtualjudaica.com/Listing/Details/195686/Rabbenu-Tam-Sefer-haYashar-The-Book-of-Righteousness-ספר-הישר-Grodno-ברוך-בן-יוסף-1797 |title=Rabbenu Tam, Sefer ha-Yashar (The Book of Righteousness)|author=|date=October 23, 2012|website=Virtual Judaica |publisher=|access-date=2024-07-07|quote=}}
Details
Published in November 1750, the title page of the book says: "translated into English by Flaccus Albinus Alcuinus, of Britain, Abbot of Canterbury, who went on a pilgrimage into the Holy Land and Persia, where he discovered this volume in the city of Gazna." The book claims to be written by Jasher, son of Caleb, one of Moses's lieutenants, who later judged Israel at Shiloh. The book covers biblical history from the creation down to Jasher's own day and was represented as the Lost Book of Jasher mentioned in the Bible.
The Book of Jasher contained naturalistic explanations for the miracles of the Old Testament.{{cite book|last=Jones|first=Derek|title=Censorship: A World Encyclopedia|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nzisCQAAQBAJ&pg=PT2546|access-date=25 January 2018|date=2001-12-01|publisher=Taylor & Francis|isbn=978-1-136-79863-4|page=2546}}
The provenance of the text was immediately suspect: the eighth-century cleric Alcuin could not have produced a translation in the English of the King James Bible. There is an introductory account by Alcuin of his discovery of the manuscript in Persia and its history since the time of Jasher, and a commendation by John Wycliffe.
Reception
The supposed lost book was declared an obvious hoax by the Monthly Review in the December of the year of publication.{{cite web|url=https://bq.blakearchive.org/30.2.paley#n36 |title=William Blake, Jacob Ilive and the Book of Jasher|last=Paley |first=Morton D. |date=Fall 1996 |website=Blake Quarterly Magazine |publisher=|access-date=2024-07-07|quote=}}
The printer Jacob Ilive was sentenced in 1756 to three years' imprisonment with hard labour in the House of Correction at Clerkenwell, for writing, printing, and publishing the anonymous pamphlet Some Remarks on the excellent Discourses lately published by a very worthy Prelate by a Searcher after Religious Truth (1754). The pamphlet was declared to be "a most blasphemous book", for denying the divinity of Jesus Christ and revealed religion. Ilive remained in gaol until 1758, spending time writing.{{cite DNB|wstitle=Ilive, Jacob|volume=12}}
In 1829, a slightly revised and enlarged edition of the Book of Jasher was published in Bristol, provoking attacks against it. Photographic reproduction of this 1829 edition was published in 1934 by the Rosicrucians in San Jose, California,{{Cite book|title=Catalog of Copyright Entries|year=1935|location=Washington |publisher=United States Government Printing Office |pages=1691–1692|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=raMhAQAAIAAJ&q=jasher+Rosicrucians&pg=PA1691|volume=31 (New Series)|chapter=Part 1, Groups, Book 1}} who declared it an inspired work.
See also
- Sefer haYashar for other books with similar titles.
References
{{Reflist}}
Bibliography
- The Book of Jasher: One of the Sacred Books of the Bible Long Lost or Undiscovered, Flaccus A. Alcuinus (translator) (Kessinger Publishing Company, 1993) {{ISBN|1-56459-340-1}}
- The Book of Jasher: with Testimonies and Notes by Flaccus Albinus Alcuinus of Britain (CPA Books, 1998). {{ISBN|0-944379-20-6}}
External links
- PDF: [http://www.hiddenbible.com/bookofjasher/jasher.html The Hidden Bible] (Book of Jasher 1829 Bristol edition with testimonies and notes)
- Scanned text: [https://openlibrary.org/books/OL22877553M/The_Book_of_Jasher Open Library Project] (1829 text, and other formats)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Book Of Jasher (Pseudo-Jasher)}}
Category:1750 non-fiction books
Category:18th-century history books
Category:Modern pseudepigrapha
Category:Works in the style of the King James Version