Jasher
Jasher names 2 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below.
Jasher BOOK OF, one of the lost books of the ancient Hebrews
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
BOOK OF, one of the lost books of the ancient Hebrews, which is quoted twice (Josh. x: 13: II Sam. i: 18). Regarding its character and contents there has been much speculation. Talmudic and later Jewish authorities identified it variously with Genesis (sometimes called "the Book of the Upright"), Deuteronomy, Judges, etc., to all which notions there is the obvious and fatal objection that the two quotations from it which survive are not to be found in any of these books, and could not possibly be found in the first two, as they the Sep native Sta al; aven ry is a tabl 50 born in A Ma he humble Eghtly escens is ts of a with the for and me to the id first ingdom of a mutual refer to incidents which occurred at a With this Jason complied, and a subsequent period in the national history. The omplied, and takis troop of Greeks set sail in the ship Argo, taking for Colchis. conjecture of the Syriac and Arabic translators said in the ship A Ætes promised to restore the Golden has been adopted by Dr. Lowth, to re pre Fleece, (the cause of the kinsman's Herder, and other scholars-viz. that the Book of cause of death,) and afford him every satisfaction if he Jasher was a collection afford him e would tame certain savof national ballads, recording the warlike deeds of the e certain age bulls, with brazen hoofs and horns, and make them national heroes or singing the fs and ho plow a field sacred to the gods. praises of otherwise celebrated men. The actual field sacred to At the same time he was to do some other book could not have been he was to services, such as earlier than the age of Solomon, especially killing dragon who guarded the Golden Fleece, killing the and, finally if a fragment relating to the building of Golden Fle to finish all his tasks in one day. By the temple in the Septuagint of I Kings, viii his tasks in the aid of Medea, the king's daughter . be from that work. Meden, the kin , an enchantress,
Jasher BOOK OF dia for boat-building and for the knees
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
BOOK OF dia for boat-building and for the knees of ships on account of its great durability under water . The native Indian physicians esteem its various parts medicinal, the astringent root being used in thrush, its bark and leaves as purgatives , and its seeds as a narcotic.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
When Collier's wrote this in 1921 the Book of Jasher was lost, and it is lost still: nothing in the Dead Sea Scrolls found from 1947 onward, and no excavation since, has produced a line of it beyond the two quotations at Joshua 10:13 and 2 Samuel 1:18. The guess Collier's reports, adopted from the Syriac and Arabic translators by Robert Lowth and Herder, that it was a collection of national ballads or hero-songs, remains roughly the mainstream view; many scholars now press further the hint Collier's mentions in the Greek text of 1 Kings 8, reading the title as "Book of the Song" (sefer ha-shir) rather than "Book of the Upright" (sefer ha-yashar), a transposition of two Hebrew letters. What has grown since 1921 is confusion with two later books that bear the name and are not the lost one: the medieval Hebrew Sefer ha-Yashar, a retelling of biblical narrative first printed at Venice in 1625 and issued in English translation in 1840, and an eighteenth-century English fabrication that still circulates online as "the real Book of Jasher." Note that the 1921 column above is badly mangled by scanning, with stray sentences about Jason and the Argonauts and about a timber tree bleeding in from neighbouring articles.
Written for this edition, 2026.