Page:Sefer ha-Yashar or the book of Jasher (1840).djvu/14

IV named, which are not to be found. The acts of David the King, written in the Book of Samuel the Seer, also in the Book of Nathan the Prophet, and also in the Book of Gad the Seer; the acts of Solomon are in the Book of Nathan the Prophet, and also in the Book of Abijah the Shulamite; the acts of Rehoboam in the Book of Shemaiah the Prophet; the acts of Jehoshaphat in the Book of Jehu. The journals of the kings of Judah and Israel; the three thousand and five songs, and a treatise on botany and animated nature, by this learned king, are lost; so also are the “Acts of Manasseh.” These works, not having been found by Ezra, could not have been inserted in the Old Testament, and consequently cannot be considered as having been written by divine inspiration. Nevertheless, it would be assuming more than is required or necessary, to say that there were no other books in the time of Ezra, than those considered as divinely inspired. St. Austin says, “The penmen of the Sacred Scripture writ some things as they are, men with historical lore and diligence: other things they writ as prophets, by inspiration from God.” We thus have a classification of their labors, both as historians and as prophets. The negligence of the Jews in ancient days, and their constant transition from one country to another, occasioned many losses of the sacred writings. The Book of Deuteronomy was lost for a long time. There were many books rejected by the Canons which are still objects of curiosity, and venerable for their antiquity. The prayer of King Manasseh, Bel and the Dragon, the two Books of Esdras, the Book of the Maccabees, and the Book of Enoch, recently found and translated from the Ethiopic. The Book of Jasher, referred to in Joshua and Second Samuel, has been long an object of great curiosity. Some of the Hebrew writers contend that it was the lives and acts of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and other patriarchs, who were called Jasherim, the Just. Dr. Lightfoot thinks it is the Book of the Wars of God, and so the reader may think in perusing the various battles it recounts. Grotius calls it a triumphal poem. Josephus says, “That by this book are to be understood certain records kept in some safe place on purpose, giving an account of what happened among the Hebrews from year to year, and called Jasher, or the upright, on account of the fidelity of the annals.”