Page:Sefer ha-Yashar or the book of Jasher (1840).djvu/17

Rh high opinion of this work. There are, nevertheless, some events which are recorded in Jasher, which may create surprise, particularly a detail of the rape of the Sabines, which, at the first glance, I was disposed to consider as an interpolation; but a little reflection satisfied me that it was an event placed in proper chronological order. Pizron, in his Revolution of Empires, or Antiquities of Nations, says, (page 164,) “It is therefore likely from what I have said, that several of the Titans, in the reign of Uranus, or, at least, in that of Saturn, staying and fixing themselves in that part of Italy which is adjacent to the Tiber and the Appenines, were afterward called Umbrians. If such were the case, as it seems it was, the settlement of the Titans in Italy was made about the time of the calling of Abraham, that is, when he left Chaldea, to go and dwell in the land of Canaan.” Page 175, “Now, if all this came to pass, it must have happened about the time Deucalion reigned in Greece, or some years after the deluge that happened under that prince.” If as Pizron says, the separation of the Sabines from the Umbrians took place 1500 years before Christ, it will not be far distant from the time at which Jasher places the rape of the Sabine women, in the 91st year of the life of Abraham.

The following is the translator’s preface, and with all his admitted learning and ability, he has been unable to do justice to the beauty, grandeur, and alike the simplicity of the original Hebrew. I also subjoin a translation of the Hebrew preface and a translation of the printer’s preface, being all the documents in my possession.

Without giving it to the world as a work of Divine inspiration, or assuming the responsibility to say that it is not an inspired book, I have no hesitation in pronouncing it a work of great antiquity and interest, and a work that is entitled, even regarding it as a literary curiosity, to a great circulation among those who take pleasure in studying the Scriptures.

New-York, April, 1839.