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(Also he bade them teach the children of Yahudah the use of the bow: behold, it is written in the Cepher of
Yashar.)
Shemu’el Sheniy (2 Samuel) 1:18
The name Yashar is worthy of a darash (comparative meaning) discussion. Consider in comparison the
name Yasharun (Jeshurun) and its use in Devariym (Deuteronomy):
But Yasharun waxed fat, and kicked: you are waxen fat, you are grown thick, you are covered with
fatness; then he forsook ELOAH which made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his yeshu`ah.
Devariym (Deuteronomy) 32:15
And he was king in Yasharun, when the heads of the people and the tribes of Yashar’el were
gathered together.
Devariym (Deuteronomy) 33:5

There is none like unto the EL of Yasharun, who rides upon the heavens in your help, and in his
excellency on the sky.
Devariym (Deuteronomy) 33:26

“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.” Noah, Mordekai M., preface to Cepher Jasher (New York,
1840), reprinted in Authentic Annals, p. xv.

The account of the discovery of the Cepher Yashar begins when Titus destroyed Yerushalayim in AD 70.
According to an account taken from the preface to the Hebrew edition of 1625 (sometimes listed as
1613), as translated and included in the 1840 English edition, but omitted from the 1887 reprint, an
officer named Sidrus discovered a hidden library complete with a scholar hiding within. The officer had
mercy on the man and took him and the books to his residence at what is now Sevilla, Spain, but was
then called Hispalis, capital of the Roman province Hispalensis. The manuscript was donated to the
Jewish college at Cordoba, Spain, and after printing was invented, the Jewish scholars had the book
printed in Hebrew in Venice in 1625. There was also reportedly a 1552 Hebrew edition printed in Naples,
but all of today's versions come from the 1625 printing. The transfer of the manuscript to Cordoba was
mentioned in Mordekai Noah’s preface.

The Cepher Yashar was first translated into English by a Jewish scholar named Shemu’el in Liverpool,
England. He was in the process of translation when a fraudulent work now known as Pseudo-Jasher, a
book on Hebrew ethics, was republished in England in 1829. Before Shemu’el saw it, he published a letter
stating that he was also translating the same book, unaware that it was a complete hoax. By 1833
booklets were published to expose the fraudulent claims of Pseudo-Jasher, making it difficult for him to
publish the legitimate version in England. Because of the hostile British climate, Shemu’el sold his
translation to Mordekai M. Noah, a New York publisher, and it was published there in 1840, away from
the scandal. It was the first English translation of the Cepher Yashar ever published.

The Cepher Yashar contains many authentic Hebrew traditions. Hugh Nibley, for example, stated after
quoting material about Chanok from Yashar (3:5-10), "Passages such as this which closely follow both
the Hebrew and the Slavonic Chanok show that the book of Yashar used very ancient sources and was
far more than a medieval romance." Collected Works of Hugh Nibley, Vol. 2, p. 301, fn. 380. It is definitely
not a modern fiction, as was the 1751 book of the same name. Ginzberg in his landmark collection
Legends of the Yahudiym quotes from it freely and it is listed in Jewish encyclopedias as an authentic

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