The book of Jasher & the Septruagint vs Masoretic text

[Paul Zietsman]

I am aware that the currently circulating book of Jasher suddenly surfaced about 200 years ago, and there seems to be some talmudic undertones, so I do not completely trust it, as the original, or early versions are nowhere to be found for comparison.

In the main however I believe a lot of what is in there is valid; maybe just edited somewhat by the scribes and rabbi's.

As a rule of thumb, I like to corroborate scriptures in circulation today with what we find in texts dating back before Christ (Qumran scrolls and the Septuagint), because after His resurrection the scribes and pharisees went to work on the Scriptures, so as to veil, or erase, direct references to Christ. This is why the Septuagint is more accurate than the Masoretic text (Hebrew Old Testament). The Masoretic text dates from around 500 AD, after the scribes have had their time with it, whilst the original Hebrew texts are "missing" (ie. probably in a Vatican vault, or a bunker archive under Jerusalem). This is easy to verify though, because we have the New Testament, which agrees verbatim with the Septuagint, and often does not fully correspond to the Masoretic text. Compare the Old Testament references and quotations Jesus and the apostles made, and often they do not fully match the Masoretic Text, but they agree verbatim with the Septuagint.

So the "original Hebrew scriptures" many Christians so much love to reference are not really original. The language has actually changed, even the Hebrew alphabet is not the same as ancient Hebrew. The scribes and sages have edited and changed things over the ages, and edited the texts. So all this hype about studying Hebrew, and knowing what the "original Hebrew" says, is leading us down a blind alley...and back to Judaism, because now we begin to value the insights and language skills of the rabbi's. It would be better to study Greek; this is the language of the New Testament, as well as that of the most reliable Old Testament we have in circulation. "First to the Jew and then to the Greek..." how apt is this expression, since the Jews rejected Christ, they rejected their own prophets, so God gave His Word to the nations, in the language of the nations - Greek, and knowing what the scribes would do, HE made sure to preserve the Old Testament in Greek as well.

The Septuagint is in much more agreement with the New Testament, than what the Hebrew Masoretic Text is. That is why many scholars believe that the Septuagint was the "bible" that Jesus and the apostles used. I would propose that they could have also used the original Hebrew texts, of which the Septuagint is such an accurate Greek translation that both of these completely agree with the New Testament, whichever one is used.

Please note; there are 3 different Greek source texts on which 3 slightly different versions of the Septuagint are based. There is the Synaiticus, the Vaticanus and the Alexandrinus. The Synaiticus seems to be the least trustworthy, and does not always agree with the New Testament (Texus Receptus). The translation of the Vaticanus is thus the best we have in English. The Alexandrinus, which seems to be the most accurate, has not been translated into English (except for the book of Isaiah). There is however an original version of Brenton's English translation of the Vaticanus, that contains footnotes for the instances where it differs with the Alexandrinus; stating what the Alexandrinus says in each instance. It is thus possible to get the full rendering from this book.

There are a number of English translations of the Septuagint, eg Brenton, Thomson etc. I have not read them all, so I cannot vouch for which one is the best English translation. I have only ever owned and used Brenton's translation, and find it quite good. Maybe using more than one could be helpful, just as is the case with the book of Enoch. I mostly read the RH Charles translation, but the Lawrence translation in parallel with that is very helpful, and makes some difficult to understand passages more clear.

The Septuagint also contains many of the sacred texts that were since removed from the "bible", eg. Wisdom, Sirach (Ecclesiatucus), Judith, Tobit, and two more chapters in the book of Daniel, as well as more in the book of Esther...and all these are profound reading!

When one reads the Septuagint It is often possible to see why the jewish sages, scribes and pharisees removed, or edited some texts: because they (or their talmud) are being exposed by it, or it contains an undeniable reference to Christ.

[EvedMoshiach777]

Great Post Paul!

The Spirit is indeed speaking and leading HIS ELECT! I have been thinking about the authenticity of the Book of Jasher lately and came to the same conclusions as you.

There are many instances that are true and add knowledge to some passages of the OT History. However, you really need the Holy Spirit to show you what is original and what was added.

Most of the beginning of the Book of Jasher is rubbish. For instance that Abraham and Noah were contemporaries . This story was only made possible by the corruption of the numbers given in Genesis 5 & 11. According to the Masoretic Text Abraham was born 292 years after the Flood, so they could spend some time together, because Noah died in the 350th year after the Flood. However, if we take the numbers of the Septuagint, this possibility almost seems ridiculous, as there are almost 1000 years between Noah and the birth of Adam. Even the current numbers of the Book of Jubilees does not agree with the Masoretic text, as Noah died long before Abraham was born.

I recently compared the timeline of Jubilees with the numbers given in Genesis 5 & 11 of:
a.) Masoretic Text
b.) Septuagint
c.) Samaritan Pentateuch

The outcome is pretty interesting. We know the Book of Jubilees covers 50 Jubilees (50*49 = 2450 years) from Creation to the crossing of the Jordan. I own a book from the mid 1800s that deal with the Book of Jubilees in detail (it even includes LATIN manuscripts). These authors did not have access to the Qumran Scrolls as we do now, but they did a great job in showing the timeline as laid out in the Book of Jubilees. They said it is pretty unlikely that someone corrupted the numbers, because the heptadic structure of the Book served as a "protection". They still admitted, that it is not impossible though!

From Creation to the Flood the Book of Jubilees agrees 100% with the Samaritan Pentateuch.
This one was a hard one for me to digest, because I just accepted the total supremacy of the numbers given in the Septuagint. The fact that no "scholars" trust the numbers of the Samaritan Pentateuch, made many to throw out Jubilees, but who knows? Maybe the numbers of the Samaritan Pentateuch from Creation to Flood were original? Because from that point it 100% agrees with the Septuagint! I am in no way dogmatic about this and still keep my focus and trust on the authority of the Septuagint, but I keep this discovery in my heart and wait what the Holy Spirit will reveal about this.

From Flood to Crossing of Jordan there is a unique chronology in Jubilees
Neither the Masoretic Text, nor the Septuagint nor the Samaritan Pentateuch agrees with the numbers in the Book of Jubilees. I created a Excel file where I compared all the numbers together and maybe I am onto something. I may upload the Excel file if someone is interested in this.

Thank you Paul for this interesting post!

[Paul Zietsman]

Wow David, thanks for this! I have not yet studied the Samaritan Pentateuch, but I know that some info in the Qumran scrolls are in agreement with it, so it must be worth studying. Please share more of your insights with us.