Melissa wrote: Shalom, I have been reading the Book of Jasher. What is your opinion on the Book of Jasher? I know it’s a historic book and not of much importance, but it seems to fill in some of the missing pieces of the puzzle. Like the ages of some important people such as Isaac being age 37 when Abraham was going to sacrifice him. People here think he was like under 13 years of age. It also talks of Leah and Rachel being twins! Jasher 28:28, mind blowing! Other things like Adam and Eve’s garments. I’m Christian and I was wanting a Jewish point of view on this Ancient book and your thoughts.
Gidon responded: Hi Melissa, thanks this question!
Jewish tradition has very clear sets of literature classes: Torah (Gen-Deu) the rest of the Old Testament Tannaim period material, mostly the Mishna Amoraim period material, mostly the Gemara/Talmud Geonim period material Rishonim Acharonim You can lookup all those words on Wikipedia. Anything during the Acharonim (the last ones, from around 1500 until today) is acceptable except for some outliers for some people. The earlier periods have a “Canon” that if it is not one of the well known books, its popularity goes down to pretty much zero. The Talmud discusses which books are in the Tanach, which ones barely made the cut, and which ones didn’t. The ones that are in are as authoritative as all of them, and if they hadn’t made it, people would barely have heard of them. And that is the status of the Book of Jasher. It is not studied, and if someone would bring it as a source, they would get funny looks. Same as the books of Josephus, and franlky, the same with the New Testament. Regarding what you read there: Isaac being 37 at his binding is a very accepted tradition, I am pretty sure it can be calculated from the verses of the text. I had never heard of Lean and Rachel being twins, but it might be that I just don’t remember, and there is an accepted Midrash that states that.
Anyway, I just looked it up on Wikipedia, and I am not sure even which text you are referring to!
