The Book of Jasher

We shall shortly have a literary, or rather a Biblical curiosity, to present to the American reader, which we feel confident in predicting, will excite great interest among those who take pleasure in reading and studying the Scriptures. It is the Book of Jasher referred to in the Bible, in Joshua, and in the second book of Samuel, and which has been in the progress of translation from the Hebrew for several years in England, and is now completed, and will be published in a few days in this city, in a very elegant stereotyped edition.-There have been several simulated Books of Jasher, a notice of which we find in the Rev. Mr. Horn's Commentaries on the study of the Scriptures: but they bear no analogy to the present work, which is written in the purest Hebrew, and translated with an elegance and fidelity highly creditable to the eminent scholar who has been so long engaged in the work. The preface to the Hebrew edition speaks of it as having been brought from Jerusalem with other sacred rolls and manuscripts, at the destruction of that city, and carried into Spain, where the Jews had their most celebrated colleges up to the eleventh century. On the discovery of printing the manuscript was copied, and carried to Venice, where it was printed by order of the Jewish Consistory of Rabbins, in 1613, and is now for the first time translated into the English language and published. The Royal Asiatic Society had a copy in Calcutta, and gave orders to the Rev, Mr. Adams to translate it; but it was abandoned on hearing that a translation was already in progress. It is full of interest, and written with a warmth of piety and sacred devotion, worthy of taking an equal rank with any of the missing books, not strictly canonical. It does not differ with the Bible in a single instance, but amplifies the events recorded in Scripture, with the single difference in chronology of some 50 years, by making Noah and Abraham contemporary-commencing with the creation of Adam, and ending with the death of Joshua. Josephus refers to this Book, and the great Mendelson extracts copiously from it. Recently the Book of Enoch has been discovered, translated from the Ethiopic, and published in England. Professor Steward has lately reviewed it. The discovery of missing books referred to in Scripture, and the many yet to be discovered, joined to the singular signs of the times in relation to the chosen people, give great interest to this and similar works.-This Book, which makes nearly three hundred pages, clears up some points somewhat obscure in the Bible, and is very full in detailing the events of the reign of Nimrod; the building of the Tower of Babel, and confusion of tongues; the causes preceding the destruction of the doomed city; the sacrifice of Isaac, and the life of Joseph: and has some curious facts about the deluge.-NEW YORK STAR.