1 – What is the Alien Gospel?
2 – Invasion by the Forces of Darkness
3 – Invasion by the Forces of Light? UFOs? Hybrids/Giants?
4 – Apocryphal Works: Old and New
5 – Reverse-Engineering/Embellishment of Artistic Works
6 – “As the Days of Noah. . . Seed of the Woman”
7 – Staying on Track
8 – Where to Draw the Line
APPENDIX 1: “Mingle themselves with seed of men” (Daniel 2:43)
APPENDIX 2: Why the Book of Enoch was not written by Enoch
APPENDIX 3: What’s wrong with the Book of Jasher? 
APPENDIX 4: How Canon Scripture Differs from Apocryphal Literature

Appendix 3: What’s wrong with the Book of Jasher? 

Most scholars believe that the original Book of Jasher has been lost, and the Books of Jasher that exist today are pseud-epigraphical works written long after the events detailed in them took place. The following investigation of the Book of Jasher is adapted from an article by Deane Schaub “An Overview of the Book of Jasher (Called the Upright Book) Compared to the Authorized King James Bible”. This is from the Logos Resource Pages website: The critique was done for the Book of Jasher version (published in 1840), which is considered the most authentic of all the different versions that have appeared.

Questionable Teachings in the Book of Jasher (BOJ):

• BOJ 3:23 – An angel of the Lord calls Enoch from heaven and wished to make him reign over the sons of God as he had reigned over the sons of men upon Earth.
• BOJ 3:38 – Mentions snow before the Flood. This doesn’t seem possible because there wasn’t any rain yet according to Genesis 2:5-6 and 7:4. The pre-Flood environment was warm and without snow, even in polar regions – something that is quite obvious from fossil evidence found in these far northern/southern regions.
• BOJ 22:46, 47, 54 – Sounds exactly like Job 1:6-8 and the conversation between Satan and God.
• BOJ 8 – Records the birth of Abram. In the account there is a star from the East seen by wise men and conjurors, which sounds similar to the birth of Christ.
• BOJ 13:5 says that Abram went to the land of Canaan at the age of 50, then back to Haran and back to Canaan at age 75; Genesis 12:4 states that Abram journeyed to Haran from Ur (not Canaan), and departed from Haran at the age of 75.
• BOJ 43:40-46 – A wolf speaks to Jacob.
• BOJ 53:18-22 – Benjamin reads the star charts and realizes that the ruler of Egypt before him is Joseph his brother.
• BOJ 70:1-33 – At the age of three Moses takes Pharaoh’s crown from his head and puts it on his own.
• Then there are the wars of Jacob and his sons in chapters 34, 35, and 37-40. And also the wars of Zepho (of Chittim) and Angeas, king of Africa (which was Dinhabah) in chapters 61:23-25, 62:25-27, 63:10-35, and 64. None of these are recorded in the Bible. Especially questionable are the supposed wars of Jacob and his sons.

Contradictions to the Bible in Jasher:

• BOJ 22:44-45 says that, because of Isaac’s boast to Ishmael, the Lord got the idea of presenting Isaac as an offering. According to Genesis 22:1-2 and 12, it is clear that the Lord was testing Abraham, not Isaac.
• Genesis 28:5 states that Isaac sent Jacob to Padan-aram unto Laban, but Jasher 29:11 says that he fled to the house of Eber and hid there for 14 years.
• According to Jasher’s chronology (47:9), Isaac died while Joseph was in Egypt, but according to Genesis 35:29, Isaac died before Joseph had his dreams (that is, before getting sold to the Egyptian traders).
• Joseph’s attendants could not bind Simeon in Jasher 51:37, but in Genesis 42:24 Simeon is bound without resistance before their eyes.
• BOJ 51:26-32 – The brothers tell Joseph (whom they don’t recognize) that they are looking for their brother (him), but Genesis 42:6-14 states that they only came to buy food.
• BOJ 78:12-13 – Pharaoh proclaims no more straw but demands the same amount of bricks from the children of Israel before Moses goes to Pharaoh, whereas Exodus 5:1, 7-8 says this happened after Moses confronted Pharaoh.
• BOJ 80:2-51 – List of Plagues on Egypt:

1) Waters into blood (v3) / same as Exodus 7:20
2) Frogs (v6) / same as Exodus 8:6
3) Lice (v10) / same as Exodus 8:17
4) “And the Lord sent all kinds of beasts of the field into Egypt, and they came and destroyed all Egypt, man and beast, and trees, and all things that were in Egypt.” (v13) / not in Exodus.
5) “And the Lord sent fiery serpents, scorpions, mice, weasels, toads, together with others creeping in dust. Flies, hornets, fleas, bugs and gnats, each swarm according to its kind. And all reptiles and winged animals according to their kind came to Egypt and grieved the Egyptians exceedingly.” (vv13-16) / not in Exodus.
6) “And when the Egyptians hid themselves on account of the swarm of animals, they locked their doors after them, and God ordered the Sulanuth [monster] which was in the sea, to come up and go into Egypt. And she had long arms, ten cubits in length of the cubit of a man. And she went upon the roofs and uncovered the raftering and flooring and cut them, and stretched forth her arm into the house and removed the lock and the bolt, and opened the houses of Egypt.” (vv19-21) / definitely not in Exodus
7) Pestilence (v24) / same as Exodus 9:3
8) Burning inflammation (v27) / not in Exodus
10) Boils (v28) / same as Exodus 9:10
11) Hail and fire (vv30-31 / Same as Exodus 9:23
12) Locusts (v33) / same as Exodus 10:13
13) Darkness (v36) / same as Exodus 10:22
14) First-born killed (v43) / same as Exodus 12:29

• BOJ 81:38 – “And the waters of the sea were divided into twelve parts.” Exodus 14:22 states, “The waters were a wall unto them on their right hand and on their left.”

Incredible: in the Realm of Fantasy from the author’s Imagination:

• BOJ 7:24-30 says the skins that God made for Adam and his wife went to Enoch after their death, then to Methuselah, then to Noah; then Ham stole them and gave them to Cush.  They were then passed on to Nimrod who became strong when he put on the “magic” garments. Later in Jasher 27:1-11, Esau kills Nimrod and takes Adam’s skins.
• BOJ 36:30-35 – While feeding his father’s asses, Anah sees 120 terrible animals come from the wilderness. “And those animals, from their middle downward, were in the shape of the children of men, and from their middle upward, some had the likeness of bears, and some the likeness of the keephas, with tails behind them from between their shoulders reaching down to the earth, like the tails of the ducheephath, and these animals came and mounted and rode upon these asses, and led them away.”
• BOJ 42:30-41 – Somehow on the way to Egypt, Joseph is able to visit his mother Rachel’s grave and talk with her there.
• BOJ 43:35 – Isaac went from Hebron to comfort Jacob, his son, because Joseph is presumed dead, but according to Genesis 35:27-29, Isaac had already died before Joseph dreamed his dreams.
• BOJ 44:62-68 – This passage is bizarre. God has an 11-month-old baby talk and tell of his mother’s (Potiphar’s wife’s) advances toward Joseph.
• BOJ 54:1-68 – Judah, angered at how Joseph deceived him and his brothers, lets out a “shriek” that is heard throughout Egypt, causes walls to fall down, and the women to miscarry. Joseph and Pharaoh were both afraid because of Judah’s threats. Genesis 44:14-34, by contrast, recounts Judah’s plea for mercy and request for Benjamin’s release.
• BOJ 61:15 – Zepho kills a beast, “from the middle upward it resembled a man, and from the middle downward it resembled an animal.” Earlier, in Jasher 3:18, there was a statement that relates to this one and the one in Jasher 36: “the sons of men in those days took from the cattle of the earth, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air, and taught the mixture of animals of one species with the other.” This passage is often proclaimed as Scriptural evidence for the “alien gospel” belief that hybrid procreation was widely practised in days of old and is about to be resuscitated at the End of the Age. However, judging by the fantastic statements in Jasher 36 and here in chapter 61, it would be wiser, probably, not to take this statement in 3:18 too seriously.
• BOJ 67:8-52 – Somehow Balaam, Job, and Reuel (Jethro) are all in Pharaoh’s court “in the hundred and thirtieth year of Israel’s going down to Egypt.” (v11) Job probably lived before that time, and Balaam and Reuel did not live until the tail end or just after the 430 years of Israel’s sojourn in Egypt. Balaam advises Pharaoh to destroy the male children by throwing them into the river.
• BOJ 67:52-59 – The children of Israel gave birth to their children in the fields and left them there; an angel took care of them; each child had two smooth stones from which he could suck milk and honey; God caused the earth to cover the children, to protect them from the Egyptians, until they were old enough to go to their parents’ house.
• BOJ 71 states that Moses was 18 years old when he left Egypt. Rather than going to Midian, he went to Cush and became king there for 40 years. (BOJ 72:34-36) Then he went to Midian where Reuel (Jethro) put him in prison for 10 years because Reuel thought Moses was wanted by the Cushites. In the Book of Acts (7:23-40), Stephen, who had an in-depth knowledge of the Old Testament and powerful anointing of the Holy Spirit, stated that Moses lived in Egypt for 40 years, then lived in Midian for another 40 years.
• BOJ 73 – Moses, while he was supposedly king of Cush, raises storks to devour serpents that guarded the city.
• BOJ 77:26-51 – Moses takes the “sapphire stick” (first mentioned in 67:41) from the garden of Reuel (Jethro). It had been handed down from Adam (who used it to till the ground) to Noah to Shem to Abraham to Isaac to Jacob to Joseph to Reuel, and now finally to Moses.
• BOJ 81:3-4 claims that the Israelites sojourned in Egypt for 210 years whereas Exodus 12:40-41 (and Galatians 3:17) states that it was 430 years (or the round figure of 400 years in Genesis 15:13, Acts 7:6).
• BOJ 81:40-41 says that Pharaoh did not perish in the Red Sea. Pharaoh thanks the Lord, and the Lord sends an angel who cast him upon the land of Nineveh where Pharaoh reigned for a long time. Exodus 14 does not mention whether or not Pharaoh was there when the army was drowned, but only says that “there remained not so much as one of them.” (v28) And of course, there is no mention at all of Pharaoh’s repentance nor of any magical transportation to Nineveh to become its ruler, neither in the Bible nor in secular history.

The author concludes with the following statement:

       It is obvious that The Book of Jasher is certainly not inspired by the Lord. I heartily disagree with those in the introduction of the volume [1840 edition] that claim “they find nothing in Jasher that contradicts the Bible.” Therefore, I can only conclude that while Jasher is an interesting book to read, the reader must be very discerning as to the truth of all or any of the writings in Jasher.

When the Book of Jasher was published in 1840, a notice in the New York Observer appeared. It seems to give an accurate assessment of the Book of Jasher that is just as noteworthy today as it was back then (underlinings added):

       A certain value no doubt attaches to any book faithfully transmitted to us from so remote a period of the past, and if we should find in it no traces whatever of historical verity, we may still be interested or amused to see into what wild extravaganzas a Rabbinical fancy may run, and with what ingenuity it may graft upon the majestic simplicity and brevity of the sacred narrative a luxuriant offshoot of fables, fictions, allegories, and dreams.

In other words, the Book of Jasher is an interesting example of historical fiction, and that’s it.

(NEXT)  APPENDIX 4: How Canon Scripture Differs from Apocryphal Literature