The Bible quotes books that no longer exist

Joshua 10 tells of a battle at Gibeon, a town north of Jerusalem. In front of Israel's army, Joshua calls out: "Sun, stand still on Gibeon! You, moon, stop in the valley of Aijalon!" (10:12). The sun stands still until the battle is won.

Then the text pauses to name a source: "Isn't this written in the book of Jashar?" (10:13). No copy of the Book of Jashar survives.

The same book appears again in 2 Samuel. After Saul and his son Jonathan die in battle, David sings a lament for them. Its refrain is "How the mighty have fallen!" The text says the song "is written in the book of Jashar" (1:18). An ancient Greek translation of 1 Kings 8 adds a short poem spoken by Solomon. It credits the poem to "the book of the song." Many scholars think that title is a copying slip for Jashar, since the two Hebrew words use the same letters. The name Jashar probably means "the Upright." Because every passage that cites it is a poem, many scholars think it was a collection of old songs.

Jashar is not the only lost book the Bible names. Numbers 21:14 quotes "the book of the Wars of Yahweh." The books of Kings send readers to "the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel," or of Judah. By most counts they do so more than thirty times. 1 Chronicles 29:29 points to the records of the prophets Samuel, Nathan, and Gad.

None of these books is known to survive. Later works called the "Book of Jasher" do exist, but they were written in the Middle Ages or later.

Where to see it: read Joshua 10:12-13, then 2 Samuel 1:17-27, the lament the Book of Jashar preserved.