Sefer haYashar

It's an Aramaic text that covers early portions of Genesis, and kind of defies, defies description if, if your reference for ancient Jewish text is a rabbinic canon, as it's written in Aramaic, but it's not a Targum, and it deals with extra-biblical legends about Noah and Abraham primarily, but it's not a midrash.

And so what do you call it? So Vermes called it Rewritten Bible, and he wrote a pair of articles, one of them tracing it forward in time to a text called Sefer HaYashar, which is a medieval Hebrew text with great affinities to Pirke De-Rabbi Eliezer, and then he went in the other direction.

So kind of a virtuoso thing.

He didn't really define what he meant by Rewritten Bible.

If you don't mind me asking this as a follow-up question, in light of what you just-

Sure

... you alluded to the scholarly work of Geza Vermes on Rewritten Bible and his comparative analysis of Sefer HaYashar and Pirke De-Rabbi Eliezer.

Are you able to kindly share what he says in that analysis? Can you say something about the scholarly discussions surrounding this and where this book fits in relation to those discussions?

It provides names for otherwise unnamed characters.

it gives motives speeches family details battles dreams court intrigues and dramatic scenes that are absent from genesis exodus and joshua a reader opens genesis and sees joseph sold into egypt Sefer Ha-Yashar gives you more of the brothers' argument, more of Joseph's suffering, more palace drama, more details about Egypt, war, famine, and political power.

The Bible tells us Abraham went through enormous trials.

Sefer Hayashah turns those trials into extended scenes.