Some Mormon scholars consider this to be the authentic Sefer HaYashar referenced in the Old Testament (though in recent decades this has become a minority view). That belief comes from the preface to the 1625 version which says its original source book came from the ruins of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. A Roman officer named Sidrus discovered a Hebrew scholar hiding in a hidden library. The officer reportedly took the scholar and all the books safely back to his estates in Seville, Spain, which in Roman times was known as Hispalis, the provincial capital of Hispalensis (cf. Hispania Baetica). At some uncertain point in history (presumably after the Islamic conquest of Iberia (cf. Al-Andalus)), the manuscript was transferred or sold to the Jewish college in Cordova, Spain. Scholars apparently had preserved the book until its printings in Naples in 1552 and in Venice in 1625. Outside of the preface to the 1625 work, there is no evidence to support any of this story.