The oldest, near-complete Hebrew Bible sold at Sotheby’s on Wednesday for $38.1 million, making it one of the most expensive books or historical documents ever sold at auction.
Known as the Codex Sassoon, this volume contains all 24 books of the Hebrew Scriptures minus about eight leaves, including the first ten chapters of Genesis. Scholars have dated the Bible to the late 9th or early 10th century, making it the oldest surviving near-complete Hebrew Bible. Since 1989, the stone has been in the possession of Swiss investor and collector Jacqui Safra and has largely gone unnoticed by scholars.
For months, speculation circulated about who had the money and the desire to acquire an estimated $30-50 million Bible.
Shortly after the auction, Sotheby’s announced that the buyer was: American Friends of ANU — Museum of Jewish Ethnology This was made possible by donations from former Ambassador Alfred H. Moses and his family. Codex Sassoon will be donated to: museum (previously known as the Diaspora Museum) and becomes part of the core exhibition.
“The Hebrew Bible is the most influential text in history and constitutes the foundation of Western civilization,” Moses said in a statement. “I am happy to know that it is Jewish. To recognize the historical significance of Codex Sassoon and to ensure that Codex Sassoon exists in a place accessible to people all over the world. was my mission.”
The $38.1 million price tag, including buyer’s fees, may seem relatively paltry compared to the stratospheric prices regularly reached at high-profile art auctions. However, such figures are rarely available in books or historical documents.
For many years, the highest auction price was held by Leonardo da Vinci’s manuscript Codex Leicester, which Bill Gates bought for $30.8 million ($62.4 million in today’s dollars) in 1994. . And in November 2021, a new benchmark emerged: $43.2 million investor Ken Griffin paid for the first printing of the US Constitution.
The Codex Sassoon was last sold at auction in 1989 and sold to a dealer for $3.19 million (approximately $8 million in today’s dollars). The dealer then sold it to Safra for an unknown price.
Even at the time, the book was an expensive item, requiring over 100 animal skins to make about 400 parchments. The text was written by a single scribe.
“This is a masterpiece of calligraphy,” Sotheby’s senior Jewish consultant Sharon Leverman-Mintz told The New York Times in February.
It is also slightly worn, with stains and small tears that have been carefully repaired with threads and streaks. However, the text remains remarkably legible and is written in square letters similar to the Torah scrolls found in synagogues around the world today.
The Bible is one of two complete or virtually complete Hebrew Bibles of the period known to exist and was composed in what is now Israel or Syria. It contains what is known as the Masoretic Manuscripts, named after the Masoretic school of scholars and scribes who lived in Palestine and Babylonia from about the 6th to the 9th centuries. We’ve created a system of annotations to ensure it’s read and guaranteed to be read. It was transmitted properly.
The book also contains several inscriptions tracing the changes in ownership over the centuries. The oldest is a deed of sale, dated around 1000 AD, which was sold by Calaf ben Abraham, a businessman working in Palestine and Syria, to Isaac ben Ezekiel El-Atar, who eventually gave it to his sons. is shown.
Another inscription says it was dedicated almost 200 years later to a synagogue in the city of Makin in northeastern Syria. After the synagogue was destroyed, it was entrusted to a man named Salama bin Abi al-Fakr, who was to return it when the synagogue was rebuilt.
The synagogue was never rebuilt. And it is unknown what happened to the Bible between then and 1929, when collector and scholar David Solomon Sassoon bought it.
“It’s coming back to Israel, and it’s coming back home,” museum director Irina Nevzrin said in an interview. “That’s the right place.”
