ART AND CULTURE.
The oldest extant Hebrew Bible sold at auction in New York
Sotheby's auction house in New York sold the world's oldest extant almost complete Hebrew Bible, dating from the 10th century, for $38,126,000 (€35,170,000).
The priceless manuscript had been auctioned by financier and collector Jacob (Jacqui) Safra, and was purchased by Alfred Moses, a lawyer working at Covington & Burling, who in turn will donate it to the museum in Tel Aviv, Israel.
This is a record amount spent on a manuscript, but is still less than the highest amount ever spent on a historical document.
The oldest extant Hebrew Bible sold at auction in New York
Sotheby's auction house in New York sold the oldest almost complete Hebrew Bible in the world, dating from the 10th century, for $38,126,000 (€35,170,000).
Oldest extant Hebrew Bible sold at auction in New York City
This Bible is more special than the others because it includes all 24 books of the Hebrew Scriptures. Only about 15 chapters are missing from the total 792 pages of parchment. This document predates the first entirely complete Hebrew Bible, the Leningrad Codex, by about a century.
Oldest extant Hebrew Bible sold at auction in New York City
The official name of this document is Codex Sassoon. Specifically, it appears to have been written by a scribe (whose name is unknown) in Syria or what is now called Israel, around 900 AD. The name comes from the businessman, philanthropist and collector of Hebrew manuscripts David Solomon Sassoon, who owned the manuscript earlier.
Oldest extant Hebrew Bible sold at auction in New York City
The Bible, auctioned at Sotheby's in New York, had been put up for sale by financier and collector Jacob (Jacqui) Safra, heir to a Syrian-Lebanese-Swiss banking fortune, who had owned the manuscript since 1989. It was Alfred Moses, a lawyer with the firm Covington & Burling who also served as US ambassador to Romania under Bill Clinton, who won it after a ten-minute bidding war. Moses said he would donate the document to the Anu Museum - Museum of the Jewish People in Tel Aviv.
Oldest extant Hebrew Bible sold at auction in New York City
"It was my mission to recover the work, realise the historical importance of the Codex Sassoon and ensure that it was kept in a place accessible to all. The Hebrew Bible is the most influential book in history and is the foundation of Western civilisation. I rejoice in knowing that it belongs to the Jewish people,' the words of the new owner of the document.
Oldest extant Hebrew Bible sold at auction in New York City
The price paid for Codex Sassoon - $38,126,000 (€35,170,000) - is the highest price ever paid for a manuscript, surpassing the $30.8 million Bill Gates shelled out in 1994 for Leonardo da Vinci's Codex Leicester. However, it does not exceed the record amount spent on a historical document. That record goes to collector Ken Griffin in 2021, who shelled out a whopping $43 million for an original printed copy of the US Constitution.
Oldest extant Hebrew Bible sold at auction in New York City
The Codex Sassoon is also important because it contains Masoretic notes by early medieval scholars on how words should be written, read and accented. Moreover, the Codex Sassoon is the oldest known complete manuscript of the Tanakh, whose 24 books are fundamental texts for the Abrahamic faith and also represent the true Christian Old Testament.
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