The Codex Sassoon, a leather-bound, handwritten parchment volume containing almost the entire Hebrew Bible, was given to Alfred H. was bought by Moses, who There are plans to donate it to the UNA Museum in Tel Aviv, Israel. According to a statement from Sotheby’s.
The manuscript had already been on display at the ANU Museum in March as part of a world tour prior to the auction.
In a picture dated March 22, 2023, the Codex Sassoon, considered the oldest and most complete Bible.
Why is this Bible worth $38 million?
Sotheby’s Judaism expert Sharon Lieberman Mintz said the $38 million price, which includes the auction house’s fee, ” Reflects the profound power, influence and meaning of the Bible Which is an essential pillar of humanity.
The price for the manuscript sold at auction is one of the highest ever.
In 2021, a rare copy of the United States Constitution sold for $43 million. Leonardo da Vinci’s Codex Leicester sold for $31 million in 1994, or about $60 million in today’s dollars.
Mintz said that he is “absolutely delighted with today’s monumental result and that Codex Sassoon will soon be making its return to Israel for the world to see.”
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What is Codex Sassoon?
The Codex Sassoon is the oldest known manuscript that compiles the known books of the Bible. Researchers calculate that it was built between 880 and 960 AD. C.
manuscript All 24 books of the Hebrew Bible are there and only 12 sheets are missing According to the site esefarad.com
It got its name in 1929 when it was bought by David Solomon Sassoon, the son of an Iraqi-Jewish business magnate.
Sassoon’s estate was divided after his death and the Bible Codex was sold in 1978 by Sotheby’s in Zurich to the British Railways Pension Fund for approximately $320,000, or $1.4 million in today’s dollars.
The pension fund sold the Codex Sassoon 11 years later to Jackie Safra, a banker and art collector, who bought it in 1989 for $3.19 million ($7.7 million in current dollars). Safra was the seller on Wednesday.
Why has the Codex Sassoon managed to survive?
According to historians, the Codex Sassoon was preserved by Jewish communities settled in Syria for centuries.
A note found in one of the manuscripts points to some of its former owners, such as a man named Khalaf ben Abraham, who bequeathed it to his sons during the Middle Ages.
The Codex Sassoon reached the city of Maksin, now in northeastern Syria, in the 13th century, where it was kept in a synagogue.
Around 1400, the synagogue was destroyed during an invasion and the codex was entrusted for safekeeping to Salma ibn Abi al-Fakhr. With a promise that he would return it once the place was rebuilt, which never happened.
Since then, the story of its whereabouts remained a mystery for five centuries, until it came into the hands of David Solomon Sassoon in 1929.
