{"id":13277,"date":"2025-06-12T12:06:56","date_gmt":"2025-06-12T16:06:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/?p=13277"},"modified":"2025-06-12T12:06:56","modified_gmt":"2025-06-12T16:06:56","slug":"medieval-bible-makes-its-way-back-to-israel-after-centuries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2025\/06\/medieval-bible-makes-its-way-back-to-israel-after-centuries.html","title":{"rendered":"Medieval Bible Makes its Way Back to Israel After Centuries"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_13280\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-13280\" style=\"width: 1200px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13280\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2025\/06\/Shem-Tov-Bible_credit-Southebys-YouTube.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"900\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-13280\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Southeby&#8217;s \/ YouTube<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>An ancient medieval Bible has made its way back to Israel after a centuries-long absence. Known as the Shem Tov Bible, the medieval Bible dates from the 14<sup>th<\/sup> century and was authored by kabbalist Rabbi Shem Tov ben Abraham Ibn Gaon. The Bible was originally written in 1312 in Soria Spain. Ibn Gaon then took the codex with him to the land of Israel after a two-year journey in 1315, where it remained after his death in 1330. It spent the next few centuries in the Middle East before making its way to North Africa. Collector David Solomon Sassoon purchased the codex in the early 20<sup>th<\/sup> century before later selling it to European collectors. It was then purchased in 1994 by a Swiss collector Jaqui Safra before being sold at auction at Sotheby\u2019s for $6.9 million to Terri and Andrew Herenstein in 2024. The Herensteins have placed the codex on long-term loan at the National Library of Israel in Jerusalem, bringing about the codex\u2019s return. The family released a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/travel\/rare-medieval-bible-returns-israel-public-exhibit-centuries-long-journey\">statement<\/a> saying they were \u201cdelighted\u201d to bring the book back to Israel. \u201cWe are delighted to know that the Shem Tov Bible is incorporated into the Library\u2019s permanent exhibition of its greatest treasures, and equally delighted that the manuscript will be digitized to the highest standard, making it available worldwide, for study, research or to simply enjoy its beauty.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>What is unique about the codex is its hidden meanings and intricate designs. Ibn Gaon was a Jewish mystic who was familiar with the \u201cJewish faith, Christian Gothic aesthetics and Islamic and Iberian motifs\u201d according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sothebys.com\/en\/articles\/the-shem-tov-bible-and-mysticism-in-the-golden-age-of-spain#:~:text=%E2%80%9CSome%20illuminations%20actually%20illustrate%20the,lions%20and%20birds%20on%20top.\">Sotheby\u2019s<\/a>. Shaul Seidler-Feller, a Senior Specialist of Judaica at Sotheby\u2019s, noted how unique the codex is. \u201cThis is the only example of a medieval Hebrew Bible that has letter-forms throughout the Pentateuch section that have been modified to so closely follow an ancient tradition that goes back to the first millennium of the Common Era,\u201d he said. The images in the codex represent Ibn Gaon\u2019s knowledge of the main faiths of medieval Spain, with the illustrations calling up numerous motifs of the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim tradition. \u201cThese motifs were inspired by the Islamic and Christian visual languages of the period, adapted to the long-standing Jewish tradition of beautifying ritual objects,\u201d a statement noted.<\/p>\n<p>The National Library celebrated the codex\u2019s return to Israel. \u201cReceiving this manuscript, especially at the time of Shavuot, which celebrates the giving of the Torah, is profoundly significant,\u201d the chairman of the National Library of Israel, Sallai Meridor, said. \u201cHaving traveled from Spain to Jerusalem, Baghdad, Tripoli, London and Geneva, the Shem Tov Bible has come full circle and is now back home, returning to the very place where Rabbi Shem Tov ben Abraham Ibn Gaon lived and intended for it to be, in the land of Israel, and now in Jerusalem. We are grateful to the Herenstein family for turning what might otherwise have been a dream into a reality.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An ancient medieval Bible has made its way back to Israel after a centuries-long absence. Known as the Shem Tov Bible, the medieval Bible dates from the 14th century and was authored by kabbalist Rabbi Shem Tov ben Abraham Ibn Gaon. The Bible was originally written in 1312 in Soria Spain. Ibn Gaon then took&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":516,"featured_media":13280,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Medieval Bible Makes its Way Back to Israel After Centuries<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"After centuries abroad, the 14th-century Shem Tov Bible returns to Israel\u2014celebrated for its mystical beauty and rich interfaith symbolism.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2025\/06\/medieval-bible-makes-its-way-back-to-israel-after-centuries.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Medieval Bible Makes its Way Back to Israel After Centuries\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"After centuries abroad, the 14th-century Shem Tov Bible returns to Israel\u2014celebrated for its mystical beauty and rich interfaith symbolism.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2025\/06\/medieval-bible-makes-its-way-back-to-israel-after-centuries.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Christ News Today\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-06-12T16:06:56+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2025\/06\/Shem-Tov-Bible_credit-Southebys-YouTube.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"900\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Cecilia Buchanan\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Medieval Bible Makes its Way Back to Israel After Centuries","description":"After centuries abroad, the 14th-century Shem Tov Bible returns to Israel\u2014celebrated for its mystical beauty and rich interfaith symbolism.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2025\/06\/medieval-bible-makes-its-way-back-to-israel-after-centuries.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Medieval Bible Makes its Way Back to Israel After Centuries","og_description":"After centuries abroad, the 14th-century Shem Tov Bible returns to Israel\u2014celebrated for its mystical beauty and rich interfaith symbolism.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2025\/06\/medieval-bible-makes-its-way-back-to-israel-after-centuries.html","og_site_name":"Christ News Today","article_published_time":"2025-06-12T16:06:56+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1200,"height":900,"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2025\/06\/Shem-Tov-Bible_credit-Southebys-YouTube.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Cecilia Buchanan","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2025\/06\/medieval-bible-makes-its-way-back-to-israel-after-centuries.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2025\/06\/medieval-bible-makes-its-way-back-to-israel-after-centuries.html","name":"Medieval Bible Makes its Way Back to Israel After Centuries","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2025\/06\/medieval-bible-makes-its-way-back-to-israel-after-centuries.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2025\/06\/medieval-bible-makes-its-way-back-to-israel-after-centuries.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2025\/06\/Shem-Tov-Bible_credit-Southebys-YouTube.jpg","datePublished":"2025-06-12T16:06:56+00:00","dateModified":"2025-06-12T16:06:56+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/#\/schema\/person\/450625ec20bf3e8a84060b9321455f3d"},"description":"After centuries abroad, the 14th-century Shem Tov Bible returns to Israel\u2014celebrated for its mystical beauty and rich interfaith symbolism.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2025\/06\/medieval-bible-makes-its-way-back-to-israel-after-centuries.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2025\/06\/medieval-bible-makes-its-way-back-to-israel-after-centuries.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2025\/06\/medieval-bible-makes-its-way-back-to-israel-after-centuries.html#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2025\/06\/Shem-Tov-Bible_credit-Southebys-YouTube.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2025\/06\/Shem-Tov-Bible_credit-Southebys-YouTube.jpg","width":1200,"height":900,"caption":"Southeby's \/ YouTube"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2025\/06\/medieval-bible-makes-its-way-back-to-israel-after-centuries.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Medieval Bible Makes its Way Back to Israel After Centuries"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/","name":"Christ News Today","description":"Christian News From Around the Globe","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/#\/schema\/person\/450625ec20bf3e8a84060b9321455f3d","name":"Brandy Grenier","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/author\/bgrenier"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/516"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13277"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13277\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13283,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13277\/revisions\/13283"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}