{"id":6780,"date":"2023-05-31T09:45:58","date_gmt":"2023-05-31T13:45:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/?p=6780"},"modified":"2023-05-31T09:45:58","modified_gmt":"2023-05-31T13:45:58","slug":"earliest-hebrew-bible-sells-for-38m-at-sothebys-auction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2023\/05\/earliest-hebrew-bible-sells-for-38m-at-sothebys-auction.html","title":{"rendered":"Earliest Hebrew Bible Sells For $38M at Sotheby’s Auction"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"worlds
Forbes\/YouTube<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Sotheby\u2019s auction house sold a 1,100-year-old Hebrew Bible for $38 million in New York. It\u2019s one of the world\u2019s oldest surviving biblical manuscripts and brought the second-most highest price for a historical document at auction.<\/p>\n

The 26-pound book, whose five-inch stack of parchment has 396 pages, sold after a five-minute battle between two bidders competing over the phone. According to the Wall Street Journal, the final price, including Sotheby\u2019s fees, fell short of breaking the record held by a $43.2 million copy of the U.S. Constitution bought two years ago by billionaire Ken Griffin. In 1994, Leonardo da Vinci\u2019s Codex Leicester sold for $31 million or around $60 million in today\u2019s dollars.<\/p>\n

In a statement, Sotheby\u2019s said the Codex Sasson, a leather-bound, handwritten volume with an almost complete Hebrew Bible, was purchased by former U.S. Ambassador to Romania Alfred H. Moses for the American Friends of ANU and donated to the ANU Museum of the Jewish People in Tel Aviv, where it\u2019ll join the museum\u2019s collection.<\/p>\n

This antique copy of the Bible is believed to have been assembled between 880 and 960 A.D. The auction house\u2019s auction page listed it as \u201cCirca 900\u201d and \u201cthe earliest, most complete Hebrew Bible.\u201d The Bible\u2019s seller, Jaqui Safra, paid for carbon dating to date the manuscript\u2019s origin definitively. Sotheby\u2019s said testing confirmed the book\u2019s dates to the late ninth century or early 10th century.<\/p>\n

Scholars believe this Bible is the earliest and most complete collection of Hebrew writing gathered into a book, not spread across a scroll. According to the Wall Street Journal, the book has 24 smaller books that sweep across the Old Testament, known to Jews at the Tanakh. \u201cWe wanted it to come home,\u201d Irina Nevzlin, chair of the museum\u2019s board of directors, told the outlet. Nevzlin said the museum aspired to own the codex after displaying it for a week in March, where it proved an immediate hit with the public.<\/p>\n