{"id":16956,"date":"2023-02-27T15:38:43","date_gmt":"2023-02-27T20:38:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?p=16956"},"modified":"2023-03-10T09:19:29","modified_gmt":"2023-03-10T14:19:29","slug":"worlds-oldest-bible-could-become-most-valuable-historical-document-ever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2023\/02\/worlds-oldest-bible-could-become-most-valuable-historical-document-ever","title":{"rendered":"World\u2019s Oldest Bible Could Become Most Valuable Historical Document Ever"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/140\/2023\/02\/codex-sasoon_credit-none-scaled.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-16962\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/140\/2023\/02\/codex-sasoon_credit-none-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"768\" height=\"576\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sothebys.com\/en\/about#:~:text=Established%20in%201744%2C%20Sotheby's%20is,fine%20art%20and%20rare%20objects.\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Sotheby\u2019s<\/span><\/a><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">, which touts itself as the \u201cmost trusted and dynamic marketplace for art and luxury,\u201d has made waves with its announcement that it will be\u00a0<\/span><a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sothebys.com\/en\/buy\/auction\/2023\/codex-sassoon-the-earliest-most-complete-hebrew-bible?locale=en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">auctioning<\/span><\/a><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">\u00a0off the Codex Sassoon, the world\u2019s oldest near-complete Hebrew Bible, this May. The Bible is being sold by Jacui Safra, a Swiss investor and collector. \u201cThe Bible is one of the world\u2019s greatest treasures and holds powerful resonance for the three monotheistic religions and their billions of adherents. For thousands of years, its sacred words have been closely studied, analyzed, and meditated on,\u201d the announcement noted. \u201cCodex Sassoon created circa 900,\u201d it added, \u201cis the earliest surviving example of a single codex containing all the books of the Hebrew Bible with their punctuation, vowels, and accents.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Called the Codex Sassoon after its former modern owner, David Solomon Sassoon, the\u00a0<\/span><a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sothebys.com\/en\/articles\/sassoon-codex-oldest-most-complete-hebrew-bible\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">book<\/span><\/a><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">\u00a0dates to the late 9th century and early 10th century. Safra had the Codex carbon dated, which confirmed these dates. It contains all 24 books of the Hebrew Bible, with only 15 chapters missing, 10 of which are from Genesis. The earliest fully complete Hebrew Bible is called the Leningrad Codex and dates from the 11th century, nearly a century after the Codex Sassoon.\u00a0<\/span><a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/www.barrons.com\/articles\/a-crucial-bridge-to-history-the-codex-sassoon-could-fetch-50-million-9bb3eea9\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Sassoon<\/span><\/a><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">\u00a0was a private collector who collected many ancient Biblical texts, purchasing the Codex in 1929 as the last piece of his books. The Codex is so named a \u201ccodex\u201d due to being written on parchment.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">The Codex\u2019s history before coming into Sassoon\u2019s hands is shrouded in mystery. It can be traced to various passing hands from the 11th to 13th centuries throughout Syria before it disappeared from all knowledge from the late 1400s until a man by the name of Aron Freimann, a scholar of Hebrew manuscripts, reached out to Sassoon in 1929 about purchasing it. What Freimann knew about the Codex\u2019s time from 1400 on is lost as his personal papers were lost when he fled Nazi Germany.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Sotheby\u2019s stressed the Codex\u2019s importance to the transference of the Bible, acting as a \u201ccrucial bridge\u201d between the Dead Sea scrolls, which contain the earliest writings of the Hebrew Bible and has been dated from the 3rd century BC to the 1st century AD. \u201cIt standardized and stabilized the Hebrew text of the Bible,\u201d said Sharon Mintz, senior Judaica specialist at Sotheby\u2019s. Because of the Codex\u2019s age and contribution to history, the Codex could very well become the most expensive historical document ever, with some estimating it could sell for up to $50 million. Mintz stressed the uniqueness of the Codex, saying, \u201cThis is one of the world\u2019s greatest treasures. We looked at other items that have sold recently and priced it according to how highly we value it and how highly the world will value it. This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sotheby\u2019s, which touts itself as the \u201cmost trusted and dynamic marketplace for art and luxury,\u201d has made waves with its announcement that it will be\u00a0auctioning\u00a0off the Codex Sassoon, the world\u2019s oldest near-complete Hebrew Bible, this May. The Bible is being sold by Jacui Safra, a Swiss investor and collector. \u201cThe Bible is one of the&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":664,"featured_media":16962,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16956","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>World\u2019s Oldest Bible Could Become Most Valuable Historical Document Ever<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Codex Sassoon, the world&#039;s oldest Hebrew Bible has the possibility to become to most valuable historical document ever.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link 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