New York USA (Global News)_It is 1,100 years old! The world’s oldest and most complete Hebrew Bible was displayed in a temperature-controlled glass cabinet as Sotheby’s auctioneer began banging his gavel in an attempt to get the highest bid for this rare manuscript. And he wasn’t disappointed. In just six minutes, the Bible was sold for USD 38.1 billion, one of the highest prices ever paid for a book or manuscript. The price came on a bid made via a donation by former US Ambassador and President of the American Jewish Committee Alfred H. Moses. It will soon move to its new home at the ANU Museum in Israel as a gift to the Jewish people in Tel Aviv.
The leather-bound handwritten parchment volume was etched on 792 sheepskin pages and included all 24 books in the Bible. It is missing about eight pages and hence, gets the moniker of being a nearly complete copy of the Hebrew Bible and one of the world’s oldest surviving biblical manuscripts. Now, it also becomes one of the world’s most expensive manuscripts.
The Bible known as The Codex Sassoon showcases the writing style and layout similar to that of the Torah scrolls. The Codex Sassoon got its name in 1929 when the son of an Iraqi Jewish businessman David Solomon Sassoon added it to his collection of Jewish manuscripts. However, the Bible is believed to have been together between 880 and 960 AD. On Sassoon’s death, Sotheby’s sold the Bible in 1978 to the British Rail Pension Fund for USD 320,000, which in turn sold it eleven years later to Swiss financier and collector Jacqui Safra for USD 3.19 million. Safra has owned this invaluable manuscript since 1989.
Considered the most influential book in history and according to Moses, one which forms the bedrock of Western civilization, no similar book or historical document has been sold at an auction for decades and hence, it gains a comparison to other foundational texts of civilization which have commanded millions of dollars. To compare: in 2021, a copy of the first print of the US Constitution’s final text sold for USD 43.2 million, a journal with writings by Leonardo Da Vinci known as the Codex Leicester was auctioned for USD 30.8 million in 1994 and a copy of the Magna Carta sold for USD 21.1 million in 2007.
