The Codex Sassoon , the world ’s oldest near - complete Hebrew bible , is set to go under the hammer at auction later this yr and could sell for up to $ 50 million . If it achieves this cost , it will become the “ most valuable diachronic document ever sold at auction ” . You intimately get save those pennies .
The Codex is said to date to the late 9th or early 10th century CE , perhaps around the year 900 CE . Exceptionally for a copy this age , it contain all 24 Word of God of the Hebrew Bible and is missing just a few " leaves " of text .
This age means it ’s older than the early complete Hebrew Bible , the Leningrad Codex , by almost a C .
Still looking good for 1,100 years old. Image courtesy of Sotheby’s.
The Codex Sassoon has been on a crew of worldly adventure over the one C . Manuscripts show how the Codex was sold by a humans called Khalaf ben Abraham to Isaac ben Ezekiel al - Attar in the early 11th century CE .
By the 13th century , the book of account was dedicated to the synagogue of Makisin in present - solar day Syria . However , the townsfolk was obliterated shortly after , most probable by theMongol Empirein the 13th hundred or the Timurid Empire in 1400 , and the Codex was give to Salama bin Abi al - Fakhr for keeping . They promised to return it to thesynagogue when it was rebuilt , but that time never came .
The following six 100 ofhistoryare hazy , but the Codex eventually resurface in 1929 when it was purchased by British collector David Solomon Sassoon who had assembled the most large private collections of Judaic artifacts in the world .
presently , the document is in the collection of Jacqui Safra , a member of the prominent Brazilian - Syrian - Lebanese Jewish banking family . In the next chapter of its story , the artifact will be sold atan auctionorganized by Sotheby ’s New York on May 16 .
“ Codex Sassoon has long held a revered and fabled shoes in the pantheon of subsist historical text file and is undeniably one of the most significant and singular textual matter in human history , ” Richard Austin , Sotheby ’s Global Head of Books & Manuscripts , allege in astatement .
“ With such preeminence , the Codex has an uncomparable presence and dignity that can only be yield from more than one thousand year of chronicle , ” explainedAustin .
Describing it as " one of the Earth ’s greatest treasures " , Sotheby ’s estimates it could sell from somewhere between $ 30 million to $ 50 million .
If it tip towards the higher remnant of this price kitchen stove , it will become the most expensive historical document ever sold , tucker out the first impression of the US Constitution that sold at Sotheby ’s in November 2021 for $ 43 million .
“ In Codex Sassoon , a monumental translation in the chronicle of the Hebrew Bible is revealed , bringing to light the full account of the Hebrew Bible that had previously never been presented in playscript form . Codex Sassoon marks a critical turning point in how we comprehend the history of the Divine word across one thousand of year , and is a transformative witness to how the Hebrew Bible has influenced the pillars of civilisation – art , finish , law , political sympathies – for centuries , ” add up Sharon Liberman Mintz , Sotheby ’s Senior Judaica Specialist in the Books & Manuscripts Department .
