World's Oldest Hebrew Bible Expected to Break Auction Records Next Month
A Hebrew Bible believed to be the earliest and most complete version of the sacred text is set to go up for auction with Sotheby's in May. The astonishing discovery is said to be dated to the late ninth or early 10th century. According to the auction house, this is the earliest example ever of a nearly complete codex that has all 24 books.
Described as "one of the most important and singular texts in human history," the Codex Sassoon's pre-auction estimates say that it could fetch anywhere between $30 and $50 million. It is billed as the first codex in history or the first manuscript of the Hebrew Bible in book form. The codex consists of 792 parchment pages, which are made from animal skins. Meanwhile, the book itself weighs roughly 26.5 pounds and measures about 12 by 14 inches.
"Codex Sassoon has long held a revered and fabled place in the pantheon of surviving historic manuscripts and is undeniably one of the most important and singular texts in human history,"Â Sotheby's Global Head of Books and Manuscripts Richard Austin said in a release.
Now for some context. The Codex Sassoon is somewhat of an enigma to many scholars and collectors. It was reportedly created nearly 1,100 years ago, circa 900, in what would now be Israel or Syria. After it changed hands on various occasions, it would end up in a synagogue in northeast Syria. Eventually, the book would disappear for the next 600 years. Its current owner is Swiss financier and collector Jacqui Safra.
Three Abrahamic faiths, namely Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, have based their texts on the Hebrew Bible.
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Sotheby's also claims that the Codex Sassoon is a century older than the oldest complete Hebrew Bible today, the Leningrad Codex. The Codex Sassoon and the Aleppo Codex are the only two codices that date back to the 10th century.
Aleppo Codex has been housed at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem since 1958. However, what separates the two codices is the fact that the former is only missing five pages while the latter only has no more than 295 pages left to it. The Aleppo Codex had been damaged after a fire at the synagogue in 1947.
What also makes the codex so valuable is its handwritten inscriptions and annotations, giving us a recording of its 1,000-year journey. For instance, we can see an 11th-century entry that refers to a sale by Khalaf ben Abraham to a man named Isaac ben Ezekiel al-Attar. We also learn that it would then be passed down to his sons.
Another entry is a 13th-century annotation, which had been dedicated to the synagogue of Makisin, which would be present-day northeastern Syria. When Makisin was destroyed, the codex would be put in the hands of a community member named Salama bin Abi al-Fakhr. Its whereabouts after is unknown.
The codex only resurfaced in 1929, when British collector, scholar, and Judaica collector David Sassoon bought the book in Frankfurt, Germany for £350. We would eventually name the codex after him.
Later on, the British Rail Pension Fund bought it from Sassoon’s heirs for $320,000 back in 1978. Eleven years later, the fun would sell it for $3.19 million to a dealer. Safra would then buy it from the dealer soon after.
We can expect the Codex Sassoon to break the current record of $43.2 million for such texts. This was set by art collector Ken Griffin when he bought a first printing of the United States Constitution in November 2021. Bill Gates, on the other hand, purchased the next most expensive historical document, the Codex Leicester, which contains a collection of Leonardo da Vinci’s scientific writings.
The codex has been exhibited at a museum just once in its entire existence. And that was at the British Museum in 1982. It will be on public view in London, Tel Aviv, Dallas, Los Angeles, and New York before the May 16 auction.
