A 1,100-year-old Hebrew Bible that is one of the worlds oldest surviving biblical manuscripts sold for $38 million in New York on Wednesday.
The Codex Sassoon, a leather-bound, handwritten parchment volume containing a nearly complete Hebrew Bible, was purchased by former U.S. Ambassador to Romania Alfred H. Moses on behalf of the American Friends of ANU and donated to ANU Museum of the Jewish People in Tel Aviv, where it will join the collection, Sothebys said in statement.
The manuscript was exhibited at the ANU Museum in March as part of a worldwide tour before the auction.
Sothebys Judaica specialist Sharon Liberman Mintz said the $38 million price tag, which includes the auction houses fee, reflects the profound power, influence, and significance of the Hebrew Bible, which is an indispensable pillar of humanity.
Its one of highest prices for a manuscript sold at auction. In 2021, a rare copy of the U.S. constitution sold for $43 million. Leonardo da Vincis Codex Leicester sold for $31 million in 1994, or around $60 million in todays dollars.
Mintz said she was absolutely delighted by todays monumental result and that Codex Sassoon will shortly be making its grand and permanent return to Israel, on display for the world to see.
The Codex Sassoon is believed to have been fabricated sometime between 880 and 960.
It got its name in 1929 when it was purchased by David Solomon Sassoon, a son of an Iraqi Jewish business magnate who filled his London home with his collection of Jewish manuscripts.
Sassoons estate was broken up after he died and the biblical codex was sold by Sothebys in Zurich in 1978 to the British Rail Pension Fund for around $320,000, or $1.4 million in todays dollars.
The pension fund sold the Codex Sassoon 11 years later to Jacqui Safra, a banker and art collector, bought it in 1989 for $3.19 million ($7.7 million in todays dollars). Safra was the seller on Wednesday.
