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The Codex Sassoon, believed to date from the late 9th or early 10th century, was bought at Sotheby’s by the American Friends of the ANU — Museum of the Jewish People.The oldest near-complete Hebrew Bible sold at Sotheby’s for $38.1 million on Wednesday, one of the highest prices for a book or historical document ever sold at auction.The volume, known as the Codex Sassoon, includes all 24 books of the Hebrew Bible, minus about eight leaves, including the first 10 chapters of Genesis. Researchers have dated it to the late ninth or early 10th century, making it the oldest near-complete...

JERUSALEM (AP) — One of the oldest surviving biblical manuscripts, a nearly complete 1,100-year-old Hebrew Bible, could soon be yours — for a cool $30 million. The Codex Sassoon, a leather-bound, handwritten parchment tome containing almost the entirety of the Hebrew Bible, is set to go on the block at Sotheby’s in New York in May. Its anticipated sale speaks to the still bullish market for art, antiquities and ancient manuscripts even in a worldwide bear economy. Sotheby’s is drumming up interest in hopes of enticing institutions and collectors to bite. It has put the price tag at an eye-watering...

World’s Oldest Near-Complete Hebrew Bible Goes to Auction The Codex Sassoon could break auction records, becoming the most valuable historical document ever sold Sarah Kuta Daily Correspondent February 17, 2023 Bible open to a page in the middle, set against a black backdrop The Codex Sassoon, which measures 12 by 14 inches, dates to the late ninth or early tenth century. At more than 1,000 years old, the Codex Sassoon is the world’s earliest near-complete Hebrew Bible. Soon, it could also become the “most valuable historical document ever sold at auction,” according to a statement from Sotheby’s. The auction house...

In 1889, an Italian librarian's faulty identification sentenced to archival obscurity an antique Torah scroll that has turned out to be the oldest complete such scroll in existence. This week, University of Bologna Professor Mauro Perani announced the results of carbon-14 tests authenticating the scroll's age as roughly 800 years old. The scroll dates to between 1155 and 1225, making it the oldest complete Torah scroll on record. Like all Torah scrolls, this one contains the full text of the five Books of Moses in Hebrew and is prepared according to strict standards for use during religious services. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------snip------------------ At...

On November 29, 1947, the very day that Hebrew University Professor E.L. Sukenik acquired the first three Dead Sea Scrolls and brought them back to Jerusalem, the United Nations passed by a two -thirds vote the resolution partitioning Palestine, effectively creating a Jewish state for the first time in two millennia. To Sukenik, it was almost as if the apocalypse had arrived: A 2,000-year-old Isaiah scroll -- which prophesied the return of Israel -- surfaced virtually on the same day that Jewish sovereignty was reestablished in the Holy Land. But within two days of that glorious day in Jewish history,...

Aleppo is burning. You can read about it day after day on the front pages, or on the websites of Syrians trying to organize support for their fight against the latest Assad. Caught between regulars and irregulars, thugs in uniform and out, Aleppo's inhabitants run for cover, or hunker down where they are and wait for the next air raid, the next suicide bombing, the next massacre. Or just the next bus out. Which could be blown to smithereens. By either side. The choices grow limited: Is it better to be killed by the grandly styled Free Syrian Army or...

Theft, espionage, corruption and a cover-up lasting decades — a new book by a Times of Israel reporter exposes the extraordinary saga of the uniquely revered, 1,100-year-old Aleppo Codex A new book by a Times of Israel reporter reveals dramatic new information about the fate of a manuscript many consider Judaism’s most important book — the 1,100-year-old Aleppo Codex.The manuscript — or the part of it that did not go mysteriously missing in the mid-20th century — is currently held alongside the Dead Sea Scrolls at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. It is revered as the authoritative version of the Hebrew...