Posted on 03/22/2023 10:05:17 AM PDT by bitt
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 $30 million to $50 million.
On Wednesday, Tel Aviv’s ANU Museum of the Jewish People opened a week-long exhibition of the manuscript, part of a whirlwind worldwide tour of the artifact in the United Kingdom, Israel and the United States before its expected sale, on Wednesday.
“There are three ancient Hebrew Bibles from this period,” said Yosef Ofer, a professor of Bible studies at Israel’s Bar Ilan University: the Codex Sassoon and Aleppo Codex from the 10th century, and the Leningrad Codex, from the early 11th century.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
Yeah, well, texts in general were written on relatively fragile materials, and of course, the Jews had some problems with their various neighbors now and then.
https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-topics/hebrew-bible/the-aleppo-codex/
For $30M it better be signed by MOSES!.............................
That would be hard to explain.
Regarding Moses, I’m sure it was a big hit with the Hebrews when he opened a book just by extending his staff.
I would rather own something valuable and then sell it and buy lots of functional things with the proceeds.
I have spent a decent amount of time on the Codex Sinaiticus website. One can read the actual text from the codex.
An excellent primer on the construction techniques of ancient manuscripts.
Codex Sinaiticus is one of the most important books in the world. Handwritten well over 1600 years ago, the manuscript contains the Christian Bible in Greek, including the oldest complete copy of the New Testament. Its heavily corrected text is of outstanding importance for the history of the Bible and the manuscript – the oldest substantial book to survive Antiquity – is of supreme importance for the history of the book.
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