Codex Sassoon, the earliest known virtually complete copy of the Tanach (what non-Jews refer to as the Old Testament) is to be auctioned off at Sotheby’s, which anticipates it becoming “the most valuable historical document ever sold at auction.”

The Codex Sassoon — which dates to the late ninth to early tenth century — is the earliest, most complete Hebrew Bible ever discovered.

It will become the most expensive historical document or manuscript to ever go under the hammer when Sotheby’s puts it up for auction in May.

“(It) is undeniably one of the most important and singular texts in human history,” said Richard Austin, Sotheby’s global head of books and manuscripts.

The Codex Sassoon is one of only two codices, or manuscripts, containing all 24 books of the Hebrew Bible to have survived into the modern era.

The auction house estimates a sale price anywhere between $30 and $50 million for the item, which is only missing 12 leaves from the entire 24 books and dates back to the late ninth or early tenth century BCE.

It is substantially more complete than the Aleppo Codex and older than the Leningrad Codex, two other famous early Hebrew Bibles, Sotheby’s said.

The manuscript bridges the Dead Sea Scrolls — which date back as early as the third century BCE — and today’s modernly accepted form of the Hebrew Bible.

It is named for previous owner David Solomon Sassoon (1880-1942) who assembled the most significant private collection of ancient Jewish texts in the world.

The book was considered lost for over 600 years following the destruction of a synagogue in northeast Syria where it was kept, until it reemerged in 1929, according to the New York Times. It has been in private hands since and is currently owned by Swiss financier and collector Jacqui Safra.

“This represents the first time the text appears in the form where we can really read and understand it,” Sharon Liberman Mintz, Sotheby’s senior Judaica consultant, told the US newspaper.

Regarding the high price tag, Mintz said the codice was expensive at the time, with over 100 animal skins needed to make. She added that it was written by a single scribe.

“It’s a masterpiece of scribal art,” she said.

She also noted it contains marks tracking the different owners over the years, which show the manuscript’s last owner before it went missing when the synagogue in the present-day Syrian city of Markada was destroyed until Sasoon purchased it in Frankfurt.

The document is being auctioned for the first time in more than 30 years, with a pre-sale estimate of between $30 million and $50 million.

In November 2021, Sotheby’s sold one of the first prints of the US Constitution for $43 million, a record price for a historical manuscript.

Source: AFP via TOI

• It is believed to have been written by a scribe who consulted the famed Aleppo Codex, based on one of its Masoretic notes, “to the great teacher, Aharon ben Moshe ben Asher,” the scholar who corrected the earlier Codex of which unfortunately only around two-thirds remains.

Codex Sassoon has been out of the public eye for most of its known history and last appeared 40 years ago. It is named for its most prominent modern owner, David Solomon Sassoon, who passed away in 1942.

• In advance of its sale, the Codex is to be taken on a global tour starting on February 22 in Sotheby’s in London, followed by stops in Tel Aviv, Dallas, Los Angeles, and New York City. Notes in the Codex itself refer to some of its ancient travels and how it passed through many hands, though much of its past remains shrouded in mystery. “The Codex has an incomparable presence and gravitas that can only be borne from more than one thousand years of history,” write Sotheby’s Global Head of Books & Manuscripts.

Source: Arutz Sheva