An 1,100-year-old Bible will go up for auction this May, and if it fetches the estimated price of $50 million, it will become the most expensive historical document ever.
This is the "Sassoon Codex", which was compiled in the ninth century in Syria or the Land of Israel.
It contains about 400 pages and is considered a bridge between the Dead Sea Scrolls and today's accepted version of the Bible. "This is a milestone in human history," said Richard Austin, head of Sotheby's books and manuscripts division.
"Text that we can read and understand", photo: E.P
After changing hands several times, the codex remained in a synagogue in northeastern Syria, which was destroyed in the 13th century.
Then it disappeared for about 600 years, until it was found in 1929.
"It's electrifying," Sharon Lieberman Mintz, Sotheby's senior consultant in the field of Judaica, told The New York Times. "This book is actually the first time the text appears in a form where we can actually read and understand it."
The codex contains all 24 books of the Bible, with the exception of the first ten chapters of Genesis.
David Suleiman Sassoon.
Build the largest private collection of Judaica items,
The name "Codex Sassoon" is derived from the previous owner of the book: David Suleiman Sassoon (1880-1942), a British collector and researcher born in Baghdad, who built the most important private collection of Jewish manuscripts in the 20th century.
The current owner of the book is Jacob (Jacqui) Safra, a Jewish businessman and a member of the Safra banking family.
In 2021, billionaire Ken Griffin paid $43.2 million for the first copy of the US Constitution. In 1994, Bill Gates paid $30.8 million for the "Codex Lester" - a collection of scientific writings that contained paintings by Leonardo da Vinci.
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