World's oldest Hebrew Bible sold for $38M in auction

Winning bid made by Alfred H. Moses, former US ambassador and president of American Jewish Committee

By Mehmet Solmaz

BIRMINGHAM, England (AA) - The world’s oldest near-complete Hebrew Bible was sold for $38.1 million on Wednesday, British-founded American multinational arts company Sotheby’s said.

The volume, known as the Codex Sassoon, includes all 24 books of the Hebrew Bible, excluding eight leaves, including the first 10 chapters of Genesis.

The winning bid was made by Alfred H. Moses, a former US ambassador and president of the American Jewish Committee, who is donating the historic book to a museum in Israel.

The experts have dated the book to the late 9th or early 10th century. Since 1989, it has been owned by Swiss financier and collector Jacqui Safra.

“The codex is named for its prominent modern owner, David Solomon Sassoon (1880-1942), who assembled the largest and most important private collection of Hebrew manuscripts in the world and had a special affinity for Bibles in particular,” Sotheby’s said in a statement.

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