The Sassoon codex is estimated “between 30 and 50 million dollars” according to the auction house will go under the hammer in May in New York.
The oldest and most complete Hebrew Bible, more than a thousand years old, will be auctioned off in May. Its astronomical estimate is between 30 and 50 million dollars, Sotheby’s announced on Wednesday. The “Sassoon Codex”, named after its best-known owner, David Solomon Sassoon (died 1942), dates from the year 900 CE. “The most comprehensive Hebrew Biblecould become one of themost expensive manuscripts ever sold”Richard Austin, head of ancient books and manuscripts at Sotheby’s, told AFP.
The sale will take place in May, during the classic spring auction season for paintings of contemporary, modern and impressionist art, organized by the behemoths of the sector in New York: Sotheby’s, owned by Franco-Israeli magnate Patrick Drahi and its competitor Christie’s controlled by the Artémis holding company of French billionaire François Pinault.
An exceptional state of preservation
Asked about the potential buyers of this codex, Richard Austin estimated that the list of buyers was “a bottomless pit”: It is “a founding text of civilization, it is difficult to find a text that has had more influence than the Bible in the history of humanity”. This Bible in Hebrew – the original language of the Old Testament which also contains passages in Greek and Aramaic – “belonged to important collectors in the XXe century; it is obviously possible that she will go to an institution to be further studied, including abroad” et “regardless of beliefs”added the expert, alluding to Judaism, Christianity, Islam or atheism.
The Sassoon Codex, in a visibly exceptional state of preservation and from which only a few pages are missing, binds 24 books of the Hebrew Bible taken from the famous scrolls of the Dead Sea Scrolls dating from the IIIe century before our era. This Bible, more complete than the Aleppo Codex, has been authenticated with carbon 14, “confirmed by paleographic and codicological research (…) and has survived more than a millennium in the hands (of collectors) public and private”welcomed AFP Sharon Liberman Mintz, specialist in the texts of Judaism at Sotheby’s.
The art auction company prides itself in a press release on being the specialist in the market for ancient manuscripts and books. In November 2021, she sold an original copy of the Constitution of the United States of America for the record price of $43 million. The document was acquired by the American billionaire Kenneth Griffin, boss of the investment company Citadel, who was to lend it to a museum in Arkansas.