Sotheby’s estimates Codex Sassoon could set new sale record
By FOX BUSINESS NEWS
Codex Sassoon (video screenshot)
(FOX BUSINESS) – Codex Sassoon, the earliest and most complete surviving manuscript of the Hebrew Bible ever discovered in book form, is being offered up for sale for the first time in over three decades.
Sotheby’s announced this week that the holy book dated to the late ninth to early 10th century will be hitting the auction block in New York this May, and expects to bring as much as $50 million — which would be a record for a historical text.
The Hebrew Bible is composed of 24 books, and is at the foundation of Judaism and other Abrahamic faiths including Christianity, where it is referred to as the Old Testament. It is a compilation of the earliest known biblical texts, the Dead Sea Scrolls, which were written in sections on separate scrolls and did not contain punctuation, verses or chapters.