The Sotheby's house announced this Thursday that it will auction next May the most complete and oldest Hebrew Bible that has been discovered to date, for a price between 30 and 50 million dollars, which could break the record for a historical document or printed text. It is a historical bible dating from approximately the year 900 and today is known as the Codex Sassoon for having been in the hands of David Solomon Sassoon, the greatest collector of Hebrew and Judaic manuscripts of the 21st century.
The Codex Sassoon is older than the two previously known texts of this type, from Aleppo, Syria, and Leningrad, present-day Saint Petersburg, Russia, but its date had not been scientifically determined until recently, when its owner current -unknown- subjected it to scientific and carbon tests.
The auction house describes the document as "the key link in Jewish history" that has allowed the oral tradition of antiquity to be brought to the Hebrew Bibles of our days, and considers it "a reference in the history of humanity."
It includes in its margins numerous inscriptions, annotations and other notes made by the previous owners or by communities that used it to pray, and that attest to its journey through human history, indicates a press release.
