The Codex Sassoon, the oldest and most complete Hebrew Bible, will go on display for the first time at a museum in Israel before being auctioned for a value that could reach as much as $46 million, the Israeli government has revealed.
The auction will be promoted by Sotheby’s and will take place in mid-May in New York, but before that, the Codex will be on display, starting Thursday, in Tel Aviv.
“The Tel Aviv Museum of the Jewish People is honored to present exclusively in Israel the Codex Sassoon: the oldest and most complete Hebrew Bible, in a special exhibition one week before its auction scheduled for May 16,” revealed the Government of Israel in statements quoted today by the Spanish news agency EFE.
The exhibition is free and will be open from March 23 to 29, when you can see the ancient text, written on sheepskin parchment, which remained out of reach of the general public for centuries.
Composed of 24 books divided into three parts -the Pentateuch, the Prophets and the Writings-, the Hebrew Bible constitutes the basis of Judaism, as well as other religions such as Christianity or Islam.
Christianity recognizes these texts as the Old Testament, and they are incorporated into the biblical canon by Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant and other currents.
Islam considers stories from the Hebrew Bible, many of which are included in the Qur’an and other significant works of Islamic literature.
Source: TSF
