A leather-bound, handwritten Hebrew Bible believed to be around 1,100 years old sold for $38.1 million (€35.1 million) in New York, auction house Sotheby's said on Wednesday.
The Codex Sassoon's price surpasses the $30.8 million paid in 1994 for Leonardo da Vinci's Codex Leicester manuscript but is below the world-record $43.2 million paid in 2021 for the first edition of the US Constitution.
Its price tag "reflects the profound power, influence, and significance of the Hebrew Bible, which is an indispensable pillar of humanity," Sotheby's Judaica specialist Sharon Liberman Mintz said.
Former US ambassador and president of the American Jewish Committee Alfred H. Moses bought the codex on behalf of the non-profit American Friends of ANU. It will be donated to the ANU Museum of the Jewish People in Tel Aviv, Israel.
"The Hebrew Bible is the most influential book in history and constitutes the bedrock of Western civilization. I rejoice in knowing that it belongs to the Jewish People," Moses noted.
The codex, which was named after its previous owner David Solomon Sassoon, is believed to have been written between 880 and 960.
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