The oldest and most complete Hebrew Bible in the world, the Codex Sassoon, written more than a millennium ago, was auctioned at Sotheby’s on Wednesday for more than $38 million. That is the most ever paid for a book. 

The buyer is Ambassador Alfred Moses — he was envoy to Romania under President Clinton — and his family, who in turn gifted it to the ANU-Museum of the Jewish People at Tel Aviv. The price surpasses the nearly $31 million forked over a decade ago by the Microsoft founder, William “Bill” Gates, for the Florentine polymath Leonardo da Vinci’s scribblings in the Codex Leicester.

Ambassador Moses notes in a statement that 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.” He adds that the codex “belongs in the land of Israel, the cradle of Judaism, where the Hebrew Bible was originated.” 

The Codex Sassoon’s sale is a landmark in the history of what Israel’s Declaration of Independence calls “The Book of Books.” It predates the famed Aleppo Codex, written at Tiberias, by 30 years, and is less damaged. It encompasses, according to Sotheby’s, the “24 books of the Hebrew Bible supplied with punctuation, vowels, cantillation marks,” and critical commentary.

A third codex, the Leningrad, is even more complete but dates from the next century. The oldest manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible date to the Dead Sea Scrolls found at the sand- and wind-beaten caves at Qumran, sacred scriptures of a monastic and mystical sect known as the Essenes, who were active during the Roman occupation of Judea.    

The name of the scribe who originally wrote the codex is not known. It first appears in a deed of sale drawn up in the year 1000 of the common era by the scribe Tsedakah ben Daniel of Jerusalem, who notes that it was sold by Khalaf ben Abraham to Isaac ben Ezekiel al-Attar. The price is not mentioned. 

The codex gets its name from its most prominent modern owner, David Solomon Sassoon, who bought it for £350 in 1929. He had it rebound by His Majesty’s Stationery Office Press British Museum Bindery, and it was in his collection until 1978, when it sold at auction to the British Rail Pension Fund for £160,350. In 1989, it was bought, again at auction, for £2,035,000. The buyer was a scion of another Jewish banking dynasty, Jaqui Safra.

The Sassoons, known as the “Rothschilds of the East,” originated in Iraq, migrated to Mumbai, and then dispersed to England and the Far East. They were originally chief treasurers to the pashas of Baghdad and their fortunes grew in the opium trade. The poet Siegfried and the stylist Vidal are among the family’s notable descendants.