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World's Oldest Near-complete Hebrew Bible Sells for $38.1 Million

FILE - Sotheby's unveils the Codex Sassoon for auction, Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2023, in the Manhattan borough of New York. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)
FILE - Sotheby's unveils the Codex Sassoon for auction, Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2023, in the Manhattan borough of New York. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)
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World's Oldest Near-complete Hebrew Bible Sells for $38.1 Million

FILE - Sotheby's unveils the Codex Sassoon for auction, Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2023, in the Manhattan borough of New York. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)
FILE - Sotheby's unveils the Codex Sassoon for auction, Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2023, in the Manhattan borough of New York. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)

The world's oldest and most complete Hebrew Bible sold for $38.1 million om New York on Wednesday, Sotheby’s said, one of the highest prices ever for a book or document sold at auction.

Wednesday's winning bid for the Codex Sassoon was made via a donation by Alfred H. Moses, a former US ambassador and president of the American Jewish Committee, who is giving it to the ANU Museum of the Jewish People in Tel Aviv, Israel.

The price surpasses the $30.8 million paid in 1994 for Leonardo da Vinci’s Codex Leicester manuscript, Sotheby's said. But it was below the estimated $50 million that Sotheby's said in February it could sell for and below the $43.2 million paid in 2021 for a first edition of the US Constitution, the world record for any book or document.

Sotheby's Judaica specialist Sharon Liberman Mintz said the price tag, which includes the auction house’s fee, "reflects the profound power, influence, and significance of the Hebrew Bible, which is an indispensable pillar of humanity.”

The Codex Sassoon, fabricated sometime between 880 and 960, is named after a previous owner, David Solomon Sassoon, who acquired the Bible in 1929 and assembled one of the most significant private collections of Judaica and Hebraica manuscripts of the 20th century.
The document offers a critical link bridging Jewish oral tradition to the modern Hebrew Bible. It was not until recently that former owner, collector Jacqui Safra, had the Codex Sassoon carbon dated, confirming it was older than the Aleppo Codex and the Leningrad Codex, two other major early Hebrew Bibles, according to Sotheby's.

The auctioneer said the Codex Sassoon had been dated to either the late 9th or early 10th century on
both scientific and paleographic grounds and contains almost the entirety of the Bible. The oldest copies of Biblical text ever found were the Dead Sea Scrolls, which were discovered in caves in 1947.

The Hebrew Bible contains 24 separate books organized into three parts — the Pentateuch, the Prophets, and the Writings. Starting with the book of Genesis and ending with Chronicles, the Hebrew Bible is foundational to Judaism, as well as Christianity and Islam.

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Culture

Romanian Writer Cartarescu Hails Books as Balm in Turmoil

Mircea Cartarescu is the most translated contemporary Romanian writer. Daniel MIHAILESCU / AFP
Mircea Cartarescu is the most translated contemporary Romanian writer. Daniel MIHAILESCU / AFP
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Romanian Writer Cartarescu Hails Books as Balm in Turmoil

Mircea Cartarescu is the most translated contemporary Romanian writer. Daniel MIHAILESCU / AFP
Mircea Cartarescu is the most translated contemporary Romanian writer. Daniel MIHAILESCU / AFP

In an age of "overwhelming evil" and "generalised lies", Romanian novelist Mircea Cartarescu, a weaver of literary fantasies born from a childhood under a totalitarian regime, bets on writing to resist.

Literature is "like a bandage on a wound" in "frightening" times, Cartarescu told AFP at the launch of his latest book, a collection of aphorisms on writing, in Romania.

"These are times when we are threatened from so many sides that we no longer know what to guard against," he said, mentioning wars, social unrest, global warming and "ideological confusion".

Cartarescu, who turned 70 this year, is the most translated contemporary Romanian writer and has won many accolades, including the International Dublin Literary Award in 2024.

Real life and the imaginary merge in his novels, creating a universe that Cartarescu admits is an exercise in navel gazing.

"I write to be able to understand who I am," he has said.

- Childhood trauma -

Cartarescu, whose favorite writers are J. D. Salinger and Franz Kafka, has likened his writing process to termites building their nests without knowing the result in advance.

"I never wrote literature to publish books, but to live in them," he once said about his most recent novel, the 632-page "Theodoros", published in 2022.

Set in the 19th century, "Theodoros" tells the story of a servant's son who rises to become emperor.

Cartarescu has since been in no rush to finish another novel, but he has started on one -- though he told AFP it is "not a novel in the strict sense".

"It's something I've never written before, and I don't think anyone else has either," he said, refusing to go into further details.

Born in Bucharest in 1956 during a period he has previously described as "marked by poverty and terrible famine", the introverted boy was fascinated by literature from an early age.

As a student and then a teacher at the University of Bucharest, he lived only "through and for literature".

A huge fan of Bob Dylan, Cartarescu has translated 100 of the US folk singer's songs into Romanian and has described himself as a "beatnik, a liberal in the widest sense of the term".

But it was his childhood that marked him most and that he tries to rediscover, if not to relive, in his writings.

"It is the most obscure period, that which intrigues me most," he has said, pointing to the trauma of losing his twin brother at the age of 18 months.

"Nearly all that I write is linked to that. I have always felt that something was missing, as if I looked in a mirror and saw no one," he said in an interview with the Adevarul newspaper.

He blamed that death on the "awful conditions" in which his family lived -- they had just moved into a single filthy room in a working-class district of Bucharest.

- 'Collective madness' -

After years of deprivation, Cartarescu said December 22, 1989, when the totalitarian regime of Nicolae Ceausescu was overthrown, was "for all Romanians the happiest day".

Later, Cartarescu often advocated for the independence of the justice system, and took part in protests.

But in time he said he lost hope, especially after the pandemic, so he now prefers to stick to his writing.

In a published journal, he criticized the surge of a far-right candidate in the 2024 Romanian presidential elections as "collective madness".

He likens current times worldwide to those before World War II, but with added risks related to artificial intelligence, "the greatest threat to humanity".

He told AFP he would never use AI in his literature, nor read a book written with it, as his interest lies in exploring what is human.

"Why would I read the work of an insectoid or an alien?"

Dozens of his readers gathered in a Bucharest bookstore in October, listening in church-like silence to the novelist talk about his latest published work.

"We gather around a book to protest against a world that no longer resembles us," he told them.

Culture

Pakistan's Last Antique Restorers Give Old Treasures New Life

Restorer Shakeel Ahmed works on an antique at his workshop in Rawalpindi. Farooq NAEEM / AFP
Restorer Shakeel Ahmed works on an antique at his workshop in Rawalpindi. Farooq NAEEM / AFP
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Pakistan's Last Antique Restorers Give Old Treasures New Life

Restorer Shakeel Ahmed works on an antique at his workshop in Rawalpindi. Farooq NAEEM / AFP
Restorer Shakeel Ahmed works on an antique at his workshop in Rawalpindi. Farooq NAEEM / AFP

Sitting outside his small shop in a warren of alleyways in the ancient Pakistani city of Rawalpindi, Ahsan Shakeel buffed an antique brass pot to a high shine, pressing it against a mechanized wheel.

"We've removed all the dents, but it still needs polishing," the 72-year-old restorer, among the last still practising his craft, told AFP as the spinning buffer sent fine metal dust into the air.

Quitting a job as a hotel cook, Shakeel followed in his father's footsteps to become an antiques restorer, opening his workshop in the Bhabra Bazaar market in densely populated Rawalpindi in 1980.

Today, he is one of the last master restorers preserving antique metalware in Pakistan.

Rawalpindi's roots stretch back to prehistoric human settlements and over centuries the garrison city evolved into a major commercial hub where metalcraft from the Mughal and British colonial periods converged.

Moving inside his shop, Shakeel navigated wall-to-wall shelves stacked with centuries-old ewer jugs, samovars for boiling, dishes, jars and teapots, most of which were made of copper or brass.

He took down various items and enthusiastically explained to AFP their materials and origins.

The vintage items are now increasingly rare in the modern era in which they have been replaced by stainless steel and plastic kitchenware.

"I used to travel everywhere, Lahore, Gujranwala, Karachi, back and forth (to purchase antiques)," he said.

- 'Life back into the dead' -

Shakeel procures the items he restores mostly from scrap yards, ports, or household clearances.

"Often, the condition of the items is so bad that no one would buy them," he said.

The shop owner and his colleague Shakeel Ahmed restore the battered items by hammering out dents, re-tinning the interiors over coal fires, and polishing the metal. A badly damaged item could take a few days to fix.

After restoration, a piece can sell between $100 and $1,000. Shakeel's customers are mostly collectors or antique enthusiasts, including foreigners.

Today, he mostly relies on online platforms and messaging applications to buy and sell antiques.

"I don't have the same health anymore, so I travel less," he said.

Prices for antiques are on the increase but the number of customers has fallen over time, Shakeel said.

"The money doesn't turn over quickly in this business. It's a very slow trade," he said.

"Customers who still exist, they are not many. They collect these things because they understand these items. Those who don't understand them would think it's all useless," Shakeel added.

Ahmed said he enjoyed restoring worn and damaged objects because they carry stories within them from different communities in the past or historical periods.

"This is a very old thing," the 56-year-old man said at his own dimly lit workshop, as he gently used a small hammer to smooth out little dents on a large brass hookah pipe for smoking tobacco.

"What we do is like putting life back into the dead," Ahmed said.

Culture

Qassim Artisans Repurpose Date Pits into Value-Added Prayer Beads

Qassim Region are converting discarded date pits into handcrafted prayer beads (subha)
Qassim Region are converting discarded date pits into handcrafted prayer beads (subha)
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Qassim Artisans Repurpose Date Pits into Value-Added Prayer Beads

Qassim Region are converting discarded date pits into handcrafted prayer beads (subha)
Qassim Region are converting discarded date pits into handcrafted prayer beads (subha)

In a creative convergence of traditional heritage, sustainable manufacturing, and resource efficiency, artisans in Qassim Region are converting discarded date pits into handcrafted prayer beads (subha), transforming an agricultural by-product into a high-value consumer item, the Saudi Press Agency reported.

The production journey involves a multi-stage process encompassing sorting, cleaning, drying, precise drilling, sanding, polishing, stringing, and final packaging. The resulting product retains the natural texture, color variations, and contours of the palm seed, reflecting the Kingdom's broader drive to foster innovative secondary industries across the date value chain.

The production journey involves a multi-stage process encompassing sorting, cleaning, drying, precise drilling, sanding, polishing, stringing, and final packaging.

Speaking to the Saudi Press Agency, artisan Noura Al-Harbi explained that the craft requires meticulous manual skill. She stated that after selecting pits of comparable size, artisans drill them for threading, buff rough contours, and polish the surfaces to showcase their organic aesthetic before assembling them with regional decorative motifs. Because no two date pits are identical, each finished rosary possesses a distinct texture and individuality.

Al-Harbi emphasized that the market value of date-pit rosaries is elevated by their symbolic connection to the date palm, a central fixture of Saudi agricultural and cultural identity. This narrative creates strong commercial potential within cultural tourism, corporate gifts, and keepsake sectors, allowing visitors to acquire a product directly tied to local heritage.

The enterprise embodies principles of the circular economy by repurposing agricultural waste from farms and processing plants into marketable craft products. Al-Harbi noted that integrating semi-automated tools for drilling and cutting with manual finishing could scale production volumes while maintaining artisanal quality.

Bridging agriculture, creative entrepreneurship, and tourism, the craft highlights how supporting local artisans and modernizing packaging can expand the economic footprint of the Kingdom's date sector beyond food consumption, creating new avenues for sustainable cottage industries.