The oldest and most complete Hebrew Bible has been bought at Sotheby’s New York for $38.1 million (£30.6 million), making it the most valuable manuscript ever sold at auction.

Codex Sassoon is believed to have been written about 1,100 years ago.

It is the oldest surviving example of a single manuscript containing all 24 books of the Hebrew Bible with punctuation, vowels, and accents.

American lawyer and former ambassador Alfred Moses purchased it for the ANU Museum of the Jewish People in Tel Aviv, Israel.

“The Hebrew Bible is the most influential in history and forms the foundation of Western civilization,” Moses said in a statement.

“I rejoice in knowing that it belongs to the Jewish people. It was my mission, realizing the historical significance of the Codex Sassoon, to see it reside in a place with global access for all people.”

The winning bid surpassed the $30.8 million paid by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates in 1994 for Codex Leicester, Leonardo da Vinci’s scientific notebook.

But it fell short of the record for a historical document sold at an auction set by hedge fund manager Ken Griffin, who bought a printed copy of the first edition of the US constitution for $43.2 million two years ago.

The Codex Sassoon is named after a previous owner, David Solomon Sassoon, who acquired it in 1929 and assembled the world’s largest and most important private collection of Hebrew manuscripts in his London home.

The text of the Hebrew Bible – whose 24 books make up what Christians call the Old Testament – remained in constant flux until the early Middle Ages, when Jewish scholars known as Masoretes began to create a body of notes that standardized it.

The Aleppo Codex, which was assembled around 930, is considered the most authoritative Masoretic text. However, damage from a fire in the Syrian city of Aleppo in 1947 means that only 295 of the original 487 pages survive today.

The Codex Sassoon, which carbon dating suggests was created around the year 900, is only 12 pages missing, according to Sotheby’s.

“It presents us with the first time that a nearly complete book of the Hebrew Bible has appeared with the vowel points, the cantillation, and the notes at the bottom that tell scribes how to write the correct text,” said Sharon Mintz. , a senior specialist in Jewish artifacts at the auction house, said in March.

Centuries of notations and inscriptions reveal that the manuscript was sold by a man named Khalaf ben Abraham to Isaac ben Ezekiel al-Attar, who then transferred ownership to his two sons, Ezekiel and Maimon.

In the 13th century, the codex was dedicated to a synagogue in Makisin, in north-eastern Syria.

After the city was destroyed by the Mongols later in the 13th century or by the Timurids in the early 15th century, the manuscript was entrusted for safekeeping to Salama ibn Abi al-Fakhr. Then it disappeared into history for 500 years.

The Codex Sassoon’s most recent owner was Swiss investor Jacqui Safra, who bought it for £2 million ($2.5 million) at a London auction in 1989.