A Hebrew Bible millennium, the oldest known and nearly complete Bible, was bought at auction in New York today for a record $38.1 million and will be offered to the Museum of the Jewish People in Tel Aviv, Sotheby’s announced.

This amount represents a record for a handwritten book.

The book known as the “Codex Sassoon”, named after its famous owner, David Solomon Sassoon (died 1942), was purchased by former ambassador and American philanthropist Alfred Moses and his family, “to benefit of the American Friends of the ANU-Museum of the Jewish People and donated” to it, Sotheby’s, which conducted the sale, said in a press release.

The Bible, which reportedly dates from the 10th century AD. or even from the late 9th century, it was on display before being sold in this museum located on the campus of Tel Aviv University.

According to Sotheby’s, “the hammer fell after a four-minute battle between two determined buyers.”

This Sassoon codex, in apparently excellent condition with only a few pages missing, brings together 24 books of the Hebrew Bible drawn from the famous 3rd century BCE Dead Sea Scrolls. “This Bible was written around the year 900, in Israel or Syria,” Sharon Meetz, a specialist in Jewish texts at Sotheby’s, told AFP.

A sales receipt indicates that the Bible was sold in the year 1000 and kept in the synagogue of Makishin in northeastern Syria until about the year 1400.

“The manuscript then disappears for about 500 years and reappears in 1929 when it is offered for sale to David Solomon Sassoon, one of the greatest collectors of Jewish manuscripts,” according to Sharon Meads.