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The Shem Tov Bible and Mysticism in the Golden Age of Spain
The extraordinary Hebrew Bible was integral in transmitting medieval Kabbalistic traditions, and its beautiful illuminations reveal much about cultural exchange in 14th-century Spain.
W hen Rabbi Shem Tov was intricately crafting his Hebrew Bible in 14th-century Spain, he likely didn’t know that he was creating history. Known as the Shem Tov Bible in contemporary parlance, the book is a preeminent Hebrew document of medieval Spain – a one-of-a-kind artifact that also happens to be in exceptionally fine condition. Part of what makes the Shem Tov Bible so significant stems from how its namesake put care into every detail brimming within the book, from the distinctive lettering down to the splendid illuminations that appear to practically leap off the pages.
“The Bible is an extraordinary scribal tour de force from an illustrious – and very distinguished – rabbinic personality,” says Sharon Liberman Mintz, the International Senior Specialist of Judaica at Sotheby’s, which will auction the tome on 10 September in New York.
The Secret Knowledge Contained Within the Shem Tov Bible
Born around the year 1280 in Soria, Spain, Rabbi Shem Tov ben Abraham Ibn Gaon was a Jewish legal scholar and mystic. As part of his lifetime fascination with unpacking the relationships between faith, mysticism and the law, he poured his energy into creating a unique Hebrew Bible that contained layers upon layers of meaning incorporated within its text, layout and illustration. Finished in 1312, this Bible manuscript was written on parchment and contained a bevy of details that are not only the mark of a skilled scribe, but also someone at once intimately familiar with the Jewish faith, Christian Gothic aesthetics and Islamic and Iberian motifs. The volume’s cantillation marks and vowel points lend the text an unparalleled accuracy that informs the reader about when – and how – to read certain sections.
Ultimately, the book’s owner strove to reproduce the Hebrew Bible in the most accurate and richly illustrated way possible, and it remains an important document of that era. It’s especially notable that this book will be on public view at Sotheby’s New York on 4-9 September before being offered to collectors and institutions – compelling artistry aside, it also offers an unprecedented look at history.
The Shem Tov Bible: A Masterpiece from the Golden Age of Spain
The Shem Tov Bible ensures “the faithful transmission of deep, mystical secrets that you and I don’t have access to but that were considered to be latent within the letters themselves.”
- Shaul Seidler-Feller, Senior Specialist of Judaica, Sotheby’s
Shaul Seidler-Feller, a Senior Specialist of Judaica at Sotheby’s, notes that the Shem Tov Bible is especially significant in how it intersperses Kabbalistic lettering throughout the text. “This is the only example of a medieval Hebrew Bible that has letter-forms throughout the Pentateuch section that have been modified to so closely follow an ancient tradition that goes back to the first millennium of the Common Era,” he says.
In the Middle Ages, scribes would change the form of certain Hebrew letters to, as Seidler-Feller puts it, “ensure the faithful transmission of deep, mystical secrets that you and I don’t have access to but that were considered to be latent within the letters themselves.” The Shem Tov Bible is unique in its diligent observance of this tradition, he adds.
The Shem Tov Bible is also striking in that it’s especially concerned with ensuring accuracy, a focus that’s seen at once in the letters themselves and how they’re formed within the manuscript. But given the level of detail he imbued in the book, it seems that Rabbi Shem Tov wasn’t just interested in documenting Biblical stories for his own literary pursuits. It also suggests his fixation with the book’s longevity – and how it might become a form of scholarship in itself.
He spent years poring over each letter of the text and editing them to produce the most accurate version possible, such that “each word is spelled exactingly and accompanied by the correct set of vowel points and cantillation marks,” Seidler-Feller says. The discerning eye can note where he went back, subtracted, added, changed and erased certain details within the manuscript, subtly ensuring its absolute correctness.
The rigor with which Rabbi Shem Tov constructed this text also means that the Bible functions as an incredibly valuable resource for understanding other important monuments of Judaica – some of which haven’t survived into the present day. Mintz and Seidler-Feller note that the Bible contains references to the Hilleli Codex, a supremely important Hebrew Bible manuscript written in antiquity that has been lost since the 16th century. Given its overt references to the Hilleli Codex, the Shem Tov Bible “allows us to partially reconstruct this ancient, accurate version of the Bible,” Seidler-Feller says. “It’s a bridge to this legendary Bible which is no longer extant,” Mintz adds.
Illustrating the Biblical Text
The illuminations accompanying the text, though, are perhaps the most visually captivating aspect of this historic piece of Judaica. Illuminations are technically illustrations made with gold leaf – because the light bounces off the gold, thus illuminating certain pages – but the term has since come to embody any kind of manuscript decoration, Mintz says. “In this case, it means a Bible with gold and silver leaf.” The Shem Tov Bible also contains scribal-flourished penwork in richly hued red and purple ink, which demarcates portions of the text.
The style of these illuminations also notably combines disparate-seeming artistic traditions, ranging from Christian Gothic influences contained within its multihued columns to the Islamic architectural references evident in the archway motifs throughout the book. “It’s the combination of the Christian aesthetic with the Islamic aesthetic, all possibly being executed by a Jewish artist, that’s quite extraordinary,” Seidler-Feller says.
Whether or not the artist who illustrated this Bible was Jewish, though, remains the subject of historical debate. At the time, Jewish artists and scribes were not allowed to join the artistic guilds peppered throughout most of Europe. As a result, many Jewish artists “did not have access to the knowledge of how manuscripts could be illuminated – how to create pigment, how to lay them down on the page and the rest of the technical knowledge behind creating these beautiful designs,” Mintz says.
Yet scholars have suggested that some Jewish artists were part of the artistic guilds in Spain, and a few were commissioned to decorate Hebrew manuscripts there. “It’s possible that the artist of this Shem Tov Bible was Jewish,” Mintz says. “But it is also possible that it was a Christian working under the guidance of the patron.”
“The Bible is an extraordinary scribal tour de force from an illustrious – and very distinguished – rabbinic personality.”
- Sharon Liberman Mintz, International Senior Specialist of Judaica, Sotheby’s
Then again, it’s also possible that Rabbi Shem Tov himself illustrated the book, given how the illuminations within this Bible also play an important role in the text’s structure. Typically, the Pentateuch is read publicly in the synagogue over the course of a year, and distinct portions, called parashiyot, are read every week. The artist used illumination as a tool to demarcate each of these portions of the Torah, as well as their corresponding readings from the Prophets.
“There’s an enormous amount of visual demarcation,” Mintz says, that allows the reader “to be able to use this book in the liturgical setting, in addition to being able to study the biblical text from its pages.” To get a sense of just how detailed these elements are within the text, consider that within the gilded border frames on the pages, Rabbi Shem Tov detailed the number of verses, and sometimes even the number of letters, that a given biblical book contains.
“Some illuminations actually illustrate the particular text that they’re marking off,” Mintz says. On Yom Kippur, for instance, the book of Jonah is historically read in the synagogue, and Rabbi Shem Tov was careful to include a boat next to the sign demarcating the book of Jonah – a reference to his tale. Others are simply illustrated “in a very joyful way,” she adds. One notable page features a border illustrated with sleeping lions and birds on top.
The Shem Tov Bible’s Journey to Auction
The Shem Tov Bible has had an equally fascinating journey to the auction block, which is, in part, denoted within the text itself. After Rabbi Shem Tov died in about 1330, the Bible changed hands, and in the middle of the 14th century, someone added a newer detail denoting the genealogy of Sar Shalom ben Phinehas. A leader within the Jewish community in Baghdad, Iraq, he acquired the Bible, which stayed in the area for centuries before moving to North Africa sometime around the 17th century. There, the Bible “was viewed with mystical significance, and believed to embody amuletic power,” as Mintz describes. Sometimes, the manuscript was even physically brought to the beds of Tripoli-based women in childbirth, so that they would hopefully have an easy labor.
In the early 20th century, David Solomon Sassoon (an important collector of Judaica and Hebraic manuscripts, including the seminal Codex Sassoon, the oldest most complete Hebrew Bible, which sold at Sotheby’s New York for $38.1 million in May 2023) bought the Shem Tov Bible. Sassoon, who venerated the book throughout his lifetime, had the manuscript rebound and added modern biblical chapter numbers throughout the text. When Sassoon fell ill in 1942, he asked his son to bid goodbye to the Bible on his behalf.
The Sassoon family began selling facets of their Judaica collection throughout the 1970s and 1980s, and the Shem Tov Bible was sold for a then-record-breaking $825,000 in 1984. After traveling to various Judaica exhibitions all over the world, the Bible was sold to Jaqui Safra, a collector of Jewish books based in Geneva, Switzerland. The future owner of the Shem Tov Bible will be the next component of this unique lineage – one that gave way to a significant, accurate and beautiful text that’s become an unparalleled piece of living history.
