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March 29th, 2024

For the Man of Faith Who Has Everything

Earliest intact stone version of the Ten Commandments up for auction

Jasper Scherer

By Jasper Scherer The Washington Post

Published Nov. 16, 2016

Earliest intact stone version of the Ten Commandments up for auction

The earliest known stone inscription of the Ten Commandments - and the only version thought to remain intact today - is a white marble slab engraved with 20 lines of faded Paleo-Hebrew Samaritan script.


It weighs 115 pounds, measures about two feet in height and length and lists nine of the 10 divine rules enumerated in the Book of Exodus, replacing "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy G0D in vain" with a commandment unique to the Samaritan sect, which formed as an offshoot of Judaism.


Today, the tablet is being auctioned off in Beverly Hills, Calif., though the sale comes with a catch: the new owner must display it in a museum, library or otherwise public place, or may permanently tour it around public institutions.


Heritage Auctions, the Dallas-based collectibles auctioneer that is administering the sale, made the tablet available in pre-auction bidding, and the price had reached $240,000 at the time this article was published. The next minimum bid is $260,000, or $322,000 when factoring in the buyer's premium.

The slab, crafted around AD 300 to 800, likely decorated the entrance to a Samaritan synagogue or home in or near Yavne, a small city in Israel about four miles from the west coast, Heritage Auctions Director David S. Michaels told The Washington Post.


The dating is imprecise, Michaels said, because the letters are hard to place in context, and it's not possible to carbon date a rock.


The Samaritans were historically oppressed by a range of religious groups, from the Romans to the Byzantines to the Crusaders. The synagogue that likely displayed the tablet could have been destroyed by one of the persecuting groups some time before the 12th century, Heritage Auctions estimated.


It's unclear why the Samaritans' version of the Ten Commandments survived while others did not, though Michaels said it was likely a more common practice for their sect to post the engraved stones on their walls than it was in traditional Judaism.


The stipulation to publicly display the tablet comes from the Israel Antiquities Authority, the Israeli government body that issued a certificate to export the slab in 2005. Michaels said the authority intended to transfer the tablet to the Living Torah Museum in Brooklyn, N.Y., where it had previously resided.

"I believe their reasoning is that, if it is sold to another party, the conditions of the original export be kept in place - i.e. that it be publicly exhibited," Michaels wrote in an email.


The tablet was uncovered in 1913 during excavations to build a railroad station near Yavne, Heritage Auctions said in a statement. The man who discovered it reportedly set the slab on the floor of his courtyard, causing many of the letters to fade as people walked on top of it.


Current owner Rabbi Shaul Shimon Deutsch, who runs the Living Torah Museum in Boro Park, Brooklyn, obtained the tablet nearly a century later.


According to the Heritage Auctions statement, he plans to use the money raised from the auction to expand and upgrade the museum's facilities.

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