Israel Banned Cameras From The Bible. Now 200 Pages Are Gone.

The Aleppo Codex, the most accurate Bible ever written, is missing about 200 pages, almost the whole Torah. And what stands behind the glass in Jerusalem is mostly cardboard. Written around 930 AD in Tiberias: Shlomo ben Buya'a wrote the letters, Aaron ben Asher put in the vowels. Maimonides checked his own Torah scroll against it: "Everyone relies upon it." For about 600 years the Jews of Aleppo kept it in an iron chest with two keys and refused every camera. Two photographs got out. Every page they show is gone. December 1947: a mob burned Aleppo's Great Synagogue, and the New York Times reported the Bible burned with it. Ten years later a cheese merchant carried it out of Syria, some say inside a washing machine. In Jerusalem they counted 294 pages of about 500. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers: gone. The Torah now opens halfway through a curse in Deuteronomy 28. The lab found fungus, not fire. Not one burn mark. A page of 2 Chronicles came back in 1982, a scrap of Exodus out of a Brooklyn man's wallet in 2007. Matti Friedman says the book was seen whole in 1952. A collector asked $1 million just to be taken to the missing pages. I put Isaiah 53 from both old Bibles through an AI, letter by letter. And at the end, the one page I held back. 👉 Subscribe for more of the Bible's lost books. The riot floor, the road through Turkey, or Jerusalem: where did the Torah go? Tell me in the comments. ⏱ CHAPTERS 0:00 The best Bible on earth is mostly cardboard 0:40 A Bible with no Genesis 2:15 Why no camera was let in 3:16 Two photographs in 600 years 4:35 How the Crown was made, 930 AD 6:51 Maimonides: "Everyone relies upon it" 7:57 Stolen by Crusaders, ransomed to Cairo 8:45 The curse written into the book 9:43 An iron chest with two keys 11:00 December 1947: the riot 13:03 A cheese seller and a washing machine 14:19 294 pages: the Torah is gone 16:02 The court case Israel sealed 17:11 Cardboard behind the glass 17:51 Isaiah 53 under the machine 19:41 The Torah now starts in a curse 21:29 The two pieces that came back 22:34 Forty years in a Brooklyn wallet 23:51 Fire, or fungus? 25:42 Seen whole in 1952 27:16 A million dollars to see the pages 27:48 The page I held back 29:50 Three ways 200 pages disappear 31:56 What we've actually got 33:02 Deuteronomy 28, tonight KEY SOURCES Ben-Zvi Institute, The Aleppo Codex (aleppocodex.org). Israel's UNESCO Memory of the World nomination, 2015. Matti Friedman, Tablet, 2014 and 2015. Yosef Ofer, Biblical Archaeology Review 34:5, 2008, and Textus 26, 2016. Nature 335, 1988, "Fungi not fire damaged Aleppo Codex". The New York Times, 13 December 1947. Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Sefer Torah 8:4. Isaiah 53, Exodus 8 and Deuteronomy 28, KJV. PICTURE CREDITS Aleppo Codex pages: Ben-Zvi Institute scans via Wikimedia Commons. Joseph Segall, Travels through Northern Syria, 1910. Photographs via Wikimedia Commons, used under Creative Commons: CC BY-SA 4.0: Daniel Ventura, Isai Symens, JHistory, Ovedc, Recon17, Zeruja. CC BY-SA 3.0: PMATAS, Israel Government Press Office, Isaac and Matteo di Ser Cambio (manuscript), unknown photographer. CC BY-SA 2.0: Dan Lundberg. CC BY 2.5: ברי"א. CC BY 2.0: Govorkov. Licence texts: creativecommons.org/licenses. Public domain works via Wikimedia Commons and the Internet Archive (Prelinger Archives, American Film Forum, André de la Varre, U.S. National Archives)