The Aleppo Codex
A True Story of Obsession, Faith, and the Pursuit of an Ancient Bible
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The Aleppo Codex
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Narrated by:
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Simon Vance
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By:
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Matti Friedman
About this listen
A true-life thriller about the journey of one of the world's most precious manuscripts - the 10th-century annotated Hebrew Bible known as the Aleppo Codex - from its hiding place in an ancient Syrian synagogue to the newly founded Israel. Using his research, including documents that have been secret for 50 years and interviews with key players, AP correspondent Friedman tells a story of political upheaval, international intrigue, charged courtroom battles, obsession, and subterfuge.
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The four spies at the center of this story were part of a ragtag unit known as the Arab Section, conceived during World War II by British spies and Jewish militia leaders in Palestine. Intended to gather intelligence and carry out sabotage and assassinations, the unit consisted of Jews who were native to the Arab world and could thus easily assume Arab identities. In 1948, with Israel's existence in the balance during the War of Independence, our spies went undercover in Beirut, where they spent the next two years operating out of a kiosk....
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5 out of 5 stars
-
Absolutely brilliant
- By David Mane on 06-23-19
By: Matti Friedman
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The Book Smugglers
- Partisans, Poets, and the Race to Save Jewish Treasures from the Nazis
- By: David E. Fishman
- Narrated by: P.J. Ochlan
- Length: 11 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 54
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 49
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 48
The Book Smugglers is the nearly unbelievable story of ghetto residents who rescued thousands of rare books and manuscripts - first from the Nazis and then from the Soviets - by hiding them on their bodies, burying them in bunkers, and smuggling them across borders. It is a tale of heroism and resistance, of friendship and romance, and of unwavering devotion-including the readiness to risk one's life - to literature and art. And it is entirely true.
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4 out of 5 stars
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The rescue of Jewish culture in WWII's Lithuania.
- By Logophile on 10-12-20
By: David E. Fishman
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East West Street
- On the Origins of "Genocide" and "Crimes Against Humanity"
- By: Philippe Sands
- Narrated by: David Rintoul, Philippe Sands
- Length: 14 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 298
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 263
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Story5 out of 5 stars 260
When human rights lawyer Philippe Sands received an invitation to deliver a lecture in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, he began to uncover a series of extraordinary historical coincidences. It set him on a quest that would take him halfway around the world in an exploration of the origins of international law and the pursuit of his own secret family history, beginning and ending with the last day of the Nuremberg Trials.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Outstanding!
- By lori on 05-07-18
By: Philippe Sands
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Oracle Bones
- A Journey Through Time in China
- By: Peter Hessler
- Narrated by: Peter Berkrot
- Length: 18 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 371
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 288
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 287
A century ago, outsiders saw China as a place where nothing ever changes. Today, the country has become one of the most dynamic regions on earth. In Oracle Bones, Peter Hessler explores the human side of China's transformation, viewing modern-day China and its growing links to the Western world through the lives of a handful of ordinary people.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Great Book, except for the narration.
- By DMH on 11-09-10
By: Peter Hessler
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Indelible City
- Dispossession and Defiance in Hong Kong
- By: Louisa Lim
- Narrated by: Louisa Lim
- Length: 10 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 39
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 36
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 36
The story of Hong Kong has long been dominated by competing myths: to Britain, a “barren rock” with no appreciable history; to China, a part of Chinese soil from time immemorial, at last returned to the ancestral fold. For decades, Hong Kong’s history was simply not taught, especially to Hong Kongers, obscuring its origins as a place of refuge and rebellion.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Visceral History
- By Amazon Customer on 11-21-23
By: Louisa Lim
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The Devil's Diary
- Alfred Rosenberg and the Stolen Secrets of the Third Reich
- By: Robert K. Wittman, David Kinney
- Narrated by: P. J. Ochlan
- Length: 15 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 110
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 94
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 95
A groundbreaking historical contribution, The Devil's Diary is a chilling window into the mind of Adolf Hitler's "chief social philosopher", Alfred Rosenberg, who formulated some of the guiding principles behind the Third Reich's genocidal crusade.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Fresh perspective on terrible events.
- By Sparkly on 04-20-16
By: Robert K. Wittman, and others
-
The Eternal Nazi
- From Mauthausen to Cairo, the Relentless Pursuit of SS Doctor Aribert Heim
- By: Nicholas Kulish, Souad Mekhennet
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 9 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 46
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 41
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 41
Dr. Aribert Heim worked at the Mauthausen concentration camp for only a few months in 1941 but left a devastating mark. According to the testimony of survivors, Heim euthanized patients with injections of gasoline into their hearts. He performed surgeries on otherwise healthy people. Some recalled prisoners' skulls set out on his desk to display perfect sets of teeth. Yet in the chaos of the postwar period, Heim was able to slip away from his dark past and establish himself as a reputable doctor and family man in the resort town of Baden-Baden.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Not certain about this one...
- By Nancy on 11-24-22
By: Nicholas Kulish, and others
-
Where the Jews Aren't
- The Sad and Absurd Story of Birobidzhan, Russia's Jewish Autonomous Region
- By: Masha Gessen
- Narrated by: Christina Delaine
- Length: 5 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 60
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 52
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 52
In 1929, the Soviet government set aside a sparsely populated area in the Soviet Far East for settlement by Jews. The place was called Birobidzhan. The idea of an autonomous Jewish region was championed by Jewish Communists, Yiddishists, and intellectuals, who envisioned a haven of post-oppression Jewish culture. By the mid-1930s tens of thousands of Soviet Jews, as well as about a thousand Jews from abroad, had moved there.
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4 out of 5 stars
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The Jewish World of Our Ancestors
- By Roberta L. Ruben on 06-16-18
By: Masha Gessen
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The Woman Who Smashed Codes
- A True Story of Love, Spies, and the Unlikely Heroine who Outwitted America's Enemies
- By: Jason Fagone
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 13 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 5,533
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 4,954
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 4,942
In 1912, at the height of World War I, brilliant Shakespeare expert Elizebeth Smith went to work for an eccentric tycoon on his estate outside Chicago. The tycoon had close ties to the US government, and he soon asked Elizebeth to apply her language skills to an exciting new venture: code breaking. There she met the man who would become her husband, groundbreaking cryptologist William Friedman. Though she and Friedman are in many ways the Adam and Eve of the NSA, Elizebeth's story, incredibly, has never been told.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Captivating Biography
- By Jean on 11-20-17
By: Jason Fagone
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Peter the Great
- His Life and World
- By: Robert K. Massie
- Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
- Length: 43 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,205
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 1,020
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,009
This superbly told story brings to life one of the most remarkable rulers––and men––in all of history and conveys the drama of his life and world. The Russia of Peter's birth was very different from the Russia his energy, genius, and ruthlessness shaped. Crowned co-Tsar as a child of ten, after witnessing bloody uprisings in the streets of Moscow, he would grow up propelled by an unquenchable curiosity, everywhere looking, asking, tinkering, and learning, fired by Western ideas.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Narrater ruins everything
- By BrendaLouQuilts on 12-30-11
By: Robert K. Massie
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Lenin's Tomb
- The Last Days of the Soviet Empire
- By: David Remnick
- Narrated by: Michael Prichard
- Length: 29 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 383
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 327
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 330
In the tradition of John Reed's classic Ten Days That Shook the World, this best-selling account of the collapse of the Soviet Union combines the global vision of the best historical scholarship with the immediacy of eyewitness journalism.
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1 out of 5 stars
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The moral complexity of a comic book
- By Tot on 02-22-19
By: David Remnick
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Inside the Kingdom
- Kings, Clerics, Modernists, Terrorists, and the Struggle for Saudi Arabia
- By: Robert Lacey
- Narrated by: Robert Lacey
- Length: 13 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 136
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 100
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 102
Best-selling author Robert Lacey tells us what happened in the Middle East's oil-rich powerhouse---while we weren't looking.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Inside the Kingdom
- By Ibrahim on 03-19-10
By: Robert Lacey
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Out of Mao's Shadow
- The Struggle for the Soul of a New China
- By: Philip P. Pan
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 13 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 144
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 61
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 61
Prize-winning journalist Philip P. Pan offers an unprecedented inside look at the momentous battle underway for China's future. On one side is the entrenched party elite determined to preserve its authoritarian grip on power. On the other is a collection of lawyers, journalists, entrepreneurs, activists, hustlers, and dreamers striving to build a more tolerant, open, and democratic China.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great insight into changes in China
- By Paul on 04-14-09
By: Philip P. Pan
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The Lemon Tree
- By: Sandy Tolan
- Narrated by: Sandy Tolan
- Length: 11 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 689
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 594
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 594
In 1967, not long after the Six-Day War, three young Arab men ventured into the town of Ramle, in what is now Jewish Israel. They were cousins, on a pilgrimage to see their childhood homes; their families had been driven out of Palestine nearly 20 years earlier. One cousin had a door slammed in his face, and another found his old house had been converted into a school. But the third, Bashir Al-Khairi, was met at the door by a young woman called Dalia, who invited them in.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
Steeping The Lemon Tree
- By Faithfull Fan on 04-11-18
By: Sandy Tolan
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The Invitation-Only Zone
- The True Story of North Korea's Abduction Project
- By: Robert S. Boynton
- Narrated by: Ralph Lister
- Length: 7 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 56
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 50
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Story4 out of 5 stars 50
Throughout the late 1970s and early '80s, dozens of Japanese citizens were abducted from coastal Japanese towns by North Korean commandos. In what proved to be part of a global project, North Korea attempted to reeducate the abductees and train them to spy on the state's behalf. When the project faltered, the abductees were hidden in a series of guarded communities known as "Invitation-Only Zones" - the fiction being that these were exclusive enclaves, not prisons.
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3 out of 5 stars
-
Over enthusiastic reader!
- By AJW on 02-14-16
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Enemies of the People
- My Family's Journey to America
- By: Kati Marton
- Narrated by: Laural Merlington
- Length: 9 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 103
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 52
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 52
In this true-life thriller, Kati Marton draws on her skill as an investigative reporter to discover who her journalist parents really were---and how they survived the Nazis in Budapest and imprisonment by the Soviets during the Cold War.
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4 out of 5 stars
-
Couldn't stop listening
- By Jane on 04-09-10
By: Kati Marton
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What listeners say about The Aleppo Codex
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Amy
- 12-10-23
Detailed and kept my attention
I just love the opportunities to learn the little bits I can. Thank you for your time and dedication.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Nate
- 06-22-17
Hard to write a story
Okay story. I think the research yielded less than the author had hoped. Good performance.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Anthony
- 10-29-12
Not What I Expected
As someone whose academic background was spent in great measure working with ancient manuscripts and as one who has a great interest in cultural history The Aleppo Codex was not what I had anticipated. The Aleppo Codex considers little about the manuscript as manuscript. One of the few compelling notations is that the massive codex is the work of one hand. For the most part Friedman's narrative seems to view the Aleppo Codex as an image for Zionism wherein the image of the return of a burned, scattered and ancient pages to Jerusalem is rather evident. While Friedman's direction is certainly valid it is not what I had expected. Perhaps I should have been more attentive to the subtitle.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Justin Bellars
- 08-11-16
A story to anger every serious Bible student
This story touches on the mishandling of antiquities that will likely never be (fully) available to serious Bible students, researchers, literary critics, seminarians, pastors, and rabbis due to the unfortunate greed, opportunism, and superstitions of both intermediaries and trusted superintendents. Interesting, but infuriating. Perhaps check with your doctor before reading if tales of incompetence and greed make your blood boil.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Hans Rigelman
- 02-12-19
Fascinating Investigation into an Ancient Mystery
Like a good detective story, the author weaves a compelling mystery as he interviews countless players in the drama surrounding this ancient Hebrew Bible. Who is responsible for the missing pages?
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Kevin
- 05-27-18
incredible
such a page turning exciting epic story brilliantly written with excellent story telling and detail. a must read
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- ILA
- 06-24-24
Exciting story
I loved the story. The reader did a wonderful job. His English and Hebrew reading were superb.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- dlb
- 05-28-12
don't quess at pronunciation of foreign words
Good, though disturbing story. Matti Friedman did a great piece of research leaving me even more interested in the history of the Aleppo Codex, but the choice of narrator was unfortunate. But when a narrator, even a solid one like Simon Vance, encounters an unfamiliar foreign name or term, e.g., the frequently recurring name, "Ben-Zvi", s/he should ask someone rather than simply wing it with a plausible guess.
It sounds like a minor complaint, but I think every knowledgeable listener will wince as I did at every occurrence of "Ben-Zvi". Unfortunately, it tends to break the spell.
This is the first Audible selection out of many, many, many, that I wish I had read rather than heard. The last one I recall like this is "People of the Book", by Geraldine Brooks???an otherwise terrific book that was even more seriously undermined to my ear by uninformed---but otherwise fine---narration.
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9 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Mark
- 08-04-12
thrilling story and very well-written
If you are interest in biblical scholarship or 20th century Jewish history, you need to read this book today. If you aren't but but you like good mysteries, you too should read it today. This is an incredibly compelling piece of investigative journalism that is very well researched and very well written. It tells a complex story concisely and uncovers a number of important details that even people familiar with the codex's history will nto have encountered before. Hopefully Mr. Friedman's efforts here will ultimately lead to the recovery of the missing parts.
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3 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Rachel
- 06-13-24
Incredible detective story!
Gripping tale of the journey through history of an ancient manuscript, meticulously uncovered in all its detail for the first time by the author. It unfolds like a mystery novel - yet it's true. It's beautifully written and performed, and I couldn't stop listening. What a debt of gratitude we owe to the author for his persistence in getting to the truth. Particularly beautiful and fitting ending section.
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