An Italian university has found the world’s oldest complete Sefer Torah — in its library.
The sheepskin manuscript (below), which could be over 800 years old, has been held in the library of the University of Bologna for over 100 years.
It had previously been examined by an academic at the university in 1889, who mistakenly labelled it as a 17th century text.
However, when Professor Mauro Perani, who teaches Hebrew studies at the university, studied the manuscript, he recognised the script as ancient Babylonian and suspected the scroll was older.
