According to the Jewish historian Cecil Roth, one of the most outstanding aspects of this copy is the close collaboration it shows between the calligrapher and the illuminator, rare in this type of work.

In addition to economic prosperity, the Herculean Jewish community had a relevant cultural activity, highlighting the largest school of Jewish illuminators in Europe,[9] amongst which Abraham ben Judah ibn Hayyim [de] stood out in the mid-15th century, who was considered the continent's most distinguished master in the art of mixing colours to illuminate manuscripts and who made one of the most used books in Europe at the end of the Middle Ages and at the beginning of the Renaissance.

[10] The fame of A Coruña illuminators is evident in Roth's book The Jews in the Renaissance, in which he cites the most important known Jewish artists from Europe:[11] Unfortunately, this work remained generally anonymous in Italy.

We know of some splendidly gifted Spanish illuminators of the time (such as Joseph ibn Hayyim, who was responsible for the famous Kennicott Bible in Oxford) and some extremely capable Germans (such as Joel ben Simeon, author of several beautiful codices of the Passover ritual, or Haggadah).Despite this, the existence of a previous tradition regarding the illumination of Hebrew texts in Galicia is not known, so the Kennicott Bible cannot be attributed to a specific school, but according to Kogman-Appel it is an isolated phenomenon.

[4] Not long after the creation of the Kennicott Bible, in 1492, the Catholic Monarchs of Spain (Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon) issued the Alhambra Decree in Granada, which forced those who professed the Jewish religion to leave the kingdom or convert to Catholicism.

British historian suggested:[16][3] In the second half of the 15th century, Isaac, son of Don Salomón de Braga, would have seen [the Cervera Bible] and coveted it.

Ibn Zabarah also declares in the colophon that he wrote it for the "admirable young Isaac, son of the late, honourable and beloved Don Salomón de Braga (may his soul rest in peace in the Garden of Eden)".

[5] The Alhambra Decree issued by Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon in 1492 caused many Jewish families, including Isaac de Braga, to leave Spain.

[16] The last thing known of its owner, the "admirable youth" Don Isaac, is that he left A Coruña in 1493 by sea with the help of shipowners and royal officers, taking along with the manuscript about 2,500,000 maravedís.

[18] A possible route can be traced from A Coruña to Portugal, and from there to North Africa, and then to Gibraltar, where, almost three centuries later, it was acquired by Patrick Chalmers, a Scottish merchant; and eventually the manuscript found its way to Oxford.

The quality of the manuscript did not go unnoticed by the contemporaries of Moses ibn Zabarah, who spoke highly of the work that "it was not made by a man, but by the Angel of God, a perfect sage, pious and holy".

[3][29] The original manuscript, made on high-quality parchment,[20] consists of 922 pages measuring 30 cm by 23.5 cm, of which 238 are illuminated in vivid colours and silver foil, with images rich in both detail and symbolism, making the manuscript a work of art unique with anthropomorphic and zoomorphic imagery, as well as emphasizing highly stylized and even abstract figures,[29] giving these miniatures an ornamental effect that increases with an ingenious background composed of a marginal border of red, blue and green arabesques, with occasional gold details.

According to Cecil Roth, in the Kennicott Bible ornament predominates over illustration, representing the triumph of conventionalism over convictions, and he points out that:[32] ... [Joseph ibn Hayyim] usually prefers to use decorative elements — drawings of intricate interweaving, in which he follows a secular tradition that goes back to the beginning of the Middle Ages, grotesques, dragons, and mythological beasts, and many other things in the style.

There is generally very little Jewish flavour in this work, which is an entirely individual mixture of Gothic, Renaissance, and Moorish elements, especially notable for richness of imagery and meticulous execution.Gerardo Boto Varela [es], however, attributes this conventionalism to the "low demands" of Isaac de Braga and the "limited talent" of Joseph ibn Hayyim:[33] There is no interest in representing with a certain conviction and yes with convention, perhaps because Isaac de Braga was not a particularly meticulous client nor Joseph ibn Hayyim a miniaturist of great skill.

Its zoological and theriomorphic repertoire is the result of the adaptation of early medieval rooting formulas to the grotesque mood of the late centuries.The manuscript's drawings combine Christian, Islamic, and folk motifs.

[4] In general, the art of the manuscript is profoundly Mudéjar that draws from the Spanish Plateresque style, which is especially evident in the arches separated by a single column that frame the text of Sefer Mikhlol.

According to Edmunds, Ibn Hayyim had access to the German models through commercial contacts that existed between Germany and the Jewish community of A Coruña, or the patron who commissioned the manuscript.

Roth emphasizes the profusion of gold, and to a lesser extent silver, in the margins, composed with great skill that he says "almost give the impression of being enamel", without turning into ostentatiousness or vulgarity thanks to the artist's balanced taste, making the manuscript "a coherent work of art from beginning to end.

"[7] Roth wrote:[12] The illumination, in the full meaning of the word, of Hebrew manuscripts may surprise those who remember how the severe prohibition against making any "engraved image" was interpreted at certain stages of Jewish history.