A handwritten letter in which Nobel physicist Albert Einstein took issue with the concept of religion and his own Jewish faith was sold for $2,892,500 at auction in New York on Tuesday.
Christie's auctioneer John Hays jokingly apologized to God after banging his hammer. The so-called "God Letter," written in German by Einstein in 1954 to philosopher Eric Gutkind, is regarded as a key manuscript in the debate over science and religion and is Einstein's clearest statement of his views on the universal search for the meaning life.
The scientist and philosopher wrote the missive a year before his death in 1955 and was sold by a private collector.
"The word God is for me nothing but the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of venerable but still rather primitive legends. No interpretation, no matter how subtle, can [for me] change anything about this," Einstein wrote.
Einstein did not exclude Judaism, saying he admired and loved his people, but that he did not believe they were chosen above others.
"For me, the Jewish religion like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstition," he wrote, adding "I cannot see anything 'chosen' about them."
Christie's placed a $1 million to $1.5 million estimate on the letter. In 2002, the auction house sold a typed letter from Einstein to U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt for $2 million.
