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Einstein letter doubting God auctioned for $2.89 million
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A letter from Nobel Prize-winning physicist Albert Einstein is seen at a Jerusalem auction house on June 20, 2017. (AFP/Gil Cohen-Magen)
A handwritten letter by Albert Einstein in which the physicist doubts the existence of God was auctioned Tuesday for $2.89 million.
It was a record for an Einstein letter and far surpassed its estimated value of $1.0-1.5 million, Christie's said.
A 1939 letter in which Einstein warned then president Franklin D. Roosevelt about Germany's atom bomb preparations was auctioned for $2.1 million in 2002.
In the letter sold on Tuesday, dated 1954 and written in German to philosopher Eric Gutkind, Einstein said he did not believe in God.
Read also: Einstein's 'God letter' to go on sale for $1m
"The word God is for me nothing but the expression and product of human weaknesses," Einstein wrote.
"The Bible, a collection of venerable but still rather primitive legends."
The letter was last sold in 2008 to a private collector for $404,000, Christie's said.
