Einstein Letter on Bible Creation Story on Public Sale for the First Time

The Raab Collection has acquired - and is offering for sale for the first time publicly - Albert Einstein’s letter on the biblical version of creation, comparing science and religion. The letter was written to a group of students whose teacher had contacted the scientist on their behalf. 

In the letter, valued at $125,000, Albert Einstein writes  that a scientist cannot believe in the biblical version of creation. The Raab Collection's research indicates no other Einstein letter having reached the market in which he comments on a scientist’s view of creationism. In it, Einstein states that a person of science could not believe in the Genesis version of creation and confirms his belief that science “replaces and supersedes it.”  

In late March of 1950, a Jewish religious teacher in the United States wrote to him: “On behalf of the students of a series of lectures on religion, I would like to ask you whether you think that it is possible for a modern scientist to reconcile the idea of the creation of the world by God, a higher power, with his scientific knowledge.”  

Einstein’s response, dated April 11, 1950, to Mrs. Munk was: 

“As long as the stories in the Bible had been taken literally, it was obvious what kind of faith was expected from the readers. If you are however to interpret the Bible symbolically (metaphorically), it is not clear anymore whether God is in fact to be thought of as a person [and therefore not a monotheistic deity], which is somehow analogous to humans. In that case it is difficult to assess what remains of the faith in its original sense.  

I think, however, that the person who is more or less trained in scientific thinking is alien to the religious creation (in the original sense) of the cosmos, because he applies the standard of causal conditionality to everything. This does not refute the religious attitude but, in a certain sense, replaces and supersedes it.”  

The letter was acquired by Raab from the heirs of the recipient.