Moses never existed … or if he did, he was only a minor historical character and most of his life was expanded by legend.

When I was an atheist I believed Moses never existed. The Jews made him up to bolster their religion. However, if someone by the name of Moses really did live he wasn’t anything like the stories about him in the Bible. No way he called down the wrath of God on the Egyptians. No way Moses raised his hands in the air and a sea of water split in two. No way.

I used the story of Moses leading Israel out of Egypt as a major proof that the Bible was full of myths and fairy tales. It was a favorite discussion on my radio talk shows in the late 1960s and early 70s. Adam and Eve, Noah and the Flood, Abraham leaving Ur for Canaan…

In my previous post about the correspondence between Adolf Deissmann and A. T. Robertson concerning a Greek Gospels manuscript, I showed the pictures of Deissmann’s first letter, along with a transcription of it.

This is the second of four parts of that correspondence. These letters constitute the A. T. Robertson Papers, Box 7, Folder 3, Archives and Special Collections, James P. Boyce Centennial Library, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky. I am grateful to Adam Winters, archivist at SBTS, who provided the photographs. They are used with permission of the SBTS Archives & Special Collections.

Professor Dr. Adolf Deissmann
Berlin-Wilmersdorf, Prinzregentenstrasse 6., April 2^nd., 1927.

My dear friend Robertson:

I thank you very much for your kind letter of March 19., which I received to-day. Well: I hold the Tetra-Evangelium at your disposal and deposited it for you in my banker’s safe. Perhaps it may be possible…