Resources Discussing the Bible

Paulson’s essay is one of 22 in this ecumenical collection. She draws on the beatitudes of Matthew 5 to illustrate biblical guidance to loving others (even our enemies) and dismantling both victimhood thinking and criminal behavior that contribute to mass incarceration. Paulson’s analysis of each beatitude is based on the teachings of Christian Science and uses quotes from Mary Baker Eddy. 

…the “Apocalypse,” and a “Glossary” of biblical terms. Eddy appointed the Bible and Science and Health the dual pastor of her Church, which “publicly yoked the Bible to Science and…

The metaphysical nature of the religious belief and practice of Christian Science triggered theological, ecclesial, legal, medical, scientific, and moral controversies. Mary Baker Eddy also dealt with stress and trauma throughout her life. The metaphysical aspect of Christian Science does not detract from its practicality in human experience, as the metaphysically induced healing is evidence of the full salvation to come.

Petersen has made a paraphrase revision of Mary Baker Eddy’s 19th-century textbook, Science and Health, with the purpose of elucidating divine Science for the 21st century. In her Preface she avows her great efforts to keep Eddy’s original meaning of divine Science intact, while using more current (and inclusive) language and illustrations, and quoting from modern Bible versions.

Implementing feminist rhetorical criticism, Tencza examines Mary Baker Eddy’s strategic use of rhetoric to create meaning in her writings, reinforced by the integrity of her character. Tencza sees Eddy working within three frameworks: an ethic of care [mother-like pathos], extreme utilization of ethos [her character integrity], and logos [ability to make meaning]—all of which coalesce into her rhetoric of confidence.

Moses’s 1916 book intended to foster a Jewish spiritual renaissance and to prove that Judaism long held what appears so attractive to the early 20th-century Jewish converts to Christian Science: divine healing, affirmative prayer, and a religion of love and law. He catalogs Jewish scripture illustrating healing and divine love, and contrasts Christian Science tenets with Jewish faith.

Paulson provides a defense of Christian Science as Christian, citing two main points: 1) from earliest times there have been many Christianities of which Christian Science is one expression; 2) Eddy’s Christianity was born out of her difficult life experiences and search of scripture. She became “a Christian reformer, seeking to revitalize the Bible’s practical, transformative power.”

In this brief paper, Rider compares theological interpretations of biblical texts between Christian Science and Christian orthodoxy, arguing for a radical difference. The texts he selected include creation stories in Genesis, the Lord’s Prayer, the miracles of Jesus, and his crucifixion and resurrection.

This beautifully crafted book is essentially a compilation of the writings of Stephen R. Howard, who served as director-curator of Longyear Museum from 1997 to 2014. (The museum is an independent historical institution dedicated to the understanding of Mary Baker Eddy’s life and work.) Nearly every page includes multiple photographs, facsimiles, artwork, Illustrations and portraits representing the holdings of the museum.

Kramer’s well-researched critique on Christian Science makes her arguments easier to understand than most critics. She grasps the fundamental teachings and history of the religion well, but she left it for doctrinal reasons. Most of Perfect Peril describes her emotional and intellectual struggles with doctrinal issues. Following a crisis of faith, she concluded that Christian Science is a dangerous mind control. 

This essay on Christian Science is one of many descriptive introductions of various religions and their relation to evangelical Christianity. Simmons notes that the ‘Christian’ element in Christian Science involves a radical reinterpretation of Jesus and his role in the New Testament. Mary Baker Eddy stressed the practical nature of her ‘science’ in human challenges, thus highlighting the focus on healing. 

Gallagher examines Mary Baker Eddy’s and Helen Schucman’s (A Course in Miracles) interpretation of scripture and development of their own canons. Gallagher sees Eddy’s Science and Health as a Bible companion which has the power to heal the reader and requires deep study. Similarly, Gallagher sees Schucman’s ACIM as indispensable to understanding the Bible, providing a mystical interpretation of scripture.

Gallagher highlights four American alternative Christianities able to maintain continuity and gain legitimacy by retaining elements of the dominant Christianity and texts of its day, while also engaging in a “creative exercise of interpretive ingenuity” that resulted in a novel message evoked from familiar symbolic capital.

Willsky claims Mary Baker Eddy’s Science and Health (among other 19th-century works) was a reaction to the dogmatism of the Plain Bible ethos of American Protestantism. The predominant interpretation of the Bible as ‘plain’ meant its message, as understood by Reformed and evangelical Protestant culture, was authoritatively true. Eddy made the best attempt to modify this notion with divine healing revelations.

Although written for young readers, “A World More Bright” contains details for those interested in the personal side of Mary Baker Eddy’s life story. For those more familiar with other biographies on Eddy, this book offers new facts that may be useful for filling in gaps of historical interest. Typical biographical controversies are mentioned but not critiqued by the authors.

This brief encyclopedic entry, written at the request of The Mary Baker Eddy Library, offers in three pages a succinct outline of Mary Baker Eddy’s life and a clear and accurate portrayal of her importance as a student of the Bible and religious thinker. “Her unique method of biblical interpretation will be of interest to biblical scholars… independently of the religion she founded and the healing-system she established.”

Rapport argues that both Christian Science and the Unity School of Christianity came into being during an emerging scientific worldview, and implemented their “scientific rationale and language as a strategy to validate themselves in late 19th-century America.” But, whereas Unity used science to complement Protestantism, Eddy employed scientific language to defy mainstream science and religion.

Specific to Eddy, Ingham relates feminist themes to her groundbreaking textbook, Science and Health, as well as many of her earlier writings and sensibilities. Specifically, Ingham lays out Stanton’s and Eddy’s exegesis of the first and last books of the Bible, thereby providing an interpretive space from which to challenge a singular definition concerning creation in Genesis and prophecy in Revelation.

In the late 19th-century era, when the Pauline corpus was often quoted to legitimize women’s subordination, Mary Baker Eddy presented in her writings a rereading of the Pauline tradition as liberating for women. Huff shows how Eddy made the case and modeled in her life that women as well as men have legitimate dominion and must not be dominated.

Simon unpacks Mary Baker Eddy’s theological construct of the feminine divine and shows how Eddy mobilizes her conception of a benevolent maternal deity to challenge the gender ideology and conventions of her day. She finds in Eddy’s Genesis interpretation her ultimate goal: her feminized divine is an enabling belief that undoes Adam’s dream—the history of error, an assumed material selfhood.

Choi’s and Huff’s chapters explore how two 19th-century Christian women, Lucy Rider Meyer and Mary Baker Eddy respectively, interpreted Pauline and deuteron-Pauline texts to validate women’s empowerment in the Church. Hogan then details striking similarities between Meyer’s and Eddy’s approaches to these texts, and that of many recent feminist and womanist scholars.

This article includes an examination of feminism and the quest for gender equality in 19th century America, particularly in rejection of interpretations of the second biblical creation story that justified male dominance and female subservience. One sub-section devoted to Mary Baker Eddy describes her unique interpretation of the spirituality of divine creation, which undergirds Christian Science and the church she founded.

Nenneman’s interest in Christian Science was due not to its healing message, but to Mary Baker Eddy’s deep spirituality and theological answers regarding the nature of God and Jesus’s mission. He profiles the great thinkers who wrestled with similar visions of reality as Eddy: Ralph Waldo Emerson, William James, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, prophets in the Hebrew Scriptures and Christian New Testament, and those found in the flourishing exchange between Jews, Muslims and Christians in the Middle Ages. 

Johnson’s book expounds on the ‘science of prayer’—based on her own journey of discovery and framed by her Christian Science faith. Each of the seven chapters explores one of Mary Baker Eddy’s seven synonymous terms for God. Each synonym represents a scientific law effectively defeating any challenge that confronts the reader and bringing healing.

Treacy-Cole outlines Eddy’s rocky and sometimes tragic life story through childhood, marriages, motherhood, illnesses and financial struggles—leading up to years of deep Bible study, her discovery of Christian Science, the writing of her textbook, Science and Health, and organization of her Church. Treacy-Cole finds early Christian patriarchy as precedent for 19th-century male clergy and press dismissal of Mary Baker Eddy.