That Mrs. Eddy's great work, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," has unlocked long sealed pages of the Bible, every student of Christian Science knows from his study of the sacred Word. Through our Leader's writings there is brought about a restoration of the original and true meaning of many Biblical passages which had been warped and twisted to conform to prevailing belief. Much of the Bible had come to be interpreted less according to its own statements than according to what men schooled in theological doctrines declared those statements to mean.
Thousands of earnest men and women accepted these obiter dicta without question as final, because of the source through which they came, unaware that the interpreters had themselves merely accepted and passed along the declarations of dogma. Thus a large portion of mankind read the Scriptures through the colored glasses of preconceived belief. Passages that failed to coincide with or even flatly contradicted accepted interpretation were passed over as impossible to understand; and verses and chapters rich in spiritual food became meaningless because of the settled determination to construe them from the viewpoint of an anthropomorphic God, a physical man, heaven and hell as localities, and a universe material in nature, origin, and essence.
Mrs. Eddy did not attempt to define the meaning of every Scriptural passage. She undertook to give the student the correct basis from which to pursue his own studies. Just as the mathematician would not attempt to solve every problem his pupil might encounter, but would give him an understanding of the basic laws by which any problem could be solved, so every student of Christian Science has been equipped by our Leader's writings to interpret the Bible properly for himself. There is no such thing as a Christian Science interpretation of the Bible, any more than there is a Pythagorean interpretation of geometry. The student of this Science reads the Bible from a wholly unprejudiced standpoint, backed up by an honest and sincere desire to gain the true import of any Biblical passage that may seem obscure. To this end he is free to avail himself of the writings of recognized authorities in his effort to arrive at the true meaning of the Scripture text as originally inscribed.
