It may come as a surprise that the Bibles people in other countries read are not based on the King James Version of the Bible. In France, for example, Christian Scientists rely on the 1910 edition of the Louis Segond translation. In Germany, the Luther Bible is their text. Every one of the 15 non-English language editions of the Christian Science Quarterly—Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Italian, Russian, Polish, Swedish, Norwegian, Japanese, Greek, Dutch, Danish, Czech, Indonesian--uses its own Bible.
Science and Health has been translated into these 15 languages, too. The first was in German and was published in 1912. The French edition followed a few years later in 1918. Subsequent translations of Science and Health were developed as more people who spoke one of the 15 languages became seriously interested in Christian Science.
Choosing which Bible to use for the weekly Bible Lessons requires research and reflection because certain words and concepts used in Christian Science are not easily translated into other languages. One person who helps in the selection of these translations for her language group commented, "Our language, while rich in vocabulary, is deficient in certain areas so that the words used in the translations cannot convey exactly what is found in the Christian Science textbook. An example is the word perfect. In Iluko, the word naan-anay, is the closest to the English word for perfect, means 'enough, not more or less, sufficient.'" This person went on to say that since Iluko doesn't fully convey such essential concepts as perfection, "we feel that it is to [Iluko speakers'] own benefit and spiritual growth to read the Lesson-Sermon in English."
