A letter in 1900 from Mary Baker Eddy to William P. McKenzie, a trustee of The Christian Science Publishing Society, first thanks him for the Twentieth Century New Testament he’d sent her, noting both advantages and disadvantages of the new translation, as well as her general preference for the “grandeur of climax” in the Authorized (King James) Version of the Bible. Then her words suddenly take flight in this arresting conclusion: “When we translate matter into Spirit we shall then have not only the Authorized Version, but the eternal version of the Scriptures. I never read the Bible now without such an illumination that every word of it contains a spiritual meaning” (L13053, The Mary Baker Eddy Collection, The Mary Baker Eddy Library).
What would this “eternal version” of Scripture look like? Who would translate it? What would it mean for humanity? These questions take us to the heart of Mary Baker Eddy’s own spiritual journey.
It was “misinterpretation of the Word” that had cost her decades of invalidism. But with her discovery of Christian Science came the “right interpretation” of the Bible, restoring her health and awakening her to a whole new life as a religious leader. What lay at the root of the misinterpretation that had so buried the inspired meaning of Scripture? Basically, it was a matter-based, literal reading of the Bible. “The literal or material reading is the reading of the carnal mind, which is enmity toward God, Spirit,” Eddy explained (Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896, p. 169). The “arrogant pride” of translators and Church officials over the centuries had made them infuse rigid, man-made doctrines into the Bible—such as original sin, predestination, a corporeal sense of deity, and the belief that Jesus was God (see Mary Baker Eddy, Retrospection and Introspection, p. 84). The result? A raft of “fatiguing Bible translations” that squeezed much of the healing impetus out of the sacred text (Mary Baker Eddy, No and Yes, p. 15).
