Article June 23, 1917 Issue

In his address on "Modern Views of the Bible," published...

Peter V. Ross—Eureka, Cal.

Humboldt Times

In his address on "Modern Views of the Bible," published in the columns of your paper, a certain clergyman refers to Christian Science as "based upon the traditional view of the Bible." Then he adds by way of illustration that the traditional view warrants the conclusion that "the earth cannot be round, for the Bible speaks of its four corners. Evolution cannot be true, for the Bible says the earth was made in six days."

Christian Science takes no such view of the Scriptures. It recognizes that the Bible abounds in allegory, metaphor, and imagery, which in themselves are not intended to state facts, but which are employed as vehicles to convey spiritual truths that do not lend themselves readily to the ordinary forms of direct expression.

In the opening chapters of Genesis, for example, Christian Science does not see a creation literally begun and finished within a week, but it sees in the first chapter, and in the first five verses of the second, an allegorical representation of spiritual creation, and in the remainder of the second chapter an allegorical representation of false, material creation. The two are flatly contradictory if taken literally; yet both are true in the sense that the first portrays, allegorically, the real creation, while the second likewise portrays by way of contrast the false or unreal belief of creation. The vital truth to be discerned from this portrayal is that all which God created is good. A knowledge of this fact rules evil in all its forms out of the universe, and classifies the pretensions of evil as a false, material sense of creation.

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