EXPLORING THE KING JAMES VERSION February 2, 1981 Issue

7 From pioneers to pioneer (Part 2)

CORA MASON

When the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science says of herself as author, at the end of the Preface to Science and Health, "In the spirit of Christ's charity,—as one who 'hopeth all things, endureth all things,' and is joyful to bear consolation to the sorrowing and healing to the sick,—she commits these pages to honest seekers for Truth,"^{Science and Health, p xii.} one notices right away an involvement of this textbook with the King James Version—something that becomes more apparent the more one studies both books.

Of course, what this basically means is an involvement with the Bible. Mrs. Eddy rarely mentions the KJV itself—that "common version," as she calls it^{See Science and Health 488:11-13,523:18-21, 576:26-30; Miscellaneous Writings 26:25-27.}—and then only because she is reaching behind it, in some way, to the original text.

But she does use the KJV. She picks up and applies, even many times on a page, those phrases that had burned their way into Christian thought through the spiritual impetus of Protestant pioneers and had since had an incalculable influence, standing for the Word of God to generations of English-speaking people. And now this New England woman, with all her Puritan Bible background behind her, presses ahead with the urgency of fresh revelation, demanding further understanding of what those phrases represent—the understanding that heals.

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Article

One reason it wasn't just called the Monitor