Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy, is, along with the Bible, one of the two central texts of the Christian Science religion. Eddy described it as her "most important work". She began writing it in February 1872, and the first edition was published in 1875. However, she would continue working on it and making changes for the rest of her life.
Many sources overlook the importance of this book in its finalized form in 1910. It is well known as the foundational guidance for the Church of Christ, Scientist, but the book also managed to stir up questions about issues that so many male religious leaders and thinkers believed they had settled. In writing about the first edition of Science and Health, feminist scholar and biographer Gillian Gill homes in on this point: "The real issue is the author's audacity, her daring to think that a woman like her, with her resources, could write, not the expected textbook on mental healing techniques, not the comfortable compendium of healing anecdotes, but a book that takes on the great questions of God and man, good and evil, and that rejects orthodox verities."
The book was selected as one of the "75 Books By Women Whose Words Have Changed The World", by the Women's National Book Association.
As of 2001, the book had sold over nine million copies.
Basic beliefs
Christian Science develops its theology and its healing method from these statements contained in Science and Health:
"God is All-in all." "God is good." "God is Mind, and God is infinite; hence all is Mind."
Structure
The last edition of the book consists of a short preface, the main section, a "Key to the Scriptures" section, and a Fruitage section. Some editions include a word index.
Main section
The main section is 500 pages long and comprises chapters titled as follows:
Prayer
Atonement and Eucharist
Marriage
Christian Science versus Spiritualism
Animal Magnetism Unmasked
Science, Theology, Medicine
Physiology
Footsteps of Truth
Creation
Science of Being
Some Objections Answered
Christian Science Practice (which explains how healing is undertaken) Teaching Christian Science Recapitulation (the text used for class instruction in Christian Science healing).
Key to the Scriptures
This section is 100 pages long, and comprises: Genesis (a detailed analysis of the two versions of the creation story given in the book of Genesis) The Apocalypse (an analysis of parts of the book of Revelation) Glossary (giving the spiritual meaning of 114 Biblical terms)
Fruitage
This section is 100 pages long and consists of 84 testimonies of the healing power derived from reading Science and Health. There are descriptions of healings of addiction, asthma, broken bones, cataracts, cancer, deafness, eczema, fibroid tumor, and rheumatism. Prior intervention by physicians is mentioned in 50 of these cases, and one relates a confirmatory X-ray image by a physician.
Copyright
The first edition was copyrighted in 1875. The copyright for Science and Health went through several renewals including a posthumous renewal in 1934 by the Christian Science Board of Directors. At the request of the Christian Science Board of Directors, in December 1971 Congress passed a law extending the copyright on Science and Health by 75 years.
However, following a legal suit brought by David James Nolan and Lucile J. Place of United Christian Scientists, the copyright extension was found unconstitutional in 1985 by Federal District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson. In 1987 the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia upheld the ruling of the district court. As a result, Science and Health has been in the public domain since 1987.