Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures
Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (Original title: Science and Health, With Key to the Scriptures ) was developed by Mary Baker Eddy wrote the 1875th It is the textbook of Christian Science and together with the Bible forms the pastor of the Church of Christ, scientist . The first German edition appeared in 1912. The German translators were Helmuth and Dorothy von Moltke, the parents of the German resistance fighter Helmuth James Graf von Moltke . The current, newly translated edition is from 1998.
Origin and structure
The book grew out of notes Eddy made while studying the Bible. The reason for this was a healing experience in 1866. The first edition appeared in 1875. The book had a large number of revisions (ten fundamental revisions) until Baker Eddy's death in 1910.
The book consists of 18 chapters. The final chapter, "Fruits of Science and Health," contains 100 pages of healings previously published in Christian Science magazines. The three preceding chapters are exegetical with a more biblical explanatory character and form the so-called "key to the Holy Scriptures".
As in all translations of the English original, the German edition is bilingual, with the original and translation positioned on opposite pages.
issue
Science and Health contains the representation of the teaching of Christian Science. From the point of view of this church, this consists of a consistently metaphysical view of Christianity in which sin , illness and death , viewed from an absolute spiritual perspective, have no justification or fundamental reality; According to the doctrine, a spiritualized conception of God as the absolutely good and of man and woman as being created for His spiritual image and likeness should bring healing into human experience.
A central statement by the author, which can be seen as Eddy's justification for the importance of this book, is her statement that denying the possibility of Christian healing robs Christianity of precisely the element that gave it divine power and made it what Eddy describes as an amazing and incomparable success in the first century.
Relationship to the Bible
The Church of Christ, Scientist emphasizes the importance of the interaction of the Bible and science and health . During the week, followers of the Christian Science movement read a Bible lesson sermon that is the same all over the world, which usually consists of six sections from passages from the Holy Scriptures and the textbook, which are read out alternately by two readers in the Sunday service and are the basis of weekly individual study are. But the "inspired word" of the Holy Scriptures and not the literal interpretation of evangelical Protestants forms the basis of Christian Science.
Topics of the book - a synopsis
(Terms in capital letters correspond to the capitalization in Eddy's works for synonyms for God)
According to the introduction, the book addresses the "honest seeker of TRUTH" directly and tries to give the necessary expression to the special power of the silent prayer, if only because in the book Eddy's conviction that a spiritual age has dawned becomes clear. Theological topics are spiritualized, conceptually presented anew, but according to Eddy always on the basis of the spiritual teaching of the Bible.
This is noticeable in the practical approach in which reconciliation as oneness with God is given a topical urgency, because this oneness of man with God is seen as a spiritual fact that is the basis for the Christian healing of sin, disease and death . Ethics and morals are seen as inalienable rights and obligations and as social cement.
According to Eddy, determined spirituality has nothing to do with spiritualism or hypnotism , which she makes a special topic in the corresponding chapters, since consistent spirituality too often suffers from conceptual blurring. The mental nature of illness and the mental nature of the remedies is certainly the most challenging thesis of this textbook. Eddy's remarks often describe in an unstructured manner the relationship between diagnosis and illness and the "step-by-step" nature of spiritual growth based on the recognition of the spirituality of creation and nature .
This book is possibly one of the first books to emphasize the fatherhood and motherhood of God so vehemently that this idea follows the idea that man exists as an image in the divine MIND. Eddy tries to prove the biblical basis for scientific spirituality and emphasizes throughout all chapters that spiritual healing does not take place through blind faith, but is based on the grace and love of God, which is repeatedly described as LOVE, according to 1 John 4 .
The method of mental illness treatment is finally symbolized in the form of an allegory of a court hearing, as well as in special practice-oriented sections, such as the summary of Eddy's elementary teachings of metaphysics in the form of 24 questions and answers. The explanations find their theological conclusion in the so-called beliefs of Christian Science.
The second part of the book contains the key to the Holy Scriptures , explanations of the first chapters of Genesis, discussion of Darwinism and thoughts on chapter 12 of Revelation , which lead to a spiritual perspective of the 23rd Psalm .
Furthermore, the second part contains a glossary , a dictionary with 125 metaphysically interpreted biblical expressions, as well as an appendix with 100 healing events of all kinds of healings, which Eddy traces back to the application of the Christian Science presented in the book.