Written over the course of 40 years following a pivotal healing experience in 1867, Science and Health is the result of extensive Biblical study by Mary Baker Eddy. This woman, who discovered Christian Science in 1866 and felt inspired to write her book soon after, poses in her work an entirely metaphysical view of Christianity. Eddy conceives of sin, sickness, and death as not of God, and hence not real. She strives to assert that reaching for a...

"In this study of Christian Science and the culture in which it arose, Amy B. Voorhees emphasizes Mary Baker Eddy's foundational religious text, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, rather than Eddy's already well known biography. Introducing the experiences of everyday adherents from the earliest days of Science and Health's appearance in 1875, Voorhees shows how Christian Science came into dialogue with more mainstream Christian theologies...