Knapp, his wife and her sister left wills that granted bequests totalling over $100 million (in 1990s dollars) promised to the church if the book were to be published.

The wills set a time limit of 20 years for the book to be published, otherwise the bequests were to be divided between Stanford University and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the church would receive nothing.

In 1925, the younger Knapp wrote a book about his parents, which he later expanded to include chapters on his view of Eddy's identity as the "woman clothed with the sun" described in Revelation 12:1.

Knapp did not revise the book as they proposed, but left a trust with approximately $100 million in 1990s dollars to revert to the Christian Science church if it published his work as "authorized literature", an official designation that identifies a work as being in consonance with Christian Science teaching.

"[11] In order to fulfill the terms of the trust, the book was to be designated "authorized literature" and prominently displayed in "substantially all" Christian Science reading rooms.

The court challenges failed and the money was eventually distributed three ways, with the church getting 53% and Stanford University and the Los Angeles County Art Museum splitting the rest.

In a message published in The Christian Science Journal, the board of directors acknowledged the difficulty of adhering to some of the requirements of Knapp's bequest and noted that some of the ideas in the book had caused "confusion".