These statements cannot be misunderstood* Such a claim by James White was far, far from the truth. And, it strains credulity to accept that James White was ignorant of his wife’s extensive borrowing. The next quotation is from a letter written by Ellen White, and is most pointed:
And if that was not enough, we notice in the next quotation another disclaimer in 1904. So, from 1867 to 1904 denials were made that she had borrowed from any human source. Notice that she says it is "light that God has given me.” It is a claim that everything she wrote was of divine origin:
There is no doubt that they wanted to leave the impression that there was no borrowing at all being done on any subject. But such literary borrowing was done from the very beginning. As a matter of fact, Ellen White’s very first vision, that of December, 1844, borrowed extensively from another Adventist, William E. Foy. Foy had two "visions” in 1842 and another in 1844. In 1845, shortly before his death, he published and copy righted an account of his visions titled, "The Christian Experence of William E. Foy.”
Compare that title with Ellen White’s later publication in 1851, The Christian Experience and Views of Ellen G. White. Even the titles are similar. The SDA En cyclopedia, page 475, says that Ellen Harmon "heard Foy speak in Beethoven Hall in her home city, Portland, Maine, when she was but a girl.” Another interesting item is that Foy’s tract was printed in Portland, Maine, by J. and C. H. Pearson, two brothers. Their father, John Pearson, Sr., is mentioned by Ellen White in Testimonies, Vol. 1, p. 64, so she was acquainted with the publishers of Foy’s visions as well. Of the father, she says: "Father Pearson . . . Like a tender father he tried to encourage and com fort me, bidding me believe I was not forsaken by the friend of sinners.” I will take the space to show just a couple of instances of the extensive borrowing by Ellen White from William Foy:
“My guide now informed me what I must do, saying, ‘thy spirit must return to yonder world, and thou must reveal those things which thou has seen.’... I then answered him saying, ‘How can I return to yonder world?" . . . My guide then spread his wings, and brought my spirit gently to the earth ... William Foy, pp. 20-21. Emphasis supplied.
“And he (Jesus) said, ‘You must go back to the earth again and re late to others what I have revealed to you." Then an angel bore me gently down to this dark world. I begged my attending angel to let me remain in that place. I could not bear the thought of coming back to this dark world again. Then the angel said, ‘You must go back ... ' ” Ellen White, Early Writings, first edition, pp. 15 and 33, emphasis supplied.
*7 then beheld, countless millions of shining ones coming with cards in their hands. These shining ones became our guides. The cards they bore shone above the brightness of the sun, and they placed them in our hands, but the names of them I could not read . . . ” Foy, pp. 10-11, emphasis supplied.
"I saw four angels winging their way to the gate of the city. They were just presenting the golden card to the angel at the gate. ... I asked my attending angel for an explanation of what I saw. He told me I could see no more than... All the angels that are commissioned to visit the earth hold a golden card, which they present to the angel at the gates of the city as they pass in and out . . . ’’ Ellen White, Early Writings, first edition, pp. 30 and 32, emphasis supplied.
These are but samples of the extensive likenesses between the two which is easily seen by comparing their visions. A similar likenesses can be made between Ellen White and Joseph Smith of Mormonism. She also borrowed from Mormon standard works. Joseph Smith was killed in the Summer of 1844, bringing him more national attention right at the height of Millerite expectations. One researcher points out that Ellen White especially liked the book of Alma in the Book of Mormon.
Francis D. Nichol, in his defense of Ellen White, says of The Great Controversy:
“We think that the unprejudiced reader of The Great Controversy, for example, will have no difficulty in concluding that the book gives evidence of a grand design that was not copied from human writings and that the limited borrowings from other authors do not dim the conviction as to that grand design. Or, to change the figure: There is a pulsing life in that book that cannot be found in secular or church histories, certainly not in the histories from which Mrs. White borrowed some of her descriptions. We believe the life that pulses in that book is God-breathed — inspired of God.” Ellen G. White and Her Critics, p. 463.
We have already seen up to this point the lack of truth in that claim. But there’s more evidence to come.
The Great Controversy story goes back to a claimed vision in 1858. Therein Ellen White was instructed to write out the story for publication. That same year Volume I of Spiritual Gifts ap appeared with the title The Great Controversy. This volume of 219 very small pages was later expanded into the four-volume series, Spirit of Prophecy, in 1870-1884, comprising 1,696 pages. This in turn was further expanded into the five-volume Conflict of the Ages series, comprising 3,507 pages. It seems revelation needed to be expanded and revised periodically. However, at the time of the "vision” in 1858, an interesting event occurred. In the Supplement of Volume 4 of the Spirit of Prophecy series, Arthur White, her grandson, wrote:
“Mrs. White never sought to avoid being influenced by others. Shortly after the Great Controversy vision of March 14, 1858, at meetings in Battle Creek held over a weekend, she told the high points of what had been shown her in that vision. Elder J. N. Andrews, who at the time was in Battle Creek, was much interested. After one of the meetings, he told her some of the things she had said were much like a book he had read. Then he asked if she had read Paradise Lost. She replied in the negative. He told her that he thought she would be interested in reading it... ”
He goes on to say that a short time later Andrews brought her a copy of Milton’s Paradise Lost, which she determined not to read at the moment, but placed on a high shelf in the kitchen. She then finished writing her account. Arthur White says — "It is apparent that she did later read at least portions of Paradise Lost, for there is one phrase quoted in Education." All of this could hardly be entirely truthful. Not only did Andrews see a similarity between Paradise Lost in her 1858 account of the Great Controversy, but it became even more interesting. Volume 1 of the Conflict of the Ages series is called Patriarchs and Prophets. Following is an interesting presentation from A Comparative Study of the Fall of Man as Treated by John Milton and Ellen G. White. This was a master's thesis prepared by Adventist Ruth Elizabeth Burgeson at Pacific Union College. On page 73 she says:
“Referring to the preceding chapters of this thesis, one is impressed by the similarity of factual content in Paradise Lost and in Patriarchs and Prophets. In fact, the writer of this thesis found no disagreement between the two authors in stating significant facts. There were fre quent differences in the manner of a statement, in the amount of detail, in the emphasis given, or even in the exact order of a series of events, but none in facts pertinent to the Biblical story.
Of unusual significance is the correlation found in a number of instances where both authors depict with some detail an experience which is not found in the Bible. Among such events are the following:
1. The scene in heaven before and during the rebellion with the loyal angels trying to win the disaffected ones back to allegiance to God.
2. The warnings issued to Eve to stay by her husband’s side; her subsequent straying.
3. The elaborate setting for the actual temptation with Satan’s analyzed point by point.
4. The detailed picture of the immediate results of sin on Adam and Eve and on the animal and vegetable world about them.
5. The explanation of the basic reason for Adam’s fall: uxoriousness.
6. The angel’s chronicling of future events to Adam.
7. The feelings of both Adam and Even as they left the garden. These likenesses in the narrative on points where the Scriptures are silent intensify the question: Why are these two authors, living two hundred years apart, so much in agreement on major facts?”
The answer to that is, of course, that Ellen White depended on Milton for much of her material. Yet, her grandson claims she "sought to avoid being influenced by others.” And remember what Nichol said about there being a grand design "that was not copied from human writings.”
But, admissions continue to come in. Adventist Earl Amundson said at the Glacier View "Trial” of Desmond Ford:
“The time has come to be critical of our own method. We as Seventh-day Adventists have felt secure in that we have got the revealed truth; and no matter what others may say against us, we have God on our side and the prophet, Ellen G. White. Now we are discovering that much of what she wrote in Desire of the Ages and Great Controversy was copied from others. How do we really know what we claim to know? We are forced to ask questions on matters of interpretation ...” Authority and Conflict — Consensus and Unity, p. 12.
Donald McAdams, President of Southwestern Adventist College, said of the results of his own studies of Ellen White’s sources:
“ ... the historical portions of The Great Controversy that I have examined are selective abridgments and adaptions of historians. Ellen White was not just borrowing paragraphs here and there that she ran across in her reading, but in fact, following historians page after page, leaving out much material, but using their sequence, some of their Ideas, and often their words. In the examples I have examined, I have found no historical fact in her text that is not in their text. The hand written manuscript on John Huss follows the historian so closely that it does not even seem to have gone through an intermediary stage, but rather from the historian's page to Mrs. White's manuscript, in including historical errors and moral exhortations.” Spectrum, Vol. 10, No. 4, p. 34.
The rest of McAdam’s article on Shifting Views of Inspiration is an interesting insight into the controversy and findings up to that point, the Spring of 1980. One more point is important to look at from his article. He quotes Ron Graybill, an assistant secretary of the White Estate, who had presented some of his own findings on the subject. Graybill says:
“There does not appear to be any objective historical fact in Mrs. White’s account that she could not have gained from the literary sources on which she was drawing except in one detail. The overall impression gained from this study by this researcher is that it sustains McAdam’s main point — that the objective and mundane historical narrative was based on the work of historians, not on visions.” ibid., p. 35.
But, of course, this is the rule with Ellen White, not the exception. The old claims that have been made about Ellen White are becoming increasingly hard for Adventists to swallow.
One of the most recurring phrases used by Ellen White was "I saw,” or "I was shown.” This indicated that she was relating an "inspired vision” from God. We have seen some of the statements about her historical portions in her books, along with doctrinal ones as well, but what about the evident statements of what was revealed to her from God? Was there any copying there? We have noted that she relied on William Foy in her first few visions. But, such copying was being denied as recently as the Spring of 1981. Ron Graybill said, under the heading of "No clear example thus far”:
“It Is possible that we will yet discover some clear instance where Mrs. White says ‘I saw,’ referring to a specific vision, and then proceeds to describe that vision using words borrowed from other writers. This would not necessarily be difficult to harmonize with our belief that such material is still fully inspired. Thus far, however, we have no clear example of this. We know that after Mrs. White visited Zurich in 1887 she returned home and the next day described what she had seen with her physical eyes by using words borrowed from James Wylie’s History of Protestantism. Wylie had given a beautiful description of the striking scenery around Zurich, and Mrs. White used his words to describe what she had just seen herself. So it would not be surprising if she used the words of others to describe what she had seen in a vision.” Adventist Review, April 2,1981, p. 7.
It appears that she couldn’t even describe something she had seen on a trip without extensive borrowing from someone else. But, Graybill changed his tune shortly. In the Adventist Review of July 29,1982, he said:
“Since our last report on this topic (‘Did Mrs. White ‘Borrow’ in Reporting a Vision?’ Adventist Review. April 2, 1981, and Letters to the Editor, April 30>, research has located several further instances in which Ellen White used the language of other authors to report what had been revealed to her. Two examples will suffice ...” p. 3.
Notice that it went, within one year, from "no clear example” to "several.” Graybill went on to detail the source of the two examples. Among the attempts to justify what she did from Bible passages, he says:
“It could be that in some instances that Mrs. White, after experiencing a vision, Just happened to find words to describe it in a book she was reading. But in my opinion, it is more like that she sometimes read a passage in a book, was impressed by it, and later, in a vision, the same concepts, being true, were impressed upon her mind again.” Ibid., p. 5,
My, how convenient. With this admission in mind, let’s look at her Testimonies, Vol. 5. The authority of those "testimonies” has been dealt with in previous chapters. But, to keep the context in mind, notice on page 64 she says
"Yet now when I send you a testimony of warning and reproof many of you declare it to be merely the opinion of Sister White. You have thereby in insulted the Spirit of God."
Or, on page 66:
"If you seek to turn aside the counsel of God to suit yourselves if you lessen the confidence of God's people in the testimonies He has sent them, you are rebelling against God as certainly as were Korah, Dathan, and Abiram."
Or, again, on page 67:
"Weak and trembling. I arose at three o'clock in the morning to write to you. God was speaking through clay. You might say that this communication was only a letter. Yes, it was a letter, but prompted by the Spirit of God, to bring before your minds things that had been shown me. In these letters which I write, in the testimonies I bear, I am presenting to you that which the Lord has presented to me. I do not write one article in the paper expressing merely my own ideas. They are what God has opened before me in vision — the precious rays of light shining from the throne. ”
Now, that should be clear enough. So, we find the following on the very next page, 68:
“What voice will you acknowledge as the voice of God? What power has the Lord in reserve to correct your errors and show you your course as it is? What power to work in the church? If you refuse to believe until every shadow of uncertainty and every possibility of doubt Is removed you will never believe. The doubt that demands perfect knowledge will never yield to faith. Faith rests upon evidence, not demonstration. The Lord requires us to obey the voice of duty when there are other voices all around us to pursue an opposite course. It requires earnest attention from us to distinguish the voice which speaks from God.”
But, these statements were not original with Ellen White, but certainly didn’t come from God either! Notice the similarity with the following:
“We must not defer our obedience till every shadow of uncertainty and every possibility of mistake is removed. The doubt that demands perfect knowledge will never yield to faith, for faith rests upon prob ability, not demonstration. ... We must obey the voice of duty when there are many other voices crying against it, and it requires earnest heed to distinguish the one which speaks for God.” Daniel March, Night Scenes in the Bible, 1868, p. 131 (facsimile reprint from Kregel Publishing Co., 1979).
It is obvious where she got her material for her "testimony.” It was "borrowed” from Daniel March. In Testimonies, Vol. 3, p. 141, is found the following statements of "I was shown”:
”1 was shown that one great cause of the existing deplorable state of things is that parents do not feel under obligation to bring up their children to conform to physical law. Mothers love their children with an idolatrous love and indulge their appetite when they know that it will injure their health and thereby bring upon them disease and unhappiness. This cruel kindness is manifested to a great extent in the present generation. . . . Mothers who are doing this work will reap with bitterness the fruit of the seed they have sown. They have sinned against Heaven and against their children, and God will hold them accountable. The managers and teachers of schools ...”
When we compare this with another writer we find out where Ellen White got her "I was shown”:
“Parents are also under obligation to teach and oblige their children to conform to physical law for their own sake. The mother who suffers her children to eat irregularly, or violates the laws of their systems in any other way commits a crime against her offspring, against humanity, and against Heaven, for which God will hold her responsible. How strange and unaccountable, that mothers should love their children so tenderly as to indulge them in what they have occasion to know may injure their constitutions and impair their happiness for life! May many children be delivered from such mothers, and from such cruel kind ness! . . . The managers and teachers of schools . . . ” L. B. Coles, Philosophy of Health, 1851, pp. 144-145.
She was heavily dependent on Coles in writing out her health reform ideas, which she passed off as coming from God, obedience being necessary to salvation. Remember that in 1867 she was claiming:
"That which I have written in regard to health was not taken from books and papers . . . My views were written inde pendent of books or of the opinions of others.” (see p. 29).
If we accepted that statement as factual, which we don’t, at least it is noted that by 1872 she was liberally borrowing from Coles and others.
In this chapter, we have just barely touched the tip of the ice berg of Ellen White’s plagiarism, for that indeed is what it is. She was guilty of ’"copying or imitating the language, ideas, and thoughts of another and passing off the same as one’s original work.” Whether we use the modern definition or the definition from her own day, it is the same. She stands convicted by her own pen.
