Understanding Ellen White

Statement 10: Amalgamation of man and beast

In Spiritual Gifts, volume 3, published in 1864, Ellen White referred to the “amalgamation of man and beast.” “But if there was one sin above another which called for the destruction of the race by the flood, it was the base crime of amalgamation of man and beast which defaced the image of God, and caused confusion everywhere.” Further, “the confused species which God did not create, which were the result of amalgamation, were destroyed by the flood. Since the flood there has been amalgamation of man and beast, as may be seen in the almost endless varieties of species of animals, and in certain races of men” ⁴⁸ These statements were retained in the edition of 1870, ⁴⁹ but omitted in 1890 when the same materials were revised for Patriarchs and Prophets.⁵⁰ UEGW 188.1

The grammatical construction of these statements, their context, and Ellen White’s other uses of the term amalgamation allow several possible interpretations. Amalgamation of man with beast implies (1) bestiality, a crime for which the Bible required the death of both the human and the animal involved (Lev. 20:15, 16), or could also refer to (2) genetic combination of human and animal genomes to create chimeras. However, contemporary publications also used the term amalgamation to refer to sexual relations between different human races resulting in offspring. ⁵¹ (3) F. D. Nichol⁵² (following the lead of George McCready Price) argued for an alternative grammatical reading, “amalgamation of man[,] and [amalgamation of] beast,” referring on the human level to mingling of races of men, specifically, the pre-Flood intermarriage of the righteous descendants of Seth with the “ungodly race of Cain,“ ⁵³ and on the animal level, to (4) the pre Flood production of “confused species” of animals “which God did not create” and which did not survive the Flood, as well as to the post-Flood proliferation of “almost endless varieties of species.” ⁵⁴ White’s other uses of amalgamation include (5) the emergence of thorns and thistles (Gen. 3:18); she wrote, “Every noxious herb is of his [Satan’s] sowing, and by his [Satan’s] ingenious methods of amalgamation [malicious genetic engineering of plants] he has corrupted the earth with tares.” ⁵⁵ Finally, (6) she uses amalgamation in a moral sense to denote the moral declension of the righteous by association with the wicked. “By union with the world, the character of God’s people becomes tarnished, and through amalgamation with the corrupt, the fine gold becomes dim.” ⁵⁶ UEGW 188.2

The most disturbing aspect of the amalgamation statements is their potentially racial implications. Two years after the first publication of the amalgamation statements, Adventist defectors B. F. Snook and W. H. Brinkerhoff published a pamphlet accusing Ellen White of racism on the basis of the amalgamation statements. ⁵⁷ “These visions teach that the Negro race is not human.” ⁵⁸ Snook and Brinkerhoff’s second allegation was that “she [Ellen White] told it to her husband, and he made it known to Eld. [sic] Ingraham, and he divulged the secret to the writer, that Sister White had seen that God never made the Darkey. “ ⁵⁹ The second allegation is simply “hearsay” and does not fit the context of her many direct statements in support of different ethnicities and particularly those of African descent. UEGW 188.3

In 1851, thirteen years before she penned the amalgamation statements, she contrasted the “pious slave” who would “rise in triumph and victory and shake off the chains that bound him,” to the “wicked master” who stood under the judgment of God. ⁶⁰ In 1858 she passionately defended the full humanity of Africans in bondage: “The tears of the pious bond-men and bond-women, of fathers, mothers and children, brothers and sisters, are all bottled up in heaven. Agony, human agony, is carried from place to place, and bought and sold.” With hot indignation she denounced “professed christians” [sic] who “hold their fellow-men in slavery” and “cruelly oppress from day to day their fellow-men.” ⁶¹ UEGW 189.1

In 1859, she charged Adventists to disregard the Fugitive Slave Law, requiring runaway slaves in nonslave states to be returned to their masters, “whatever the consequences.” ⁶² She solemnly charged Adventists to remove from church membership any of their number who clung to proslavery views. ⁶³ “The black man’s name is written in the book of life beside the white man’s. All are one in Christ. Birth, station, nationality, or color cannot elevate or degrade men.” ⁶⁴ The hundreds of pages of antislavery writing give strong evidence that, whatever she meant by the two brief enigmatic amalgamation statements, her belief in the full spiritual, moral, and intellectual equality of the Black race with all other humans is beyond question. UEGW 189.2

One common understanding of the term “amalgamation” in nineteenth-century America was interracial marriage or other sexual coupling between Europeans and Africans. ⁶⁵ Some have wondered if she viewed racial intermarriage as the sin so grievous that it brought on the Flood. ⁶⁶ This interpretation is unsupportable on several grounds. First, she was clear on the full humanity of different ethnicities. Second, she did not oppose interracial marriage on moral or theological grounds. ⁶⁷ She counseled against interracial marriage on the grounds of the social difficulties it caused in a nineteenth-century postslavery society. ⁶⁸ UEGW 189.3

Because of the brevity and inherent ambiguity of the amalgamation statements, and the fact that Ellen White never publicly clarified her meaning, several of the interpretations given could be viable. From the perspective of current science, none of these interpretations is unreasonable. Human-animal genetic chimeras are routinely made today in molecular biology labs. ⁶⁹ More controversial are chimeras made up of cells from human and animal embryos. ⁷⁰ Depraved behavior clearly separates people from God and mars the image of God in man. UEGW 189.4

Ironically, the problem with Ellen White’s amalgamation statements from a scientific perspective is not that they may not be true, but that there are so many ways they could be true that it is difficult to figure out exactly what she may have meant. From a historical and linguistic perspective, Nichol’s interpretation may be most defensible. UEGW 190.1