The Gift of Prophecy (The Role of Ellen White in God’s Remnant Church)

Ellen G. White as a historian

Prophets are God’s mouthpieces—they aren’t scientists or historians. Thus it happened that in using history books Ellen White inadvertently incorporated some of the historical errors contained in those books into her own writings, and God didn’t see fit to give her a vision to correct those errors. This, however, doesn’t detract from her inspiration or her authority, just as historical errors in Scripture don’t detract from its inspiration or authority. GP 104.1

For example, in Acts 7:16, Stephen says that Abraham bought the cave of Machpelah from Hamor, the father of Shechem. When we read the account of this purchase in Genesis 23:7-17, however, we discover that Abraham bought the cave not from Hamor but from Ephron the Hittite. ^* Yet God didn’t see fit to correct Luke. Nor did He correct Matthew when that disciple wrote that the words ” ‘And they took the thirty pieces of silver’ ” are from Jeremiah, though they’re really from Zechariah (see Matthew 27:9; Zechariah 11:12, 13). God obviously didn’t consider these historical details sufficiently important to give a vision to correct them. GP 104.2

In 1912, W. C. White wrote a letter to S. N. Haskell in which he stated that Ellen White had never wished our brethren to treat them [her writings] as authority on history. When “Great Controversy” was first written, she often times gave a partial description of some scene presented to her, and when Sister Davis made inquiry regarding time and place, Mother referred her to what was already written in the book of Elder Smith and in secular histories. When “Controversy” was written, Mother never thought that the readers would take it as an authority on historical dates and use it to settle controversies, and she does not now feel that it ought to be used in that way. ³ GP 104.3

At the end of this letter, Ellen White wrote, “I approve of the remarks made in this letter” and signed her name. ⁴ GP 105.1

In view of Mrs. White’s own understanding of this matter, we should be careful about trying to use the historical narratives in her books to settle details of history. ^* This, of course, doesn’t mean that we can push Creation back tens of thousands or millions of years, or that the prophetic dates like 1798 or 1844 can be changed. In regard to the age of the earth, she wrote, “Infidel geologists claim that the world is very much older than the Bible record makes it. They reject the Bible record, because of those things which are to them evidences from the earth itself, that the world has existed tens of thousands of years” (3SG 91). She herself always referred to the age of the earth in terms of about six thousand years (see PP 51; DA 413; etc.). GP 105.2

So, by applying a few simple principles of interpretation, we can gain a clearer, more accurate view of God’s will for us. GP 105.3