The Truth About The White Lie

Chapter 1—The Use Of Literary Sources

A glance at The White Lie reveals many pages of similarities between Mrs. White’s writings and the writings of others. How much did Ellen White borrow from other sources?

In 1982 when The White Lie was published, there were more than 70 Ellen G. White books in print, an aggregate of more than 35,000 pages. ¹ Although there is some repetition in the books, there are also some 50,000 typewritten pages of letters, sermons, diaries, and manuscripts on file in the White Estate and at eight research centers around the world. Thus, when compared to the total volume of Ellen White’s writings, the amount she borrowed still appears to be quite small. TAWL 2.4

On the other hand, representatives of the church have stated that the amount of borrowing was greater than they had previously known. ² In the Ellen G. White Estate, systematic research is going forward on this topic, and from time to time, further parallels are discovered. The Seventh-day Adventist journal for ministers, Ministry, recently devoted a special issue to a broad and candid summary of the subject of Ellen White’s use of sources. ³ TAWL 2.5

The amount of borrowing is not the most important question however. An instructive parallel is found in the relationship of the Gospels. More than 90 percent of the Gospel of Mark is paralleled by passages in Matthew and Luke. Even so, contemporary critical Biblical scholars are coming more and more to the conclusion that although Matthew, Mark, and Luke used common materials, each was a distinct author in his own right. ⁴ Thus even “higher critics” have a more analytical approach to the study of literary sources than does The White Lie. TAWL 2.6

At one time in the infancy of “source criticism” the Gospel writers were thought by higher critics to be little more than “scissors and paste” plagiarizers. Now critical scholars realize that literary studies are not complete until they move beyond cataloging parallel passages to the more significant question of how the borrowed material was used by each author to make his own unique statement. TAWL 2.7

It is our hope that the study of Ellen White’s literary borrowing will move beyond the mere noting of literary parallels and discussing how much literary borrowing was acceptable, to the more interesting question of the unique uses to which Mrs. White, under the Spirit’s guidance, put the materials she adapted. TAWL 2.8