Ellen G. White and Her Critics

What Does the Word “Amalgamation” Mean?

First, what is the general meaning of the word “amalgamation”? Is it ever used to describe the depraved act of cohabitation of man with beast? No dictionaries we have had access to, not even the exhaustive Oxford English Dictionary, indicate that the term has ever been used to describe this act. There is another standard English word that may properly be used to describe such cohabitation. The primary usage of the word “amalgamation” through long years has been to describe the fusion of certain metals, particularly mercury with other metals, and by extension, to denote the fusing of races of men. In the mid-nineteenth century the word was commonly employed in the United States to describe the intermarriage of the white and the Negro race. ^* EGWC 307.3

The long-established meaning of the key word “amalgamation” as the blending of races should weigh heavily in determining the interpretation of the questioned passages. The burden of proof rests on those who affirm that Mrs. White gave a new and alien meaning to the term. EGWC 308.1

Second, the whole tenor of Mrs. White’s writings provides strong testimony against the claim that she is here seeking solemnly to present as fact some ancient stories about abnormal man-beast progeny. Her writings are not tainted with fanciful fables of the long ago. Those writings have a strongly matter-of-fact quality to them. If she had been a dreamer and visionary how frequently might she have regaled her readers with myths and weird stories of antiquity. EGWC 308.2