Understanding Ellen White

Ellen White’s use of literary sources

Literary parallels have been documented not only in Ellen White’s writings on history and health but also in the areas of biblical narrative, end-time events, devotional themes, personal testimonies, reporting a vision, and even autobiographical accounts.³⁵ The latter category is of significance in that it was obviously not a necessity for Ellen White to borrow another’s language to describe her own life experiences—yet she did so at times. Similarly, she is known to have borrowed descriptions of places she visited and saw with her natural eyes. This supports the argument for her use of another’s language because it better expressed or summarized the ideas and thoughts she wished to convey. “She admired the language in which other writers had presented to their readers the scenes which God had presented to her in vision” ³⁶ There is also no doubt that her own feeling of literary inadequacy also influenced her use of sources. ³⁷ UEGW 153.2

Some sources relied upon by Ellen White included factual errors. This was rec-ognized in Ellen White’s day, as evidenced by revisions she made in 1911 to her earlier edition of The Great Controversy. The fundamental issue is whether Ellen White claimed infallibility or inerrancy in her writings, or in material she drew from the works of other authors. In actuality, she and her associates allowed for the possibility of errors, corrected statements shown to be inaccurate, and expressed that her writings were not to be treated “as authority regarding the details of history or historical dates” ³⁸ UEGW 153.3

Ellen White drew from at least one popular fictionalized account in her writing on the life of Christ.³⁹ In the Ellen White material he studied, Fred Veltman noted the mention of an extrabiblical incident that may draw on J. Ingraham’s work, Prince of the House of David. Veltman observed a resemblance to Ingraham’s account but cautioned that “further study is required before one may speak with certainty of Ellen White’s use of Ingraham here.” ⁴⁰ UEGW 153.4

There is no credible evidence that Ellen White’s literary assistants did the copying for her. This was one of the questions also answered by the Life of Christ Research Project, relating to The Desire of Ages. ⁴¹ Parallels found in her original handwritten drafts demonstrate that Ellen White herself incorporated material from those sources. UEGW 154.1

Any discussion of Ellen White’s use of sources is incomplete if it does not also examine how she used those sources. This involves not only a comparison between her adaptations and the source documents, but also her selectivity in the material she did not include from those sources. ⁴² One study showed how Ellen White used the language of another author while making theological assertions sharply divergent from those of that author. ⁴³ Particularly in the transitory and often contradictory literature presenting medical and health opinions, Ellen White demonstrated remarkable selectivity, ⁴⁴ giving additional evidence that her borrowing was guided by her own purposes. UEGW 154.2

Ellen White’s copying is less than alleged by her critics. Estimates that 80 or 90 percent of her material is copied from other authors are wildly exaggerated and unsupported by the facts. Currently documented parallels put a percentage estimate in the low single digits when compared to her total literary output. ⁴⁵ UEGW 154.3