Ellen G. White Prophet for Today?
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List of Criticisms Analyzed


Special Note

Borrowing from Conybeare and Howson: An Analysis   Back in 1919, Dudley Canright charged that Ellen White had plagiarized her 1883 book, Sketches from the Life of Paul, from a book by two British authors. He went so far as to claim that the authors had even threatened a lawsuit. Was there any truth in all of this? In this series of pages we examine the comparisons between the two books provided for us by critic Sydney Cleveland.

"Contradiction #1: Plan of Salvation 'Devised' After the Fall"   Ellen White apparently puts the "devising" of the plan of salvation both before Creation and after the fall. Our critic maintains that the "after the fall" statements contradict the Bible. We examine similar "after the fall" statements found in the Bible, as well as dictionary definitions for "devise."

"Contradiction #7: Tower of Babel before the Flood"   The claim is made that Ellen White contradicted the Bible when she allegedly said that the Tower of Babel was built before the Flood. In investigating this claim we did find a few discrepancies, but they were of a different sort than what the critic thought.

"Contradiction #15: Jesus Christ Not Truly God"   Ellen White stands accused of contradicting the Bible when she wrote that Jesus was "not the Lord God Almighty." The puzzling thing about this one, though, is that our critic forgot to quote the last half of the sentence. That omitted half changes the meaning of the sentence into something few Christians find heretical.

"Contradiction #23: Deity Did Not Die"   A critic thinks that Ellen White contradicted both herself and the Bible when she wrote, in harmony with most Trinitarians, that Christ's human nature, not His divine nature, died on Calvary. But we did find it a bit odd that this critic's web site on another page appears to endorse this very view.

"Contradiction #28: Satan Bears Our Sins"   This one concerns the scapegoat of Leviticus 16. Does the Bible teach that the scapegoat is Christ or Satan? Will Satan have to pay for the sins he has tempted others to commit? Do Ellen White's views on these questions contradict Scripture?

Dirk Anderson Nixes Plagiarism Charge   Dirk Anderson is one of Ellen White's most avid critics, and often accuses her of plagiarism. But we have uncovered evidence that he himself thinks that there is nothing wrong with plagiarism after all. For the benefit of his readership, we provide this information for their examination.

Dr. Charles Stewart's Unanswered Letter   A complaint we've seen more than once is that Ellen White never answered this man's 80-page letter. What do you think? Should she have?

"Ellen White Contradicted Herself by Wearing Jewelry"   One critic felt that this picture of Ellen White wearing a "chain" was the very best example of her contradicting herself. Our analysis of the picture, however, revealed a troubling problem: This picture is a fraud.

Ellen White Copied Her Chapter Titles from Edersheim . . . or Was It Vice Versa?   Ellen White has been accused of copying chapter titles for Patriarchs and Prophets from books by Alfred Edersheim. Yet since those same titles are found in books Ellen White wrote 12 years before Edersheim wrote his, one is left to wonder if this case of plagiarism might be the other way around. Take a look and see what you think.

"Ellen White Was Wrong About Who Changed the Sabbath"   Yes, it's true. Ellen White did teach that the popes changed the Sabbath, and that Constantine had some part to play in it. Since some critics beg to differ, we here evaluate from four different angles their criticisms in an effort to determine whether Ellen White was right or wrong.

Family Planning: a "Hypocritical Liar"?   One critic thinks Ellen White was a "hypocritical liar" when it came to family planning. After all, she had four sons "in rapid succession." Take a look at the facts and see if you agree.

Moody, Sankey, and the Shut Door   One critic wonders how Ellen White could teach the shut door, when so many were being converted in the crusades of Moody and Sankey. We took a look at a few resources on the lives of these great Christian evangelists, and were a bit amused at what we found.

"Mrs. White's Health Visions: Was it God? Or Dr. Jackson?"   Some claim that Ellen White got her health reform material from Dr. James C. Jackson instead of from vision. We examine the evidence here, and while we had difficulty confirming the claim, we did uncover a case of plagiarism of another sort.

"Myth #2: Mrs. White wrote Steps to Christ"   Critics charge that Fannie Bolton wrote Steps to Christ, "plagiarizing" from other Christian writers in the process. Using the information the critics themselves provide, discover for yourself the truth behind this one. See if you end up as surprised as we were.

"Myth #4: Lofted a Heavy Bible"   It has been suggested that the accounts of Mrs. White's supernaturally holding aloft an 18-pound Bible for an extended period are contradictory. We examine those accounts here, and come up with some rather surprising conclusions regarding their stated discrepancies.

"Myth #7: Received the Great Controversy in Vision"   Did H. L. Hastings' book inspire Ellen White's Great Controversy vision? Problem is that the critics forgot to verify that James White was even around when the book arrived in Battle Creek.

Plagiarized Pictures?   The allegation has been made that Mrs. White stole pictures from a book by Wylie to use in an 1886 edition of one of her own books, and that she even replaced the name of the original artist with that of "Pacific Press." Is there any truth in this allegation?

Was Desire of Ages plagiarized?   Some have claimed that Ellen White plagiarized in the writing of Desire of Ages. Is that true? In this article we take a detailed look at Walter Rea's original comparisons. We've color coded everything so that you can quickly size up exactly how much borrowing was done.

Special Note: It can be expected that some critics of Ellen White might frequent this section of our site, particularly those that we quote from, and modify some of their published charges against Ellen White to reflect the findings of our research. We are glad to be of service in this way.

Yet that does pose a problem for us. We cannot necessarily keep all our pages up to date to reflect every critic's current wording, especially if the current wording does not make clear the information we have uncovered. Moreover, the pages of some critics have been posted for years, and to silently remove or alter the charges to correct the errors does nothing to help stop the perpetuation of such errors by their readership.

Therefore for the above reasons, sometimes our quotes will reflect an earlier version of the charge rather than the current wording.


The above page was found at https://www.TruthOrFables.net/criticisms.htm on October 6, 2024.

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