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The Gift of Prophecy

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    Chapter 16 — Ellen G. White’s Use of Scripture

    Frank M. Hasel

    It has been aptly stated that Ellen G. White “is the most prolific, most published and most influential author” in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. 1Arthur Patrick, “Learning From Ellen White’s Perception and Use of Scripture: Toward an Adventist Hermeneutic for the Twenty-First Century,” in Ross Cole and Paul Petersen, eds., Hermeneutics, Intertextuality, and the Contemporary Meaning of Scripture (Adelaide, Australia: Avondale Academic Press, 2014), 117. Her voluminous work is immersed in biblical thought, and what she wrote is highly indebted to Scripture. 2According to Raymond F. Cottrell, “the writings of Ellen White are as thoroughly permeated with Scripture as the air is with oxygen” (Raymond F. Cottrell, “Ellen G. White’s Evaluation and Use of the Bible,” in Gordon M. Hyde, ed., A Symposium on Biblical Hermeneutics, Biblical Research Committee (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald®, 1974), 145. Even a casual reader of Ellen G. White’s writings notices how frequently and profusely she refers to the Bible. She not only uses the Bible copiously; her thoughts abound with biblical imagery, and her writings often echo biblical language and ideas. 3Even progressive Adventists acknowledge that “whatever the subject, she thought—and wrote—in the language and thought forms of Scripture” (ibid.) and in a similar manner Fritz Guy, who states that Ellen White “was and continues to be the agent and servant of scripture; her function all along has been to call attention to it. This she did in her early day of Adventist Christianity and throughout her ministry” (Fritz Guy, Thinking Theologically: Adventist Christianity and the Interpretation of Faith [Berrien Springs, Mich.: Andrews University Press, 1999], 124). This is reflected in a variety of different ways as she uses the Bible. 4Ellen G. White never had an official training in the biblical languages (Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic) or in theology. Yet at the time of her death her personal and office libraries comprised some 1,400 volumes (cf. Arthur Patrick, “Author,” in Terrie Dopp Aamondt, Gary Land, and Ronald L. Numbers, eds., Ellen Harmon White: American Prophet [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014], 96). She was conversant with a variety of theological literature and even had a Greek grammar in her private library (see Ron Graybill, “Ellen White as a Reader and Writer,” Insight, May 19, 1981, 10). For Ellen G. White the King James Version (KJV) seems to have been the Bible translation she used most often. However, she felt free to use other available English Bible translations. She preferred the American Revised Version and did use it in volume 8 of the Testimonies and other places. This practice does not confirm the estimate of some that “she depended on the King James Version” in her use of Scripture (so recently Fritz Guy, “Theology,” in Aamodt, Land, and Numbers, 156). Rather, “unlike some of her most ardent supporters at the present time, she welcomed translation initiatives that improved upon the delivery of God’s Word through the King James Version” (Patrick, 122; see also Frank M. Hasel, “Ellen G. White and Creationism: How to Deal With Her Statements on Creation and Evolution: Implications and Prospects,” Journal of the Adventist Theological Society 17, no. 1 [2006]: 229-244, esp. 232, 233, note 9, where the differences between the KJV and Ellen G. White are discussed with regard to the age of the earth). From what we know she did not continue to use the American Revised Version, not because of any inferiority to the KJV but out of respect and “deference to those readers who might be perplexed by its use” (see W. C. White to L. E. Froom, Jan. 26, 1931, available at the White Estate Digital Resource Center [hereinafter WEDRC], http://drc.whiteestate.org/read.php?id=132692 [accessed May 25, 2015]; cf. also the other documents available on this issue in the WEDRC). In this paper we will examine her treatment and use of Scripture as evidenced in numerous instances in her published work.GOP 301.1

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