Seven Facts About Ellen White’s Use of Sources
The following seven facts represent the consensus of Adventist scholarship over many years of research. While the research will continue as new information emerges, these facts remain as foundational pillars on Ellen White’s use of sources.GOP 323.1
1. Ellen White read extensively from Protestant religious authors of her day and legitimately borrowed language from these uninspired sources.GOP 323.2
Although it is a long-established fact that Ellen White read widely, many Adventists have continued to believe that she received most of her insights from visions only. After all, she only had a third-grade formal education, rarely mentioned her reading, and credited God as the source of her messages. Additionally, there is a well-known picture of her gazing into the distance with pen in hand, as if she is writing down what God said to her. Through this picture, in which she is portrayed as a “producer rather than a consumer of books,” some Adventists may have gained the impression that she read very little. GOP 323.3
At the time of her death, however, Ellen White’s personal library contained about 1,300 volumes, composed mostly of authors who were outside of the Seventh-day Adventist community, a library that “would give pause to more than one scholar of her time, and even today.” That she read and derived material from many of these volumes and others is evident in the fact that she used at least 50 source works in writing The Desire of Ages. W. C. White explained that his mother “was a rapid reader” andGOP 323.4
admired the language in which other writers had presented to their readers the scenes which God had presented to her in vision, and she found it both a pleasure, and a convenience and an economy of time to use their language fully or in part in presenting those things which she knew through revelation, and which she wished to pass on to her readers. GOP 323.5
According to the Ramik study mentioned above, Ellen White’s use of the language from these “other writers” is considered “fair use,” the legal doctrine that defines legitimate literary borrowing as adapting or improving material from common or independent sources to a new purpose that makes an original contribution. Plagiarism, “copying or imitating the language, ideas, and thoughts of another author, while representing them as one’s original work,” does not apply to how Ellen White used her sources. Rather, she borrowed material from the sources she read and adapted it in such a way that the end product was unique and original. GOP 323.6
When judged by the standards of the nineteenth century, Ellen White’s use of sources was clearly within the ethical boundaries of literary borrowing. Adventist scholar of the twentieth century Raymond F. Cottrell examined 30 nineteenth-century commentaries on 1 Corinthians while editing the The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary and noted “the extent to which these nineteenth-century writers, many of them well known and respected, copied significant amounts of material from one another without once giving credit.” He “concluded that nineteenth-century literary ethics, even among the best writers, approved of, or at least did not seriously question, generous literary borrowing without giving credit.” Thus, in light of Ellen White’s literary borrowing, “it is not fair to a nineteenth-century writer to judge [him or her] by our standards today. We must judge them by their standards and [the] accepted practice of their own days.” GOP 324.1
Roger Coon believed Ellen White had a “philosophy of sacred composition” that nothing was totally original in the world and that Christ was the originating Creator and owner of all true ideas. Ellen White thus envisioned herself as the special agent, chosen by God, to convey these ancient truths in modern language. W. C. White and Dores E. Robinson explained this concept in their 1933 publication, Brief Statements:GOP 324.2
In her early experience when she was sorely distressed over the difficulty of putting into human language the revelations of truths that had been imparted to her, she was reminded of the fact that all wisdom and knowledge comes from God and she was assured that God would bestow grace and guidance. She was told that in the reading of religious books and journals, she would find precious gems of truth expressed in acceptable language, and that she would be given help from heaven to recognize them and to separate them from the rubbish of error with which she would sometimes find them associated. GOP 324.3
Coon also provided a summary of the practical reasons Ellen White borrowed material from others: (1) “to help her express well the ideas and truths revealed to her in vision”; (2) “to supplement details not given in vision”; (3) “to embellish the literary elements with beautiful gems of thought, for purpose of literary adornment”; (4) “to explain, adequately and meaningfully, Adventist doctrinal positions to her fellow church members”; and (5) “Ellen G. White’s literary borrowing just may have been a subconscious exercise of a possible photographic memory.” GOP 324.4
2. Ellen White was intentional in her use of sources.GOP 325.1
As noted above in the statement by W. C. White, Ellen White read from other authors and “found it both a pleasure, and a convenience and an economy of time to use” their language to help her express what she had seen in vision. She was thus conscious, deliberate, and alert in this “habit,” as her son called it, “of using parts of sentences found in the writings of others and filling in a part of her own composition.” In her original handwritten manuscripts, for example, “quotation marks are used” and “in other cases they were not used.” As Fred Veltman concluded in his Desire of Ages source study, Ellen White used her sources “consciously and intentionally,” and the “literary parallels were not the result of accident or ‘photographic memory.’ ” The fact that she did not give the authors she used credit relates to the legal issue noted above and to the ethical issue to be discussed below.GOP 325.2
Ellen White’s intentionality in using sources can be described as theologically astute. The classic example of this is the way in which she used the theological writings of Calvin Stowe to express her understanding of inspiration. In drawing words and phrases from Stowe’s Origin and History of the Books of the Bible, Ellen White left out certain key phrases that differed from her understanding of inspiration. For example, Stowe had written: “It is not the words of the Bible that were inspired, it is not the thoughts of the Bible that were inspired; it is the men who wrote the Bible that were inspired.” Ellen White wrote: “It is not the words of the Bible that are inspired, but the men that were inspired.” Notice that she left out the phrase “not the thoughts of the Bible that were inspired.” Contrary to Stowe, she believed that inspiration impacted the thoughts of the Bible writers. After careful analysis of Ellen White’s use of Stowe, Denis Fortin concludes: “It seems obvious from this example that she had Stowe’s text nearby when she wrote her own. Yet she did not mindlessly copy from Stowe but carefully weighed the concepts and understood the difference she wished to emphasize in her own understanding of the process of inspiration.” GOP 325.3
A helpful way to explain Ellen White’s intentional use of her sources is in the difference between reading-directed thinking and thinking-directed reading. In reading-directed thinking the reading primarily directs the thinking, as when a student studies a textbook for an exam. The information in the book, its ideas and factual data are in control of the reader’s mind. The student must know the contents of the book and accurately explain it on the exam. The experience is the same when anyone reads a book for information—the text of the book governs the thinking. Most Christians read the Bible this way since it is the Word of God. They want Scripture to control and direct their thinking. In thinking-directed reading, however, the reader’s thoughts and understanding are more in control and thus the thinking directs the reading. The reader writes his or her own thoughts about the text in the margins instead of only marking sentences of importance. Ultimately, the reader’s pre understanding and the book’s contents unite in a creative synthesis. But all the while, the reader has come to the text with a concept already in mind and the text is a mere catalyst for his or her creative ideas. Thus, the reader’s own ideas transcend the text.GOP 325.4
When Ellen White read her sources, she was not dependent on them for getting information and ideas as in reading-directed thinking. Rather, she came to her sources with a pre understanding as in thinking-directed reading. As W. C. White and D. E. Robinson explained, when she came to a book, she was not “one void of the thoughts she wished to present, and consulting books for the purpose of finding themes upon which she might write. On the contrary, abundant light had been given her and she was looking for helpful and concise forms of expression and gems of truth tersely expressed.” Thus, her conscious mind was alert and in control as she interacted with her reading. With concepts and images already in mind, she read her sources and intentionally extracted useful literary expressions from them. At times the reading material sparked new avenues of thought and enabled her to express what she had seen in vision. In this manner Ellen White’s inspired understanding directed her reading and use of sources, creating something unique and original in the end.GOP 326.1
As W. C. White recalled:GOP 326.2
It was remarkable that in her reading and scanning of books that her mind was directed to the most helpful books and to the most helpful passages contained in those books. Occasionally she would mention to father, and in my presence, her experience in being led to examine a book which she had never looked into before, and her experience in opening it to certain passages that helped her in describing that which she had seen and wished to present. GOP 326.3
Such was the function of thinking-directed reading in Ellen White’s experience.GOP 326.4
3. The common knowledge Ellen White obtained from reading the Protestant religious authors was always subordinate to her inspired understanding.GOP 326.5
Common knowledge is that knowledge available to all people through life experience, reading, and research. Like their fellow human beings, the biblical prophets possessed this common knowledge and employed it in communicating what God had revealed to them. One example of this common knowledge is the biblical writers’ use of many extrabiblical sources, fragments of which can be found throughout Scripture. The prophets were obviously familiar with the writings of their day through reading and used this material in communicating their inspired messages.GOP 326.6
For example, Moses used Near Eastern laws in the ancient world as a framework to communicate God’s laws in such a way that people of that day could understand them; some of the psalms, proverbs, and parts of the Song of Songs used Egyptian literature to convey their inspired poetic messages; Luke used various historical records in writing his Gospel; and Paul cited pagan literature in getting his inspired points across to his readers. In Revelation John used language from a depiction of the Hellenistic goddess Hekate to describe the glorified Christ, but modified the language to portray Christ as usurping the authority of Hekate and all other natural or supernatural authority. In each case, as shown in the last example, the biblical writer’s inspired purpose transcended that of his source. GOP 327.1
The use of this common knowledge in the Bible, then, was always subordinate to the revealed truth God gave to the prophets. Their inspired understanding always controlled the way in which they utilized the common knowledge available to them. “Divinely revealed knowledge is of higher authority than common knowledge, but does not replace it; rather, it complements it. God does not usually reveal to humans supernaturally what He has given them ability to learn for themselves.” Thus in the process of inspiration, the Holy Spirit allowed the prophets to communicate the inspired message through human language and common knowledge without violating the revealed truth.GOP 327.2
With regard to how Ellen White used common knowledge in her writing, The Ellen G. White Encyclopedia provides a helpful summary:GOP 327.3
Ellen White did not claim the authority of a canonical prophet, but she did claim to be inspired by the same spirit in the same way as were the canonical prophets (see GC viii, x-xii). Yet in writing out what she had seen in vision, she did not hesitate to use ordinary human sources for supplemental details, illustrations, and other kinds of support (see 3SM 445465). In personal letters she amplified revealed counsel with facts received from common sources (1SM 38, 39). In expounding Scripture she used Bible dictionaries, chronologies, and other resources to expand her knowledge. In advocating health principles she utilized the writings of contemporary reformers and physicians (see, for example, HR, April 1871; HR, May 1871, HR, October 1871). In writing on historical subjects she consulted the histories, chronologies, and geographies available to her at the time, even sending assistants to search university libraries for needed information (6 Bio 308, 318, 319; 3SM 439, 440). Further, she was willing in later editions to revise historical details when other sources were shown to be more reliable than the ones she had used (3SM 445-465). Some alleged discrepancies she did not accept as discrepancies, but others she acknowledged and revised (see 6Bio 303-306). Such was the use of common knowledge in her writings. GOP 327.4
But like the Bible writers, the information Ellen White gained from uninspired common sources—reading, travel, life experiences, associations, and research—was always subordinate to the information she received by direct revelation. When reading from secondary sources in preparation for writing, her inspired understanding was controlling the process. She intentionally interacted with the material and modified it to fit this understanding, which was often quite different from that of the author from whom she borrowed. In some cases, according to W. C. White, she added to the material from which she read: “Many times in the reading of Hanna, Farrar, or Fleetwood, she would run on to a description of a scene which had been vividly presented to her, but forgotten, and which she was able to describe more in detail than that which she had read.” Such was the manner in which common knowledge operated in an inspired person.GOP 328.1
4. Ellen White’s use of language from uninspired authors to express her inspired thoughts was congruent with her understanding of how inspiration worked.GOP 328.2
Ellen White possessed an understanding of inspiration that was more holistic than verbal. When she wrote in her most significant theological statement on inspiration that “the writers of the Bible were God’s penmen, not His pen,” a statement that she borrowed and modified from Calvin Stowe, she placed the emphasis on the whole person (“penmen”) rather than on the words (“pen”). Thus, “it is not the words of the Bible that are inspired, but the men that were inspired.” The emphasis is on the whole person, “who, under the influence of the Holy Ghost, is imbued with thoughts.” But, she adds, the “words receive the impress of the individual mind.” That is, the “words” of the inspired person reflect his or her personality, education, and life experience. In this context, “the divine mind is diffused.” GOP 328.3
The word “diffused” meant that the Holy Spirit was “dispersed” and spread throughout the human mind. But not in a way that violated the human personality. Rather, “the divine mind and will is combined with the human mind and will” in such a way that “the utterances of the man are the word of God.” This understanding of inspiration focuses on the total personality of the prophets, rather than just their words or thoughts. Inspiration did reach the words of the biblical writers, but not in the same sense as taught in the mechanical, dictation view of inspiration. God met the biblical writers where they were at in their life experience, and the whole person was affected, which, except for the times God spoke directly, eliminated any rigid word control by the Holy Spirit in the process of inspiration. The end product of this unique combination of the human and the divine was “the word of God.”GOP 329.1
Described as “symphonic” and “whole-person” inspiration, this understanding embraces the multifaceted nature of inspired writing found in the Bible, which involved different modes or ways of communicating God’s revealed truth. These modes are found throughout Scripture, such as the theophanic mode (Ex. 3:1-5), the prophetic mode (Rev. 1:1-3), the verbal mode (Ex. 31:18), the historical/research mode (Luke 1:1-3), the wisdom mode (Eccl. 1:1, 12-14; 12:9-11), the poetic mode (Psalms); and the epistolary mode (New Testament epistles). Some of these different modes of the inspiration process are found in Ellen White’s writings. For example, when she wrote about heavenly scenes she had seen in vision, the theophanic mode was at work. In some rare instances, she used the verbal mode when quoting a heavenly messenger or angel. GOP 329.2
When Ellen White extracted useful information from a source she was reading and modified it to fit her inspired understanding, she was acting in accord with the historical/research mode of inspiration. As we noted earlier, she read widely and “admired the language in which other writers had presented to their readers the scenes which God had presented to her in vision.” She found it “an economy of time to use their language fully or in part in presenting those things which she knew through revelation, and which she wished to pass on to her readers.” Thus, knowing her limitations as a writer and feeling the weight of profound messages, Ellen White read thousands of pages to enrich how she expressed the divine concepts in her mind. To her, this was not a violation of the inspiration process. Whole-person inspiration, as she understood it, allowed the prophets “to use the expressions, literary figures, or phrases they have learned or read, in order to communicate the divine message that they have received.” GOP 329.3
5. Ellen White was honest in communicating her use of sources to her reading audience.GOP 330.1
Closely associated with her use of sources is the ethical issue of whether or not Ellen White attempted to hide or deny her literary borrowing. Robert W. Olson, former director of the White Estate, published an article in Ministry, February 1991, that examined “every currently known denial of the use of sources made by Ellen White herself,” and showed that when read in context, most of the denials presented no problem. Warren H. Johns also addressed this issue in Ministry, June 1982, by presenting five facts that there was “no attempt on the part of Ellen White to deceive or to cover up” her use of sources. A review of these facts is helpful.GOP 330.2
Fact 1 was the openness of W. C. White in explaining how God guided his mother in her reading of sources. Because she had related to him how the Lord guided her to the right sources that helped her in writing, W. C. White openly shared this insight in educating others on how she worked, as seen in statements already cited in this chapter. Thus, Johns asserted: “If there was an intent to deceive, why would God give His approval to her use of sources as well as provide specific instruction that she was to gather gems of truth from uninspired writers?” GOP 330.3
Fact 2: Ellen White on various occasions did her research in other sources “in full view of others.” She was even granted a writing room on the second floor of the brick Review and Herald, which contained a library from which she “made selection of books which she considered profitable to read.” If Ellen White was attempting to hide what she was doing, surely she would never have done her reading and research at a location subject to the peering eyes of fellow Adventists.” GOP 330.4
Fact 3 was the way in which Ellen White freely lent her books to others, “books that presumably she would need, sooner or later, in her research.” “It would seem inexplicable,” Johns reasoned, “for her to do so if she were attempting to conceal the fact of her borrowing from these very sources.” GOP 330.5
Fact 4: “Ellen White made no attempt to conceal from her helpers the fact that she relied upon available books for her research and writing.” While in Europe, for example, she wrote to her family in Battle Creek and requested they send her some histories of the Bible to use in her writing. GOP 331.1
Fact 5: “Ellen White recommended to the general Seventh-day Adventist Church membership the very books from which she was drawing selected material in writing her books and testimonies.” For example, in The Great Controversy she borrowed material from Merle D’Aubigne’s History of the Reformation, J. A. Wylie’s History of the Waldenses, and from Adventist authors, such as J. N. Andrews’ History of the Sabbath, Uriah Smith’s The Sanctuary and Its Cleansing, and her husband, James White’s Life of William Miller. These works were very familiar to Adventist audiences. Interestingly, before she published The Great Controversy, she recommended D’Aubigne’s books as a holiday gift for loved ones in the Review and Herald.GOP 331.2
W. J. Conybeare and J. S. Howson’s The Life and Epistles of St. Paul, which she borrowed from in writing her Sketches From the Life of Paul, was advertised in the Signs of the Times, February 22, 1883, with the following endorsement from Ellen White: “The Life of St. Paul, by Conybeare and Howson, I regard as a book of great merit, and one of rare usefulness to the earnest student of the New Testament history.” Denis Fortin correctly notes “the fact that her own book on the life of Paul was about to be released in June of that year is strong evidence that Ellen White made no attempt to hide from church members the obvious parallels between her work and that of Conybeare and Howson.” GOP 331.3
6. The amount of confirmed literary borrowing in Ellen White’s writings is a small percentage of her entire literary corpus.GOP 331.4
Researchers have carefully studied the ways in which Ellen White used her sources, particularly in the Life of Christ Research Project. According to Veltman, the research tool applied in the study was source analysis with the independent sentence as the unit of comparison between the major text and source texts with an earlier date. The range used was from a verbatim (sentences that duplicate exactly at least part of a sentence in a source) to loose paraphrase (sentences that echo the thought in a source) to independence (no parallel sentences with a source). GOP 331.5
“In respect to the degree of literary dependency” in The Desire of Ages, the study concluded:GOP 331.6
No instances of strict verbatim were found. Of the 2,624 sentence units of the Desire of Ages text studied, 20 (1.1 percent) were labeled as verbatim, and 183 (6.0 percent) were classified as strict paraphrase. A total of 823 of the 2,624 sentence units of the Desire of Ages text (31 percent) clearly exhibited some degree of dependency consisting of one parallel word or more. When the 1,612 independent sentences were factored in, the average level of dependency was 3.3, or just a little higher dependency than loose paraphrase. GOP 331.7
Of the borrowed material in Ellen White’s writings, evidence shows that she followed at times the storyline of other sources to flesh out the details of the “main outlines” that had been “made very clear and plain to her” in vision. For example, when writing on the life of Christ, she derived her storyline and some historical details from William Hanna’s Life of Christ and Frederick Farrar’s Life of Christ, and used Merle D’Aubigne’s History of the Reformation and J. A. Wylie’s History of the Waldenses to provide structure for her narrative in The Great Controversy. “The revelations which she had received enabled her to grip subjects regarding which she read in a vigorous way,” wrote W. C. White. “This enabled her to select and appropriate that which was true and to discard that which was erroneous or doubtful.” As such, the overall content represented her own unique understanding.GOP 332.1
Significantly, a study by Tim Poirier, vice director and archivist of the White Estate, demonstrates that at present the literary borrowing in Ellen White’s writings overall is a very small percentage. For years he has kept track of all literary parallels that critics and supporters have located or reported, and marked them in a set of volumes in his office (excluding The Desire of Ages because of the Veltman project). The study concludes that the total number of lines with literary parallels “presently known” and “evidenced by proper documentation” in Ellen White’s writings stand at less than 4 percent—quite different from the inflated percentages of the critics. GOP 332.2
7. Although several of Ellen White’s most beautifully expressed thoughts or literary gems were derived from other authors, she improved them and made them her own.GOP 332.3
A distinguishing feature in Ellen White’s use of sources is the literary gems in the writings of others that she borrowed and modified to suit her own personal end. “Mrs. White read such books as she considered would be helpful to her in acquiring skill in presenting in clear, forceful language the instruction she had to give,” according to W. C. White and D. E. Robinson. She had been given “abundant light” and “was looking for helpful and concise forms of expression and for gems of truth tersely expressed. This she did with the divine assurance that she would be guided in distinguishing the true from the false.” GOP 332.4
When she encountered these “literary gems tersely expressed” in the writings of other writers, Ellen White remembered them and probably jotted some down for later use, either in paraphrase or verbatim form. Like natural gems that needed “to be cut, polished, and set for their beauty to be appreciated,” explains Kevin Morgan, “these thought gems had to be corrected, reworked, and reset before she could use them.” And when she published these literary gems, they revealed her own modified form of the thought that had actually become her own.GOP 332.5