Epilepsy Allegation Not New
There is nothing new to the allegation that a prophet’s visions were due to some form of epilepsy. Critics of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries have claimed that the visions of the Bible prophets were epileptic seizures. As recently as 1970 Kenneth Dewhurst and A. W. Beard claimed that Paul’s vision on the road to Damascus was due to “temporal lobe epilepsy…” ViOSe 6.1
With respect to the latter allegation, those who accept the evidence in the biblical accounts reject this suggestion for the simple reason that Paul was not the only one who experienced what happened that day. Those who were with him saw a light, they all fell to the ground, they all heard a voice (see Acts 9:3-7; 22:6-9; 26:13, 14). This much is clear. If Paul had a seizure, then the entire group had seizures simultaneously. That this could have been the case is bizarre beyond belief—especially since to Paul the voice was an intelligible message to him, while to the others it was merely an unintelligible sound!ViOSe 6.2
If the vision of a Bible prophet can be attributed to temporal lobe epilepsy, it is not surprising that the same allegation should be made concerning Ellen White’s visions. During her lifetime, for instance, Dudley M. Canright, a Seventh-day Adventist minister who left the church, claimed that she had a “complication of hysteria, epilepsy, catalepsy, and ecstasy” and stated that her “visions were merely the result of her early misfortune.” ViOSe 6.3
Although Canright was a contemporary of Ellen White, he was not a physician; hence his claim will not be dealt with in this study. Hodder and Couperus, however, are physicians, so their claims will be considered.ViOSe 6.4
The purpose of this study is to determine if the allegations of these critics have any validity.ViOSe 7.1