24. Ellen White's works are largely plagiarized, with one book withdrawn under the threat of a lawsuit. It cannot be proven that more than 20 percent of what Ellen White wrote was original with her.


Answer: Research has found that Ellen White enriched her writings with choice expressions from her reading, but the extent of verbal dependency that has been documented thus far is a small percentage (less than 2 percent) when measured against her total literary output. No lawsuit was ever threatened.


Resources:

Herbert E. Douglass, Messenger of the Lord, 1998, pp. 458-465.

Francis D. Nichol, Ellen G. White and Her Critics, 1951, pp. 429-458.

Originality is not the test of a prophet. Ever wonder how much of the Bible is copied from other sources? Lately scholars have relized that Hebrew was more common than thought in the first century, and instead of trying to translate the words of Jesus back into Aramaic, they are starting to translate the words of Jesus back into Hebrew. They are finding that Jesus quotes the Old Testament much more than we recognize in our translations, and he also quotes popular rabbis of his time more often than we are comfortable with. The accusation "In who's authority do you teach" means that he was not footnoting those he was quoteing.

We find the words of Revelation from pre-existing material that made it ito the Mishna, and also scenes from popular theatrical preformances of John's day.

We find Psalms and other words that we find in the Old Testament in cities that were distroyed long before Abraham.

As to Mrs. White, she had a choice at the start of her ministry, should she use the methods of scholarly work, or the methods of the popular Christian press. She choose the route of the popular Christian press, which did indeed copy freely from each other. The Review joined a coalitian of 1000 religious journals who's purpose was to send each other a free copy of their journal so that the writers of the journal could freely copy from each other.

Prophets are people too. Mrs. White claims that the framework of her teachings is what she got from visions, then she'd present it. She had a wonderful philosophical mind, and a wonderful ear for a good turned literary phrase. She did not have too much confidence in her own ablity to create a phrase that sounded pleasing to the ear, and other times she wanted just a running narative to what she next wanted to expand on, so she use other's for the narative or taking a phrase that she liked to express her views with.

According to Dr. Fred Veltman, chairman of the religion department of Pacific Union College (now retired I believe), "The content of D[esire of] A[ages] is for the most part derived rather than original;" and "Ellen White used a minimum of 23 sources, including fiction." (http://www.ellenwhite.org/egw40.htm) These were two of the unfavorable conclusions he came to after completing an 8-year-long analysis of her writings, commissioned by the church. In the interests of full disclosure, it should be noted that one of the five conclusions was favorable to her, though it was a shaded spin.

"... less than two percent?" Doubtful in the extreme.

Consider this as you evaluate their statements, Herb Douglass and F. D. Nichol are vested interests, favorable to EGW from the beginning. Their statements are merely consistent with their vesting. Veltman's statements are bolstered by the criterion of dissimilarity - even though he's biting the hand that feeds him, it's not because he's trying to distance himself or separate himself from that hand. For that reason, his should be given far more weight than theirs.

In 1990, Dr. Veltman postscripted his article in Ministry magazine:

Question: How do you harmonize Ellen White's use of sources with her statements to the contrary?

Veltman: I must admit at the start that in my judgment this is the most serious problem to be faced in connection with Ellen White's literary dependence [copying]. It strikes at the heart of her honesty, her integrity, and therefore her trustworthiness. As of now I do not have--nor, to my knowledge, does anyone else have--a satisfactory answer to this important question.

Regards,
Norm

Kevin H wrote: "As to Mrs. White, she had a choice at the start of her ministry, should she use the methods of scholarly work, or the methods of the popular Christian press. She choose the route of the popular Christian press, which did indeed copy freely from each other."

An editorial strongly opposed to plagiarism was published in the December 25, 1917, edition of the Adventist periodical Youth Instructor. It's wording was a scathing indictment of the practice - further, it was an indictment in her time from our own press. So while it's true she chose to use the methods if the popular Christian press, that does not mean she was left with a free hand to proceed wherever she wished. The extension of permission to copy freely among journals generally means that no fee or payment is required, not that attribution of the material is not expected.

Regards,
Norm

But Norm, according to my professors back at college, if you were to look up those journals you would see that the writers did copy from each other without attribution. This was a common in popular writing when Ellen Harmon started writing.

Also, the Bible is equally as guilty.

"... writers did copy ..." True, but ...

Then as now, Kevin, there's no accounting for the foibles of man, except to say this is a less than perfect world. All I can say is, read that article in the Youth's Instructor (or for that matter, W. W. Prescott or many others back then) and then tell me the contemporaries of EGW thought it was OK to plagiarize. I'm not trying to be disagreeable, just that I don't see how that argument can hold much water in light of these facts. If we are (and were) to uphold high standards in all that we do, how is it that suddenly standards no longer matter here? That doesn't make sense to me.

Regards,
Norm

The standards come as people come to the realization. The studies come from those who have studied literature from the 1800s. I have to admit most of my sources come from studies presented at Atlantic Union College and Andrews University, some at Loma Linda, I am plagerizing both religion and literature history professors here, as well as the findings of the copyright law firm which investigated the plagerism claim.

The inforation given was that in the time that Ellen Harmon began writing there was the scholarly style which gave references and footnotes, and the popular style where writers freely borrowed from others without giving references, that WAS the standard at the time.

Let me give you an example: I am in the military. For years to go on base all I needed was the base stickers, except for occasional times where the military ID was required. A few years ago it has become common to ALWAYS have the sticker and show the ID. This is very wise and increases Base security. Now if NORM were to complain about why I was not holding the high standard and increasing the safty of my fellow soldiers and airmen by always showing my military ID at the gate durring all the years I've been in, instead of only these past few years, what answer shall I give? There is no difference between these accusations about Mrs. White than complaining about me not showing the military ID at the gate 100% of the time for the past 19 years, as it is required to do 100% of the time these past few years.

After the standard changed, and the change was made known to Mrs. White (apparently there were some on Mrs. White's staff that felt they should not make suggestions to a prophet or expect God to tell them) she changed as well. Of course by that time she had written so much that she could not remember the earlier sources. May I remind you that W. W. Prescott was quite a bit younger than Mrs. White, so it was quite a bit later that he started in. He was also the most educated among her staff. He understood the issue about references and the change in the practice. After Mrs. White talked him out of being a Fundamentalist, he had the courage to inform Mrs. White that it was not longer just the scholarly writings that gave credit, but that the popular press had also stoped copying without giving credit. It was after learning this from Prescott that she then started to refer to the sources she used thereafter, and tried to look up for the past, althought much of the old material was used but the sources not found.

It is intersting that the Rabbis of Jesus' day gave references to other rabbis, and tended to quote Rabbis from their own school of thought. I've come across in several readings and classes that Jesus quoted from many of the Rabbis that were know in his day (quotes he probably heard in Synogoge as a child) however he did not limit his quotes to only one school. In an Archaeology class from Hebrew University a Methodist archaeologest pointed out that the text where Jesus was asked about what was his authority for what he was saying, we western, historically ignorant people just think that it was so new and profound that Jesus was saying, but actually what they were doing was accusing him of plagerizing saying that he needed to give footnotes and tell who he was quoting (the authority).

Also, others have pointed out how the Bible does much copying from Genesis through Revelation, and by Revelation's day quotes that we find copied over into Revelation tended to be footnoted by Jews, but John did not footnote.

This thread correctly reveals three things

1) A significant portion [maybe as much as 20% in the case of some of the most popular books] of EGW's writings are very close to other pre-existing sources

2) EGW has substantial help in researching, writing, and editing these books

3) Apart from The Life Of Paul, I am unaware of the level of dependence being legally important

But none of these points is the major issue. The major issue is whether these writings should be used to establish a church doctrine, to be the main support for a doctrine, or to establish a required belief in the inspiration of the author.

The SDA church has already answered ALL of these in the negative. But the members keep on doing it. It is time for some serious education.

/Bevin

Dear Bevin,

I agree with you. You wrote:

Quote:

---

The major issue is whether these writings should be used to establish a church doctrine, to be the main support for a doctrine, or to establish a required belief in the inspiration of the author.

---

The reason I wrote, "If we are (and were) to uphold high standards in all that we do, how is it that suddenly standards no longer matter here?" is exactly to establish the basis for what you are pointing out.

The church talks about the importance of individual members conforming their behavior to highest of standards. They wax eloquent as they quote and explicate Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. Then we come to EGW, who clearly did not conform to high standards in what was supposedly the most important thing she did. Regardless of what contempory standards were in those days - "what others were doing", and this seems to be a dubious, tenuously supported apology - a prophet of the Lord should be held to and meet the very highest possible standards of behavior, particularly as she functions in what the church claims was her office as God's inspired spokesperson. And doing that, both defining and meeting those high standards, most probably without prompting from those around her. After all, she was the one busily prompting them because of her supposed inside, direct line to God. She did not. Yet we take this flawed product of hers and try to make it the basis for critical doctrine and belief.

No matter how they dance to that tune, how can they make of it something it is not? I don't know.

I can't.

Regards,
Norm