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Plagiarism: Difference between revisions
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Details of this plagiarized "prophecy" can be found in our article entitled "[[Don't Eat Eggs]]". | Details of this plagiarized "prophecy" can be found in our article entitled "[[Don't Eat Eggs]]". | ||
===Ellen White was also a plagiarist?=== | |||
The four techniques essential to the whitelie brand of super salesmanship are: (a) to play up anything unusual or mysterious about the one to be venerated, so that he or she becomes seen as at a supernatural level; (h) to exalt the acts and utterances to the virtuous and miraculous level, thus reinforcing the idea of the supernatural connection; (c) to deny access to information and records of the events and facts of the past; and (d) to buy time so as to get as far as possible from the point of living knowledge of the beginnings of the legend. | |||
According to Walter Rea, all four of these methods have been used by the Seventh Day Adventist Church, and are still being used, in the matter of Ellen White and what has been published under her name. | |||
He also stated: | |||
:''In the matter of Ellen White's super salesmanship (in relation to both the church and the public), it is becoming evident that she too wanted to encourage, if not demand, that others accept her value structure and lifestyle. In order to obtain this end, she came to believe and to teach others that what she said and wrote was necessary to do, because God wanted it that way. Others around her who shared those views (and indeed even gave her some of them) were willing to let the faithful believe that what she said and wrote were directly the ideas and ways given her by God. This stance gave her every utterance the authority it needed in order to be believed-despite mounting evidence (and the witness of some others) to the contrary. Those who lived by faith, and likewise by evidence to support that faith, began to discover that the white lie was inconsistent with the evidence. And when they made known that discover for their honest pains they were expelled and discredited by character assassination. | |||
:'...One reason is now clear why much of the information in the 1884 edition of The Great Controversy could not have been included in the earlier works of Ellen on the same subject (Spiritual Gifts, published 185864). James had not yet gotten around to copying it from J. N Andrews; so it was not available to Ellen at the time. The 1888 and 1911 editions of The Great Controversy went back to James White's compilation of doctrines and events and picked up even more of his findings and ideas. But never once was it suggested that the heart of Adventist doctrine-such as the three angels' worldwide message that the church had applied exclusively to the Adventists, the shut door that left everyone else out in the cold, the 2300 days, the seventy weeks, the sanctuary doctrine, the United States in prophecy, the "mark of the beast," the image to that beast-had all come out earlier in James White's Life Incidents. | |||
:''So striking was the copying done under the name of Ellen-and so sensitive is the information that the heart of Adventist theology and eschatology came, not from the visions of or revelations to Ellen, but from the pen of James sixteen years before Ellen wrote them out- that time should be spent examining the evidence in Life Incidents. | |||
:''Here it should be recalled that the four small volumes of Ellen's Spiritual Gifts (185864) were amplified to the four volumes of Ellen's The Spirit of Prophecy (187084) and then expanded to Ellen's The Great Controversy (1888 ea.) of the fivevolume Conflict of the Ages Series. Inasmuch as the earlier eight volumes are now again available in facsimile editions, anyone can examine all the books and note the progressive copy work through the years. Meanwhile, during those same years, the legend grew and grew and was "sold" and accepted that God had given Ellen exclusive and firsthand knowledge of his plans for the future events of the church and the world. | |||
:''Comparison shows that words, sentences, quotations, thoughts, ideas, structures, paragraphs, and even total pages were taken from James White's book to Ellen's book under a new title-with no blush of shame, no mention of her husband, no thanks to Uriah Smith and J. N. Andrews, for the hard work and theological insights of anyone. | |||
:''Unfortunately for James, he did not have the personal advantage of angels checking in and out on schedule with the firsthand information Ellen purported to have. Without any intermediary, he had to get his material from human sources. But he was equal to the task. Much of his material in Life Incidents was taken primarily from J. N. Andrews, whose book published in 1860, interestingly enough, was entitled The Three Messages of Revelation XIV, 612, and particularly The Third Angel's Message and The Two Horned Beast. James, unlike his wife Ellen, did not even bother to paraphrase-he just took the material from Andrews wholesale into his work. | |||
:''Nothing has been released from the White Estate as to how Andrews or Uriah Smith felt about all this "taking" in the name of God. Perhaps the fact that they were brothers-in-law, both assisting in the editorial work of the Review, both personal friends of the Whites-and thus able to sit around the same table to finalize their views-might have softened the pain of Ellen's copy work. One might be tempted to think that Ellen set the pattern and James may not have given much thought to doing the same thing. Of course, there was in fact no excuse for anyone not to give thought-especially in view of the statement published in an 1864 issue of the Review under the heading "Plagiarism": | |||
This is a word that is used to signify "literary theft," or taking the productions or another and passing them off as one s own.... We are perfectly willing that pieces from the Review, or any of our books should be published to any extent, and all we ask is, that simple justice be done us, by due credit being given. 15 | |||
:''Examination reveals that the 1860 book of J. N. Andrews was an exact replay of his own 185155 articles in the Review. Thus James and Ellen had available for their perusal and use after 1855 the content and form of Andrew's work for incorporation in their own work: Spiritual Gifts (185864); Life Incidents (1868); The Spirit of Prophecy (187084); Sketches of. . . William Miller (1875); The Great Controversy (1888). | |||
:''This information may or may not disturb those who now say that the group of pioneers sat around the table and worked out in conjunction with Ellen their ideas and theology. But it does indeed disturb those who were taught that such ideas and theology originated with greater authority and mystique than the common ideas of human endeavor seem to command.<ref>Ellen G. White, Prophet? or Plagiarist!, The White Lie! By Walter T. Rea</ref> | |||
==William Sowders== | ==William Sowders== | ||