Chapter 5 - Example B
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The  Bible vs. EGW  Charge

 


The point we wish to illustrate.

Ellen White's critics have brought together an amazing amount of evidence.  It so rich, and so varied, that when you read it you feel that in these thousands of pages must surely be found every worthwhile evidence possible against her inspiration.  But the truth is that this mountain of evidence is just a part of what could be given.  In fact, the more you examine the matter the more you come to see that what the critics have given hitherto is but a part of what could be given, for Ellen White was so devoid of inspiration that evidences of her non-inspiration are nearly endless.  The proof of this is readily available: a person need but take almost any evidence, presented by a critic against  Ellen White's claims to inspiration, and go and examine the writings for himself.  What the person will almost invariably find is that the critic has given only part of something larger and far more damaging.

To illustrate this point I offer my own experience with the charge that the Ellen White writings are not in full harmony with the data of the Bible.

In 1990, I and Mrs. Phyllis Watson produced a paper called The Bible and Ellen G. White, which gave instance after instance of asking a question and giving it one answer with a Bible text and giving it an opposite answer with an Ellen White statement.  This made a powerful presentation, for Ellen White herself had said that if ever her writings were found to be in conflict with the Bible, her claims should be forthwith set aside.  And here, conveniently brought together, were 40 such instances where Ellen White had plainly enough contradicted the Bible.

Canright and Ballenger will be searched in vain for a similar list, and a reader might be readily forgiven if he supposes that 40 gives just about every possible instance where the Bible says one thing and Ellen White says another.

But here is my point: If you go looking, you discover that 40 is just the beginning. 

In 1995 Mrs. Phyllis Watson on her coast, and I on mine, went looking for further instances of the Bible vs EGW.  Between us we produced The Bible and Ellen G. White, Series II, which gave 60 new ones.

About this same time, Sydney Cleveland came out with his White-washed (highly recommended; you can visit Sydney at xxx and find there how to order a copy).  Sydney had gone looking and among some by-now familiar ones gave a bunch I'd not seen before -- including some of the choicest onest yet.

*  *

Was Ellen White divinely inspired? 

The critics say No, in support which they offer mountains of evidence: a collected body of evidence so large that it would seem to comprise, in the ledger against her inspiration everything possible.  But if you examine her writings for yourself, you see this isn't so.  Around and beyond those mountains there are many mountains more.  Ellen White was so thoroughly uninspired that there will be newly-brought-forth evidences of her non-inspiration for years to come.  To cite just one example: the known instances of EGW-versus-Scripture just expands and expands, as the following sequence of papers will show.



Contradictions

Some further contradictions

Yet further contradictions

Even yet further contradictions

The Master List

                   (All the above, brought
                   together in one collection.)

 

 

 

 





101  Contradictions

between  Scripture

and

Ellen G. White

 

 

Gary Gent
 
--
 
Phyllis Watson

 

 

 


Study ... the testimonies God has given; for they never contradict His Word.
           Selected Messages,
           Volume 3, page 32.

In her numerous books, there is not one statement, one word, that is contrary to   ... Holy Scripture.
           Carlyle B. Haynes
           The Gift of Prophecy

 


[1]   Was Adam deceived?

Adam also was deceived.
                         4SP 352
Adam was not deceived.
                    1 Timothy 2:14 RSV
[2]   Did Eve wander from her
        husband's side?

Eve wandered away from the side of her husband, and was gazing with mingled curiosity and delight upon the fruit of the forbidden tree...   She ate and ... took the fruit and found her husband.
                    3 SG 44
When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food ... she took some and ate it.  She also gave some to her husband, who was with her ...
Genesis 3:6  NIV
[3]   Before their fall, were Adam and Eve
        covered with anything?
They were clothed with a covering of light...   While they lived in obedience to God, this circle of light enshrouded them.
3 SG 34

Immediately the covering of light about them disappeared...
3 SG 43

 The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.
Genesis 2:25   NIV

Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked...
Genesis 3:7   NIV
[4]   Where was the forbidden tree located?

The plan of salvation was so arranged that when Adam was tested,  temptation was removed from him as far as possible.
1 SDABC 1084
In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Genesis 2:9   NIV
[5]   Does the plan of salvation
      date from the fall?

... the plan of salation, dating from the fall of Adam ...
1 SM 231

immediately after the fall of man ... a plan was devised.
GC 347
...the hope of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time.
Titus 1:2   NIV

[Christ] was chosen before the creation of the world ...
1 Peter 1:20   NIV
[6]   Were species not created by God
        produced by amalgamation?

The confused species which God did not create ... were the result of amalgamation...  Since the flood there has been amalgamation of man and beast, as may be seen in the almost endless varieties of species...
3 SG 75
And God said, "Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds; livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind."  And it was so.
Genesis 1:24   NIV
[7]   How many of each kind of clean beast
        went into the ark?

Seven

[The unclean beasts came] two and two, male and female, and clean beasts by sevens.
3 SG 67
Fourteen

Then the Lord said to Noah, "...Take with you seven pairs of all clean animals, the male and his mate."
Genesis 7:1-2   RSV
[8]   How many of each kind of bird
        went into the ark?

Two if clean, seven if unclean

[Birds of every description] came fling to the ark, two and two, male and female, and the clean birds by sevens.
3 SG 67
Fourteen of every kind

"...and seven pairs of the birds of the air."
Genesis 7:3   RSV


Unlike with the beasts, no dis- tinction is made between clean and birds.
[9]   Were some kinds of animals
        not taken into the ark?

Every species of animals which God had created was preserved in the ark.  The confused species ... were destroyed [not taken in].
3 SG 15
And God said to Noah, "... every living thing of all flesh you shall bring ... into the ark."
Genesis 6:13,19   RSV
[10]   After Noah and his family had entered the ark
          when did the rains begin?
Upon the eighth day

For seven days these animals were coming into the ark...
        Everything was now ready for the closing of the ark...  [An angel] closes that massive outer door, and then takes his course upward to Heaven again.  Seven days were the family of Noah in the ark before the rain began to descend...  these were days of blasphemous merriment by the unbelieving multitude....  But upon the eighth day the heavens gathered blackness....  The rain descended...
3 SG 68-69

 

Ellen White thought there were two seven-day periods: one seven-day period in which the animals entered, followed by a seven-day period to test Noah's faith.  The Bible mentions only one seven-day period, and in fact rules out a second.

 On the very same day

        Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters came upon the earth.  And Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons' wives with him went into the ark, to escape the waters of the flood.  [The animals] ... went into the ark with Noah, as God had commanded Noah.  And after seven days the waters of the flood came upon the earth.
        In the six hundredth year of Noahs life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of heaven were opened.... On the very same day Noah and his sons, Shem and Ham and Japheth, and Noah's wife and the three wives of his sons with them entered the ark.
Genesis 7:6-13   RSV
[11]   Did everything outside the ark die?
God by his miraculous power preserved a few of the different kinds of trees and shrubs.
3 SG 77

 

 And God said unto Noah, "... Every thing that is in the earth shall die."
Genesis 6:13,17   RSV

He blotted out every living thing that was upon the face of the ground.
Genesis 7:23   RSV
[12]    After the flood, what meats were Noah and
          his family allowed to eat?
Now that every green thing had been destroyed, he allowed them [Noah's family] to eat the flesh of the clean beasts.
PP 107		 And God said to [Noah's family], "... Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you..."
Genesis 9:1,3   RSV
 
   
 
   
 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

 

(Some were rather amusing.  For instance, a page in Testimonies, volume 3, has Elijah by the brook Cherith and being brought food by angels.  Most of us probably knew the story by 1st or 2nd grade: the prophet Elijah hiding from Jezebel by the brook Cherith and being brought food by the ravens.)

And of course Sydney's collection plus the Bible and EGW collection scarcely began to give an idea of how frequently the Ellen White writings do not harmonize with the Bible.  (On the other hand, you do see how the known and pointed-out : 24 became 40 and then ~60.)

 

 

could either apply to EGW the text that she so loved to use on everyone else ("To the law and to the testimony..."), or pretend that the paper offered no real problem, because EGW and the Bible can be made to harmonize by a resort to a convoluted morass of Nichol-style apologetics.