ellen g. white's writer skills summarized basic draft

Ellen G. White’s Writer Skills Summarized 1

Ellen G. White’s Writer Skills Summarized

Eduard C. Hanganu

B.A., M.A., Linguistics

Lecturer in English, UE

Draft 5

Revised – January 11, 2015

© 2015


Ellen G. White Writer Skills Summarized

There should be no doubt that Ellen White could not and did not author the books that

were published in her name, for which she claimed to have a divine source, and for which she

took credit, because:

1. In the first place, her claimed books were not original. Sentences, paragraphs, and chapters

were plagiarized from different sources and afterwards compiled into “new” books that were

published and credited to her name. States Rea:

My four complete manuscripts on Great Controversy, Acts of the Apostles,

and Prophets and Kings and Desire of Ages prove beyond any reasonable

doubt that far more than 80 percent of the material enclosed within the

covers of these books was taken from other authors, and that if there had

been no other authors to copy, these four books could not have been

produced with the information they now contain In the last year with the

additional work done line by line page by page and chapter by chapter, it is

now certain that if every sentence was footnoted as should have been from

the beginning, every page would have been proof that all the material came

from the books of Ellen White’s library[emphasis added]..

All of this material which is now available to anyone wishing to find out truth for themselves, has been and

will be seen by Adventist and non-Adventist throughout the world by the thousands. The material does not

claim to be exhaustive in the research, but new findings will only add to the proof of how Ellen White used


others material to make her claims that all of it came from GOD. While what material has been found only

deals with a small fraction of the copy work of the life work of Ellen White, what has been discovered does

clearly reveal many things. Some of the conclusions that now have to be faced and still are not being faced

by the church leaders are:

a. That very little if anything in the Conflict Series came from Mrs. White or

her visions that was significant, and had not been expressed by others often

in the language she claimed was given her by God or His angels [emphasis

added].

b. That not only the words, thoughts, form, expressions, Bible texts, but the

speculations, suppositions, imaginations, and conjectures of others writers

became divine absolutes by carefully calculated and deliberate design

through the pen of Ellen White [emphasis added].

c. That in no way can the book Great Controversy as it was conceived and

written by others before Ellen White, be considered a divine revelation of

the future but only a weak apology or justification for the failures of the

Millerite and early Adventist movement [emphasis added].

d. The manuscripts make positive that most if not all the criticism of the pen

of Mrs. White and her work had some validity, and that those [sic!] criticism

must now be given new attention and new answers in the light of the new

discoveries [emphasis added].


e. It has been undeniably proven that much of what reached the final stage in

the Conflict Series did not come through the pen, inspiration, or work of

Ellen White alone, but was given its final form, beauty and intelligence by

the effort, skills, and expertise of others, and that Mrs. White did not always

supervise or have the final words of what was drafted under her name Others

had enormous latitude and authority to make changes that were often vital

and significant. There is no way the church can prove that those five books

were the sole genius of Mrs. White’s effort or that GOD helped her write

them. The church has also admitted that the original manuscripts have been

destroyed [emphasis added].1

2. In the second place, because Ellen White’s writing style was illiterate and incoherent, the

authorial “consistency” Ellen White could have provided for the books published in her name

would have made impossible their publication.

There is no argument that the five books in the “Conflict Series” that were published

under Ellen White’s name and for which she took credit demonstrate a CONSISTENT

LYTERARY STYLE, but whose writer’s style was reflected in those volumes if more than 80

% of the content in the five books [emphasis added], Patriarchs and Prophets, Prophets

and Kings, The Desire of Ages, Acts of the Apostles, and The Great Controversy, was plagiarized

from other books? Ellen White’s illiterate writing style? To claim that the stolen books reflect

her incoherent and inept style would indicate either sheer ignorance or blatant deception.


The simple explanation for consistent text productions in Ellen White’s published works

must be that the same “secretaries” or “editorial assistants” compiled the five volumes in the

“Conflict Series,” and therefore insured a consistent and invariable textual style through all her

books. There were two “secretaries” or “editorial assistants” who spent almost all their lives in

Ellen White’s ghost writer book shop, Marian Davis and Frances Bolton. Marian Davis worked

for Ellen White for 25 years, while Frances Bolton labored hard in Ellen White’s book shop, with

some interruptions, also for a long period of time.2 Between the two of them, these ghost writers

could have provided a consistent style in the books Ellen White took credit for.

While Ellen White herself could have copied, that is, plagiarized, in coarse and illiterate

longhand the sentences, paragraphs, and chapters used in the books for which she took credit, her

scribbles still needed to be edited and formatted for the press. We must never forget that Ellen

Write was illiterate, that is, could not write in a legible and coherent form, and did not have the

skills required to prepare a manuscript for publication. The bare fundamentals of her writing

style are as follows:

1. She acknowledge that she “[was] not a scholar,”3 and, therefore,

2. She could not “prepare [her] own writings for the press,”4

3. “Her knowledge of the technical rules of writing was [therefore] limited.5

4. She had “weaknesses in composition and faulty grammar.”6

5. Her texts contained “needless repetition”7

6. “She paid little attention to the rules of punctuation, capitalization, and

spelling,” 8


7. “There was much repetition and faulty grammatical construction [in her

paragraphs].”9

8. Because she used “helpers,” she devoted less and less attention to style,

grammar, and penmanship [emphasis added] and her writing skills regressed with time.10

9. “Some of [Ellen White’s] writing seems to be a rush and tumble of words,

as though the writer’s thoughts were flooding ahead of her pen [emphasis added].”11

10. “[Her] Sentences [were] chaotic [emphasis added]”12

11. “[Her] Punctuation [was] erratic [emphasis added]”13

12. “[Her] Quotations [were] inexact [emphasis added]”14

13. “[Her] Meanings [were] obscure [emphasis added].”15

Conclusion

The books Ellen White claimed to have written based on visions or angelic dictations and

that were published and credited in her name could not have been her production because (1)

their content had been plagiarized to the largest degree and there was nothing original in those

books for which Ellen White could have claimed ownership, and because (2) Ellen White’s

illiterate and inept writer (non)skills would not have allowed her to prepare the books for the

press. Those who edited the plagiarized pages and integrated them into literate, coherent, and

“original” texts that could be sent to the press and published were the little known or invisible

“editorial assistants” or “helpers” who never received credit for writing the books released under

Ellen White’s name.


References

1Walter T. Rea. (2002, September 14), EGW: The Continuing Saga, San Diego Adventist Forum,

pages 4-5.

2Jerry Moon (2004), “Ellen G. White’s Use of Literary Assistants.” Retrieved December 30,

2014 from www.andrews.edu/~jmoon/Documents/.../03.pdf, 6.

3The White Estate. MR No. 657-E. G. White Not a Grammarian. Manuscript Releases Volume

Eight [NOS. 526-663], page 448. Retrieved on December 30, 2014 from

http://text.egwwritings.org/publication.php?pubtype=Book&bookCode=8MR&pagenumber=448

4The White Estate. MR No. 657-E. G. White Not a Grammarian. Manuscript Releases Volume

Eight [NOS. 526-663], page 448. Retrieved on December 30, 2014 from

http://text.egwwritings.org/publication.php?pubtype=Book&bookCode=8MR&pagenumber=448

5Arthur L. White, Ellen G White Messenger to the Remnant (Ellen G White Publications, 1956),

67-69.

6Idem.

7Idem.

8Idem.

9Idem.

10Ronald D. Graybill, The Power of Prophecy: Ellen G. White and the Women Religious

Founders of the Nineteen Century (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). (Baltimore, Maryland:

Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983), 191-192.

11Idem.


12Idem.

13Idem.

14Idem.

15Idem.