The Desire of Wages
Appendix D - Error Tables
by Dirk Anderson
Part Three of this book set out the mistakes in The Desire of Ages: the ones copied from other writers, the ones that contradict the Gospels, and the ones that defy history or present legend as revelation. This appendix lists them in tables, with the page in the 1898 book, the evidence against it, and the chapter where it is discussed. A last table lists further items from our page-by-page scan of all 87 chapters that were not discussed in the text.
The scan rated each item by whether it would survive a well-informed SDA reply. Only items rated strong or moderate-to-strong were used in the chapters. Many weaker items, mostly invented color, were left out.
Mistakes Traced to a Copied Source
| DA page | The mistake | The evidence | Copied from | Chapter |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 75 | A boy became a “son of the law” at twelve, “and also a son of God” | Mishnah Avot 5:21: thirteen | Geikie | 12 |
| 448–449 | Water for the feast drawn from the Kedron | Mishnah Sukkah 4:9: Siloam | March, Hanna | 8, 9 |
| 552 | Jericho “anciently set apart for the priests” | Joshua 21: not a priests’ city | Farrar | 9 |
| 606–607 | The lawyer asked “which of the ten precepts” | Matthew 22:36; Jesus answered from Deut. 6:5 and Lev. 19:18 | Cumming | 11 |
| 619 | Zacharias’s blood stained the stones “as long as the temple should stand” | A Talmudic legend ending at the first temple’s fall | Alford | 11 |
| 627 | Part of the temple wall withstood Nebuchadnezzar | 2 Kings 25:9–10; Herod’s rebuilding | Jamieson, Fausset and Brown | 11 |
| 699 | Jewish rules held a man “innocent until proved guilty” | A Western legal maxim | Farrar | 9 |
| 708–709 | The high priest could never tear his garments; tearing at blasphemy a “man-made law” | Lev. 10:6; 21:10 (mourning); 2 Kings 18:37; 19:1; Acts 14:14 | Clarke, Barnes, Geikie, Cumming | 10, 11, 12 |
| 715 | Roman officers object to condemning a man “upon his own testimony” | A nineteenth-century legal argument (Dupin) | Hanna’s footnote | 14 |
| 722 | Judas’s body found under a tree, torn by dogs | Matt. 27:5; Acts 1:18 | Ingraham | 7 |
| 731 (1878) | Herod has Jesus crowned with thorns | All four Gospels: Pilate’s soldiers | Ingraham | 7 |
| 733 | Barabbas a false messiah who worked satanic wonders | Matt. 27:16; Mark 15:7; John 18:40 | Krummacher | 12 |
| 733 | The release custom “of pagan invention” | John 18:39, “ye have a custom” | Lange, Clarke | 11 |
| 738 | Pilate asks Jesus to forgive him | Matt. 27:24 | Ingraham | 7 |
| 744 | Mary carried away from the cross before the nails | John 19:25–27 | Ingraham | 7 |
| 750 | Jesus on the cross hears the words of Luke 24:21 | Spoken on the Emmaus road two days later | Hanna | 8 |
| 754–755 | Lightning hurled at the cross | Matt. 27:45: darkness only | Ingraham | 7 |
| 756–757 | The crowd sees the most holy place as the veil tears | Heb. 9:2–3: the veil was inside the temple | Henry, Cumming, Hanna | 8, 11 |
| 772 | The priests spread the swoon theory and Docetism | Matt. 28:13: “stole him away” | Hanna | 8 |
| 772 | Jesus died of a broken heart | A medical theory of 1847 | Geikie (after Stroud) | 9 |
| 774–775 | The most holy place left open to every eye | Heb. 9:2–3 | Geikie | 9 |
| 499 | The Good Samaritan an “actual occurrence” | Luke 10:30 | Henry (the priest and Levite in the audience are White’s own) | 14 |
Contradictions of the Gospels
| DA page | What the book says | What the Bible says | Chapter |
|---|---|---|---|
| 63 | The wise men find Jesus in the manger | Matt. 2:11: “into the house” | 13 |
| 65 | The rabbis “unwilling” to name the birthplace | Matt. 2:5: they named it at once | 13 |
| 105 | Pharisees come for baptism | Luke 7:30: “being not baptized of him” | 13 |
| 119 / 434 | Jesus never worked a miracle in His own behalf; yet the coin in the fish “for Me and thee” | Matt. 17:27 | 13 |
| 149, 653 | Unfermented wine at Cana and the Supper | John 2:10; Luke 7:34; 1 Cor. 11:21 | 13 |
| 204 | Ban on kindling fire a rabbinic “senseless restriction” | Exod. 35:3 | 13 |
| 291 | Booths kept “for fifteen centuries” | Neh. 8:17 | 13 |
| 293–294 | Judas joins the Twelve “not summoned”; a scribe’s words given to him | Luke 6:13; John 6:70; Matt. 8:19 | 13 |
| 557–568 | Two anointings fused; three women made one | Luke 7:36–50; 8:2; 10:39; John 11:1–2 | 13 |
| 653–654 | The bread and cup before the betrayal announcement | Matt. 26:21–26; Mark 14:18–22 | 13 |
| 700 | Angels slew the Assyrians | 2 Kings 19:35: “the angel” | 13 |
| 721–722 | Judas returns the silver during the night trial and falls at Jesus’ feet | Matt. 27:1–5 | 13 |
| 731 | Roman soldiers at Herod’s court | Luke 23:11: “his men of war” | 13 |
| 738 | Caiaphas first cries “His blood be on us” | Matt. 27:25: “all the people” | 13 |
| 823–824 | Jesus taught that the sick brought disease on themselves | John 9:2–3 | 13 |
History, Legend and Invention
| DA page | What the book says | The record | Kind | Chapter |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 566 | Simon had seduced the woman | No text | Invention | 14 |
| 581, 703–704, 715 | Friendly Roman officers at the triumphal entry and the night trial | Mark 14:54, 65; John 18:18, 22 | Invention | 14 |
| 597–598 | The rejected cornerstone at Solomon’s temple an “actual occurrence” | 1 Kings 5–7; parallels the Mark Master legend | Legend | 14 |
| 632 | The signs of 1780 and 1833 mean the coming is certain within “this generation” | That generation has passed | Failed prediction | 14 |
| 706 (vs. 575) | The Romans rebuilt the temple | Josephus, Antiquities 15.11: Herod | History | 14 |
| 732 | Pilate’s wife sees the crucifixion and Second Coming in a dream | Matt. 27:19; grew from 1858 to 1898 | Legend | 14 |
| 738 | Pilate killed himself “not long after,” from remorse | Josephus, Antiquities 18.4; Eusebius 2.7 | Late tradition | 14 |
| 757 | The priest’s knife falls and the lamb escapes | No source found | Invention | 14 |
| 778 | A guard of one hundred soldiers | Matt. 27:65–66; Acts 12:4 | Invention (1878) | 14 |
| 802 | The Emmaus travelers enter by the eastern gate | Emmaus lay west of Jerusalem | Invention (1878) | 14 |
| 816 | Peter crucified upside down, thinking it too great an honor to die as Jesus did | Acts of Peter; Jerome | Catholic legend | 14 |
Further Items Not Discussed in the Chapters
| DA page | What the book says | The check |
|---|---|---|
| 99, 234 | Gabriel is the angel of Rev. 1:1 and stands “next in honor to the Son of God” | Revelation never names the angel |
| 103 | Shiloh was to come “before a king should cease to reign on David’s throne” | No Davidic king had reigned since 586 BC |
| 233, 830 | Baptism AD 27, crucifixion AD 31, and “thirty-three years” on earth | A Friday Passover fits AD 30 or 33, not 31; the figures do not agree with each other |
| 272–280, 342 | Matthew’s feast told twice, at two points in the chronology | Matt. 9:10–18; Mark 2; Luke 5 |
| 433 | Priests, Levites and prophets exempt from the temple tax | Mishnah Shekalim 1:3–4; no source exempts prophets |
| 487 | Elijah slew the false prophets at Carmel with fire | 1 Kings 18:38, 40; 2 Kings 1:10–12 |
| 526 | Lazarus still alive when the messenger returned | John 11:17, 39: four days in the grave |
| 739 | A “perpetual curse” on the Jews for 1,800 years | Ezek. 18:20; Rom. 11:1–2, 26 |
| 759 | “For four thousand years” before Christ | Ussher’s chronology |
| 773 | The crucified buried in a special Roman burial ground | Mishnah Sanhedrin 6:5: a Jewish court practice |
| 776 | Suspected lepers examined in the temple courts on the Sabbath of Passover week | Lev. 13:46; Num. 5:2–3; Mishnah Negaim 1:4 |
Several of these last items touch SDA doctrine (the seventy weeks, Gabriel, the chronology of the world) and were left out of the chapters for that reason, since this book is concerned with what the text says and where it came from, not with debating SDA beliefs. They are listed here for completeness.