Ellen White's Bible Omissions
By , last updated Dec.
Ellen White, Great Controversy, 521
Ellen G. White wrote more than nearly any religious figure in modern history, producing an estimated 25 million words under the claim of divine inspiration. Yet quantity does not guarantee fidelity. This article examines instances where she omitted portions of the Biblical text or outright ignored entire passages that conflicted with her teachings. In the end, what Ellen White left unsaid speaks louder than the millions of words she wrote.
Omission #1 - Desolation of the Earth
In the Great Controversy, Mrs. White describes the destruction of the wicked at the Second Coming of Christ, quoting from Isaiah 24 to make her point:
At the coming of Christ the wicked are blotted from the face of the whole earth—consumed with the spirit of His mouth and destroyed by the brightness of His glory. Christ takes His people to the City of God, and the earth is emptied of its inhabitants. 'Behold, the Lord maketh the earth empty, and maketh it waste, and turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof.' 'The land shall be utterly emptied, and utterly spoiled: for the Lord hath spoken this word.' 'Because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore hath the curse devoured the earth, and they that dwell therein are desolate: therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned.' Isaiah 24:1, 3, 5, 6.1
In the above quote, Isaiah 24:6 has been highlighted in bold. Notice below how the verse reads in the KJV Bible:
Therefore hath the curse devoured the earth, and they that dwell therein are desolate: therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men left.
Ellen White omitted a very important part of the verse: "and few men left." The reason it was omitted is because it contradicts the Seventh-day Adventist [SDA] doctrine that the entire earth is depopulated of all humans during the Millennium.
On the very same page, Mrs. White makes another omission, quoting two verses in Zechariah to prove her point about the total depopulation of the earth:
'And this shall be the plague wherewith the Lord will smite all the people that have fought against Jerusalem; Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall consume away in their holes, and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth. And it shall come to pass in that day, that a great tumult from the Lord shall be among them; and they shall lay hold everyone on the hand of his neighbor, and his hand shall rise up against the hand of his neighbor.' Zechariah 14:12, 13.
However, three verses later, the passage in Zechariah says that the nations of the earth are not totally annihilated. Zechariah explicitly teaches that people will be alive upon the earth during the Millennium:
And it shall come to pass, [that] every one that is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall even go up from year to year to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles (Zech. 14:16).
These examples demonstrate that Ellen White cunningly quoted partial verses to prove twisted SDA theology regarding the Millennium. Quoting the remaining portion shows the meaning to be quite the opposite.
Omission #2 - SDAs Cannot Eat Animal Fat
Mrs. White wrote in one testimony:
You have used the fat of animals which God in his word expressly forbids. 'It shall be a perpetual statute for your generations throughout all your dwellings, that ye eat neither fat nor blood.'2
In the above testimony, Mrs. White attempted to persuade a follower that the Bible forbids the eating of all animal fat by quoting from Leviticus 3:17—a passage giving directions to the Hebrew priests on how to treat the fat from sacrificed animals. The full Bible passage is as follows:
And he shall offer thereof his offering, [even] an offering made by fire unto the LORD; the fat that covereth the inwards, and all the fat that [is] upon the inwards, And the two kidneys, and the fat that [is] upon them, which [is] by the flanks, and the caul above the liver, with the kidneys, it shall he take away. And the priest shall burn them upon the altar: [it is] the food of the offering made by fire for a sweet savour: all the fat [is] the LORD'S. [It shall be] a perpetual statute for your generations throughout all your dwellings, that ye eat neither fat nor blood (Lev. 3:14-17).
This passage prohibits priests from eating of the fat and blood of sacrificed animals, but this prohibition only applies to sacrificed animals. H.C. Blanchard explains:
...neither the Jews, nor any other people, were ever prohibited from eating fat of animals, in a general sense. This verse clearly shows that it is the fat of the beasts of which men offer an offering made by fire unto the Lord. It is also clear that this prohibition did not extend to all animals, but only to such as were offered in sacrifice, and then only certain parts of the fat which was to be burned on the altar. To see that they were permitted to eat fat let us turn to Deut. 32:14, 'Butter of kine and milk of sheep, with fat of lambs, and rams of the breed of Bashan, and goats, with fat of kidneys of wheat; and thou didst drink the pure blood of the grape.' Again, Neh. 8:10: 'Then he said unto them, Go your way, eat the fat, drink the sweet,' &c. So it is clearly proved that the command that is here referred to as being violated is false, and the spirit that dictated this Testimony is false, and such as our Lord told us to beware of.3
Thus, Ellen White perverted the Word of God by seizing upon a passage of Scripture separated from its context.
Omission #3 - False Teachers Forbid Marriage and Eating Meat
One of the most important passages on the end-times is found in 1 Timothy 4:1-5. It is important because it helps Christians understand the nature of deceivers who would arise in the last days. Ellen White quotes from the first two verses of this passage about "seducing spirits and doctrines of demons" over 250 times in her writings. However, she never quotes verses 3-5. For example, notice below how she quotes the first two verses and then skips down to verse 6:
"Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their consciences seared with a hot iron. ..."If thou put the brethren in remembrances of these things, thou shalt be a good minister of Jesus Christ, nourished up in the words of faith and of good doctrine, whereunto thou hast attained." [1 Timothy 4:1, 2, 6.]4
Mrs. White uses ellipses to erase verses 3-5. Not just here. In the hundreds of times she quoted this passage, she never quoted verses 3-5. Why not? The heart of the message is found in these verses. They explain the identifying marks of demonic doctrines. Why did she consistently omit these verses from her writing?
1st Timothy 4:3-5 explains the doctrines of demons:
3 - Forbidding to marry, [and commanding] to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth.
4 - For every creature of God [is] good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving:
5 - For it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.
Why were these verses omitted from her 25 million words? Because the Holy Spirit was warning Christians about false teachers like her!
Forbidding Marriage
Many SDAs are shocked to discover that Mrs. White discouraged marriage in a variety of cases:
- Students in school (YI 9-10-1899)
- When one partner was ill (SA 107)
- When one partner was aged (TSBA, 36-37)
- Interracial marriages (2SM 343)
- Any SDA living after 1885 (5T 366)
The last prohibition is the most expansive:
In this age of the world, as the scenes of earth's history are soon to close and we are about to enter upon the time of trouble such as never was, the fewer the marriages contracted, the better for all, both men and women.5
Was it an outright prohibition? Perhaps not. But then again, it was highly discouraging of marriage. Any SDA considering marriage who read this passage and believed Ellen White was speaking for God, would likely reconsider their decision to marry.
Paul does not treat this as a minor error. He labels it a doctrine "of demons." That language is extreme and intentional. That is because forbidding marriage denies God's creative intent, burdens consciences God has not burdened, and replaces grace with control.
Forbidding Eating of Meat
The second demonic doctrine is to forbid the eating of foods that God has permitted mankind to eat. Paul writes:
For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving (1 Tim. 4:4).
Paul is quoting from God's command given after the flood permitting humanity to eat meat:
Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you even as the green herb have I given you all things (Genesis 9:3)
Paul is stating that since God has "given" every living creature for food, then believers are to "receive" that food with thanksgiving.
Ellen White's teachings on eating meat are diabolically opposed to the Spirit's express teaching in this passage. Ellen White frequently told her followers to abstain from eating meat:
Vegetables, fruits, and grains should compose our diet. Not an ounce of flesh meat should enter our stomachs. The eating of flesh is unnatural. We are to return to God's original purpose in the creation of man.6It has been clearly presented to me that God's people are to take a firm stand against meat eating.7
Who "clearly presented" this doctrine to Sister White? Not the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit expressly forbid that exact teaching. One can only conclude that it was one of the seducing spirits that Paul mentioned. Therefore, Ellen White's words are not those of God. They are the words of a seducing spirit!
She was so adamant about stopping her followers from eating meat, that in 1908 she wrote the SDA General Conference President, A.G. Daniells, and asked him to push for a "temperance pledge providing for the abstinence from flesh foods" to be "circulated through our ranks."8 This pledge would require signers to abstain from eating meat. That is a perfect fulfillment of the Holy Spirit's express warning about the doctrines of demons!
Amazingly, in Ellen White's 25 million words, many of which deal with end-time events and end-time delusions, she never quotes verses 3-5 of this important end-time passage. This is astonishing for a woman who was promoted as a prophet for the last days. One would think that a prophet of God would want to draw attention to the end-time delusion of false teachers who would arise in the last days forbidding people from eating meats. Not so with Mrs. White. Paul's statement so closely identified her teachings as false that she likely did not want the spotlight focused on her. Therefore, although she quoted from 1st Timothy 4 verse 1 at least 269 times in her published writings, the rest of the passage was cunningly omitted from her 25 million words.9
Omission #4 - Judgment Began in the First Century A.D.
In the Great Controversy, Mrs. White describes the judgment and quotes from 1 Peter 4:17:
So in the great day of final atonement and investigative judgment the only cases considered are those of the professed people of God. The judgment of the wicked is a distinct and separate work, and takes place at a later period. "Judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel?" 1 Peter 4:17.10
Compare this with 1 Peter 4:17 (KJV) and notice (highlighted in yellow) what is missing:
For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?
Mrs. White excluded the words: "For the time is come that." These words indicate that the judgment Peter is talking about had already begun in the first century. This is clarified in other versions:
For the time has come for judgment to begin... (NKJV)For it is time for judgment to begin... (NIV)
For it is time for judgment to begin... (ESV)
For the time has come for judgment... (RSV)
The context of this passage (1 Peter 4:12-19) is describing the "trials" and "sufferings" that are to come upon believers. This passage is most likely referring to the various persecutions unleashed against Christians during the first century. In particular, this could apply to Christian Jews living in Palestine during the period of 66 - 70 AD. During this time period, a state of hostility towards Jews existed not only in Palestine but throughout the whole Roman Empire. In the early years of Christianity, persecutors did not carefully distinguish between Jews and Christians, and they sometimes suffered together.
Peter uses the terminology "House of the God," which is used almost universally in the Bible to refer to the Temple of God.11 Jesus also warned of a coming judgment, in His Olivet discourse, of the destruction of the Jewish temple and the city of Jerusalem (Matt. 24). Many Christian Jews suffered alongside their fellow non-Christian Jews during this time of judgment. This firmly places the "judgment" in the first century, not in 1844.
There can be no doubt that Peter was not referring to an "investigative judgment" that supposedly began some eighteen centuries in the future. Mrs. White's omission of the first part of the verse allowed her to wrest the meaning of the passage and project it into a completely different era and a completely different event. She did this to make the passage conform to her own preconceived ideas about the SDA Investigative Judgment.
Omission #5: Do not Deprive Your Spouse
In the devotional book In Heavenly Places, in the daily passage for July 19 (page 207), the compilers of Ellen White's book added a daily Scripture that she never quoted in her writings:
Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence: and likewise also the wife unto the husband. 1 Corinthians 7:3
The likely reason she never quoted this passage is because the Greek word for the KJV "benevolence" is eunoia which is euphemism for "conjugal duty."12 Some versions, such as the ESV and RSV, use the words "conjugal rights," while more modern versions use "marital duty" (NIV), "sexual needs" (NLT), or "sexual rights" (NET). Historically, "conjugal duty/rights" explicitly included the obligation of spouses to engage in sexual relations upon the reasonable demand of the other. That Paul had this intent in mind is confirmed by himself two verses later in another verse that Ellen White never quoted:
Do not deprive each other except perhaps by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control (1 Cor. 7:5 NIV).
These Biblical teachings are diametrically opposed to the false teachings of Ellen White, which is no doubt why she never quoted them. Although she had plenty of "marital activity" in her younger years, after she adopted the demonic doctrine of vital force in the early 1860s, she expressed terror at the thought of sexual activity draining vital energy from the bodies of her flock. She wrote extensively about "marital excess," warning her followers to limit their sexual activity and encouraging wives to do whatever possible to "divert the mind of her husband" from desiring sex.13
Omission #6: Your Diet Does not Improve Your Spirituality
One verse Ellen White never quoted was 1 Corinthians 8:8:
But meat commendeth us not to God: for neither, if we eat, are we the better; neither, if we eat not, are we the worse.
Paul’s point is that food has no inherent spiritual value. This is the exact opposite of what Ellen White taught. She taught that a person is spiritually better when they abstain from meat, and worse off when they eat it. For example:
A meat diet changes the disposition, and strengthens animalism. We are composed of what we eat, and eating much flesh will diminish intellectual activity. Students would accomplish much more in their studies if they never tasted meat. When the animal part of the human agent is strengthened by meat-eating, the intellectual powers diminish proportionately.A religious life can be more successfully gained and maintained if meat is discarded; for this diet stimulates into intense activity, lustful propensities, and enfeebles the moral and spiritual nature. The flesh warreth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh.14
Here Mrs. White repeats the myth that eating animal products makes one act more like an animal. She asserts that a vegetarian diet makes it easier to maintain a religious life while eating meat enfeebles one's moral and spiritual nature. Not only is this demonstrably false from a physiological standpoint, but it is also totally contrary to Paul's teaching.
Omission #7: Vegetarianism of No Value Against the Flesh
Mrs. White quoted Colossians 2:21—"Touch not; taste not; handle not"—at least fifty times in her writings. She used this as justification to ban all sorts of substances:
- Tea and coffee15
- Wine and alcohol16
- Tobacco17
- Opium and narcotics18
- Meat19
- Stimulating food20
- Any departure from "natural law"21
As can be seen, Mrs. White used this verse to ban various substances. However, this is the exact opposite of what Paul was teaching in this passage. Paul was explaining that "Touch not, taste not, handle not" have no value against the flesh. Mrs. White omitted verse 23, which is a continuation of verse 21:
These [Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch] have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting rigor of devotion and self-abasement and severity to the body, but they are of no value in checking the indulgence of the flesh (Col 2:23 RSV).
Paul taught that rules like Ellen White's were worthless against the flesh. Ellen White taught the opposite. Her belief was that a person could more easily control their flesh by adjusting their diet. For example, she wrote that eating meat would weaken the moral powers:
Every penny expended for tea, coffee, and meats is worse than wasted; for these things injure the physical, mental, and moral powers.22
If Ellen White's statement was true, that abstaining from tea, coffee, and meat could benefit the moral powers, then Paul was wrong.
Mrs. White taught her followers that eating meat would impede them from reaching the perfection that God was requiring of them:
The habits of the age are serious obstacles to the perfecting of Christian character. Physically we are composed of what we eat, and our minds are greatly influenced by our bodies. If we subsist largely upon the flesh of animals, the animal nature is increased in like proportion. Man is sufficiently animal in his nature without cultivating those propensities by the eating of food which stimulates and excites the animal organs to activity. As these propensities are strengthened the mental and moral powers are diminished.23
If these statements are true, a vegan diet would greatly aid a person in fighting against their flesh. However, this is a phrenological view that was common in the 1800s and has no basis in scientific fact. When a person eats beef, they do not inherit the "nature" of a cow; their body simply breaks the meat down into basic amino acids (the same amino acids found in plant proteins).
No evidence exists showing that meat-eaters are more "animalistic" in behavior than vegetarians. In the 19th century, "animal organs" or "propensities" usually referred to the cerebellum and lower brain stem, which were thought to control base desires and sexual urges. However, the idea that meat specifically "excites" these areas to produce "base propensities" (like aggression or lust) is not supported by modern clinical data.
Phrenology taught that the brain was a muscle; if a person "exercised" the lower back of the brain (the "animal" part) by eating meat or spices, that part would grow, and the frontal lobe (the "moral" part) would shrink or lose control. However, the SDA sect has never produced any evidence that eating meat shrinks the centers of the brain responsible for morality. It is complete nonsense that defies not only modern science but also Colossians 2:23. Perhaps that is why Mrs. White omitted this verse.
Omission #8: Judging People for their Diet
Ellen White quoted from Romans 14 over eighty times in her published writings, but she never quoted verse three:
The one who eats everything must not treat with contempt the one who does not, and the one who does not eat everything must not judge the one who does, for God has accepted them (Rom. 14:3 NIV).
According to Thayer's Greek Lexicon, the Greek word for "judge" in this verse means "to censure" someone for their behavior. Mrs. White censured her associates frequently for their dietary choices. For example, she wrote that SDA ministers set an "evil example in the eating of flesh meat."24
In another instance, she wrote:
It is impossible for those who make free use of flesh meats to have an unclouded brain and an active intellect.25
In other words, people who eat meat are idiots!
She was finding fault with others over their diet, which is exactly what Paul said not to do!
In another passage she never quoted from in her 25 million words, Paul wrote:
Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink... (Colossians 2:16).
It is no wonder that Mrs. White never quoted from this verse either, because she constantly judged her followers for their dietary choices. Her testimonies are full of statements criticizing and judging others for "meat and drink." When people who drank tea or coffee, or ate meat, came to her for prayers of healing, her response was: "How can we, I ask, present such ones to the Lord for healing?"26
Conclusion
Mrs. White said it best:
Many study the Scriptures for the purpose of proving their own ideas to be correct. They change the meaning of God’s Word to suit their own opinions. ... They quote half a sentence, leaving out the other half, which, if quoted, would show their reasoning to be false. God has a controversy with those who wrest the Scriptures, making them conform to their preconceived ideas.27
This is the real "Great Controversy" in Ellen White's writings. If the shoe fits, wear it.