Interpreting Ellen White’s Writings

Ellen White ministered over a period of seventy years, producing approximately one hundred thousand pages of written material. She wrote in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (1845-1915), an era far removed from our twenty-first century cyberspace world.

With such a sizable body of writings, most of them written over a century ago, correct principles of interpretation are essential to understanding her message. And it is here where many of her supporters as well as her critics miss the boat. They fail to read her writings in their original historical and literary contexts.

The following links provide principles of interpretation for understanding Ellen White’s writings in context:

Some Principles for Correctly Interpreting the Writings of Ellen G. White

This link provides some basic principles for correct interpretation and is essential reading for all students of Ellen White. It is written by Dr. George Knight, Adventist scholar and historian.

Basic Rules of Interpretation–Internal & External

This link is a more detailed discussion of interpreting Ellen White and provides essential principles for interpreting the literary and historical contexts of her writings. “Internal” involves the immediate context of a statement and “External” involves the larger literary and historical contexts of a statement. This is written by Dr. Herbert Douglass, Adventist scholar and specialist in Ellen White’s writings.

Dr. Roger Coon’s Lecture Notes on Ellen White and Hermeneutics (used by permission):

All PDF:
Hermeneutics 1: An Introduction
Hermeneutics 2: Take All the Prophet Says Before Drawing Your Conclusion
Hermeneutics 3:  Consider the Context
Hermeneutics 4: Is the Counsel a Principle or a Policy?

Dr. Coon was an associate secretary of the Ellen G. White Estate and an adjunct professor of prophetic guidance at the SDA seminary during the 1980s. For those especially interested in this important subject, his lectures notes go into much more detail than the above studies.