A Response to the Video:
Seventh-day Adventism, the Spirit Behind the Church

by Bob Pickle

Answers to Questions Raised by:
Mark Martin, Sydney Cleveland
Dale Ratzlaff, The White Lie
. . . and Others

Discern Fact from Fiction

Testimonials, Documentation, and the Video Jacket

#227 & #228: "When I found out what the church actually knows about what Ellen G. has written, how she obtained her material. I was never presented with that in the school system. I never, never heard anything about all these writings that she had copied, plagiarized, and when I saw that, that just about, that hurt me a lot. I felt like I had been lied to."—Kim Marshall.

#227: I was never presented with that in the school system. Under the previous number, Ms. Marshall said that she attended Adventist elementary schools, but she does not say she attended their high schools or colleges. So when she says she was never presented with this in the school system, we are left to conclude that she means that she wasn't presented with this in elementary school.

These are obviously not the kind of issues for first graders or fifth graders to grapple with. Is elementary school the place to discuss how either Peter or Jude copied from the other, and how some out there feel that that makes one or the other of these Bible writers not inspired? Let the children wait until high school or college before grappling with such issues, or at least till seventh or eighth grade.

#228: Mrs. White plagiarized; I felt lied to. Does Ms. Marshall feel lied to because 14 of the 25 verses of Jude are similar to verses in 2 Peter, indicating that one of these authors copied from the other (#101)? Does the fact that the Bible writers borrowed words from others, even from uninspired authors, make them less than inspired and authoritative? Should we adopt Walter Rea's stance, that we cannot take the Bible literally (#100)?

When John put together the book of Revelation, borrowing language and concepts from the entire Bible, was he plagiarizing? Is that even the correct term? Can Ms. Marshall prove that Mrs. White, Jude or Peter, Matthew or Mark or Luke, ever plagiarized? Is not the calling of John or Jude, or Matthew or Mark a plagiarist an example of unwarranted disrespect?

When Mrs. White predicted the civil war (#38), predicted two world wars separated by a little time of peace (#39), said that cancer was caused by an infectious agent (#121), said that "cancerous humors" could lie "dormant" in the body (#118), and said that there was a substance in the brain that nourished the system (#118), from whom was she plagiarizing?

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