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

Jehovah's Witnesses, Cont.; Plagiarism

#98 & #99: "Both have been guilty of plagiarism of earlier works without giving credit to the previous authors."—Leslie Martin.

#98: Both plagiarized. If this charge is true, it can't be proven by the "evidence" in the documentation package.

In the index under "Point 53," it says: "Both SDA's and JW's are guilty of plagiarism of earlier works. The SDA section is documented under point 54 and the JW plagiarism is listed here." When one turns to "Point 53," one finds a single sheet put together by a Mr. Gary Busselman from South Dakota. This sheet purports to contain an outline of history about the Witnesses. The only evidence that one finds on this sheet even remotely connected to this charge is the following:

John Aquila Brown: published in book, Even-Tide (1823), his interpretation of the "seven times" of Daniel, by means of the day-year formula, to produce 2520 years, in exactly the same way as the Watchtower Society does today, except he started with 604 BC and ended up with 1917 AD. This 29 years before C. T. Russell was born, 47 years before C. T. Russell started his Bible study group, and 50+ years before the book "Three Worlds" was written.

A major problem with this is that Brown was from Britain. Did Russell ever hear of Brown's work, let alone read it? The documentation package is advertised as "substantiating the information contained in this program." Yet no demonstration of a connection between Brown's book and any Watchtower publication is even attempted. If the Watchtower really plagiarized Brown's book, where is the evidence?

Besides, Busselman's sheet is unreliable. It says that "Ellen G. White . . . founded the Second Advent Movement, the present Seven-Day [sic] Adventist group" after splitting off from the "Miller movement." However, the Millerite Movement was the "Second Advent Movement," or at least a very prominent part of it, and Mrs. White didn't found it. She was only four years old when Miller started preaching!

Busselman's sheet also says that "William Miller" "quit the movement he founded when his predictions, called the 'great disappointment of 1844,' failed." This is very slightly true. He officially quit the movement in December 1849 when he died. As he was dying he said to "Brother Bosworth": "Tell them (the brethren) we are right. The coming of the Lord draweth nigh; but they must be patient, and wait for him."—Bliss, p. 377.

Perhaps Busselman's sheet is the reason why the video leaves the impression that N. H. Barbour was a Seventh-day Adventist. The sheet identifies Barbour, Paton, and Wendell as being Second Adventists. Since it says that Mrs. White started the "Second Advent Movement," this leaves the impression that Barbour, Paton, and Wendell were Seventh-day Adventists. In actuality, they were Advent Christians, not Seventh-day Adventists.

#99: Both were "guilty" of this crime. One other problem with claiming that the Witnesses were "guilty" of plagiarizing Brown's book is this: Since Brown was from Britain, his book was fully in the public domain. There was no copyright protection in America on British books written prior to July 1, 1891 (Nichol, pp. 454, 455). Thus it is incorrect for anyone to say that the Witnesses were "guilty" of plagiarizing Brown's book.

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