As part of its expanding Library of Religious Biography, Eerdmans has reprinted Ronald Numbers’s Prophetess of Health: A Study of Ellen G. White, in recognition of her role as one of America’s “important religious figures.” The Library also includes a new biography of William Miller, by David L. Rowe, entitled, God’s Strange Work: William Miller and the End of the World.
Originally published in 1976 and revised in 1992, this third edition of Numbers’s work includes a new preface and two new appendices: “The Trial of Elder I. Dammon” and “The Secret 1919 Bible Conferences.” There are no revisions to the book’s chapters, although endnotes in the previous editions have been relocated as footnotes, resulting in new pagination throughout the volume.
Adventists who have followed the stream of Ellen White studies since the 1970s recognize Numbers’s original publication as groundbreaking in at least two respects. First, being published by Harper & Row, it placed Ellen White alongside other notable personages in the biography shelves of secular bookstores. Second, by documenting Ellen White’s indebtedness to contemporary health reformers, Numbers caused many Adventists to test their own assumptions about inspiration and the authority of Ellen White’s writings. He also “parted company” with previous Adventist scholars by purposely ruling out divine inspiration as an historical explanation for her life and teachings.
It is regrettable the new matter prepared for this third edition contains at least one example of the kind of misrepresentations noted in the White Estate’s critique of the original publication. Commenting on the Israel Dammon meeting, Numbers describes Ellen Harmon as being “caught up in the very ‘fanaticism’ that she would later denounce: kissing, touching, crawling, and shouting” (xiii). In actuality, the observer’s abridged report (inaccurately called a “transcript” by Numbers) does not describe young Ellen, though present, as participating in any of those fanatical activities.
Today’s Adventists—especially pastors—who may be discovering Numbers’s book for the first time or anticipating questions from church members will do well to peruse the aforementioned 127-page critique prepared by the White Estate (also published in 1976) that challenged his assumptions, omissions, and conclusions. Hard copies of the response are available from the White Estate or its research centers, and an online version may be accessed on the Estate’s Web site: http://www.WhiteEstate.org/issues/prophetess-of-health.pdf. Pagination corresponding to the third edition is found in brackets in the online edition.
