The Integrity of the Message
A few months after the fall of Jerusalem in 586 B.C., Gedaliah, the governor appointed by Nebuchadnezzar, was assassinated. The leaders and the people left in the land were afraid of Babylonian reprisals and decided to seek safety in Egypt; but they wanted to make sure that God was on their side. So, they asked Jeremiah to inquire of the Lord concerning their plan.
What was Jeremiah’s message, and how did the people respond to it? Of what did they accuse Jeremiah, and who was said to have originated the counsel that Jeremiah declared to be from the Lord? Jer. 43:2–4.
Because some did not like the clear instructions God gave, they claimed Jeremiah’s message actually had originated with his literary assistant Baruch, and not with the Lord.
How interesting that thousands of years later, Mrs. White (like Jeremiah) has at times been the focus of claims that her literary assistants wrote her books or that she plagiarized (illegally copied from other sources) most of what she wrote. Yet, in the preface to The Great Controversy she stated that she had used other books: “In some cases where a historian has so grouped together events as to afford, in brief, a comprehensive view of the subject, or has summarized details in a convenient manner, his words have been quoted. . . . In narrating the experience and views of those carrying forward the work of reform in our own time, similar use has been made of their published works.”—Page 14.
Does this justify the charge of plagiarism? In 1981 the General Conference asked a non-Adventist copyright lawyer to study the matter. After spending more than three hundred hours researching, he concluded that “Ellen White was not a plagiarist, and her works did not constitute copyright infringement/piracy.”—Adventist Review, September 17, 1981. Among the reasons given were: first, the fact that the books Ellen White used were not covered by copyright; and second, even if they had been covered by copyright, her use of phrases and sentences did not constitute an infringement of copyright.
| Why was there always hostility among God’s professed people to the messages of the prophets? Look in your own heart; can you find, at least somewhat, part of the answer there? Explain. |
No comments:
Post a Comment