In More Than a Prophet Graeme Bradford articulates his views about Ellen White, Adventist history, inspiration, and the broader Adventist culture and theology that he has spent the previous twenty years analyzing. In this particular book he expands on topics raised in his two previous books, Prophets are Human (2004) and People are Human (2005). The stated purpose of the book is to respond to those who have attacked Ellen White’s writings in recent years, but underlying this is a much more powerful thesis that the church needs to present the real Ellen White and has failed to do so. This thesis has generated a very strong reaction in some Adventist circles, most notably from Colin and Russell Standish who reacted negatively to Bradford in The Greatest of All the Prophets (2006).

From a historical point of view, it appears that there are some significant areas of concern in the depiction of Adventist history presented by Bradford (and in the reaction by Colin and Russell Standish for that matter, too). A foundational concept for Bradford is that truth is progressive. However, the important question is whether or not the direction that Bradford suggests the church needs to head is accurate. Bradford is confident that the church took a wrong turn, that the truth about Ellen White needs to be presented, and that these problems began soon after Ellen White’s death (1915) at the 1919 Bible Conference.

An earlier review of Prophets are Human in the BRI Newsletter examined other problematic areas articulated again in More Than a Prophet that include the author’s understanding of inspiration. From a historical standpoint, what troubles me the most about More Than a Prophet is that he seems to be starting from a false premise in his depiction of Adventist history, beginning as noted above, at the 1919 Bible Conference.

The 1919 Bible Conference has become in the past two decades a pivotal event in Adventist history. Before 1974 it was a non-event. For those who were there, none of them felt it significant enough to mention it in detail. It has only been with the passing of time that the importance of this conference has been realized. It took on new meaning in the context of discussions about Ellen White and the nature and authority of her writings during the 1970s and 1980s. It was in this milieu that Adventists realized that there were others who had before them struggled with how to make sense of issues relating to inspiration and the authority of Ellen White’s writings.

What has not been clear until recently has been the historical and theological context leading up to and surrounding the 1919 Bible Conference. Bradford depicts so-called progressives such as W. W. Prescott and A. G. Daniells as the heroes of the 1919 Bible Conference who were marginalized during the 1920s. According to him the winners were fundamentalists, individuals like J. S. Washburn and Claude Holmes, who orchestrated their downfall at the 1922 General Conference session. My own analysis of the 1919 Bible Conference transcripts (which are available in their entirety on the www.adventistarchives.org website) is that in reality two hermeneutical schools became especially apparent and polarized during the 1919 Bible Conference. One school emphasized the importance of context, but differentiated the verbal inspiration of Scripture from the thought-inspired writings of Ellen G. White. A second school emphasized the complete inerrancy of both the Bible and Ellen White’s writings. Both schools were obviously influenced by the fundamentalist emphasis on the inerrancy of Scripture. What was happening in 1919 was that church leaders, in both camps, were trying to make sense of how the church should relate to a culture that had greatly changed. Adventists definitely affirmed the authority of the Bible, but where did they fit in the broader Christian culture? How would they interpret the inerrancy of the Bible? The answer to these questions lies at the very foundation of what the 1919 Bible Conference was all about.

The discussions about Ellen White at the very end of the conference were actually part of a post-session for educators attended by less than a third of those who attended the main Bible Conference. The decision to not publish the transcripts occurred before these pivotal discussions about Ellen White (on July 30 and August 1, 1919) took place. In the end the decision appears to have been driven far less by issues related to inspiration and the writings of Ellen White and more by a need to not further inflame controversy about the interpretation of the “king of the north” in Daniel 11 and its identity as Turkey by some Adventist exegetes. This was a sensitive subject at the end of World War I. But it cannot be claimed that the church hid the truth about Ellen G. White.

The discussions about Ellen White at the end of the 1919 Bible Conference are very significant and more complex than how Bradford presents it. They also shed insight on two groups within Adventism and their interpretation of the Bible, the writings of Ellen White, and ultimately the relationship of the Bible to Ellen White’s writings. Clearly a far more nuanced depiction of the 1919 Bible Conference is needed where both camps represented in 1919 were more influenced by Fundamentalism than previously realized. The need for a clearer hermeneutic of Scripture in Adventism would only become more apparent with the passing of time. This would be addressed in significant ways at the 1974 Bible Conference, in the Rio de Janeiro Statement on Methods of Bible Study (1986), and most recently in Understanding Scripture: An Adventist Approach (2006). This is in contrast to Bradford who asserts that the real truth about Ellen White was hidden in 1919, suppressed again in 1982, and continues to be marginalized. Bradford thus creates a revisionist platform in which he finds historical precedent for presenting his views. In the end he creates more confusion than clarity.

The publisher, Samuele Bacchiocchi, has tried to circulate this book widely and in some cases may have given the impression that it carries the support of church officials including some at the Ellen G. White Estate. It is for this reason that the White Estate has issued a disclaimer about this volume. It is unfortunate that the publisher has ventured into this enterprise without counseling with the Seventh-day Adventist Church and that he promotes a work that is unbalanced at best. The issues involved in More Than a Prophet are far more than purely academic. They lie at the heart and center of what Adventism is all about: how to understand and interpret Scripture and Ellen White’s writings. This book does very little to biblically and historically clarify those issues.