This book by Leonard Brand, professor of biology and paleontology at Loma Linda University, and Don McMahon, throat surgeon and university lecturer in Australia, is a thoughtful and carefully researched response to many of the recent attacks on the prophetic ministry of Ellen White. While the book focuses particularly on Ellen White’s health message, it also offers a new evaluation of several critical publications of her writings.

A chapter each is devoted to Walter Rea’s book The White Lie (M. & R. Publications, 1982); Jonathan Butler’s article “The World of E. G. White and the End of the World” in Spectrum 10.2 (1979); and Ronald Numbers book Prophetess of Health (Harper and Row, 1976). Brand and McMahon evaluate these publications primarily in regard to the methods these authors used in their critiques of Ellen White.

Following their investigation the authors conclude that “Rea’s research design and his logic contain errors that are fatal to his argument” (p. 21); Butler is faulted for “rejecting hypotheses that differ from his own not because of evidence, but simply because he prefers his interpretation” (p. 33); and Numbers’ research design is declared to be “completely inadequate to support the conclusions he made,” primarily because he “based his principal conclusion about Ellen White’s inspiration on anecdotal evidence” (p. 43).

In chapter five McMahon outlines the research method he used to compare Ellen White’s health principles with her supposed sources and with modern medical principles. He assigned each of Ellen White’s health or medical statements to one of two categories: (1) lifestyle principles (the “whats”), or (2) the explanation or reason for a “what” principle (the “whys”). He then compared these categories with the writings of five other health reformers of her day (Sylvester Graham, William Alcott, Larkin Coles, James C. Jackson, and John Harvey Kellogg) and with the findings of modern science.

In his comparison of lifestyle principles (the “whats”) with modern science he placed each principle in one of three categories: (1) unverified; (2) verified and minor; and (3) verified and significant.

Among the important results of his study are the following: (1) Ellen White’s book Spiritual Gifts, volume 4 (published in 1864), contains forty-six “what” statements of which he considered forty-four (96%) verified, with seventy percent being significant principles and twenty-six percent minor principles. (2) In the book Ministry of Healing (published in (1905) Ellen White added forty more “whats.” Of these extra forty principles, McMahon considers 31 (78%) verified, forty percent of them significant and thirty-eight percent of minor importance. (3) Of the three hundred lifestyle principles found in the writings of Graham, Alcott, Coles, and Jackson sixty-nine percent are unverified. Among them are such principles as “don’t use salt; drink little water, don’t’ let children eat fruit, if you must eat meat, eat it raw, etc” (pp. 77-78).

McMahon concludes from this, “Since she was largely uneducated and certainly had no medical training at all, how did she know which health principles to choose and which to ignore? And where did she get the extra ‘whats’ that are not found in the writings of other reformers but that have been verified? True divine inspiration is one explanation. Does anyone have another realistic explanation?” (p. 64).

Something else that McMahon found is significant. The correctness level of the “whys” in Ellen White’s books differs considerably from that of the “whats.” Her “whys” are no more correct than those of the other reformers. He explains this with a parallel in her writings on history. In the great controversy vision Ellen White was shown how God interacted with events in human history, but she was left to study history books to find the details (dates and places) of what she had seen. Similarly, McMahon suggests, God gave her the health principles but not always the reasons for them. These she may have found in the literature of other reformers. Furthermore, he says, “God could not have explained some of the whys correctly at that time without inventing medical vocabulary and revealing physiological concepts that were not known until decades after Ellen White wrote” (p. 73).

In chapter six, entitled “Ellen G. White and Principles of Sexual Relationships,” Brand and McMahon counter the claim that her views on sex reveal how unbalanced her ideas on health were. While the authors acknowledge that not all her “whys” on this topic can be explained, perhaps she gleaned some of them also from other health reformers, they caution against a premature rejection of what she says.

“More medical research must be done before we will truly know how to interpret some of what she says” (p. 85).

The book has a concluding chapter and an appendix in which most of two chapters from Prophets and Kings are compared with the relevant section of Daniel March’s Night Scenes in the Bible. This allows readers to gain a more accurate picture of how much similarity or dissimilarity there actually exists between these books.

The Prophet and Her Critic is a positive and valuable contribution to the ongoing debate concerning the role of Ellen White in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. It provides new insight into the way God used Ellen White to bring the health message to the church. His differentiation between the “whats” and the “whys” is helpful and challenging at the same time. Critics and defenders of Ellen White will do well to take note of this book. As Jon Paulien wrote on the back cover of the book, “I challenge anyone tempted to reject the ministry of Ellen White to carefully consider the implications of this book.”