Ellen White's Errors: #1-The Flood Commentary
A science-minded skeptic's take on Ellen White's writings.
This is an article on the logical failings of Ellen White’s opinions from the eyes of a science-minded skeptic. For the readers unfamiliar with Seventh Day Adventism’s principal founder, you may find it educational to see to what extent people will sacrifice critical thinking out of loyalty to a religious figurehead. (No different than any other cult-like group in history) This may turn into a series, thus this is #1. I only had to read a few paragraphs out of just two chapters of one book to find all of this. It’s wild!
The Flood…(of problems)
I find it amusing that in the Genesis flood myth, Ellen White (SDA) claims that God shut the door because it was “massive” and “Impossible for those inside to close.” (P&P Ch. 7)
We have Noah and crew building a boat ~550’ long*, using timbers that would have weighed thousands of pounds, with just hand tools. The strength and intelligence of the builders would have had to be rather impressive.
*Note: If you’re SDA this ark is actually ~800’ long. The cubit is a measurement of the distance from your fingertip to your elbow. Nobody had a standardized tape measure back when the cubit was first thought up, and everybody had arms. It later did become more standardized, and we see that borne out in the archaeological record. It was also, according to EGW, at a time when humans were twice their current height. As you can imagine, an 11’ tall human has a “cubit” that is much longer than a 5.5ft human (roughly the average height of a person today). I haven’t seen anyone discuss this. That’s probably because it pushes already unrealistic wooden ship dimensions further into the realm of insanity.
God gave Noah the dimensions, but not the detailed minutia of how to go about actually doing the construction.
Noah and crew would need to develop:
Appropriate hand tools
Timber cutting, planing, and shaping methods
A variety of lumber joining methods for different types of joints
Special rigging equipment that required knowledge of physics
Repeatable and precise dimensioning abilities
The understanding of static/dynamic loading to determine span lengths & spacing
The ability to check level/square/concentricity
We’re supposed to believe that after accomplishing all that, they needed God to shut the door?
To be fair, the Biblical language is actually vague here. It doesn’t specify that they needed God to close the door. Below is all the Bible has to say on the matter.
The animals going in were male and female of every living thing, as God had commanded Noah. Then the Lord shut him in. - Genesis 7:16 NIV
Perhaps God was just like:
If they had the strength and intelligence to build such an impressive structure in the first place, then figuring out how to shut the door would have been a trivial exercise in engineering. (There are variety of simple ways to accomplish this that I can think of off the top of my head, and I’m not a boat-builder.) I fail to see it plausible that after spending literally decades building this boat, that they would never once have a thought as to how they’d shut the door.
EGW’s claim is neither biblical or logical, and most non-SDA Christians interpret this shutting of the door as a theological message and not a physical necessity.
Then we have the issue of rain.
Ellen White claims it had never rained before. A stance that is again, neither biblical or logical.
I can’t believe I’m doing this, but I’m agreeing with Answers In Genesis on this. The Bible never expressly states that it had never rained. This would be counter to the water-cycle that would be so vital to the earth.
Did God just reengineer the entire mechanics of weather/evaporation/rain/etc just to save a special party trick in His back pocket for later? Just in case, one day, He might regret what He made and want to wipe it all out? You know…as a God is won’t to do on occasion.
This interpretation is something I don’t have a polite word for. It makes a mockery of God and His creation.
The last point to cover is her claims in P&P about what happened after the flood. We’re going to leave the realm of “that doesn’t sound right” and enter into…
Turn to chapter 8, and observe this passage: (source)
“The entire surface of the earth was changed at the Flood. A third dreadful curse rested upon it in consequence of sin. As the water began to subside, the hills and mountains were surrounded [p. 108] by a vast, turbid sea, Everywhere were strewn the dead bodies of men and beasts. The Lord would not permit these to remain to decompose and pollute the air, therefore He made of the earth a vast burial ground. A violent wind which was caused to blow for the purpose of drying up the waters, moved them with great force, in some instances even carrying away the tops of the mountains and heaping up trees, rocks, and earth above the bodies of the dead. By the same means the silver and gold, the choice wood and precious stones, which had enriched and adorned the world before the Flood, and which the inhabitants had idolized, were concealed from the sight and search of men, the violent action of the waters piling earth and rocks upon these treasures, and in some cases even forming mountains above them.” EGW - Patriarchs & Prophets Ch. 8
There’s a lot to unpack here.
Issue #1
She’s saying God cursed the earth. The ground is an inanimate object. What does that mean? This curse is apparently just to be less subjectively beautiful to a human by littering it with dead animals. That doesn’t really seem like a curse. The rock wasn’t harmed. It still does its rock thing (which is nothing), no matter what shape it’s in. It changes nothing inherent to the ground itself. That’s just natural consequences. This is very unlike when God curse the ground in Genesis, such that it would no longer easily grow food for humans.
Issue #2
A year after the flood started, the ground would not be strewn with bodies of men and beast. At a year in, these corpses would’ve decomposed and/or been eaten by carnivorous sea life long ago. Remember all those sea creatures? There are many times more of them than land animals. It might take them a few weeks/months, but rest assured, they’d get the job done. They would be absolutely feasting on all the dead animals. In fact their populations might dramatically and unhealthfully increase, due to all the sudden extra food available.
Even if they weren’t eaten, they still would have decomposed and sunk. This is nonsense. Is she counting skeletons as corpses? Shouldn’t they be buried under silt? You know...a key point you need to be true for your apologetic defense of a global flood? How did all those floating and bloating dinosaurs get covered in silt if they were bobbing around on the surface the whole time? (I address this in point 5)
Issue #3
This violent wind, that was for the purpose of drying up the waters, was powerful enough to shear off the tops of mountains? But it also made mountains? That’s going to be nearing supersonic velocities. That’s so far out of bounds that I’m just going to leave that one as is.
Issue #4
The wind was supposed to dry up the water? The atmosphere can only hold so much water. Once you reach 100% humidity, that’s it. No more. That maximum level would be reached with a tiny fraction of the flood water being evaporated. Then the entire atmosphere would be saturated and guess what? An apocalyptic level rainstorm would ensure. Congrats on another flood!
Issue #5
Ellen White invalidates a key apologetic argument for a global flood. This is peak irony.
For silver and gold (some of our heaviest common natural elements) to just be laying around on the top of the ground after the flood is quite the assumption. It would be buried well down below the silt/mud/etc. In fact, by it being on the surface, the argument flood apologists make for sediment deposition and layering falls apart. The gold and silver are on the surface? (She also invalidates it with issue #2)
Issue #6
If you believe Ellen White and you also want to believe in that key flood apologetic argument, then you have to accept that God purposely kept the gold and silver on the surface of the earth during/after the flood. This would apparently be just so that He could then change His mind about their availability to humans and send an implausible supersonic wind to cover it all up.
This makes God out to be madman.
Issue #7
Noah and his family are literally the only humans who obeyed you bro. They did everything you asked and were loyal and faithful. Then you’re going to be all “nah screw those guys. They don’t need any of the good stuff anymore. No gold and silver for you!”
Additionally, does that even make sense? What good is gold and silver if you are the only eight people on the planet? Who gives a hoot at that point? You want a reliable means of food production and clean water. You want shelter. You want safety and comfort. This is such a groundless character assassination of God.
Issue #8
God did all of this destruction/reconstruction just to remove gold, silver, and precious gems as much as possible from humans? (The dead carcass issue, that wasn’t even a possible issue, would’ve sorted itself out in short order on its own)
Just remove them from the planet then!
Your work immediately failed. It was wholly negated by those same humans (and quite easily I’ll add) At no point have we lacked any of these treasures. They’re not even that scarce. The prices are artificially inflated today due to humans hoarding them and wanting to make money, but they are not scarce. You know what would have made more sense? To bring them all to the surface and leave them there. They’d be in such abundance as to no longer be special at all. No one would care. It’d be like finding a tree today. No novelty there. This makes God out to be impotent and lacking any sort of foresight.
Conclusion
Ellen White was not formally educated. She had no background in any of the sciences. Her stances on many things, like these, absolutely bear that out. This isn’t divine insight, this is hallucinatory output from an over-read, uneducated, and physically damaged mind.
It’s things like this that cause other Christians to look at SDAs and go “ya’ll are in a cult!”
SDAs believe fantastical things for no biblical or logical reason. These are unforced errors. They are self-inflicted wounds of embarrassment, incurred by blind loyalty.
Since I’ve already agreed with Answers In Genesis, I may as well quote part of their article here.
“There are some arguments that Christians should avoid because of their absurdity and some we should avoid being dogmatic about because they are not truly supportable from scripture.” - AIG
Come on guys. When all science agrees on something (like how the water cycle has always worked) AND Answers In Genesis agrees too, you should probably stop and reevaluate your position.
This belief is not a key identifying factor of being “the remnant.” (just in case ya’ll were a little confused) I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but you can also just….not believe this if you want. No one is making you. They won’t take away your birthday if you reject her writings.
I know many SDAs who reject all that noise. Whatever you’ve been told, taught, or modeled, devotion to this woman is not necessary to your salvation or your faith journey. Based on the above, I think you’d have a good case to make that this is a good thing.
Peace.