Eventually the SDA church admitted that E. G. White used material from others without attribution (but if the copyright had expired prior to such usage, then such usage was legal and back then copyrights had a much shorter lifespan than they do now). I've read that now the SDA church lists the sources that E. G. White used for her books.
A bit of history ... for you history buffs
by RR 32 Replies latest jw friends
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Disillusioned JW
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Disillusioned JW
I have a SDA paperback book copyright in 1897 and in reading it I am astonished to see that many of its arguments are exactly the same as used by the WT! The book is by Uriah Smith and is "Berean Library, No. 8" and it is has the title of Here and Hereafter or Man in Life and Death: The Reward of the Righteous and the Destiny of the Wicked. It is published by Review and Herald Publishing Assn. It must be a very old printing since instead of saying "Copyright 1897" it says "Entered, According to Act of Congress, in the year 1897". The book has 357 pages. For example on pages 189 - 193 he says that the English translation of Luke 23:43 should have the comma after the word "to-day" and a number of the reasons he gives for such are exactly the same used by the WT! But, Uriah Smith also gives other arguments, ones not used by the WT, in support of the teaching. To me Smith's book seems much more scholarly and researched than the literature of the WT on the same subject.
The first paragraph of page 127 says the following.
'Because Adam wickedly became a sinner, and brought himself into a state of alienation from God, the doom was pronounced upon him, "thou shalt surely die." Could this mean that he should suffer punishment of eternal death? If so, Adam never could have been released therefrom. But he is to be released from death incurred by his transgression; for "in Christ," the Scriptures assure us, all shall again "be made alive." '
Pages 135 - 136 says regarding Adam the following. "Adam was on probation. Life and death were set before him. ... Immortality was, therefore, not absolute, but contingent. Immortal he might become by obedience to God; disobeying, he was to die. He was not created either mortal or immortal. Which he should be, was to be decided by his own actions."
Page 332 saying regarding promulgating "the doctrine of the destruction of the wicked" that 'some ... go so far as to declare that "it will make more infidels than Paine's 'Age of Reason,' " and that "no conversions to God will ever follow in the track of its blighting and soul-destroying influence." ' In reply, on page 333 Smith says the following.
"So far from being the cause of infidelity, the view we advocate is just what cures infidelity. Whom do we find in the ranks of the friends of this doctrine? Not the criminal and vicious classes, not those who have thrown off all moral and legal restraint, not rejecters of divine revelation; but we find those who were formerly skeptics rescued from their skepticism, and infidels recovered from their infidelity.'
It should also be noted that Rutherford's/Russell's Finished Mystery book has a quote from Smith's book on Daniel and Revelation.
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Disillusioned JW
What I like most about the Here and Hereafter or Man in Life and Death book is that it discusses the philosophy called materialism (that every thing consists of matter or is a characteristic of such) and that it proves that animals have thoughts and emotions, and that thoughts and emotions (including those of humans) arise from the actions of organized matter in brains.