Prophetess of Health: A Study of Ellen G. White / Edition 3

by Ronald L. Numbers

Overview

Respected historian of science Ronald Numbers here examines one of the most influential, yet least examined, religious leaders in American history — Ellen G. White, the enigmatic visionary who founded the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Numbers scrutinizes White's life (1827–1915), from her teenage visions and testimonies to her extensive advice on health reform, which influenced the direction of the church she founded. This third edition features a new preface and two key documents that shed further light on White — transcripts of the trial of Elder Israel Dammon in 1845 and the proceedings of the secret Bible Conferences in 1919.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780802803955
Publisher:	Eerdmans, William B. Publishing Company
Publication date:	07/02/2008
Series:	Library of Religious Biography
Edition description:	Third Edition,New Edition
Pages:	452
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Ronald L. Numbers is Hilldale and William Coleman Professor of the History of Science and Medicine at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His other works include The Creationists, now also in its third edition, and Science and Christianity in Pulpit and Pew.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations     ix
Abbreviations     x
Preface to the Third Edition     xi
Preface to the Second Edition     xxvi
Preface to the First Edition     xxx
Introduction: The Historian as Heretic   Jonathan M. Butler     1
A Prophetess Is Born     43
In Sickness and in Health     76
The Health Reformers     95
Dansville Days     127
The Western Health Reform Institute     156
Short Skirts and Sex     184
Whatsoever Ye Eat or Drink     219
Fighting the Good Fight     239
Afterword: Ellen White on the Mind and the Mind of Ellen White   Ronald L. Numbers   Janet S. Numbers     267
Physical and Psychological Experiences of Ellen G. White: Related in Her Own Words     291
The 1864 Dansville Visit     320
The Trial of Elder I. Dammon     326
The Secret 1919 Bible Conferences     344
Index     402

Editorial Reviews

Spectrum
"An excellent, meticulously documented social history, whose author is an expert intellectual detective. . . When one reads about her success in starting a worldwide system of medical missions and hospitals, and the continuing services performed by the Adventist groups, one is astonished again that it took so long for Ellen G. White to be written about by an able and dispassionate biographer."

American History Review
"Ronald L. Numbers has written an excellent case study in the affinity between unorthodox religion and heterodox medicine."

Library Journal
"The author gives an honest, unbiased account of the contradictions and possible plagiarism in White's writings, the vacillation of her methods, the revelries among the men who ran the medical institute, and the gullibility of the public regarding health. An informative work on one aspect of American medical history."

Christianity Today
"Prophetess of Health treats with considerable documentation the health writings of the Adventist leader."

The Christian Century
"Ellen G. White as much as anyone is the founder of modern Seventh-day Adventism, and deserves to be as well known as, say, Mary Baker Eddy. For some reason or other she has generally escaped scrutiny. Too bad, for her story as prophetess, health reformer, and religious leader is rarely matched in American religious annals, and Ronald Numbers is the man equipped to tell it. . . The intention of the book is not muckraking but the setting right of accounts."

From the Publisher