Page 95 - Cults and Marginal Groups - Textbook w videos short

Study Section 14: Where do their beliefs come from?

14.1 Connect.

We believe that the Bible, God’s Word, is the FINAL source of authority in our lives. What it
says, we believe. And what it says, we obey. We preach obedience to the Scriptures, as
they are given to us by God. But you will discover today that Adventists really have TWO
sources of authority over all doctrine in their church. We will also see that, just as the
Jehovah’s Witnesses have done in creating the New World Translation of the Bible to alter
verses to fit their doctrines, so the Adventist church has done the same thing with their
paraphrase of the Bible called the Clear Word. I think your eyes will be opened to a lot of information
you have never seen before. Let’s get started.

14.2 Objectives:

1. The student should be able to explain how the Adventists have TWO sources of authority and
quite often, the two differ.

2. The student should be able to observe how the Clear Word paraphrase of the Bible alters
Scripture to fit the errant doctrines of the church.

3. The student should be able to compare the Clear Word paraphrase verses to
the New American Standard of the Bible, see if you can observe any bias to shift
the meaning of a verse or verses to fit various doctrines of Adventism.

14.3 The Foundations of Adventism

Before we study SDA doctrines, we need to establish what the SDA
church holds as the authority over doctrine and practice.

Source of Authority. While SDA’s believe that the Bible is infallible and inerrant, they hold a lot
of weight on the proper interpretation of Scriptures based on an individual: Ellen G. White. So,
to understand the church’s basis for doctrinal authority, we need to look a bit into the central
figure in forming the major doctrines of the group. Later on, we will study her teachings in more detail.

Ellen Gould Harmon was born on a small farm near the village of Gorham, Maine, on November 26,
1827. Only a few years after her birth, her parents Robert and Eunice Harmon gave
up farming to move to the nearby town of Portland where her father became a hat
maker. When Ellen was nine, she was permanently disfigured when a fellow student
maliciously hit her in the head with a rock. The rock put her into a coma that lasted
several weeks and forced her to miss a long period of schooling.

When Ellen was twelve, she and her family attended a Methodist camp meeting in
Buxton, Maine, and there she had a formative religious experience in which she
professed faith in Jesus Christ. In 1840 and 1842 she and her family attended
Adventist meetings and become devotees of William Miller. Miller had dedicated
himself to the study of biblical prophecy and was convinced that Christ would return on October 22,

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