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    Introduction

    In the summer of 1864 the “Steam Press of the Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association” at Battle Creek, Michigan, published a three-hundred-page Ellen G. White volume entitled “Important Facts of Faith in Connection With the History of Holy Men of Old.” This was the third of a four-volume series carrying the general title of Spiritual Gifts.Amal 1.1

    In this work the narrative of the early history of the world is presented, commencing with “The Creation” and carrying down to the giving of the law to Israel, these matters, as the author states in her Preface, having been opened to her in vision.Amal 1.2

    In Chapter 6, entitled “Crime Before the Flood,” Mrs. White in describing the deplorable conditions which led to the catastrophic destruction of the world, speaks of the amalgamation of man and beast. In the next chapter there is another similar reference. Occasionally inquiry is made as to just what Mrs. White did write in this connection and what her statements meant, and why they are not found in her later works, now current. Some have linked the amalgamation statements with the memory of ancient myths regarding strange creatures produced by unholy alliance between human beings and beasts, and have asked if the E. G. White statements do not give support to these fables. It is also intimated that they tend toward evolution.Amal 1.3

    The only passages in Mrs. White’s writings that are of interest in this connection are found in Spiritual Gifts, volume 3, already mentioned and republished in Spirit of Prophecy, volume 1, in 1870. The first, in chapter 6, “Crime Before the Flood,” is this:Amal 2.1

    But if there was one sin above another which called for the destruction of the race by the flood, it was the base crime of amalgamation of man and beast which defaced the image of God, and caused confusion everywhere. God purposed to destroy by a flood that powerful, long-lived race that had corrupted their ways before him.—Spiritual Gifts 3:64.

    Chapter 7 is entitled “The Flood,” and contains this statement:Amal 2.2

    Every species of animal which God had created were preserved in the ark. The confused species which God did not create, which were the result of amalgamation, were destroyed by the Flood. Since the Flood there has been amalgamation of man and beast, as may be seen in the almost endless varieties of species of animals, and in certain races of men.—Page 75.Amal 2.3

    These are Mrs. White’s only statements on the subject of the amalgamation of man and beast.Amal 2.4

    Just what Mrs. White meant by these passages has been the occasion of some speculation through the years, and two explanations have been set forth. Some have held that she taught not only that men and beasts have cohabited but also that progeny resulted. However, those who hold this view have contended that this does not support the doctrine of evolution. The evolution theory depends for its life on the idea that small, simple living structures can gradually evolve into ever higher forms of life, finally bringing forth man.Amal 2.5

    That more or less closely related forms of life may cross and produce hybrids is not questioned by creationists today. That, in the long ago, when virility was greater, and conditions possibly in some respects different, more diverse forms of life might have crossed—such as man and some higher forms of animals—can be set forth only as an assumption. But this assumption has marshaled against it the whole weight of scientific belief today. Of course, scientists have been wrong, at times, in reasoning that all the past must be understood in terms of the processes we now see going on.Amal 2.6

    We might leave the matter as being beyond the range of investigation or proof. The Bible itself contains some such statements, as all students of the Scriptures well know.Amal 2.7

    But there is another explanation of these amalgamation passages which is well supported and we believe more satisfying and which avoids any conflict with the observable data of science.Amal 2.8

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