First Surprise: The Book Grows From 200 To 3500 Pages

In 1858, in spite of Satan’s attempts to stop the writing of the book, the manuscript was ready in five months and published before the end of the year. ^{5Ellen White was shown that a sudden attack of paralysis was designed by Satan to take her life so she could not finish the manuscript of the book. See Selected Messages 3:100.} This first version had only about two hundred pages. ^{6This first version makes up the section in Early Writings titled “Spiritual Gifts.”} By the year 1884, the material had been enlarged to four volumes and more than seventeen hundred pages. A person believing in verbal inspiration (the idea that God dictates the text, word for word, to the prophet), would be completely confused trying to figure out how it is possible for a prophet to enlarge the material in this way. Still more astonishing for that same believer would be the knowledge that over the next few years the author revised the book several times, adding dozens of statements about the events she described from well-known historians of her time. Since these revisions were made during the last years of the nineteenth century, when copyright laws were different from the current ones and authors quoted freely from one another without giving credit, the author did not document the references used nor the names of the authors cited. All that was done was to add a statement in the introduction of the book that said:VOTS 84.1

In some cases where a historian has so grouped together events as to afford, in brief, a comprehensive view of the subject, or has summarized details in a convenient manner, his words have been quoted; but in some instances no specific credit has been given, since the quotations are not given for the purpose of citing that writer as authority, but because his statement affords a ready and forcible presentation of the subject. ^{7The Great Controversy, xi.}VOTS 84.2

As the decades passed, however, the need for giving proper credit to authors quoted was considered important. Therefore, a new and important revision took place in the year 1911, when the historical references in the current editions were included.VOTS 85.1

By the year 1916, one year after the author’s death, the series called “The Conflict of the Ages,” that began in 1858 with a small book of 200 pages, had been enlarged to a collection of five books with 3500 pages. ^{8The series titled “The Conflict of the Ages” is made up of Patriarchs and Prophets, Prophets and Kings, The Desire of Ages, The Acts of the Apostles, and The Great Controversy.}VOTS 85.2