Memory, Meaning & Faith

2011 Ellen White and Current Issues Symposium: "The Phenomenon of Prophecy and Role of Prophets in the Old Testament Compared with the Ministry of Ellen G. White"

Presentation

Jiri Moskala, Professor for Old Testament Exegesis and Theology at the SDA Theological Seminary at Andrews University, shared a paper about the characteristics and major roles of prophets in the Old Testament and whether these roles/tasks can be found in the ministry of Ellen G. White.*

Testimony. Dr. Moskala started with a personal testimony on how he had gone from a fearful picture of God to the picture a loving, a "smiling" God, who wants the best for everyone and who delights in His children. He found forgiveness, a new picture of God, joy of salvation and assurance of salvation in Christ. In this context, he found God as a loving savior also in Ellen White's writings, for example in Steps to Christ: "If you give yourself to Him, and accept Him as your personal Saviour, then, sinful as your life may have been, for His sake you are accounted righteous. Christ's character stands in place of your character, and you are accepted before God as just as if you had not sinned." (p.62) Actually, her writings had a big influence on Moskala's spiritual growth.

Phenomenon of Prophecy. Pointing to the dominant role of prophets in the Old Testament (OT), Dr. Moskala listed several prophets and the crucial points in salvation history in which they were called to their ministry: Noah (before the Flood); Abraham (starting point for a new ministry to all nations); Moses (Exodus from Egypt); Hosea and Amos (before Samaria's fall in 722 BC); Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel (before and during Babylonian captivity); John the Baptist (before Christ's appearing). Prophets also came often during a distinct time of crisis, Elijah and Elisha for example (Israel's idolatry).

Moskala quoted Abraham Heschel and said: "The God of the philosophers is a concept derived from abstract ideas; the God of the prophets is derived from acts and events." (Heschel, God in Search for Man, p. 213). After that Moskala gave an overview over the different kinds of prophets: starting with Enoch (first prophet, Jude 14) and his son Methuselah (prophetic meaning of name: "At his death He will send" or "When he is dead it shall be sent" - pointing to the flood which came in the year of Methuselah's death). Then Moskala proceeded to honorary prophets (Noah [Gen 6-9], Abraham [Gen 20:7], Moses [Deut 18:15, 18], Samuel [1 Sam 3:20] and David [Acts 2:29-30]) and mentioned also the different classifications of prophets in general (non-writing prophets [e.g. Enoch, Abraham, Elijah and Elisha] and classical writing prophets [major and minor prophets - number of 16]). Beside these there are, according to Moskala, also other special categories of prophets: those, whose writings were not included in the biblical canon (Samuel, Nathan, Gad [see 1 Chr 29:29; 2 Chr 9:29]) and prophetesses like Miriam and Hulda.

2011 Ellen White and Current Issues Symposium: "The Early Translation of Ellen G. White Books into Spanish"

Presentation

Glúder Quispe, currently a Ph.D. candidate in Adventist Studies at the SDA Theological Seminary, and a native from Peru, shed light on early translations of Ellen White into Spanish and the role Eduardo F. Forga played in this process.* He limited his research mainly to the years between the 1890s and 1915, the year in which Forga (as well as E. White) passed away. 

Translation from White's Books into Spanish from the 1890's to 1907. Quispe pointed to the important role that the literature work played in Adventist missions (Matthew 28:19-20 and Revelation 14:6) in every new global field. The first impulse to translate Adventist books into Spanish for the mission work in South America came from the European book committee. The first book published in Spanish was Patriarcas y profetas (Patriarchs and Prophets) by E. G. White in the year 1893. In the same year a group of missionaries arrived in Mexico and helped in the establishing of a medical mission and a school. In 1896 the first Adventist magazine in Spanish, El amigo de la verdad (The Friend of the Truth) with Dan T. Jones (1855-1901) as an editor, began to be published there. Articles by Ellen White and others started to follow soon. Other book projects were planned.

In 1897, G. W. Caviness (1825-1923) joined that group, after having worked as an SDA representative in an interdenominational committee to revise the Spanish translation of the Bible in Mexico City. After Jones' death in 1901 he became the next editor of El amigo de la verdad, and he worked  25 years in Mexico, translating also books and periodicals for the Spanish field.

2011 Ellen White and Current Issues Symposium: "Gift of Prophecy and the Church: A Biblical Perspective"

Presentation

Ranko Stefanovic, Professor for New Testament at the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary, traced origin, meaning, and function of the gift of prophecy in the Bible.* 

The Pre-Prophecy Period. After creation, still in Eden, God attempted to have an intimate relationship with Adam and Eve with straight face-to-face communication (cf. Gen 2:15-17). Since their disobedience and the fall caused a disconnectedness between them and God (Gen 3), the result was a disrupted relationship between Him and whole humanity as well as a destruction of their intimate communication with Him—which ultimately will not be restored until sin is totally removed (Rev 21-22).

Despite the fall God continued to communicate with humankind. According to Stefanovic, two phases can be traced in the Old Testament: a) the to-each-individual-communication and b) the through-prophets-communication. The first took place during the antediluvian/pre-flood up to patriarchal times where God spoke directly to individuals via theophanies or dreams. Examples for these periods can be found in Genesis, e.g., Noah (Gen 6:13-21; 7:1-4; 8:15-19; 9:1-19), Abraham (Gen 12-17; 22), Isaac (26:2-5, 24), Rebekah (25:22-23), Jacob (28:13-15; 31:3, 11-13; 35:9-12; 46:2-4), and also persons who did not belong to the godly line, for example Cain (4:6-15), Hagar (16:7-12; 21:17-18), and Abimelech (20:3-7). This list is not exhaustive and it also can be presumed, said Stefanovic, that God spoke to many others during this period, although they are not directly mentioned in Scripture.