**Perhaps not even the brothers Stefanovic, @GeorgeTichy **
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It seems that you’re saying that EGW is responsible for the Adventist understanding of biblical prophecy, George. That makes Adventist doctrine and belief dependent upon her, and not solely on biblical study and interpretation. There are real problems with this:
Firstly, the denomination doesn’t even make those claims, even though many within it often operate that way on a practical level. Secondly, this makes her “divine inspiration” the last word. Thirdly, this ignores the gulf of biblical knowledge and understanding between her day, and today…as if theology, biblical interpretation, and prophetic understanding, are frozen after the 19th c.
With this in place, no conclusions could ever be reached that vary from what she said. It’s a totally closed, and logically fallacious system. It also relieves us of the responsibility of grappling with the text for ourselves to see what it says. It’s already been settled. That’s not the call of authentic biblical interpretation.
Thanks…
Frank
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Well put! Adventists like to use the phrase “Present Truth” but if you try to share preset understandings from biblical scholarship - or science - you’re apt to be shut down as a heretic, or at least have your ideas ignored or derided.
Present Truth seems to mean some version of what was present in the 19th century.
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Frank, (and @Phil1)
Why are you and others n this forum always finnding statements that were not written, or meaning that does not exist? I fnd that very unusual and frankly, not worth pursuing.
With respect George, if you make broad, sweeping statements without qualification or sufficient substantiation (including casting aspersions on the scholarly integrity of other persons), then you leave readers guessing and inquiring as to the assumptions you are working from.
If you want forum participants to stop “always” doing this, you will need to be more specific and state where you are coming from at the outset in your writing. And you will need to be willing to engage with other writers in the process of successive clarification of communication. There is nothing unusual about such processes in ‘academic’ forums.
I notice that you engage in the very same process yourself that you are upset about others using in regard to your writing. I quote an earlier exchange in this present topic between yourself and George T below:
GeorgeTichy:
I am only saying that I never saw two people agreeing on all the interpretation details about Daniel & Revelation.
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150 years, as time goes on…history unfolds. We can’t possibly keep saying the same thing over and over…as we see other things happening. Like the second beast can’t possibly be the USA. Not if you actually read the passage and look at history. https://the-undercover-adventist.blogspot.com/2016/10/adventists-broken-record-of-same-old.html
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Phil,
I mean no disrepect but on this topic it is not about making broad statements but about presuming those that are not there at all; you went from assuming that my statement about Ford’s apotelesmatic pricinple was saying something about EGW (see below)
To presuming exactly the opposite, when I indicated to you I was not refenrecing her,
…to accusing me of slanderingDesmond Ford (see refence above) when I said his positionn was unusual or inconsistent for a scholar. You probably have not been in this forun long enough to know that although I disagree with his position, I have publicly and recently (<year) stated my opinion about him in this very forum as saying I believe he is a true and sincere Christian and that I expect to see him in Heaven (assuming I will make it there). Excuse the typos, using a phone’s keyboard is challenging
Paul62 –
Besides Hiram and the cornfield.
We have O.R. L Crosier in the DayStar Extra, I believe 1846.
Have you ever READ THAT ONE???
Was an Adventist, but NOT a Seventh day Adventist publication.
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No, George…not if he finds the former to be biblical and the latter not to be. He disagreed with EGW on the IJ on biblical grounds.
This is also why I don’t find Phil’s question to you to contain unwarranted assumption. Your above statement implies that EGW couldn’t have been wrong about this, and that Ford had to be. What if Ford was the one who actually interpreted the Bible more accurately regarding this? Do you hold that out as a possibility? If so, great. Then an unwarranted assumption has been made. If not, then the next logical step is that EGW, in your view, is an infallible interpreter of Scripture. You’ve left open that possible conclusion by your language.
Frank
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George, it seems you are saying she has new inspiration and new light. So…it Is objective to say she is the foundation for “present truth” understanding of Daniel & Revelation for SDA’s. Everything she said was not wrong…or correct. Just human…
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Thank you kindly for your response.
You’re right. We must be careful not to add to the list of wrong interpretations that we had because we claimed to have the spirit of prophesy since EGW’s time. What kind of spirit do we have that told us there was an investigative judgment going on from 1844 up to the present? What kind of spirit told EGW that there was an amalgation of man and beast before and after the flood? What kind of spirit told Mrs White that England will attack the U.S. during the civil war? Maybe we are lying that we have the spirit of prophesy and if we rectify any in our docrines, it will only prove that we don’t have the spirit of prophesy from the beginning.
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My eyes have been opened to alternative readings of the Apocalypse at least three times. I was raised within the SDA fold, and so believed at 20 that the correct interpretation lay somewhere between Ellen White’s, Uriah Smith’s, and Louis Were’s views. Then in my twenties I read Mattias Rissi’s “The Future of the World” and my eyes were dramatically opened to a new way to read it. In my 30’s I read R.H. Charles Critical Commentary for the first time and began to see the writing in a reconstructed, originary context. Within a decade or two I had read 20 more commentaries, including Adela Yarbro Collins’s “Crisis and Catharsis,” (1984) a sophisticated, ethical reading, and her later “The Combat Myth in the Book of Revelation” (2001).
I doubt if I could compose my current views to satisfy Dave Larson’s five points, but thanks to these and other scholars I am intellectually satisfied that the Apocalypse well deserves its place in Christian thought.
Its just not the book I grew up with anymore.
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I hope everyone, please, understands that there are now TWO George here. And that I am not the other one… LOL 
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I have found Dennis E Johnson’s book the Triumph of the Lamb the best commentary on Revelation. I found his use of Idealism the best way to understand the the players in the conflict of the ages.
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That looks good, Tom.
I’m not familiar with him, but in looking on Amazon, I came across his book, “Walking with Jesus Through His Word: Discovering Christ in All the Scriptures”.
Have you read this one as well?
George, I think I responded to the other George that doesn’t contain your lovely face. 
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There is another school of interpretation of Revelation, aside from preterism, historicism, and futurism. It has been labeled “contemporary historical.” To me, it seems very close to the preterist view. It is based on the idea that Revelation was actually a letter meant to be read to all seven congregations in 1st c. Asia Minor, and that its contents, from beginning to end, were meant as a timely message to them, not as a projected blueprint of the next nineteen centuries of Christian history, as Adventism has latched onto. Nor was it primarily a projection into the eschatological future of a modern anti-Christ, nor a timeless, spiritual generalizing of its contents that almost subordinates the time and place specificity of them.
We so much want to view Revelation as a book that is written to us and our day, that we forget that it was not. It was written by John to and for those in his day. That is not to say that its theme and message don’t have crucial meaning for us. It does. They do. But, that theme and message are discerned most clearly when we interpret it within its own life setting…much as we would interpret Galatians, or Amos, or 1 Cor.
I wouldn’t be totally dogmatic on this view, seeing that Jesus himself applied prophecy from Daniel to his own day, and that there may be some fluidity when dealing with writings as these. However, I feel that this view has more to commend it than the views that we have all encountered, replete with numerology and centuries later, speculative headline type fulfillments of what John was writing. He was writing to people and congregations in life situations whom he obviously cared about, and concerning issues they were facing.
I think we do the book justice when we first take seriously what John was trying to say to them, before we apply it to ourselves. I also think we will come to more satisfying and relevant conclusions and contemporary applications, than continuing to trumpet the papacy, all other protestant denominations, and the USA, or speculations about micro-chips, and one world government scenarios, as the fulfillment of what was on John’s mind.
Thanks…
Frank
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Frank –
Don’t forget all the Hymns and prayers and blessings in Revelation.
We as SDAs don’t parse them out of the narrative, so miss some
great blessings from Revelation that they bring.
PS-- Actually, in the reading of Paul, he introduces us to a number of the hymns
of the early church. Hymnody began early.
I enjoy the 1982 Episcopalian Hymnal. Has a quite a number of ancient hymns
translated into English rhyme. The compilers [have met the one who was the chairman]
did a great job of finding tunes for all of them.
I marvel at how much of the theology of those hymns is basic theology for us, coming
from 2,3,4,5-700 A.D. Christ’s life, death, resurrection, return were in their worship.
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Yes, you are right. I was just kidding. You know, there is one true George, and one fake… So, we have to clarify it all, just in case… LOL… 
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