The Great Controversy Unplugged. Ideology of a Religious Classic

Essay from the year 2020 in the subject Theology - Biblical Theology, grade: 1.0, Kwame Nkrumah University, course: Biblical Theology, language: English, abstract: This article critiques Ellen G White's classic, 'The Great Controversy', an account of how the conflict between Christ and Satan has panned out in history, beginning with the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70 CE. The article uncovers the ideological underpinnings of The Great Controversy which includes a literalistic approach to apocalyptic literature using the insights of Teun A. van Dijk 'Ideology and discourse analysis.' While the hermeneutical vicissitudes of The Great Controversy are understandable in the light of nineteenth century biblical interpretation, the book is open to criticism in the light of the historical-critical method of interpreting scriptures associated with the likes of Hermann Gunkel and Julius Wellhausen, to name two of its progenitors. One way to understand what is going in The Great Controversy is to postulate a literary technique common to the apocalyptic genre of Vaticinium ex Eventu which Ellen G White, along with many of her contemporaries construed as futuristic.

Tarcisius Mukuka [Dipl. Pastoral Theol & Counselling, Dipl. Phil. & Rel. Studies, STB, SSL, PhD] is a biblical exegete by training. He holds a Licentiate in Biblical Exegesis from the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome and a doctorate in Biblical Hermeneutics from the University of Surrey in the United Kingdom. His doctoral dissertation was entitled "Orality as Casualty: Contextual and Postcolonial Analysis of Biblical Hermeneutics in Bembaland" (2014). He is currently a lecturer in Religious Studies Education at Kwame Nkrumah University in Kabwe. His research interests include postcolonialism and the Bible, gender and the Bible, religion, politics and power. He is the author of "Spoken Voice/Written Word: Negotiating How We Hear/Read the Bible" (2016) published by Lambert Academic Publishing and "In the Eye of a Very Catholic Storm" (forthcoming), by Crown Arts Publishers