These two companion volumes on the history of Adventism in Eerdmans's Library of Religious Biography series, the third edition of Ron Numbers's Prophetess of health and David Rowe's authoritative biography, God's strange work, largely approach their subjects through the lens of the external forces that influenced and propelled their respective messages.

Numbers's seminal study of Ellen G. White, founder of Seventh Day Adventism and the spiritual heir to William Miller, includes a new preface and two new appendices. First appearing in 1976, this is a riveting history of the Adventist Church that looks at the context of White and her testimonies, as well as the external influences upon her major doctrine of health reform. Ellen G. White came to prominence in the aftermath of the Great Disappointment. Numbers records her early forays into prophecy as a teenager in mid-nineteenth century Maine, and the development of this ‘gift’ over the course of her lifetime. Her prophetic visions served to mediate confusion over the failure of the Second Advent, to provide the impetus and framework for the Seventh Day Adventist Church, and to drive health reform within the Church. Numbers adroitly handles the controversial findings of unoriginal, un-credited material in White's testimonies – the transcribed accounts of her visions – as well as in her several volumes on history and health. His extensive access to Adventist archives provides strong primary source evidence for the proposition that White's testimonies were heavily influenced by the writings of her contemporaries and at times manipulated by close associates. Although it would no doubt be tempting to make that the whole of the story, the biography nevertheless acknowledges the significant impact that White had on world-wide medical missions.

The prefaces and appendices provide equally compelling reading. Included in the front matter is an account of how the book came to be, the attempts by competing interests to halt publication and, when that failed, to discredit the author. With all the twists and turns of fine political intrigue, Numbers's personal narrative cannot but become part of the historiography of Adventism. The appendices to this new edition serve to shed further light on White's early ministry and how her followers comprehended her claims to divine inspiration. The first, an abridged account of a Millerite elder on trial for disturbing the peace, depicts Ellen White in her early, heady Millerite days, when she was known by the name ‘Imitation of Christ’. But of particular note is the inclusion of a previously unreleased transcript from a secret 1919 meeting of the Seventh Day Adventist general conference. The intellectual struggle of these Adventist leaders closely echoes the modernist controversy occurring within broader theological circles. Among the issues raised at this private convening of Adventist clergy and faculty was the understanding of the verbal inspiration of White's writing in light of developing scholarship and higher criticism: to what degree was she assisted by secretaries; to what extent were her words changed and edited; and could subsequent revisions and omissions in her books be read as a repudiation of her earlier ‘inspired’ writings. The account of this meeting indicates that church leaders were quietly struggling with the very intellectual quandaries that Numbers controversially exposed in his biography, some sixty years later.

Providing a broader context for the history of Adventism, Rowe's God's strange work portrays the Adventist movement at its incipient stage. Rowe draws upon a wide range of primary source material, and an erudite understanding of early nineteenth-century America, to explain how William Miller, a politically well-connected and socially respected New England farmer, was able to entice thousands of other equally prosaic, pious Christians to join him in eager expectation of Christ's return on a certain day in 1844. While the subsequent Great Disappointment is the single most sensational detail of Miller's life, Rowe spends a minimal amount of time on this, focusing instead on the more banal details leading up to, and away from this significant moment. The implicit suggestion is that Miller has been too narrowly defined by his millenarian views. As much as spreading an end of the world message, Miller was intent on preaching a gospel of conversion. His prediction served more as a motivation for evangelism, than as a message unto itself, the effect of which was not lost upon non-Millerite clergy, willing to take advantage of his evangelistic appeal, even if they disagreed with his means.

Rowe brings a thoroughgoing understanding of the social, political and philosophical milieu of early nineteenth-century America to this study. He reveals the affinity between Millerism and the democratic, libertarian values of the post-Revolutionary generation to explain his mass appeal. Miller, who was influenced by the rational philosophy of his native New England, viewed his own conversion as a significant turn from scepticism and a rejection of deistic rationalism. However, Rowe convincingly shows Miller's conversion to be just as much a rationalist endeavour. Further, Miller's seemingly romantic and iconoclastic millennial views can be understood as precisely the product of his attempts to reconcile faith and Scripture to a rationalist framework. Hardly a hagiographic study, the biography reveals the humanity of the man behind an extraordinary movement – his certainties, his doubts, his crises of faith. His admirers have tended to promote a self-effacing and humble image of Miller; Rowe proposes a more sober approach to the man, one that takes into account the paranoia and pride that was evident in his dealings with critics and co-labourers. Rowe's biography is a valuable addition to the body of academic literature on Miller and the history of Adventism. At the same time, its narrative quality and thoughtful analysis of early American religion will appeal to a wider audience.