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195 - Can Women Be Part of the Priesthood? | Church History Matters I Women & Priesthood Series
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- [00:00]
A
Is there any place in scripture where it says that priesthood only consists of men?
- [00:05]
B
Other churches had priests. Fundamental question was authority.
- [00:09]
C
Women could be prophets, meaning they could speak with the Spirit, but they could almost never be priests.
- [00:15]
B
In the second half of the 19th century, there are women who began to be ordained.
- [00:19]
A
Women were primarily identified through their relationships to men as a daughter, as a wife. And everybody just assumed that this was how the world worked.
- [00:28]
C
At the time of the restoration, there was no expectation or understanding that women would be part of the priesthood of our church.
- [00:35]
B
Without the female, all things cannot be restored to the earth. It takes all to restore the priesthood.
- [00:42]
A
There's going to be things that happen in Nauvoo that have never happened before.
- [00:47]
C
The priesthood of the Nauvoo Temple would include both men and women. A dual gendered temple priesthood that is unprecedented.
- [00:57]
B
And this is a new idea. This is a radical departure.
- [01:04]
A
Hello, Scott. Hello, Lisa.
- [01:06]
B
Hello, Casey.
- [01:08]
A
Nice to see both of you. And it's also refreshing to have a third host with us today. Lisa Olson Tate is joining us for this series on women and priesthood. And Lysa works in the church history department. And just if I can, last week we talked a little bit about the place of women within the church. Personal anecdote. I have a wife and three daughters and I often go home and tell them what we've talked about. And we struck a nerve on one particular subject, which was I said, Lisa, that I made a joke to you about women's pockets. And I thought this was an amusing anecdote, but it turned into a really, really passionate. I don't want to use the word screed from my wife and my daughters about women's pockets and why haven't we fixed this? And I said, actually, Lisa said we could do a whole podcast on just women's fashion. And they were like, do that then. But I said, do it. Lisa's an important person and she's kind of on loan, and so we don't want to monopolize her time. But that's just one example, right, of how much there is to explore when it comes to women's history.
- [02:28]
B
Yep, one example. And there's a lot more layers to it than you would think.
- [02:39]
A
But to sum up what we really did talk about last time, we. We introduced the idea that. That women have always been essential to the story of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, that they've been there from the beginning, that they continue to play big roles today, but their role has been complex. There's been ebbs and flows and backwards and forwards when it comes to their place organizationally within the church and the roles that they possess. And there's also a window of time that we have to be willing to sort of look into to understand the early environment of the restoration. Like, one of the things we brought up was male headship, which a lot of people would be uncomfortable with today, but was sort of the norm back in the 1830s. Is that fair to say? Lisa?
- [03:22]
B
Yeah, absolutely.
- [03:23]
A
Okay, so today we're getting to the main course, now that we've done a little bit of introduction, but we're going to have to start, like any good conversation, by laying down some definitions, some structural guidelines that will guide us as we explore this subject. So, Lisa, why don't you walk us through some of those things to start off?
- [03:46]
B
Casey I think what we want to say is that we're going to look at discussions about women in priesthood over time and the way that we have thought about and talked about and understood this subject because it's undergone some permutations that are interesting and also important to understand. So that's the high level preview of what we're going to do, is we're going to kind of march through these discussions over time. And I think it's important, again, like, we're taking a historical perspective on this. So we're describing what's been said and understood in the past. We're not prescribing, we're not predicting anything like that. And it's not necessarily a matter of like, well, they were right back then and we're wrong now or they were wrong and we're right. At least as I see it, priesthood is a very big concept. It's a capacious concept. And the Lord seems to let us think about it, emphasize aspects of it at different times according to what's needed and the context of the times. So it's not that there isn't a pretty stable core understanding of priesthood, but the way that we have talked about it over time and the definitions that we've used for it have changed. And that's important to understand.
- [05:05]
A
You've already sent me to Google to look up the word capacious, which I'm going to be humble and honest and admit I don't know what that means. So what do you mean when you say capacity? Large capacity is capacious. It's big.
- [05:16]
B
Large capacity.
- [05:17]
C
Yeah.
- [05:18]
B
Contains multitudes. There's a lot of layers, meanings, understandings, resonances for priesthood.
- [05:26]
C
Yeah, Maybe we can jump off there and just maybe do a little deeper dive this time into kind of an 1830s understanding of priesthood in the church. Kind of how it began and then how this develops. By my count, I think there's about four definitions of priesthood we're gonna. We're gonna be hitting on by the time we. We get done with this episode. And the earliest understanding is that priesthood is men who are priests. It's an order of priests. When I'm explaining this to younger people, I say, you've read the book Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. You know, what's the Order of the Phoenix? Or you know, about the Order of the Jedi. What's the Order of the Jedi? What's this about? You know? And teenagers start nodding their head, or young adults like, okay, I understand what you mean by order. Order is a group, right? It's a group of. In this case, a priesthood order is a group of priests. And. And you hear this in the language of scripture as you're reading, you know, 1830s, 1840s scripture. You'll. You'll pick it out. For instance, here's 1 in section 124, verse 123 of the Doctrine and Covenants. Notice this language is 1841. And the Lord speaks about, quote, officers belonging to my priesthood, even the priesthood, which is after the order of Melchizedek, which is after the order of my only begotten Son. So in just that little verse, you see that there are officers who belong to this thing, this group of priests called priesthood. And they are based after the holy order of the only begotten Son of God. This is a very early understanding in the church. 1835, we see this in section 107. This understanding of priesthood is a holy order. And there are presidencies of priesthood groups, Melchizedek and Aaronic. And it just breaks down like this. But let's go back even earlier, like 1829, as they're working on the translation of the Book of Mormon. You remember that Joseph and Oliver wondered about baptism when they read about Jesus giving authority to baptize in what we call today, third Nephi 11. And Joseph says they retired to the woods to inquire of the Lord respecting baptism. And Oliver elaborates a little, and he says that they wondered about authority. The question was, have men the authority to administer in the name of Christ? And we remember what happens, right? John the Baptist comes and he says, upon you, my fellow servants, in the name of Messiah, I confer the Aaronic priesthood. That image of John conferring the priesthood of Aaron on Joseph and Oliver could Be likened to a king who is knighting a knight. Right. Sometimes we call a group of knights knighthood. Right. Knighthood is when you belong to this order of knights. What John the Baptist is doing there, in my imagination here, is he is knighting, as it were, he's giving this authority in the king's order to do the work of a priest, which he then elaborates on.
- [08:16]
A
Right.
- [08:16]
C
Which is preaching the gospel of repentance and baptizing, etc. And so that's our first instance, Right. When we have these two men inaugurated into this Order of Aaron, almost like a knighthood. Right. Conferred priesthood upon them. And feel free to jump in at any time if I'm missing anything you want to hear here. But I think that early Book of Mormon understanding of Jesus conferring authority and Then Alma chapter 13, I think, is huge too, when it talks there about the order of priesthood. Do you want to say anything about that, Lisa? The order of priesthood in Alma 13.
- [08:50]
B
Oh, I just find it so interesting. It's really laid out there. We have some other really early references too, like in the Book of Moses to the priesthood order. So it's something that's there from the very beginning. And like a lot of other things, it's kind of a seed that comes to fruition over time.
- [09:12]
C
Yeah. And so it seems like the earliest definition then is an order of priests, and they're men and they hold offices, and that's basically it. And then kind of almost a second definition that sort of grows out of that first one that you'll notice again in those early revelations is that a man's priesthood would refer to the office that he held within the priesthood order. So a question you could ask in Joseph's day that doesn't make a lot of sense today is, what's your priesthood? Like, a man could say, what's your priesthood? And someone's correct answer to that could be, elder, my priesthood is priest. My priesthood is apostle. Right. Priesthood was a kind of a shorthand term also for your office within the priesthood orders. You'll see that from time to time also in the early revelations. But those are the ones, I would say, that dominate in the first decade of the church. Right. The 1830s. These are the two understandings of priesthood, and there's not much more to it than that.
- [10:13]
A
So this definition of priesthood as sort of an order is not well known in the church today. Right. I taught a class this week and asked them about this, and literally none of them defined priesthood this way. They used the idea of authority. Right. So I went back and looked Joseph Smith's exact words when John appears, and Oliver Cowdery too. And I could see how you could read it both ways, right? Like they're being inaugurated in the priesthood or they're being given authority. Joseph Smith's wording was the messenger who visited us on this occasion and conferred this priesthood upon us said that his name was John, the same that is called John the Baptist in the New Testament, that he acted under the direction of Peter, James, and John, who held the keys of the priesthood of Melchizedek, which priesthood he said would in due time be conferred upon us. So I could see reading it either way. It's interesting that the wording Oliver Cowdery uses, because Oliver Cowdery writes the earlier history. He writes, as in 1834, as he says that John appeared and his wording was, upon you, my fellow servants, in the name of Messiah, I confer this priesthood and this authority which shall remain upon the earth, that the sons of Levi may yet offer an offering unto the Lord in righteousness. So I can see where the definition of priesthood, meaning authority, authority, comes from, because you really could read both passages either way, depending on what you bring, what the assumptions are that you bring to the text. But I agree with you that those later references, especially section 107, really make it sound like it is an order. It's like the Order of the Phoenix or the Jedi Order, Scott, or anything like that.
- [11:52]
B
And I think that's a product of development and understanding over time. KC I think is absolutely right that they were the question, the fundamental question was authority. Is there authority? I mean, other churches had priests and priesthoods and orders of priests, and that had been true for millennia. And so the question was, is there authority? And so the crux of their understanding of what they're receiving is authority. And as Scott has talked about, along with that, they're going to come to understand that that means they have been ushered into or initiated into this order of priesthood. Another thing we have to remember is that we have to be careful about not assuming our current definition is what is being expressed when we look at historical sources and even in the Scriptures. And this is where that confusion comes in a little bit. We have a abstract definition of priesthood now, which we'll talk about how that came to be later. But the scriptural texts, it's really easy to read into them our current definitions and understanding. And this is what I mean when I say it's not right or wrong, those Scriptures and the way they talk about priesthood from the Beginning have like a lot of layers and a lot of potential meanings to them. But once we go back into those historical sources, is really important for us to see what they meant and how they were understood in their original context. And that really doesn't come naturally to us. We have to intervene in our own assumptions in order to do that. But also, once you see in these texts the definitions and understandings that we've been talking about, you can't unsee it. It's there. And so that's what can help us to trace this historical story and understand how we got with the same words from one understanding to another.
- [14:08]
C
Now, let me just share an example of what you're saying there, Lisa. And I think, Casey, with Section 13, for some to read it with maybe some ambiguous language saying. I think it could go either way. I would always suggest that we cross reference it to D&C. 27, verse 8. This is 1830 August. This is super early. And this is Jesus's version of what happened with John the Baptist. He says this in verse eight, which John, speaking of John the Baptist, I have sent unto you my servants, Joseph Smith Jr. And Oliver Cowdery. Listen to this language. To ordain you unto the first priesthood which you have received, that you might be called and ordained, even as Aaron. I like that one better. There's less ambiguity because they're being ordained unto a priesthood, right? They're joining, in other words, an order here rather than having just authority conferred on them. And the authority itself is called the priesthood. That's harder to read that into verse eight here. As he says, ordain you unto the first priesthood. So for anyone who's, you know, wanting to go down this little rabbit hole with us, I mean, that's. We're getting a little technical here. But the point. The point is, like, Lisa, the point you're making is good because if we don't check our modern assumptions at the door, almost as we read. Ancient. Not ancient. Sorry. As we read early documents when the words have gone through some metamorphosis, that's almost a guaranteed formula for misunderstanding the text.
- [15:36]
A
Yeah, well said, well said.
- [15:37]
C
We're just trying to be helpful here.
- [15:39]
A
Now, I'm going to ask a question that I hope is okay, but since we're defining our terms using the Scriptures, is there any place in scripture where it says that priesthood by either definition, authority, or a group of people, only consists of men? Is there any scripture that sets that out explicitly? Explicitly, yeah. Or even implicitly? Like if we were saying priesthood is just a Male thing. Are there any scriptures that even like imply that or outright state it?
- [16:17]
C
That's a good challenge.
- [16:18]
B
The short answer I think is no.
- [16:21]
C
Casey, sounds like you've done this research.
- [16:25]
B
We, yeah, to my view, I'm happy to be corrected. But yeah, I have looked and the closest I think we get are there's a verse in section 107. I won't be able to pull the verse out off the top of my head, although I can see where it is on the page. But where it talks about this priesthood being handed down from father to son. Son. But we'll talk about this a little bit later. That's referring to this patriarchal priesthood, temple priesthood, you know, whatever. We. That's not necessarily referring to what we would call ecclesiastical priesthood.
- [17:04]
C
What about section 107, verse 16? Just to play this game, I think this is still talking about ecclesiastical. This is talking about the office of bishop. And it says no man has a legal right to this office to hold the keys, except to be a literal descendant of Aaron. I guess that's not. That doesn't fully satisfy the question mentions man.
- [17:26]
B
It's typical of what we see in the scriptures though, which is that it's just taken for granted that priesthood is men. Priests are going to be men. That's just taken for granted. And then it's complicated, especially in like the KJV and in modern revelation that uses that same language when they use the male pronoun in a universal way to say, you know, mankind, when that means man and womankind. And you know, we could go down truly a big rabbit hole on this. But in the Hebrew and in the Greek, like there are places where it's clearer whether it refers only to men or to men and women or whatever. But that language gets adopted in the modern scriptures and so we can't always tell when man means man and when it means people.
- [18:21]
A
Yeah, people.
- [18:22]
C
And my daughters, this is crazy, but like, I feel like my daughters are very, very hip, you know, and they, they call each other bro. Have you seen this with young women? They're starting to call each other bro.
- [18:36]
A
My 7 year old does this.
- [18:37]
C
You know that like, you know that stands for brother, right? You know that, you know, it's a male word. It's so funny. They're like, they call my wife bro. Yeah.
- [18:47]
A
My seven year old goes brah. And I bruh. I don't think that's the feminine version of bro. First of all, yeah, I have paused and said words matter, honey. Do you know what that word means? But yeah, some Words are male leaning, but unisex.
- [19:05]
B
I have a friend who calls me dude when we talk back and forth. Dude, dude, dude.
- [19:13]
C
Anyway, but Scripture is definitely. You're right. It always leans, almost always right, when it talks about those who receive Christ become the sons of God, for instance. Right?
- [19:26]
A
Yeah.
- [19:26]
C
I think the Greek word there in John is children, the children of God. But the translation, King James say the sons of God, because sons means sons and daughters, Right. And so on and so forth throughout scripture. You're right. But why do you bring that? Why do you bring that question up, Casey?
- [19:40]
A
I'm curious. I bring it up because we talked about this last time. There is this historical framing of male headship that sometimes we ignore or we push off because it's kind of repulsive to us in the 21st century. And full disclosure, listeners, when we came to this section of the outline, I said, I should probably do this. And Lisa offered to do it. And I said, I'm the least comfortable with this, so I should probably do it. This would be good for you, Casey. My discomfort comes from the fact that I teach classes on the eternal family, and the family proclamation talks about equal partnership marriage. And the home I was raised in and the home that I try to run is very much equal partnership. But within Christianity, it is fair to say that there is this kind of understanding that especially is more asserted in the 19th century that, that men are the leaders and women serve under the direction of men. For instance, where did some of that come from? So, for example, the Book of Genesis. This is the King James version, but this is after Adam and Eve have fallen. And the statement that the Lord makes to Eve is, thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. And knowing that the church has freed us to look at other biblical versions, I've got my parallel plus here. And yeah, the esv, your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you. I looked it up in the book of Moses too, just to make sure the JST is in line with this. And the wording is in sorrow. Thou shalt bring forth children, and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. So I think a fair number of Christians today would say, hey, it's right there in the Bible that the husband is the ruler and that. That's the traditional Christian model of family. Just so we're not using the Old Testament here too. In Ephesians 5, 22, 24, wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands as unto the Lord, for the husband is the head of the wife. Now, usually when I bring this one up in class, I. I mentioned the next verse which says, husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church. So we're talking about leadership, but in an unselfish Christ, like the greatest shall be the least kind of way. But it is there. And then a text that we cite a lot in scripture. 1 Corinthians 11, 7, 9, 11. Woman was made for man, not man for the woman. The woman is the glory of the man. Neither is the man without the woman, nor the woman without the man in Christ, which we'll circle back to and explain this a little bit. But I usually use that text to say they're complementary, that they're designed to operate together two halves of one whole.
- [22:48]
C
Verse 11 is awesome, but verse 7 just said, woman was made for man, not man for woman.
- [22:54]
B
Yeah, I understand why we want to massage those and make ourselves feel better about them, but it's super important to recognize that this was a structuring principle for society and that people did take this literally. And I'm just here to tell you guys, I was raised being taught this in seminary in the 1970s and 80s. It is not that long since we owned this idea as a church, and it was enacted in certain ways in the temple and in our discourse. So just because we've kind of not decided not to talk about it anymore, there is still a very strong history of this kind of talk in the church. We could sit here and multiply quotes for an hour.
- [23:41]
A
Yeah.
- [23:42]
B
And that's not by way of condemning, it's not by way of rejecting, you know, good people of the past, but just that it's super important to understand that this idea mattered.
- [23:55]
A
Yeah. And it's part of the landscape. Right. Especially the early Restoration landscape, that the assumption here was that women were primarily identified through their relationships to men, as a daughter, as a wife, as a mother. All of them significant roles, by the way. And everybody just assumed this was how the world worked. I mean, in the 19th century, women didn't have the right to vote, but I think at least part of the justification for that was, well, they're just supposed to communicate to their husbands what their desires are, and he'll vote on their behalf. Right. And within the church, this was part of the overlay, the environment that the Restoration grew up into. For instance, Parley P. Pratt, one of my favorite authors, wrote this. He wrote, a man who obeys the ordinances of God and is without blemish or deformity, who has sound health and mature age and enjoys liberty and access to the elements of life, is designed to be the head of a woman, a father and a guide to the weaker sex, and of those of tender age to mansions of eternal life and salvation. A woman under similar circumstances is designed to be the glory of some man in the Lord, to be led and governed by him as her head in all things, even as Christ is the head of the man, to honor, obey, love, serve, comfort, and help him in all things to be a happy wife and, if blessed with offspring, a faithful and affectionate mother, devoting her life to the joys, cares and duties of her domestic sphere.
- [25:24]
C
I just don't feel like that quote would fly today.
- [25:28]
A
I'm not going to put it into my eternal family lectures. I'm not quite ready for that.
- [25:32]
B
Oh, come on. And yet this was.
- [25:35]
A
It's part of the landscape, it's part of the environment that we're looking at here.
- [25:39]
B
And that was one of the most widely disseminated tracts, publications by Latter Day saints in the 19th century, Parley Pratt's key to the science of theology. So these are not hidden things that you have to go digging for. If you get into those 19th century sources, you're going to find this all over the place and into the 20th century as well.
- [26:02]
A
Yeah. And I guess the question we have to ask here is, was this normal or was this abnormal? Were Latter Day Saints expressing normative views when they wrote things like this, or were they outside the norm? Were we more or less assertive when it came to women's rights? Like, how do we fit into the religious landscape of the time?
- [26:20]
B
Yeah, that's a good question in my sense, without having, like dug deep and studied this in every denomination or whatever. But my sense is that it is very widespread. Latter Day Saints are very much a part of the culture with, with these ideas and these understandings. If you go back, for example, and read the Declaration of the Rights of woman from 1848, the Seneca Falls meeting that specifically calls out these ideas of women being subordinate to men religiously and so forth. And all the way up to the 1890s when Elizabeth Cady Stanton publishes her woman's Bible, which goes back and tries to revise, you know, point out the sexism and the inequality in the Bible. So it was. It was a topic of discussion because it was so deeply embedded and wide understood. And again, let's recognize that in law, it's not just that women couldn't vote, women couldn't hold property, women didn't have the right to their own wages. Women did not have the right to their own children, even if their husbands were abusive. So, like, in law, it was caught. The term was called coverture. When a woman married, her legal identity was covered by that of her husband. So women were literally subsumed. You know, there's the old saying that the man and wife become one and that one is the man. That was how they understood it.
- [27:51]
C
Yeah. Wow, that is so foreign. That is so foreign.
- [27:55]
A
And bringing this back to our subject, in 1830s America, were there any churches that included women in their priesthood? Was that a thing?
- [28:06]
C
I did a little digging into this question recently and found that the answer is almost none. Almost none. The only exception might be, like, radical communal groups like the Shakers, which, like two female. Yes, they had two female elders that were considered perfectly equal with two male elders in governing their village community. But in essentially every mainline Christian denomination in America, there was a clear understanding, because of these biblical male headship assumptions, that women did not govern, they did not preside, they did not administer ordinances, they were not part of any priesthood. So at the time of the restoration, there was therefore no expectation or understanding that women would be part of the priesthood of our church. Right. This order of men with divine authorization to serve in priestly functions, which in the beginning primarily referred to preaching the gospel, baptizing and confirming, like, no women were expected to do that because that was not a practice that was widespread in the 1830s. And if it was practiced by any groups, they were seen as very fringe, right radical. I couldn't find anything, Lisa, anything that you found in your research that would.
- [29:18]
B
No, I think that's good, Scott. I think you've overviewed it really well. The deal breaker, like there was in some especially, like, there's kind of a pattern where in, like, newer, more radical groups, women tend to have more autonomy, more. More opportunities. And then as those groups either fade away or become more institutionalized, then it tends to rebalance towards male authority. And so there are, as you say, there are examples of women preaching of women doing things, but the deal breaker would have been to ordain a woman to a position where she was in charge of men, where a woman had some kind of authority over men. That would be the deal breaker. Now, in the second half of the 19th century, there are women who begin to be ordained as ministers. So, for example, Anna Howard Shaw, who was a great leader in the women's suffrage movement, was the Reverend Anna Howard Shaw, and she was an ordained minister. So that is actually, it's really interesting because that is A way that Latter Day Saints and mainstream Christianity diverges. And we could, we could talk a lot about the implications for that as well, but we're focused on our church and our tradition today.
- [30:36]
C
Okay, so, so can I ask a follow up question on that? Speaking of ordaining women, let's talk about doctrine and covenants. 25. Can we like the revelation to Emma Smith and specifically verse seven. There's a line in verse seven that says, speaking about Emma Smith, thou shalt be ordained under his hand, meaning Joseph Smith's hand to expound scriptures and to exhort the church. So what does ordain mean in 1830 in this context?
- [31:04]
B
Well, we don't know exactly. We don't know exactly what Joseph or the Lord envisioned for Emma when this revelation was revealed. It certainly seems to open the possibility for an official position for a woman within the church. On the one hand, ordain as a word just can simply mean to appoint, to designate, to, you know, give some kind of recognition or authority to. And so. And in the Gospel Topics essays about Joseph Smith's teachings on priesthood, Women in Temple, we give some examples of how ordain was used in all these loose ways, especially early on. So we don't automatically have to say ordain equals priesthood, but at the same time it is the word that was used for ordaining men to the priesthood. And so it certainly seems to open up the possibility that for an official position for a woman within the church. Now, as far as the expounding and exhorting goes, Emma came from a Methodist tradition, and in the Methodist tradition, there were people who were known as exhorters who would read, maybe expound scripture, you know, like in their meetings with groups of believers. They were not preachers, they were not ministers, but it was a recognized position. And since the 18th century, occasionally there had been women in that tradition who'd been authorized to act as exhorters or as preachers. Again, the fault line would have been placing women in authority over men. That would be the deal breaker.
- [32:49]
C
And it's interesting to me that this was a revelation given to Emma in 1830. And it just so happens that the 1830s were actually the peak of the female exhorting phenomenon in Christian churches. As I understand it, like, this is a time when some women were becoming quite influential at the pulpit, despite the Bible saying in like First Corinthians 14, that says women should keep silence in the church, which was used sometimes to put women down and to silence their voices. But a little workaround to this, which I thought was pretty crafty, is that they would make a semantic distinction between preaching and exhorting. They argued that Mary Magdalene, for instance, she was the first to announce the resurrection. Therefore women had a divine right to deliver a message. Delivering a message was exhorting, even if they didn't have the legal right to interpret doctrine, which they would say is preaching. Many women also cleverly argued that they were weak instruments. They just owned, like, we're the weaker sex. Right. And so by emphasizing their own feminine weakness, they would then say, that proves that the power of our words, if we speak powerfully, that must mean that our words are coming from God, not ourselves, which is just so fun. I love that. It's like, good move, girls. Good move. They would also use Galatians, Ephesians 3, verse 28, where Paul says, there is neither male nor female in Christ Jesus. That was kind of the primary hammer used to break down some of the walls of the pulpit. But I've heard it described that in the 1830s, women could be prophets, meaning they could speak with the Spirit, but they could almost never be priests. They could move a man's soul with their words and bring him to his knees in repentance, but they couldn't baptize him and they couldn't legally sign his church membership card. And so there's kind of this interesting spirit led, but not legally authorized kind of a thing going on there. So Emma's being called to expound, right, in that context, isn't she?
- [34:57]
B
Yeah, yeah. So we don't have any records in the early church of Emma filling any kind of public or official position. And we'll talk about this more when we get to talking about the organization of the Relief Society. But Joseph says that Emma was ordained, that he ordained her in 1830. At the time this revelation was given. We don't have any formal record of that. As I say, we don't have any record of her, you know, expounding, exhorting, you know, that kind of thing. That same revelation, of course, does call her to select hymns for a hymnal, and that was a significant contribution for Emma to make. The. The hymnal was published in 1835, 36, right around just before the temple's dedicated, I believe. And we know Emma worked on it, but I don't think we know relatively how much she did and how much William Phelps did, because he worked on that hymnal quite a bit, too. But we know that Emma did have a role in that. And then there are later times when they go back to this idea that Emma should be working on hymnals. So that was not an insignificant public role, but inherently it's not a preaching role or a standing up in public kind of a role. That's what we know. We know what's in the revelations, we know what happened, we know what we don't have in the records. But the potential is there from 1830.
- [36:28]
C
And. And she does become a preacher eventually, doesn't she, in the Relief Society. But that's not till 12 years after this revelation is given. Is that fair?
- [36:36]
B
Yeah, I mean, they never use that title. I think it's implicit or understood as part of her role as president that she'll lead, that she'll speak, that she'll exhort or expound scripture. You know, they don't explicitly lay that out, but I think it is understood as part of her stewardship or her privilege as leader of the Relief society.
- [37:02]
A
So section 25, it sounds like we have evidence that the command there that she was supposed to put together a collection of sacred hymns, she did do that, but we don't have evidence that she gave public exhortations or sermons or anything. But I'm trying to be fair here. Do we have a lot of public exhortations or sermons from Joseph Smith or
- [37:24]
C
really anybody during the early 30s, early 1830s?
- [37:27]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [37:28]
B
This is an example of where we say, we don't know. We don't have records. The lack of evidence doesn't prove that it didn't happen. But, you know, you also wonder, like, of all the accusations thrown against the Mormons early on, if they had women standing up and preaching, that very well could have been one of them as well, you know, so it's just hard to say.
- [37:51]
A
Okay, okay. Well, segueing from the hymnbook, that hymnbook is prepared in advance of the dedication of the church's first temple, the House of the Lord in Kirtland, Ohio. And this is where the structure of priesthood starts to really sort of come into focus for us a little bit. Especially. Section 107 is received. We've mentioned on this podcast before, the section 107 is several revelations that are sort of brought together and put into their final form, which shows a clear expansion of quorums and offices and duties in the church, which in section 107 is still referring to men. And then the Kirtland Temple is constructed between 1833 and 1836 and has some distinctive features built into the architecture. Anybody that has visited the Kirtland Temple has been struck by the. The tiered pulpits that represent on one side, the offices of the Aaronic priesthood, and on the other side, the offices of the Melchizedek priesthood. And we have records of who even sat in those pulpits. They were all heads of priesthood quorums that sat there during the dedication of the Kirtland temple. And then in the months leading up to the dedication of the Kirtland temple, Joseph Smith prepares the priesthood of the church by introducing these rituals, which are a washing, anointing. Sometimes there was perfuming involved, too, that was used to consecrate temple priests with the goal of an endowment of power being given to the elders that would then go forth to preach the gospel and gather Israel. So this gives us as much as anything. The building itself provides a snapshot as to what the hierarchy of the church looked like in the 1830s. And it's primarily male. And the rituals that are received in Kirtland are primarily given to males. I don't know of any instance where
- [39:55]
C
I think it's exclusively male, isn't it? Yeah, I don't think it's primarily. I think it's exclusively.
- [39:59]
A
Yeah, yeah. We don't have any record of any women receiving these ordinances. Right. But we should mention, too, that today the temple ordinances are for all people, male and female. In Kirtland, they weren't for everybody. It seems like generally the priesthood of the church, the church hierarchy, were the ones that received these ordinances. And then it's in Nauvoo where it becomes a teaching that they're supposed to be received by all people. Now, we should mention, too, that women contribute in important ways to the construction of the temple and that they attended the celebration. One of the stories I love to tell is about a nursing mother who attends the dedication and her baby participates in the hosanna shout. I've always wondered if that means the baby was shouting hosanna or if the baby just started to cry. Either way, kind of neat. But there's also one source that you pointed this out to us, Lisa, that when the solemn assembly was held, women were not allowed to participate. In fact, what's the source there? It's from George Albert Smith. Lisa, what did he say exactly?
- [41:06]
B
George Albert Smith? I think it comes from the Journal of Discourse, as he's talking later and recalling that when the women found out that they were not allowed to participate in that solemn assembly, he said some of the women were right huffy about it. They had sacrificed, they had worked, they had made carpets and curtains, and they had done a lot to build this temple. And with the understanding that came from the revelations that this solemn assembly was what they were leading up to. And then they were very clearly excluded from that because they did not fit into the understanding of priesthood. And this was for the priesthood.
- [41:51]
A
So the words are they were right. Huffy, which I don't think I'm going to work into a conversation this week. But I was just going to say,
- [42:00]
B
in general, I would advise you not to accuse a woman of being Huffy.
- [42:03]
A
Yeah, yeah. I've done that a couple of times in my life. It never turned out well.
- [42:09]
B
Just saying.
- [42:09]
A
But the major, major takeaway from Kirtland period is that Joseph Smith is going to connect priesthood and temple, which this is all Old Testament 101. Right. That they're not only looking to the New Testament for their liturgy and their doctrine, but they're looking to the Old Testament as well. And in Nauvoo, this is going to be continued. In fact, it's going to be magnified in major ways and the temple is going to come to be understood as the place for ultimate expression, embodiment and formation of priesthood. But this has big implications in Nauvoo for both men and women. This is a major thing going forward.
- [42:49]
C
Yeah. It's probably worth pointing out that the very first time the word priesthood ever shows up in scripture is, at least in the King James Bible, is in Exodus 40, I believe. And it's talking about a group of men who are being ordained, washed, anointed and clothed to become temple priests. So the very first use of priesthood in scripture is actually in a temple context. And so, yeah, Joseph's instinct and the revelations that are guiding him in this direction are bringing temple and priesthood understanding, like, intertwined with one another in inextricable ways. And we see that develop in Nauvoo in. In such cool ways. In fact, can I. Can I just mention a couple things? So. So 1841, the Lord commands the building of the Nauvoo Temple. Right. DNC124. And we should say at the outset here that the Nauvoo Temple was the first of its kind in the history of the world. So far as we know, all previous temples in scriptural history, like beginning with Moses, tabernacle onto Solomon's Temple, Zerubbabel's Temple, Herod's Temple, including all the Nephite temples that we know about in the Book of Mormon, like, these are all temples built in the era of the law of Moses. Think about that. This is the era of the Old Covenant. These temples were designed as places to support a system of rituals where temple priests would sacrifice animals. So when Joseph Smith is doing temple theology, he's not reaching back to the Old Testament for that kind of temple, that's for sure, because we know that at the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the law of Moses was fulfilled, the era of a new covenant had begun. Jesus announced, and this animal sacrifice style temple suddenly became obsolete. And so did the type of temple priesthood that supported it. And that's a major point that I think we don't talk about a lot. But by the way, many of our Christian friends would say, exactly, that's why Christians don't build temples. That's why we don't need temples. As the Apostle Paul said, church members now collectively constitute the temple of God, metaphorically, because now the spirit of God dwells in you. Paul says, and so we don't need temples. That's the major Christian response to this. And there is something true about that line of argumentation, to be honest, but it's also incomplete. What's true is that we don't need Old Testament type temples anymore. Of Zerubbabel and Herod fame, what was done away following Jesus's death and resurrection was the need for that. But there's more to that story. According to Jesus, he said, not only that old things are done away. He also said, all things have become new. And that has major implications for temples. So for instance, in the season of the restoration, we find that there is to be a new temple type with a new type of temple priesthood. And the Nauvoo temple was to be the first of this kind. Like speaking of this, the Lord explicitly told the prophet Joseph smith this in January 1841, regarding the Nauvoo temple. He said, quote, let this house be built unto my name, that I may reveal mine ordinances therein unto my people. For he explained, listen carefully here. I deign to reveal unto my church things which have been kept hid from before the foundation of the world, things that pertain to the dispensation of the fullness of times. So there's clearly some unprecedented stuff to be revealed. Suggesting that the ordinances and the function of the Nauvoo temple included at least as much innovation as it did restoration. Right. Probably, you know, if we're being honest here, more innovation than restoration, because this is new, this is not the Old Testament temple type. And one really concrete example of, of unprecedented would be the nature of the temple priesthood, meaning those who will officiate in the ordinances, like in verse 42, listen to this carefully. The Lord says, and I will show unto my servant Joseph all things pertaining to this house and the priesthood thereof. Close quote. And what we find out just two years later is that the priesthood of the Nauvoo Temple would include both men and women officiating in those newly revealed ordinances. Think about that. A dual gendered temple priesthood. That is unprecedented. Indeed. And, and it's actually directly connected to the establishment of the Relief Society. Right?
- [47:15]
B
Yeah. We're going to talk more about the Relief Society in an organizational sense in a future episode, but today we want to focus on how the organization of the Relief Society went hand in hand with prepar women to be part of the temple priesthood. And our sources for this are primarily the sermons that Joseph Smith gave to the Relief Society in Nauvoo in 1842, 1843. He visits the Relief Society something like seven times and, and, and teaches them from the very beginning. He is using language associated with priesthood. So, for example, March 31, 1842, two weeks after the Relief Society is organized, he stands up in a meeting and he says he's going to make of this society a kingdom of priests, as in Enoch's day, as in Paul's day. So he's explicitly saying, you women are going to be priests. And he's invoking the idea that there's an ancient order of priesthood that, that they're going to ultimately be part of. And I think he saw this, this ancient, I would say, like cosmological order of priesthood as being, you know, before it talks about being from before the foundations of the world. I mean, this is just the order of the universe. This is the way the cosmology works, and women are going to be part of that. And this is a new idea. This is a radical departure. So in on April 28, 1842, this is a really key sermon that Joseph gives to the women. There's a lot in there. We'll talk about it more in some other episodes. But here's how he, in his journal, characterizes what he did that day. He says at 2 o' clock in the afternoon, met the members of the female Relief Society, and after presiding at the admission of many new members, gave a lecture on the priesthood, showing how the sisters would come in possession of the privileges and blessings and gifts of the priesthood. And there's more to it. But, but that's the key idea there. Now, that's April 28th, just not even two weeks later, he administers the endowment for the first time to a small group of Nine men?
- [49:49]
C
No women?
- [49:50]
B
No women? No, not at this point. And three weeks after that. So on May 27, Newell K. Whitney, he's one of the bishops in the church. His wife is Emma's counselor, his wife Elizabeth. He was one of this group that received that first endowment. And he speaks to the Relief Society, and you can just see, like, he's blown away. He's really excited about what he's experienced. And he says, he tells the women, he says, the Relief Society is to prepare us for those blessings which God is soon to bestow upon us. And then he goes on to explain, he says, in the beginning, God created man, male and female, and bestowed upon man certain blessings peculiar to a man of God, of which woman partook, so that without the female, all things cannot be restored to the earth. It takes all to restore the priesthood. And he's just marveling like nobody's ever thought of this before, that restoring the full sense of priesthood might require women. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So historically speaking, so. So these sermons from Joseph Smith where he talks about women in priesthood and temple, like, they've been the inexhaustible source for these discussions about women in priesthood ever. And as I was saying last time when we were writing the essay, the Gospel topics essay, we felt like it was really important to take these head on and examine what he was saying and what the context for it was.
- [51:33]
C
Can I just ask a question about that? I'm curious, like, how well does that sit with the broader USA Christianity? Are there women being incorporated into any sort of. I mean, I think the answer is no here, but into any sort of priesthood or temple, like, this is pretty unprecedented, right, Is what you're saying.
- [51:57]
B
It is, it is. And I don't want to claim to broad expertise on the granularities of American Christian history, and I don't want to denigrate anybody else, but fundamentally, I mean, what the Latter Day Saints are doing, what Joseph Smith is teaching about temple and eternity and all of these things like. Like that just is very, very different than anything you're seeing anywhere else in. In the Christian world at the time. So, yeah, absolutely. That this is a really unique idea of. An idea of a priesthood that includes women, and that women and men have to enter into this priesthood together. That is. That is quite an innovation.
- [52:38]
A
And speaking of it being innovative, Scott, last year when you and I were going through the Doctrine and Covenants, we're going through section 124, and there's this phrase that you and I have read that section. I don't know how many times. But this phrase where the Lord says, I'm going to reveal to you things which have not been known from the foundations of the world, which I remember the moment we read that, and it kind of struck both of us like, oh, we don't really have to look for precedent for things that are happening in Nauvoo. This verse actually says there's going to be things that happen in Nauvoo that have never happened before. And I think this might be one of the primary examples that, like Noel K. Whitney said, the Lord really intended for men and women to play a role in this, but it's a new thing. I can't find a lot of precedent for.
- [53:27]
C
It sounds like we don't need to. Exactly. This is new, and let's let the Lord do a new thing.
- [53:32]
B
But also remember, going back to our discussion about male headship, that it is being implemented according to their understanding and knowledge at the time. So it's new, it's expansive, but it's complicated because everybody already knows the way that gender works and relationships and so forth. So it's complex and we just have to be able to sit with that and to recognize it. I think because of this understanding now that women are going to be initiated into this priesthood, Joseph seems to understand that Emma needs to be the first and that she'll be kind of his counterpart. And she's struggling over, as far as we can tell, as far as we understand, we think it's because of her struggles over plural marriage. And again, like, that's something we could talk about for a long time, but in her heart, she just had such a hard time with this. And so it's not until September of 1843, so 18 months after the Relief Society is organized, that Emma, well, she is initiated into this, into the temple ordinances, and from there, then that opens the door for other women to be brought in as well. And with Emma being the officiator for those first temple ordinances.
- [55:10]
C
So when Newell K. Whitney said it's going to take male and female to restore the priesthood, what does that mean? And how is it related to Emma and other women now being able to receive the ordinances of the temple? Like, how does that restore the priesthood? Or what steps are we missing here still?
- [55:29]
B
Well, again, if we remember that we are the priesthood, that the priesthood of the temple is going to say more about that, if the priesthood of the temple is going to be the men and women who have made covenants, received ordinances, and thereby entered into this order of the priesthood of the temple, then that has to include women. This definition of priesthood cannot function unless women are part of it. And that speaks to our understanding of the interdependence of men and women in achieving exaltation, that it's not something that either can do alone. They love that we kind of alluded to this scripture already. Neither is the man without the woman nor the woman without the man in the Lord. They loved that scripture in the 19th century, and they felt like the restoration, and particularly the temple ordinances, the temple priesthood, made that scripture even more meaningful. They felt like we understand that better than the rest of the Christian world does. So it's this idea of the interdependence of men and women that leads us, of course, to marriage and what we would now call temple marriage. Eternal marriage, celestial marriage is integral to entering into that order because a man and a woman have to be sealed and. And then that's part of how they enter into that. That priesthood. That priesthood order. Again, it's complicated because this is all being introduced at the same time as plural marriage. And so it's really hard to disentangle in this early period, the understanding that we have of eternal marriage from the understanding of plural marriage as being part of this order.
- [57:26]
C
And maybe if I could just insert a thought here, like, I'm just trying to get into the shoes of, like, a listener here and making sure we're not skipping steps. I remember when I was first trying to understand all of this, I had to go back over and over and over it again because of my upbringing and my understanding of priesthood and trying to rearrange all that furniture. So, so let me. Let me try to state it really simply for how I understand it. And then I want you two to weigh in on, if you understand it differently. So the marriage that you're talking about here. Lisa, when men and women are sealed into this order of priesthood, this is the eternal, like priest. This is the eternal group of kings and queens and priests and priestesses that will rule and reign with Christ when he comes again to rule on this world. They're going to rule in the house of Israel with Jesus. Sometimes we call that group the celestial kingdom. Right? But. But another word for that group, this holy order of men and women, is the priesthood. And it seems like that's what all the other priesthoods are, are about. All the other priesthoods seem to be means to getting men and women into this priesthood. So ecclesiastical offices with men only is meant to shepherd men and women into the temple. And then in the temple. You've got men and women, members of the temple priesthood, who officiate in ordinances in order to shepherd us the rest of the way into the eternal priesthood. In fact, I think it's appropriate to say, when we receive our washing and anointing, men and women are then given what we call the garment of the holy priesthood. Meaning you have been initiated into this group, into the group of people who, if you remain faithful, will rule and reign with Jesus when he comes. You're part of. You're going to be part of the eternal priesthood that transcends church ecclesiology. You're going to be part of this, like, eternal group that we call the celestial kingdom, that the children of God in the highest sense, the heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. Like you are. You did it. Like, if you're true and faithful and you stay on this path, you're going to be part of the eternal priesthood. This is true for men and women. Like, do you understand it differently than that, that this is what the Nauvoo Temple was really trying to get men and women into? When we say that the temple marriage was the final ordinance that gets them into this priesthood, are we on the same page or anything you guys would add?
- [59:42]
B
Oh, absolutely. I think that's well explained.
- [59:45]
A
I would say. Yeah. I mean, if this whole discussion is an exploration of priesthood. Scott, something that you said earlier in the episode sent me down a path to where we've always used the King James translation of John, which says the purpose of Christ's coming was to. This is John 1:12 to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name. But I'm looking at every other biblical translation other than the King James, and it's the children of God. It's to become the children of God. He is given the right to become God's children. And that is the end game here, right, with priesthood is that we become the children of God, meaning we have the potential to fully become like him. And this is a point we'll get to eventually. But in Latter Day Saint theology, that position is held by both man and woman. There's a divine masculine and a divine feminine. And so I can see Joseph Smith approaching this and saying, hey, everybody has to become like God. Does that mean there's some radical gender transformation that takes place? No. Women will become goddesses, men will become gods, and they'll rule jointly together, the way the universe is ruled over by a father and a mother.
- [61:00]
B
Yeah, we would like to think about it.
- [61:03]
A
Am I getting ahead of the game?
- [61:05]
B
Well, I mean, I didn't bring this in the outline, but, I mean, I think that's a beautiful way of explaining the way that we understand it now. And I think that's right. And I think that that potential is there all along. I think we do have to keep this idea of male headship in mind. I think we have to be careful to not overstate this and assume that they were thinking about men and women being equal as we would say it now, or in this. In the way that we would think about it now. Even within this paradigm of men and women being interdependent and jointly entering into these orders, there's still room for subordination within that. And this is one of the tricky things about.
- [61:49]
C
Ever taught or expressed.
- [61:51]
B
Yeah, this is one of the tricky things about these sources is that we don't know exactly what Joseph Smith taught and how he explained things. We do know that Brigham Young took stewardship at Joseph's direction over arranging the temple ceremonies and getting them in order. And we have some statements from Prigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, clear back in, like, 1845, saying, if any woman's going to get into the celestial kingdom, a man has to lead her there, and women will never hold the keys of the priesthood except through their husbands and so forth. And so it's. It's. Again, it's one of those things where there's stuff.
- [62:40]
C
Was there. Was there pushback by women? Like, why would he say that? Why bring that up if it was already assumed?
- [62:45]
B
Well, those particular quotes are in the context of him kind of kiboshing the Relief Society after Joseph Smith's death. And we can talk about that more in a future episode. My point just being that, as with so many other things in the restoration, we get this initial revelation and understanding, and then over time, we find out that, wow, yeah, there's actually even more here than we realized. And that. That the ability to see men and women on a more equal footing in this eternal order is something that we've kind of grown into, I think, over time.
- [63:31]
C
So, Lisa, can you. Can you talk about the anointed quorum? What is that? Is that something we've already talked about, or is that a separate thing?
- [63:38]
B
Yeah, this is just to kind of take the historical narrative forward all the way. Right. So after that initial group receives the endowment, and then in the fall of 1843, we start to include women. By the time Joseph Smith dies, there's a small group of women and men, about 65 people who have received temple ordinances, covenants from Joseph Smith instruction, and in the sources of the time. Now, they're not writing very much, very explicitly, because they understand themselves to be under a covenant of confidentiality about temple matters. But there are journals and places where we can see some references. And the members of this group, which includes, at least at times, men and women meeting together self consciously in this group, we see them call themselves the priesthood, the Quorum. Other names have been applied, like the Temple Quorum, the anointed Quorum. And so this is that core nucleus of men and women who would then go on to become the temple workers, as we would say now, the ordinance workers who administered the ordinances to the saints at the very end of 1845 into early 1846.
- [65:02]
A
Yeah. One of the more interesting titles was Joseph's Lodge, which seems to be playing on Masonic terminology. Right. But Masons during this time explicitly don't include women. But Joseph's Lodge includes women, which is an interesting twist on the whole thing, too.
- [65:18]
B
How long do you want to talk about Masonry in the Temple? Because that's a whole other thing of itself.
- [65:22]
A
That's a whole other podcast series, for sure.
- [65:25]
C
So in each of our temples today, we have a functioning temple priesthood based on this Nauvoo pattern of both men and women administering ordinances. But we're not accustomed to thinking about them as a temple priesthood. We don't use that phrase. We just say temple worker. But functionally, they're the same today, correct?
- [65:47]
B
Yep. And I don't know, maybe this is where we kind of just say, we're going to pick this thread up in our next episode, because how did we get there from the temple being a place where we create priests, where we enter into priesthood, to the temple being a place that is just enabled by priesthood in the ecclesiastical sense? That's what we can pick up next time as we talk about discussions of women in priesthood over time.
- [66:19]
C
I love it. One more thing that might be worth noting about the Temple of Nauvoo and priesthood is this idea of priesthood as people. You've mentioned that that's really important. Understanding this idea that Joseph inaugurates in the Nauvoo Temple of intergenerationally linking the living and the dead together. Joseph curiously called that work the restoration of the priesthood. What I'm about to quote from him was a massive paradigm shift for me. This is in doctrine and covenants 1:28. I don't know why I missed this. Most years of my life, I've read This so many times. But then one day it just jumped off the page. Notice what he says here. This is verse 17. He said Malachi had his eye fixed on the restoration of the priesthood in the last days when he penned his famous Elijah prophecy. And then Joseph quotes it. The Elijah being sent to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the children to the fathers. We're familiar with that verse, but Joseph called that work of connecting the generations. He called it the restoration of the priesthood. Did you catch that? This idea of Elijah's keys connecting children and parents down through the generations, forging what Joseph goes on in verse 18 to call a welding link between the fathers and the children. I'm just struck by his phraseology that that work is the work of restoring the priesthood. This would be kind of a fourth definition. Let me review our definition so far. So I don't know if we've. If they're starting to get away from it. This has happened to me. Number one, early 1830s, it's just an order of men. It's ecclesiastical offices in the church. Number two, you could call a man's office his priesthood. Right. Number three, we have now women and men working in the temple in Nauvoo. And that's a temple priesthood. That's another definition of priesthood. And now definition four that Joseph is talking about here is this group of people called the eternal priesthood. We've talked about this Kings and queens group that the children of God, Cayce, that you mentioned there. The heirs of God and the joint heirs with Christ. That's a fourth definition here. So it seems like Joseph is talking about definition number four here when he says linking the generations back is restoring the whole priesthood, the whole family of God, the welding together of the human family. That's powerful.
- [68:45]
B
Well, and if you go back to the way it's rendered in section two, he says that Moroni said, quoting Malachi, I will reveal unto you the priesthood by. And then I can't re. You know, I can't remember the, the exact wording there.
- [69:04]
C
By the hand of my servant Elijah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [69:07]
B
And, and even in this quote, where in 128, he quotes that, he doesn't use that, that phraseology, but it's very clearly the same idea. I will reveal unto you the priesthood.
- [69:18]
A
I. I think it's worth to read the verse. Doctrine and Covenants, Section 2. One, Moroni, speaking to Joseph Smith says, behold, I will reveal unto you the priesthood by the hand of Elijah the prophet, before the coming of the great and dreadful day. Of the Lord. So that's interesting in the light of everything we've been talking about. Just really good connection.
- [69:40]
C
Yeah. Let me just share one more quote from Joseph that sealed it for me. I was like, I think that understanding is right. And then I read this from him in May of 1840, before one of the last things he ever taught honestly. He explained that those who are baptized for their dead must receive their washings and their anointings for their dead the same as for themselves. So he's talking about doing the work for our dead, he says, until they are connected to the ones in the dispensation before us and trace their lineage. To connect the priesthood again, close quote. That's Joseph's phrase, to connect the priesthood again. The reason we're doing this work for the dead is to connect the priesthood. And I think Doctrine of Covenants 2 is totally talking about that, isn't it?
- [70:20]
B
Yeah.
- [70:21]
C
The work of temples in the latter days is to connect the priesthood again by receiving the ordinances of the temple for ourselves and then on behalf of our dead, until we're connected to the people in all the dispensations before us and we create this welding link, Joseph called it, of dispensations, into a whole and complete and perfect union. That's his language, where the whole human family is sealed together in one eternal priesthood order back through time. Then and only then, can we say that the priesthood has been restored.
- [70:53]
B
Yeah.
- [70:54]
C
How paradigm shifting is that?
- [70:56]
B
Along those same lines, Scott, it's interesting. Brigham Young, I mentioned that Joseph Smith kind of commissioned Brigham Young to put the temple ordinances in order, and we know that he did that. I think you've had Jonathan Stapley on your podcast before, and he's just published a great book about this history of the temple that traces this in a lot more detail. But in 1847 at winter quarters, Brigham Young is deathly sick, and he has a vision or a dream. It's kind of characterized as both. So we don't. We don't know exactly what that means, but he has an experience where Joseph Smith comes to him and Brigham is really worried about getting everything right about the temple. And he actually takes his pen or pencil and he writes this experience down himself, which Brigham Young did not do very often because writing was very difficult for him. So this speaks to how important it was to him. And he records that he kind of had this vision of the family, of the human family, the family of God, and he characterizes that as the priesthood. And he sees in this vision how this family was organized in the beginning. And he understands then that the work of the temple that he's now to oversee is to create that organization again, as you say, restore the priesthood by creating that organization. And so we have a continuity in that understanding from Joseph Smith to Brigham Young. And Brigham Young spends the rest of his life taking that very seriously and trying to get temples and temple work in place so that that vision can be realized.
- [72:49]
C
Wow. It's powerful.
- [72:51]
A
Well, I think that's a. That's a great place for us to maybe end. I want to keep going, and we have more material ready. But that's a great preview of leading us into our next episode, where we're going to be talking about how these ideas that are revealed in the early restoration then develop throughout the rest of the 19th, the 20th century, and even into our time. Now, let me point out one other thing, too, which is this. A lot of these early documents that we've been quoting from are available to you. They're in Gospel Library. There's a wonderful volume that was put out a few years ago that is now fully in Gospel Library. If you go there, under the Church history tab, there's another tab that says women's history. And there's a book there called the first 50 years of relief Society that has a number of documents, including the discourses that Joseph Smith gives to the Nauvoo Relief Society, which I want to point out, if you want to understand the role of women, these are discourses that Joseph Smith gave exclusively to women. And I think they're just about the only example of that that we have from the time period. So in the week between this episode and the next, dear Listener, your homework is to go and start searching through that, because those are so critical and important. And the fact that they're in Gospel Library, that almost everybody has them in their pocket right now, means that you should be taking advantage of this to just understand and know what the foundational teachings about women in the church were. So I'm going to leave with that endorsement, and we'll set you up.
- [74:25]
C
Professor, you just couldn't resist giving homework, could you, Casey?
- [74:29]
A
Yeah. And there's going to be an examination, everybody, so get your act together and do your work outside of class, okay? But next week, we'll be back here again, and we'll be exploring those time periods, 19th century, 20th century, and we hope, if we get there, 21st century interpretations on women and priesthood. So, Scott and Lisa, thank you very much for joining us. It's been a pleasure. And I'm just really enjoying this. I hope you are, too.
- [74:55]
C
It's such a blast.
- [74:56]
B
I mean, for people like us. What could be more fun?
- [74:59]
A
Seriously.
- [75:00]
C
Of a good time. This is.
- [75:01]
A
This is a trip to Disneyland for us, so. All right, we'll see you all next week.
- [75:06]
C
Take care, y'. All.