Abstract: During the last century there has been a prophetic emphasis on the understanding of women and their priesthood power and authority that has been unprecedented since the days of Joseph Smith. Through the use of scripture and teachings of our prophets and leaders of the restoration, this paper seeks to clarify the contemporary role of women in relation to their priesthood power and authority. By integrating the patriarchal priesthood—that priesthood entered into by Eve and Adam, lost during the time of Moses, and again revealed in our day in the Kirtland Temple—with the administrative priesthood found in the public Church and spoken of more traditionally, we can better understand the privileges, powers, and authorities associated with the temple that are critical for our day.

[Editor’s Note: Part of our book chapter reprint series, this article is reprinted here as a service to the LDS community. Original pagination and page numbers have necessarily changed, otherwise the reprint has the same content as the original.

See Barbara Morgan Gardner, “Women and the Priesthood in the Contemporary Church,” in Proceedings of the Fifth Interpreter Foundation Matthew B. Brown Memorial Conference, 7 November 2020, ed. Stephen D. Ricks and Jeffrey M. Bradshaw, Temple on Mount Zion 6 (Orem, UT: The Interpreter Foundation; Salt Lake City: Eborn Books, 2021), in preparation. Further information at https://interpreterfoundation.org/books/the-temple-past-present-and-future/.]

In the past decade, we have seen an acceleration of invitations for women in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to understand their [Page 320]priesthood power and authority. In reference to the 2013 worldwide leadership training meeting she attended, then Relief Society general president Linda K. Burton related that “Elder Oaks emphatically stated: Men are not the priesthood! To me, that is a wake-up call as well as an invitation to all of us to study, ponder, and come to better understand the priesthood.” She then declared, “Sisters, we cannot stand up and teach those things we do not understand and know for ourselves.”1

Six years later, Sister Jean B. Bingham, who had replaced Sister Burton as the Relief Society general president, extended the following invitation to the women of the Church:

To all of us who have daughters and sons, nieces and nephews, young women and young men—will you teach them this? Teach them that in church callings, temple ordinances, family relationships, and quiet, individual ministry, Latter-day Saint women and men go forward with priesthood power and authority.

Teach them that the interdependence of men and women in accomplishing God’s work through His priesthood power is central to the restored gospel of Jesus Christ and will help prepare the world for the Savior’s second coming.2

This statement advances Sister Burton’s thoughts further. In addition to asking the women of the Church to understand their priesthood power and authority, Sister Bingham was asking them to use it!

In her 2019 women’s conference talk, Sister Bingham clarified, “I bear my witness that each woman is a beloved daughter of Heavenly Parents, and in this latter-day has been given the opportunity to be endowed with priesthood power that will help her achieve all her righteous desires and dreams. My hope is,” she continues,

Abstract: Nephi1 represents the sacred record that becomes the Book of Mormon as a new brass serpent to heal the nations. Nephi’s typological project is reasonable given that he self-identifies with Moses, his family’s scriptures and compass are made of brass, and he consistently describes reading as an act of seeing, looking, or believing. Nephi understands from Isaiah that the book he (Nephi) prepares — and that he has so much to say about — will become an ensign, or sign, that will be lifted up and heal the nations that have stumbled in blindness. Nephi’s project emerges most fully in 2 Nephi 25, the introductory material to an extended prophecy wherein he points the Jewish people to their Messiah, a figure he equates with Moses’s raised serpent and Jesus Christ.

Serpent imagery features prominently in ancient texts and cultures, and in modern texts that strive for a primeval quality. The serpent as symbol can be found in all mythologies and literatures, including Egyptian, Hebrew, Babylonian, Greek, Latin, and English.1 So it is no surprise to find serpent imagery and symbolism in the Book of Mormon, particularly since it draws so heavily from Hebrew tradition.2 The serpent references in the Book of Mormon, including those from Isaiah,3 fit comfortably in that record’s ancient Near Eastern milieu. It is well known that Egyptian [Page 292]culture, which figures conspicuously in the early pages of the record, was rife with references to serpents and their sacredness or maliciousness.4 Moses, after leading his people out of Egypt, famously raised a brazen serpent in the wilderness to save his people from perishing.5 Part of the effort by Noel Reynolds and others to situate the Book of Mormon in its Near Eastern context has been to demonstrate that Nephi and Lehi saw themselves as reenacting Mosaic events (see 1 Nephi 17:23–32, 41–46).6 Others have argued that serpent references in the Nephite account suggest a Mesoamerican connection to Quetzalcoatl, the god represented as a feathered or flying snake.

Abstract: The Seelys discuss the well-known concept of the universe as a temple, and link the creation story to the temple drama. They explore how God, in creating the universe, had the same roles the temple drama gives to Adam and Eve as archetypes of each man and woman (that of king, priest, and artisan), and how man, by participating in the temple drama, is raised to be the image of God, thus becoming the real crown of creation, participating in God’s creation by procreation.

[Editor’s Note: Part of our book chapter reprint series, this article is reprinted here as a service to the LDS community. Original pagination and page numbers have necessarily changed, otherwise the reprint has the same content as the original.

See David Rolph and Jo Ann H. Seely, “The Crown of Creation,” in Temple Insights: Proceedings of the Interpreter Matthew B. Brown Memorial Conference, “The Temple on Mount Zion,” 22 September 2012, ed. William J. Hamblin and David Rolph Seely (Orem, UT: The Interpreter Foundation; Salt Lake City: Eborn Books, 2014), 11–24. Further information at https://interpreterfoundation.org/books/temple-insights/.]

In ancient times the Israelites referred to the temple of God as “the gate of heaven” (Genesis 28:17). To them, the temple was a place where the earthly and heavenly spheres combined and, therefore, a place where mortals could commune with the Lord.1

These are the insightful words of Matthew Brown, who loved the temple and thirsted for the knowledge of heaven found [Page 280]therein. Although Matthew has passed through this gate, we submit this paper in his honor.

The “gate of heaven” is a conduit for the presence of the Lord, and in this sense it is at the creation where the first associations with the temple are revealed. The connection between creation and temple can be illustrated by reviewing passages from the primary biblical narratives of the creation found in Genesis 1–3 and the descriptions of and allusions to creation found throughout the scriptures, most notably the narratives regarding the construction of the tabernacle. The passages concerning Solomon’s and Ezekiel’s temples also contain many connections with creation. In fact, there is an argument that the description of creation presents the creation of the world as the building of a temple.2

The study of creation and its links with temple theology has found a resurgence in the last several decades with significant works by scholars such as Weinfeld, Levenson, Hurowitz, Wenham, Walton, Beale, and Barker, all of whom have examined creation and temples in a larger context of ancient Near Eastern and Egyptian creation stories and temple building.3 Likewise, many Latter-day Saint scholars have also produced significant work on this topic, beginning with Hugh Nibley4 and including Lundquist, Parry, and Bradshaw.

Review of Taylor G. Petrey, Tabernacles of Clay: Sexuality and Gender in Modern Mormonism (Chapel Hill, NC The University of North Carolina Press, 2020). 288 pages. $29.95 (paperback).

Abstract: Tabernacles of Clay examines the discourse of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints through a “queer theory” lens. This review examines its first two chapters’ use of sources regarding Church teachings about eternal biological sex and homosexual behavior. These chapters claim that the Church treated homosexual sin leniently and said little about such acts until the more “homophobic” 1950s. There are, in fact, many examples of homosexual behavior being condemned by Church leaders in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Tabernacles further claims that in the 1950s–1970s, some in the Church saw biological sex as “created and contingent” — rather than eternal and unchanging — thus permitting a view of theological “gender fluidity.” The authors used to support these claims have been misrepresented and important information omitted. Tabernacles also fails to properly contextualize the sources and language of the 1950–1970s, and it thereby misrepresents Church discourse on homosexual sin. A thorough review of the Church’s official documents from this period reveals an almost exclusive focus on homosexual behavior, not homosexual temptation or identity. Aspects of present-day Church teaching or policy which are said to be novel are shown to be otherwise. The above errors lead to mischaracterization of Spencer W. Kimball’s book, The Miracle of Forgiveness. Tabernacles has not adequately or fairly characterized its sources, rendering its conclusions suspect.

Taylor Petrey wants to “think creatively and theologically within Mormonism” since he believes “LDS theology faces serious credibility [Page 108]issues” at present. “Perhaps,” he writes, “LDS ritual and rhetoric may embrace … [sexual] variation, including homosexual relationships in … [temple] sealing.”1 He assures the reader that

the possibility of creating theological space within Mormonism for homosexual relationships rests not on the abandonment of any central doctrine of the Church, but rather on the revival of past concepts, the recovery of embedded theological resources, and the rearticulation of existing ideas in more expansive terms in order to rethink the possibilities of celestial relationships.2

This argument asserts that opposition to homosexual acts is not central to the doctrine of the Church of Jesus Christ and that any reluctance stems from an abandonment of past concepts of things that Latter-day Saints should recover from their religious heritage by rethink[ing].

It helps to know this because Tabernacles of Clay serves as a brief for such hopes. Tabernacles understands current Church teaching opposes its project in the strongest terms.

[S]cholars have treated Mormon views about gender and sexuality as a theory of essentialism — the belief that there are universal traits that make men and women fundamentally different from one another. This book will significantly challenge this paradigm, but it is easy to see why it has been so persuasive. In 1995, the church issued the brief authoritative statement “The Family: A&#...

Abstract: This essay demonstrates that the key prophetic matakite dreams and visions of at least the nine nineteenth-century East Coast Māori seers appear to have been (and should continue to be) fulfilled surprisingly by the coming of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to New Zealand. There are lessons for current and future Latter-day Saint leaders and missionaries to reflect on this little-known history on the nineteenth-century Māori conversions to the restored Church.

[Editor’s Note: Part of our book chapter reprint series, this article is reprinted here as a service to the LDS community. Original pagination and page numbers have necessarily changed, otherwise the reprint has the same content as the original.

See Robert Joseph, “The Lord Will Not Forget Them! Māori Seers and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Nineteenth-Century New Zealand,” in Remembrance and Return: Essays in Honor of Louis C. Midgley, ed. Ted Vaggalis and Daniel C. Peterson (Orem, UT: The Interpreter Foundation; Salt Lake City: Eborn Books, 2021), 323–68. Further information at https://interpreterfoundation.org/books/remembrance-and-return/.]

Blessed is the name of my God, who has been mindful of this people, who are a branch of the tree of Israel, and has been lost from its body in a strange land; yes I say, blessed be the [Page 66]name of my God who has been mindful of us, wanderers in a strange land.

Now my brethren, we see that God is mindful of every people, whatsoever land they may be in; yea, he numbereth his people, and his bowels of mercy are over all the earth.

Alma 26:36–37

Introduction

Māori historically and culturally believe they are a branch of the ‘House of Israel’ but in a ‘new land’ as noted in the above Book of Mormon reference.1 By implication, Māori believe they have a right to, as well as all of the associated responsibilities of, the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. This includes its priesthood and attendant blessings by virtue of their direct House of Israel lineage (whakapapa), by entering into gospel covenants (ngā kawenata) and by keeping the commandments of God (ngā ture o te Atua). It was no surprise then that when the first Anglican Christian service was preached by Reverend Samuel Marsden to Māori in 1814, Māori eventually flocked to the Anglican Church, one of the precusors to the restored Church of Jesus Christ, in large numbers.

The Wesleyan Methodists followed the Anglicans in 1823 and the Catholics in 1838. Māori conversions to these and other Christian churches increased rapidly when parts of the Bible were translated into Māori in 1827 and 1834, with the first full Māori Bible (Te Paipera Tapu) completed in 1868. The New Testament was very popular among Māori; many chiefs traveled long distances to obtain copies from the sectarian missionaries. Consequently, Māori became very familiar with the Bible to a point where the sectarian missionaries complained that they found it difficult to find something new in the Bible to converse with them about.

Abstract: I propose that our current Words of Mormon in the Book of Mormon was originally a second chapter of the book of Mosiah following an initial chapter that was part of the lost 116 pages. When Joseph Smith gave the first 116 pages to Martin Harris, he may have retained a segment of the original manuscript that contained our Words of Mormon, consistent with the Lord’s reference “that which you have translated, which you have retained” (D&C 10:41). A comprehensive review of contextual information indicates that the chapter we call Words of Mormon may actually be the first part of this retained segment.

In Section 10 of the Doctrine and Covenants, the Lord uses the term “that which you have translated, which you have retained” (D&C 10:41) as he provides a solution to the problem caused by the loss of the 116-page manuscript. The Lord’s solution is to replace the lost text with the small- plate record, followed by the balance of the translation, beginning with “that which you have translated, which you have retained.” I propose that this term refers to a segment of text translated before the loss but retained by Joseph Smith and that Words of Mormon, the text that now follows the replacement small-plate record, is the first part of this retained text. In other words, Words of Mormon once followed immediately after the lost text. It is the earliest part, still in existence, of Joseph Smith’s translation of Mormon’s abridgment of the large-plate record.

My paper begins by putting this proposal in the context of the scholarly landscape for the order of Book of Mormon translation. It then reviews historical information about the lost manuscript, the rest of the original manuscript, and the printer’s manuscript. After this review, it walks through six considerations which support a conclusion that the retained text — the segment of text that once followed immediately after [Page 2]the lost text — begins with Words of Mormon. First, traces of evidence, including four edits made by Oliver Cowdery to the printer’s manuscript, support the premise that Joseph Smith held back previously translated pages that weren’t lost. Second, a structured comment (a resumptive structure) found in Words of Mormon 1:9–10 indicates that a large block of Mormon’s abridgment of the large-plate record (the lost text) is missing right before the beginning of Words of Mormon. Third, a part of this resumptive structure indicates that the last event mentioned in the lost text once supplied foundational context for the aside in Words of Mormon 1:1–8, including antecedents for the terms this king Benjamin, these plates, and this small account in Words of Mormon 1:3. Fourth, textual analysis of Words of Mormon 1:3–6 suggests that Mormon wrote Words of Mormon before he wrote the following part of his abridgment. Fifth, linguistic analysis indicates that the term about to in Words of Mormon 1:1 can be read to support this conclusion. Sixth, the simple directives in Section 10 support my view that the retained text begins with Words of Mormon.

The Scholarly Landscape for the Order of Book of Mormon Translation

Over the years, a variety of views have been expressed about the order in which the books of the Book of Mormon were translated.1 In recent decades, most scholars have adopted a Mosiah-first view, holding that when translation resumed after the loss of the 116 pages,

Abstract: The Interpreter Foundation welcomes faithful ideas, insights, and manuscripts from people of all backgrounds. In this brief essay, I share some that were recently shared with me regarding Lehi’s vision of the tree of life, as recorded in 1 Nephi 8. Among other things, Lehi seems to have been shown that the divine offer of salvation extends far beyond a small elite. As Peter exclaims in the King James rendering of Acts 10:34, “God is no respecter of persons.” Other translations render the same words as saying that he doesn’t “play favorites” or “show partiality.” The passage in James 1:5 with which the Restoration commenced clearly announces that, if they will simply ask, God “giveth to all men liberally.”

A few weeks before my sitting down to write this introduction, I received a couple of emails from a relative. Among other things, they contained several ideas that had arisen from his recent reading of 1 Nephi 8. I intend to briefly share one or two of those observations here. I do so for three principal reasons:

* My relative preferred to remain anonymous and to have me write up his observations.

* They were quite interesting to me, and I think they may interest other readers.

* They illustrate the fact that thoughtful readers of the scriptures from all backgrounds can arrive at fascinating insights; no membership in any sort of guild of professional scholars of religion is required.1

[Page viii]This last is an important point directly related to the nature, mission, and function of the Interpreter Foundation and, specifically, to its flagship periodical, 2

But now, on to some of what my relative noticed and passed on to me:

Quite a few years ago, I published a rather lengthy article regarding Nephi’s vision of the tree of life, which is recorded in 1 Nephi 11, one of the best-known passages in the Book of Mormon. Nephi’s vision expands upon the vision or dream that had been received just a few days earlier by his father, Lehi, and that is recorded in 1 Nephi 8.3

And it came to pass that the Spirit said unto me: Look! And I looked and beheld a tree; and it was like unto the tree which my father had seen; and the beauty thereof was far beyond, yea, exceeding of all beauty; and the whiteness thereof did exceed the whiteness of the driven snow.

[Page ix]And it came to pass after I had seen the tree, I said unto the Spirit: I behold thou hast sh...

Abstract: In this article Matthew Brown examines the possible meaning behind the imagery of the handclasp between God in heaven and the earthly king. He focuses on this imagery as it is articulated in Psalms 27, 41, 63, 73, and 89. He argues that Psalms 41 and 73 feasibly indicate that when the king of Israel was initiated within the precincts of the temple into the office of kingship he passed through the veil of the Holy of Holies (see Exodus 26:33) and symbolically entered into God’s presence.

[Editor’s Note: Part of our book chapter reprint series, this article is reprinted here as a service to the LDS community. Original pagination and page numbers have necessarily changed, otherwise the reprint has the same content as the original.

See Matthew B. Brown, “The Handclasp, the Temple, and the King,” in Temple Insights: Proceedings of the Interpreter Matthew B. Brown Memorial Conference, “The Temple on Mount Zion,” 22 September 2012, ed. William J. Hamblin and David Rolph Seely (Orem, UT: The Interpreter Foundation; Salt Lake City: Eborn Books, 2014), 5–10. Further information at https://interpreterfoundation.org/books/temple-insights/.]

Psalm 89 contains multiple verses that are unquestionably linked to the temple ceremonies utilized in establishing the king of Israel in his office. In one portion of this psalm, the Lord is represented as referring to the most recognized induction rite for the Hebrew ruler; He immediately thereafter uses the imagery of a handclasp between Himself and His earthly counterpart. God says: “my servant [the king]; with my holy oil have I anointed him: With whom my hand shall be established [Page 422](kun, fastened or attached)” (Psalms 89:20–21).1 This combination of ideas seems to be a deliberate pattern, since the Lord repeats the exact same sequence of themes at a later time in the book of Isaiah: “Thus saith the Lord to his anointed [the king], whose right hand I have holden [chazaq, seized or grasped]” (Isaiah 45:1).

The juxtaposition of the handclasp with the anointing points to the possibility that the joining of hands was also part of the accession ceremonies. The Lord says in Psalm 89 that it is He who anoints the king, though it is clear in other texts that this was actually carried out by a priestly proxy (see 1 Samuel 16:1; 1 Kings 1:39). A ceremonial handclasp, therefore, could conceivably have been accomplished in the same manner.

One biblical commentator offers an explanation for the significance of the regal handclasp by stating that “the formula, ‘God grasps one by the hand,’ when the king ascends the throne and is inducted into the royal office, denotes the conferring of privilege and charisma on the king.”2 Another scholar is convinced that the expression “hold my right hand,” which is found in several places throughout the Psalms, is “derived from the royal ritual” of ascending the throne.3 It is interesting to note that in at least one other ancient Near Eastern culture,

Review of Neylan McBaine, Pioneering the Vote: The Untold Story of Suffragists in Utah and the West (Salt Lake City: Shadow Mountain, 2020). 240 pages. $19.99 (hardback).

Abstract: Pioneering the Vote by Neylan McBaine provides a cogent and concise history of the role of Latter-day Saint women in the suffrage movement. McBaine interweaves a fictionalized narrative centered on Emmeline Wells with primary source excerpts and summaries of particular events. The book brings to life the women described and succeeds in explicating many of the important barriers that Latter-day Saint women faced while trying to participate in the suffrage movement — namely, polygamy. McBaine accurately portrays the aversion to polygamy, but she could have spent more time describing why and how Latter-day Saint women found polygamy empowering. While the book succeeds in recounting history and begins to analyze Latter-day Saint women’s role in this movement, more interaction with Latter-day Saint theology as a way of showing why women would feel passionately about obtaining suffrage while still maintaining polygamous relationships would create a more complete picture. Nevertheless, McBaine’s historic contribution to this field of study acts as a milestone from which we can advance to more nuanced discussions about the way polygamy empowered women.

February 14, 1870, marks the first day a woman ever cast a ballot in the United States.1 Seraph Cedenia Young Ford, the grandniece of Brigham Young, cast her vote in a Salt Lake City municipal election on [Page 412]this day in response to the passage of an equal suffrage law in Utah. One cannot ignore the role polygamy had in the subsequent drafting of disenfranchisement laws, reacting to the widespread, women-based support for polygamy. Polygamy cast Utah’s suffrage in a different light, and many famous suffragettes such as Susan B. Anthony vocally opposed this practice, which complicates our understanding of the suffrage movement. For a time following 1870, Utah did not permit women to vote, but in 1895, when proposing statehood, Orson F. Whitney argued in favor of woman suffrage, saying: “She was designed for it. She has a right to it.”2 Utah included this proposal while petitioning for statehood, and it was subsequently granted. Although the Nineteenth Amendment passed in 1920, not all women had the right to vote at that point because of naturalization laws.3 Just over a hundred years later, all women have secured the right to vote within the United States of America.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has a distinct relationship with promulgating women’s suffrage. Sarah Kimball in Woman’s Exponent wrote:

Mrs. Wells, Editor of the Exponent, saying the women of Utah as a body MUST fight for the maintenance of the right to vote, and also to get national guarantee for all women in the nation. President Smith the Prophet said women should ask us for advice,

Abstract: Mormon uses pejorative wordplay on the name Jaredites based on the meaning of the Hebrew verb yārad. The onomastic rhetoric involving the meaning of yārad first surfaces in Helaman 6 where Mormon also employs wordplay on the name Cain in terms of qānâ or “getting gain.” The first wordplay occurs in the negative purpose clause “lest they should be a means of bringing down [cf. lĕhôrîd] the people unto destruction” (Helaman 6:25) and the second in the prepositional phrase “until they had come down [cf. yārĕdû/yordû] to believe in their works” (Helaman 6:38). Mormon uses these pejorative wordplays as a means of emphasizing the genetic link that he sees between Jareditic secret combinations and the derivative Gadianton robbers. Moroni reflects upon his father’s earlier use of this type of pejorative wordplay on “Jaredites” and yārad when he directly informs latter-day Gentiles regarding the “decrees of God” upon the land of promise “that ye may repent and not continue in your iniquities until the fullness be come, that ye may not bring down [cf. *tôrîdû/hôradtem] the fullness of the wrath of God upon you as the inhabitants of the land hath hitherto done” (Ether 2:11). All three of these onomastic allusions constitute an urgent and timely warning to latter-day Gentiles living upon the land of promise. They warn the Gentiles against “coming down” to believe in and partake of the works and spoils of secret combinations like the Jaredites and the Nephites did, and thus “bringing down” their own people to destruction and “bringing down” the “fullness of the wrath of God” upon themselves, as the Jaredites and the Nephites both did.

[Page 398]The Jaredites occupy a conspicuous place within Mormon’s (and Moroni’s) history. Brant Gardner writes: “Mormon does not blame Nephite woes on Satan — he blames the Jaredites. They were the model from history of how a nation might be utterly destroyed. More than simply being a model for destruction, Mormon asserts that Jaredite history actively affected the Nephites. Mormon carefully links the Jaredite secret combinations to destruction, then links both Jaredites and the destruction of governments to the secret combination he calls the Gaddianton robbers.”1 Gardner sees a genetic relationship between Jaredite secret combinations and the robbers.2 In other words, the Gaddiantons represented a Jaredite infection of Nephite society.

There are at least two textual peculiarities in Helaman 6:25, 38 (where Mormon details the menace of Gaddianton secret combinations) and one in Ether 2:11 (as part of a warning) that offer striking support for Gardner’s theses. Using unique collocations Mormon and Moroni appear to create distinctive onomastic allusions to the Jaredites based on the Hebrew verb yārad (“go down” or “come down”; causative “bring down”).