Women Held The Priesthood In The Early Chruch?

[Saints Alive]

Then I suppose we are at an impass which no degree of web-based articulation can breach. I do find the discussion and speculation fascinating.

[splendidsun]

I just want to clarify that I don't think it makes a lot of sense to try and map what I've been calling the "administrative priesthood" on to what I've been calling the "cosmological priesthood" from a historical perspective. As the temple is mostly experienced acontextually now, I guess it is fine for people to systematize it however they want. But I'm particularly interested in approaching the temple liturgy at various times and trying to understand what it meant to the people at those times. My comments in this thread have related to my treatment of the Nauvoo experience, and I have been too quick to try and apply that context to modern discussions as it doesn't communicate very well.

Note that extra-temple marriage sealings were quite common up to the twentieth century. But I do agree that the temple, at least in Nauvoo, is best viewed as a cohesive liturgy and not discrete rituals.

[zerinus]

But what you are not taking into account is that the "day that will come" can be during this life- not necessarily in the next.

I didn't say it must happen in the next. I said it doesn't happen in the endowment ceremony.

[noel00]

It seems a number of nonldsscholars have a different idea of the role of women in the early church (1st century). They point out Phoebe as deacon in Romans 16:1-2. Gordon Fee writes "in Romans 16;1-2 Phoebe is the diakanos of the church in Cenchrea, meaning she is the servant of the church. This is the same lanaguage Paul uses elsewhere of himself and others , in terms of their giving leadership to the church. In this case he adds that she has also been a prostatis to many people, including Paul" "Gender Issues: Reflections on the Perspectiv of the Apostle Paul" pp. 73-73, Listening to the Spirit in the Text,

Another scholar has an interesting e-book available for $2.99 on Amazon.

Junia is Not Alone: Breaking our Silence About Women in the Church, He argues that in Rom 16:7 Junia is first of all a female and secondly was an Apostle.

McKnight argues that Junia, starting with Luther had sexchange and this continued until recenly.

[Cobalt-70]

I don't think so, by that logic baptism and ordination to the priesthood would also be apart of the endowment. The sealing is related to the endowment but I would never say it is a part of it. I do believe men were sealed to multiple women before they were endowed but I could be wrong on that.

It's true that priesthood marriages (they weren't called "sealings" yet, I don't believe) were performed before the Nauvoo endowment was created. However, once the endowment was created, it was reformulated as one step in the grand 1840s version of the "new and everlasting covenant," culminating in the second anointing, after which people essentially emerged as gods and goddesses, kings and queens of heaven, sealed to their exaltation.