If a female tried to get into the priesthood session of GC...

[Jeff Lebowski]

In other news, I've decided that I am Hindu now. I go to yoga twice a week and I like all the artwork depicting Vishnu.

Cool. Please start posting pics of your henna tattoos.

[Solon]

Seriously, do they have any references for this claim? It seems like someone totally made that up out of nowhere.

Clearly Deborah wasn't a Levite. It's not exactly going out on a limb to claim that she wasn't a priestess.
However, she also had a ton of authority - enough to summon the tribes of Israel to the fight and to order Barak around.
She also spoke on behalf of God (which is what Prophets do: note to the COB).

Deborah is probably the answer to this whole shebang. You really don't have to be a priest to make administrative decisions or to speak for God.

The cracks are showing.

[Pheidippides]

Cool. Please start posting pics of your henna tattoos.

I will once I can convince my wife to do that dot thingy in the forehead. Not sure what it means because they don't cover it in yoga class, but it seems to be important for women or something.

Back to the topic at hand, though, this OW issue is driving my wife out too now. She doesn't care about historical truth, and has been a happy participating nonbeliever for a few years. I have told her multiple times that I will support her in whatever she does, in or out. But she's getting very angry over women's issues generally and this issue in particular. I give her four months, less if this general conference is bad.

[Mrs. Funk]

Clearly Deborah wasn't a Levite. It's not exactly going out on a limb to claim that she wasn't a priestess.
However, she also had a ton of authority - enough to summon the tribes of Israel to the fight and to order Barak around.
She also spoke on behalf of God (which is what Prophets do: note to the COB).

Deborah is probably the answer to this whole shebang. You really don't have to be a priest to make administrative decisions or to speak for God.

The cracks are showing.

This was very insightful. Do you mind if I share this elsewhere?

[SeattleUte]

How so sad is all these thousands of years of sexism and and misogyny that is actually continuing hardly abated (I heard an interview with Jimmy Carter on Sunday in which he said that 95% of women in Egypt have been castrated -- yes, that's what I call it). What makes me so sad is knowing that women are really so much like men. They can be huge football fans, they can love sex including kink, they can be voracioiusly ambitious, and so on. It's horrifying to regard the suffering that even the LDS Church's sexism and misogyny causes by depriving them these outlets, though moderated as it is because the LDS Church's fate was to be born and grow in secularized America and Europe.

[Uncle Ted]

Clearly Deborah wasn't a Levite. It's not exactly going out on a limb to claim that she wasn't a priestess.
However, she also had a ton of authority - enough to summon the tribes of Israel to the fight and to order Barak around.
She also spoke on behalf of God (which is what Prophets do: note to the COB).

Deborah is probably the answer to this whole shebang. You really don't have to be a priest to make administrative decisions or to speak for God.

The cracks are showing.

Also, you don't have to be a priest or have the priesthood to perform "healing rituals" in the church. I now feel much better about all the times I skipped priesthood and went home early to catch the game/race. Maybe I should have let the OW women know there was an empty seat in EQ for one of them.

[Sleeping in EQ]

Clearly Deborah wasn't a Levite. It's not exactly going out on a limb to claim that she wasn't a priestess.
However, she also had a ton of authority - enough to summon the tribes of Israel to the fight and to order Barak around.
She also spoke on behalf of God (which is what Prophets do: note to the COB).

Deborah is probably the answer to this whole shebang. You really don't have to be a priest to make administrative decisions or to speak for God.

The cracks are showing.

Yep. I actually was looking over Lawrence Boadt's comments on this in his book on the Old Testament.

My hope is that there is enough pressure on this for positive change. There certainly is more pressure on the CoB than there has been at any other time during my lifetime.

[SeattleUte]

This was very insightful. Do you mind if I share this elsewhere?

The fact that the LDS Church is resorting to distinguishing precedent in thousands of year old text generated by tent dwellers really says it all. Seriously, what a metaphysically impoverished organization. What happened to common sense, charity, and simple social justice?

[SeattleUte]

Yep. I actually was looking over Lawrence Boadt's comments on this in his book on the Old Testament.

My hope is that there is enough pressure on this for positive change. There certainly is more pressure on the CoB than there has been at any other time during my lifetime.

Why do you guys even engage this stupidity? I can't believe you take it seriously.

[TripletDaddy]

What makes me so sad is knowing that women are really so much like men.

[Solon]

How so sad is all these thousands of years of sexism and and misogyny that is actually continuing hardly abated (I heard an interview with Jimmy Carter on Sunday in which he said that 95% of women in Egypt have been castrated -- yes, that's what I call it). What makes me so sad is knowing that women are really so much like men. They can be huge football fans, they can love sex including kink, they can be voracioiusly ambitious, and so on. It's horrifying to regard the suffering that even the LDS Church's sexism and misogyny causes by depriving them these outlets, though moderated as it is because the LDS Church's fate was to be born and grow in secularized America and Europe.

Because it was the LDS church's fate to be born in the Victorian era.
There's a very long article out in the current Dialogue that I haven't finished working through yet, but the abstract suggests that the formation of an all-male LDS priesthood was a reaction to the other millenialist/revivalist movements of the time & place that relied heavily on strong women. (Ann Lee & the Shakers; Jemima Wilkinson), and the heightened role of women during the 2nd Great Awakening. As women claimed spiritual authority, men tried to curb their power (invoking, for instance, 1 Corinthians 14 about women keeping silent).

But hey, we should all keep living in the 1840s.

[Topper]

The fact that the LDS Church is resorting to distinguishing precedent in thousands of year old text generated by tent dwellers really says it all. Seriously, what a metaphysically impoverished organization. What happened to common sense, charity, and simple social justice?

I loathe nebulous concepts such those.
Common sense. Heuristic studies show us what one believes as "knowledge" or "common sense" may in fact be untrue.

Charity. One person's charity may be another person's maldistribution of goods and services.

Social justice. Wtf. That is a common abused term.

You should know better than to use useless terminology.

[Uncle Ted]

Yep. I actually was looking over Lawrence Boadt's comments on this in his book on the Old Testament.

My hope is that there is enough pressure on this for positive change. There certainly is more pressure on the CoB than there has been at any other time during my lifetime.

Or maybe they will come to the conclusion that the priesthood should have only been given to the sons of Levi. This would have been a good solution for the whole thing with the blacks not getting the priesthood as well.

[SeattleUte]

[/I][/B]

I loathe nebulous concepts such those.
Common sense. Heuristic studies show us what one believes as "knowledge" or "common sense" may in fact be untrue.

Charity. One person's charity may be another person's maldistribution of goods and services.

Social justice. Wtf. That is a common abused term.

You should know better than to use useless terminology.

Well, please cite to something more contemporary than the Old Testament as precedent for treatment of women in your church. The OT is a great book, but mostly for entertainment. We've learned some things about morality since then.

[YOhio]

Pegged it.