priesthood instead of being thought of as a group of people is thought of as the authority itself.

And then that raises the question of, well, what kind of authority to church leaders operate under both male and female?

Women are promised the gift of healing. And then after the Kirtland Temple is dedicated, healing practices intensify.

If God gives his sanction by actually healing that person, then it's obviously good.

If healing by faith is effective, then what is the need for priesthood?

We have at least two examples of women saying they were ordained and set apart under the hand of Joseph Smith, the prophet, to administer to the sick.

This practice of women's healing

is clearly officially authorized in the church by the highest authorities of the church. But what we

also know is that we clearly don't do this practice in our church today. So what changed?

What happened? Hello, Casey, and Lisa. Welcome back. Hello, Scott. Hi, Lisa. Hi, Lisa. Hey, Casey. Good to see you. Nice to see you. Yeah. Episode four, women and priested. This has been fun so far.

Yeah. And it's a, it's a, it's a twisty, it's a twisty web to untangle, right?

There's a lot going on and there's a lot of moving forward and moving backwards.

Last time we sort of traced the history of priesthood and the church. And one of the main themes

that came up was that they're shifting definitions of priesthood throughout the church. Early on,

it's thought of as a group of people. And although words like ordain and authority were often

used and associated with women, priesthood was primarily men. But then when we got to the Navu period, Joseph Smith starts talking about a kingdom of priests, and he's saying things like that when he's talking to women. And the temple sort of changes the game where there's going to be this priesthood that operates in the temple that consists of both men and women.

And after Joseph Smith's death and the move to the Intermountain West, a lot of those themes

stay, but they're still trying to sort of sort through it and figure out what it all means.

So there's discussions of do women hold priesthood with their husbands?

What authority are the ordinances

that are happening in the temple taking place under? And as we move into the 20th century,

some of those definitions shift a little bit to the ones that maybe we're more familiar with

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