Mormon feminists have centered their arguments for women’s priesthood on data from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, contending that the Church’s founding leaders granted women a form of priesthood that was subsequently choked out. Through an exploration of texts, inscriptions, and frescoes from the earliest Christianity, the author reaches back even farther into history to show that women once served as apostles, elders, deacons, and bishops in addition to performing baptisms and administering the Eucharist.

BRIDGET JACK JEFFRIES, MAXINE HANKS