Editor’s Note: The transcript of Daniel Peterson’s 2019 FairMormon Conference presentation is now available.
by Jeffrey Thayne
At the 2019 FAIR Mormon conference, Dr. Daniel Peterson gave an illuminating presentation that — among other things — summarized the history of women serving as formal witnesses. He explored how female witnesses were considered less reliable than male witnesses in many ancient and modern legal systems, including within the United States. In U.S. jurisprudence, the testimony of women was routinely dismissed over the testimony of men. In fact, women were ineligible to serve on juries in most jurisdictions, and it was not until 1973 that women could serve on juries anywhere in the U.S. These were facts that I did not know.
Last week, President Russel M. Nelson announced that women could now serve as formal witnesses to all live and proxy ordinances within the Church. This exciting development can be seen as an extension of this broader historical movement of increasing female participation in formal legal and ecclesiastical contexts. At the direction of the Lord’s servants, it is thrilling to see that participation grow as we find new and better ways for sisters within the Church to wield righteous influence within our institution.
Furthermore, we are seeing an increase in women serving as witnesses in other areas, as more sisters serve missions and participate in Church councils. We are also doing a better job of documenting the witnesses of women across time who have been historically underrepresented in the literature. In the rest of Dr. Peterson’s presentation, it relates the stories and witnesses of the women who felt, handled, or saw the plates — and there are more than you would expect. These voices and accounts serve as additional witnesses of the Restoration of the Gospel, and add to the credibility of the men who signed their witness (included at the beginning of that sacred book). [Read more…] about Women as Witnesses
Dr. Jeffrey M. Bradshaw is a Senior Research Scientist at the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition in Pensacola, Florida. His professional writings have explored a wide range of topics in human and machine intelligence (
Dr. Lynne Hilton Wilson lives in Palo Alto, California, with her husband Dow R. Wilson. She is mother to seven children—all with red hair. During her under-graduate years at BYU in 1982 she studied nursing and the cello. She received an MA in Religious Studies from Cardinal Stritch University. Her thesis explored Christ’s birth narratives in the New Testament. She received a PhD in Theology and American History at Marquette University where she focused her dissertation on Joseph Smith’s doctrine of the Spirit compared to his contemporaries. She has been an adjunct professor at BYU and iis now the Stake institute director and teacher in the Menlo Park, California Stake for the Stanford single wards. She has written three books and published several papers. She is a popular speaker at BYU Women’s Conference, Education week, the Society of Biblical Literature, the Mormon History Association, Sperry Symposiums, and many others.
Jennifer L. Lund is director of the Historic Sites Division in the Church History Department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She received a BA in English from the University of Utah and a MA in American history from Brigham Young University. She has worked in the field of museums and historic sites for more than thirty years. The author of a number of articles and book reviews published in professional journals, she is currently editing a documentary edition of letters from the wife of a nineteenth-century Mormon missionary.
Taunalyn Ford Rutherford was born and raised in Salt Lake City, Utah. She earned a BA in History and an MA in Humanities from Brigham Young University and served an LDS mission in Stockholm Sweden. Recently she received her PhD in History of Religion at Claremont Graduate University. Her dissertation and her current book project focus on the growth of Mormonism in India. Her work has been published in academic journals and books, but her favorite works are her five children co-authored by her husband Jim Rutherford. She currently resides in Draper, Utah, and is an adjunct professor of religion at BYU.
Matthew McBride is the web content manager for the Church History Department and a graduate student in American history at the University of Utah. He is the author of A House for the Most High: The Story of the Original Nauvoo Temple and coeditor of Revelations in Context: The Stories behind the Sections of the Doctrine and Covenants. Matthew has also published in the Ensign and the Journal of Mormon History. He lives in American Fork, Utah, with his wife Mary and their four children.
Brittany A. Chapman Nash is a historian at the Church History Library of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She received a BA in Humanities from Brigham Young University and an MA in Victorian Studies from the University of Leicester. She specializes in nineteenth-century Mormon women’s history and is co-editor with Richard E. Turley Jr. of the seven-volume Women of Faith in the Latter Days series, which features the life writings of Latter-day Saint women. She serves on the executive committee of the Mormon Women’s History Initiative Team (MWHIT). She and her husband, Peter Nash, live in Salt Lake City.
Our volunteers have been very busy transcribing the presentations from the conference held in August. The following transcripts are now available: