ABSTRACT
Belief that deity would dwell on earth motivated temple building, guaranteeing that Jesus would have an appropriate dwelling when he came again, with the site for the city of New Jerusalem and its crowning glory of a temple at Independence, Missouri, holding pride of place in this respect. Baptism for the dead remains significant as ‘an ordinance of the Temple’ that can only be conducted elsewhere by ‘special dispensation, in consequence of the poverty of the Saints’. An image like the First Vision creates a theological rationale that structures the symbolic imagination of group members, influencing hymnody, teaching and testimony, and providing an implicit validation for elements of more ordinary discourse bonding co-believers. Strang places Jesus in a line of divine operations, framed by his Israelite perspective, asserting that, in the present last days, Joseph – of the tribe of Ephraim – was called and, after him, James of the tribe of Judah and of the lineage of David.
