Holiness to the Lord: Biblical Temple Imagery in the Sermons of Jacob the Priest

Towards the beginning of the Nephite record, Nephi informs his readers that he built a temple "after the manner of the temple of Solomon" (2 Nephi 5:16). Years later, the righteous king Benjamin gathered together his people at the temple on the occasion of his final sermon (Mosiah 2:6); similarly, when in fulfillment of prophetic expectation, the resurrected Christ visited the Nephites, the Book of Mormon reports that he did so at the temple in Bountiful (3 Nephi 11:1). Hence, notwithstanding the lack of details explicating the nature of Nephite temple rituals, clearly these sacred centers fulfilled an important religious role in Nephite society. While the Book of Mormon itself contains very few details on the nature of Nephite temple worship, when its sermons are read through the lens of ancient Israelite temple motifs, many of these discourses can be shown to rely upon biblical temple themes as part of their conceptual background. This observation proves especially true in the teachings of the Book of Mormon prophet Jacob, a man consecrated to fulfill the role of a priest.