Its solution is simple but strikes at the heart of beliefs about ancestors, kinship and genes. There were, when Megiddo was rebuilt for the last time, fewer than a hundred million people on earth - compared to the untold billions needed if every individual alive today could follow a separate line of ancestry into the past. Trace any family back far enough, and it merges with all the others in a common stream of descent flowing from a surprisingly recent past. Christianity, in all its varieties, has always been more concerned with deciding who will be among the Chosen than in working out the number of candidates queuing up for the exam. It has, from the beginning, been eager to increase the number who pass by converting them to the true faith.
Evangelists are still at work proclaiming the gospel to the world's six billion people.
If the living can baptise their ancestors there will be a vast increase in the number who can pass the test of judgment day, as all those in a family tree leading back from a living believer will be among the elect. Their creed brings together, in a quite unexpected way, modern science and mystical belief. It has made the Mormons into one of the world's great genetical laboratories. As part of their attempt to recruit members, the Mormons are building a pedigree for the human race. In so doing they are weaving a web of kinship that will, they hope, tie their church to the multitude of those who died long ago.