Mormonism Explained
The History of the Mormon Temple
From the Tabernacle of Moses and Solomon's Temple, to the risen Christ at the temple in Bountiful, to Kirtland and Nauvoo — and on to more than 210 temples worldwide.
The Short Answer
How old is the idea of the Temple?
Ancient. Temple worship runs through the Bible — from the Tabernacle of Moses to Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem — and through the Book of Mormon. Latter-day Saints see their modern Temples as the restoration of that ancient pattern, not a nineteenth-century invention.
Key Takeaways
- The pattern is ancient. From Moses to Solomon to the Book of Mormon, Temple worship long predates the Latter-day Saints.
- The first was Kirtland (1836). The Restoration's Temple era began with a Temple in Ohio.
- Nauvoo gave the modern endowment (1842). Completed and used in 1845–46 before the exodus west.
- The pioneers built four by 1900. St. George, Logan, Manti, and Salt Lake — all in Utah.
- A modern explosion. From one hundred Temples in 2000 to more than 210 today, with hundreds more on the way.
- A Freemason footnote. Joseph Smith became a Mason in 1842, weeks before the first endowment — a connection examined in full in our Freemasons article.
Era One: Ancient Temple
To understand the Mormon Temple, you have to start long before there were any Mormons. For Latter-day Saints, the Temple is not a nineteenth-century novelty but the restoration of a pattern that runs the length of scripture — a dedicated, holy place where God meets His people through covenant and ordinance. This is the story of that pattern: from a tent in the wilderness, to the gold-and-cedar house Solomon raised in Jerusalem, to a temple on the far side of the world where the risen Christ appeared, to a frontier town in Ohio — and on to a building program now reaching every inhabited continent.
The ancient pattern: the Tabernacle
The first house of the Lord in scripture was not a building at all but a tent. In the book of Exodus, God instructs Moses to build a tabernacle — a portable sanctuary — "that I may dwell among them" (Exodus 25:8). Its design was not left to human taste; Moses was shown a pattern "in the mount" and told to build according to it (Exodus 25:40). Inside were a courtyard, a Holy Place, and an innermost Holy of Holies veiled off from the rest, where the presence of God was understood to rest above the Ark of the Covenant.
Almost every element Latter-day Saints associate with Temple worship appears here first: ritual washing and anointing of the priests, sacred clothing, a veil, and a progression inward toward God's presence (Exodus 29–40). For Latter-day Saints, the Tabernacle establishes the template — a revealed, set-apart space where covenants are made — that every later Temple would follow.
Solomon's Temple and the Temples of Jerusalem
Roughly four centuries later, the portable sanctuary gave way to a permanent one. Around 957 BC, Solomon completed the first fixed Temple in Jerusalem, built with the help of craftsmen sent by Hiram, king of Tyre (1 Kings 5–8). It housed the Ark in its Holy of Holies, and its dedication — with Solomon's great prayer — marked Jerusalem as the center of Israel's worship for centuries. This is the Temple whose imagery would echo through later tradition, including, much later, Freemasonry.
Its history was turbulent. Babylon destroyed Solomon's Temple in 586 BC and carried Judah into exile; a Second Temple was completed around 516 BC by the returning exiles (Ezra 6). Centuries on, Herod the Great began a vast expansion of that Second Temple around 20 BC — the magnificent structure standing in Jesus's lifetime. Jesus was presented there as an infant, taught in its courts, drove out the money-changers, and called it His Father's house; at His crucifixion, the veil of the Temple was torn in two (Matthew 27:51). In AD 70, exactly as He had foretold, Rome destroyed it. The Temple of the old covenant was gone.
Temples in the Book of Mormon
The Book of Mormon describes a parallel Temple tradition on the other side of the world. Having carried the records and the law of Moses with them, the prophet Nephi built a Temple in the promised land "after the manner of the temple of Solomon" — though, he notes, without Solomon's wealth of precious things (2 Nephi 5:16). For the Nephites, as for Israel, the Temple became the gathering place of covenant.
Two moments stand out. Around 124 BC, King Benjamin gathered his whole people at the Temple in Zarahemla and delivered his farewell address; there they covenanted and took upon themselves the name of Christ (Mosiah 2–5). And the climactic event of the entire Book of Mormon takes place at a Temple: in the land Bountiful, a multitude is gathered at the Temple when the resurrected Jesus Christ descends from heaven and ministers among them (3 Nephi 11). For Latter-day Saints, that scene — the risen Lord appearing at a Temple in the Americas — is the high point of Nephite Temple worship and a witness that the pattern was never confined to Jerusalem.
Era Two: The Pattern Restored
The Restoration: Kirtland, 1836
After The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized in 1830, one of its first great undertakings was to build a Temple. The Saints completed it in Kirtland, Ohio, dedicating it in March 1836 — with a dedicatory prayer (Doctrine and Covenants 109) that Joseph Smith said he received by revelation. In and around the Kirtland Temple, washing and anointing were introduced, along with what the revelations call an "endowment of power."
The most striking events came days later. On April 3, 1836, Latter-day Saints record that Jesus Christ appeared in the Temple, followed by Moses, Elias, and Elijah, who restored priesthood "keys" — including the sealing power that binds families (Doctrine and Covenants 110). Whatever one makes of the claim, it is the hinge of the whole Restoration Temple story: the Kirtland Temple was understood not as a copy of anything but as the place where ancient authority returned. Persecution soon drove the Saints from Kirtland, but the Temple era had begun.
Nauvoo — and the Freemasons
The Saints regrouped in Nauvoo, Illinois, where in January 1841 a revelation commanded a new Temple so that God could "reveal mine ordinances therein" (Doctrine and Covenants 124). In 1842, before the building was finished, Joseph Smith introduced the full endowment — the instruction-and-covenant ceremony that remains central to Latter-day Saint worship — in an upper room of his store.
This is where the Temple's history brushes up against Freemasonry. Joseph Smith was initiated a Freemason in the Nauvoo Masonic Lodge in March 1842, only weeks before that first endowment, and some outward forms of the two ceremonies resemble each other. Critics have argued ever since that he simply copied the lodge. The honest, documented answer is more interesting: the Temple ordinances were already developing in Kirtland in 1836, the plan to reveal them was on record in 1841, and the Masonic ritual being compared was itself an eighteenth-century composition drawn from the Bible's account of Solomon's Temple. And beneath the dates lies a deeper point: neither Solomon, the Masons, nor Joseph Smith invented the Temple pattern. Scripture presents it as revealed by God — given to Solomon (1 Chronicles 28:19) and, Latter-day Saints believe, restored to Joseph Smith (Doctrine and Covenants 124:40) — while Freemasonry borrowed the imagery of Solomon's Temple as allegory. We examine that whole question — with the full timelines and sources — in The Mormon Temple and the Freemasons.
After Joseph Smith was killed in 1844, the Saints pressed to finish the Nauvoo Temple, and through the winter of 1845–46 thousands received the endowment and were sealed as families there — even as they prepared to abandon the city. They left the finished Temple behind and set out for the West.
The pioneer Temples
In the Salt Lake Valley, Temple-building began again almost as soon as the Saints arrived. The first to be completed was the St. George Temple in southern Utah, dedicated in 1877 — where, for the first time, the endowment was written down and systematized, and large-scale ordinance work for the dead began. The Logan Temple followed in 1884 and the Manti Temple in 1888.
The crowning effort was the Salt Lake Temple itself, begun in 1853 and not dedicated until 1893 — forty years of granite-hauling and hand-labor that made it the enduring symbol of the faith. By the close of the nineteenth century the Church had four operating Temples, all in Utah. Temple worship had survived expulsion, an exodus, and the desert — but it was still a regional affair.
From one Temple to hundreds
For the first half of the twentieth century, Temples remained few. The Church doubled its four to eight with Temples in Hawaii, Canada, Arizona, and Idaho, and in the 1950s dedicated its first Temples overseas — in Switzerland, New Zealand, and England — signaling that the Temple was becoming a worldwide institution rather than a Utah one.
The real acceleration came later. Under President Gordon B. Hinckley, the Church introduced smaller Temple designs that could be built closer to members and set out to reach one hundred dedicated Temples by the year 2000 — a goal it met and passed. A new wave of announcements beginning in 2018 accelerated the pace again, dramatically. As of early 2026 the Church reports more than two hundred dedicated Temples, with well over a hundred more announced and dozens under construction — a total approaching four hundred houses of the Lord, operating or planned across roughly eighty countries and territories. For a faith that began with a single frontier Temple in Ohio, it is the most ambitious sacred-building effort in its history.
The whole story on one timeline
From a tent in the wilderness to a worldwide building program — the history of the Temple, on a single line.
c. 1400s BC
The Tabernacle — God commands a portable sanctuary built to a pattern shown Moses "in the mount" (Exodus 25:40).
c. 957 BC
Jerusalem — Solomon's Temple — The first fixed house of the Lord, built with Hiram of Tyre's craftsmen (1 Kings 5–8).
586 BC
Exile — The First Temple destroyed — Babylon razes Solomon's Temple and carries Judah into exile.
c. 570 BC
The promised land — Nephi's Temple — In the Book of Mormon, Nephi builds a Temple "after the manner of Solomon" (2 Nephi 5:16).
c. 124 BC
Zarahemla — King Benjamin's covenant — His people gather at the Temple and take upon them the name of Christ (Mosiah 2–5).
c. AD 30
Jerusalem — Christ and the Temple — Jesus teaches in the Temple and calls it His Father's house; at His death the veil is torn (Matthew 27:51).
c. AD 34
Bountiful — Christ at the Temple in Bountiful — The resurrected Jesus appears to the Nephites gathered at their Temple (3 Nephi 11).
AD 70
Rome — The Second Temple destroyed — Rome levels Herod's Temple, as Christ had foretold.
1836
The Kirtland Temple — Ohio — Washing, anointing, and the "endowment of power"; Christ, Moses, Elias, and Elijah appear (D&C 110).
1841
"Reveal mine ordinances" — Nauvoo — A revelation commands the Nauvoo Temple so God can reveal His ordinances there (D&C 124).
1842
The endowment — and the lodge — Nauvoo — Joseph Smith introduces the full endowment, weeks after being initiated a Freemason.
1845–46
The Nauvoo Temple completed — Nauvoo — Thousands receive the endowment and are sealed before abandoning the city for the West.
1877
The St. George Temple — Utah — The first Temple completed in the West; the endowment is written down and work for the dead expands.
1893
The Salt Lake Temple — Salt Lake City — Dedicated after forty years of construction — the enduring symbol of the faith.
2000
One hundred Temples — Worldwide — A global building effort reaches one hundred dedicated houses of the Lord.
Today
More than 210 Temples — The world — Over 210 dedicated Temples operate worldwide, with hundreds more announced or under construction.
Trace the line and the through-line inward to in: a revealed, set-apart place of covenant appearing in the wilderness with Moses, in Jerusalem with Solomon, in the Americas in the Book of Mormon, and — Latter-day Saints believe — again in 1836. The modern Temple is presented not as an invention but as the oldest pattern in scripture, restored.
Is the Temple a modern invention?
It restores a pattern from Moses to Solomon to the New Testament.
Scriptural pattern
What was the first Latter-day Saint Temple?
Dedicated in Ohio in 1836.
Kirtland, 1836
Where did the modern endowment begin?
Introduced by Joseph Smith in 1842.
Nauvoo, 1842
Are Temples in the Book of Mormon?
The risen Christ appears at the Temple in Bountiful.
Yes — 3 Nephi 11
Did Joseph copy the Temple from the Masons?
The ordinances predate his Masonry; the lodge ritual was itself recent.
No
How many Temples today?
With hundreds more announced or under construction.
210+ dedicated
What was the first Mormon Temple?
Are Temples in the Bible?
Did the Book of Mormon have Temples?
When did the Mormon Temple endowment begin?
Why were the Kirtland and Nauvoo Temples abandoned?
Did Joseph Smith get the Temple ceremony from the Freemasons?
How many Mormon Temples are there?
If the Saints built a Temple in Kirtland, why did they just leave it?
Verdict: They were driven out.
The Kirtland and Nauvoo Temples were abandoned because the Saints were forced from both places by persecution, not because the Temples were discarded. In Nauvoo they raced to finish the building and administer ordinances right up until the exodus — then left a completed Temple behind. The pattern moved with the people; the buildings could not.
Isn't claiming an Old Testament pedigree for the Temple a stretch?
Verdict: The biblical Temples are not in dispute.
That the Tabernacle, Solomon's Temple, and Herod's Temple existed is plain history and scripture. What is a matter of faith is the Latter-day Saint claim to restore that pattern. The history page makes the modest claim — the ancient Temples are real — and leaves the theological claim clearly labeled as belief.
Why would the Book of Mormon have Temples in the Americas?
Verdict: Because its people brought the law of Moses.
In the Book of Mormon, Nephi's colony carries the scriptures and the law of Moses from Jerusalem, so building a Temple "after the manner of Solomon" follows naturally from their tradition. Whether one accepts the book's history or not, Temple worship in it is internally consistent — and it culminates, fittingly, with Christ appearing at a Temple.
Why did the Salt Lake Temple take forty years to build?
Verdict: Granite, hand-labor, and hard times.
Begun in 1853 and dedicated in 1893, the Salt Lake Temple was raised by a frontier people hauling granite blocks by wagon and ox, through wars, poverty, and interruptions. The forty years reflect the difficulty of the undertaking, not indecision — and the result became the most recognizable symbol of the faith.
Why are so many Temples being built all of a sudden?
Verdict: Doctrine plus smaller designs.
Latter-day Saints believe Temple ordinances unite families eternally and serve the dead, so bringing Temples closer to members — rather than asking them to travel far — follows from the belief. Smaller, standardized designs introduced from the late 1990s made rapid building possible, and announcements accelerated sharply from 2018 onward.