This article is part of a series on Contradictions between the Book of Mormon and the Bible. Click on the link to access a brief overview of the series. 

The Jerusalem temple is the only temple recognized or authorized anywhere in the Bible. The Book of Deuteronomy states that in contrast to the many altars of the pagan nations, Israel was to have one place for bringing offerings, sacrifices, and tithes:

You shall surely destroy all the places where the nations whom you shall dispossess served their gods, on the high mountains and on the hills and under every green tree. You shall tear down their altars and dash in pieces their pillars and burn their Asherim with fire. You shall chop down the carved images of their gods and destroy their name out of that place. You shall not worship the LORD your God in that way. But you shall seek the place that the LORD your God will choose out of all your tribes to put his name and make his habitation there. There you shall go, and there you shall bring your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and the contribution that you present, your vow offerings, your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herd and of your flock. . . . Take care that you do not offer your burnt offerings at any place that you see, but at the place that the LORD will choose in one of your tribes, there you shall offer your burnt offerings, and there you shall do all that I am commanding you. (Deuteronomy 12:2–6, 13–14 ESV, emphasis added)

Deuteronomy reiterates the point with specific reference to the Passover:

And you shall offer the Passover sacrifice to the LORD your God, from the flock or the herd, at the place that the LORD will choose, to make his name dwell there. You shall eat no leavened bread with it. Seven days you shall eat it with unleavened bread, the bread of affliction—for you came out of the land of Egypt in haste—that all the days of your life you may remember the day when you came out of the land of Egypt. No leaven shall be seen with you in all your territory for seven days, nor shall any of the flesh that you sacrifice on the evening of the first day remain all night until morning. You may not offer the Passover sacrifice within any of your towns that the LORD your God is giving you, but at the place that the LORD your God will choose, to make his name dwell in it, there you shall offer the Passover sacrifice, in the evening at sunset, at the time you came out of Egypt. And you shall cook it and eat it at the place that the LORD your God will choose. (Deuteronomy 16:2–7a ESV, emphasis added)

Solomon referred to Jerusalem in prayer as “the city that you [the LORD] have chosen” with the temple as “the house that I have built for your name” (1 Kings 8:44, 48). The kingdom became divided after Solomon’s death, and the LORD told Jeroboam through the prophet Ahaziah that although Jeroboam would rule ten of the twelve tribes, Jerusalem remained the city that the LORD had chosen as the place to put his name (1 Kings 11:32, 36; see also 11:13; 14:21; 2 Kings 21:7; 2 Chronicles 6:6; 7:12, 16; Psalm 78:68). The few references in the Bible to “temples” in the plural refer to temples of Israel’s pagan neighbors (Jeremiah 43:12–13; Joel 3:5; see also Acts 17:24; 19:37).

In the New Testament era, the Old Testament view that the one God was to have just one temple is explicitly affirmed by first-century Jewish authors. The Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria, a contemporary of Jesus, in a clear reference to Deuteronomy 12 wrote: “He [Moses] moreover foresaw that there could not be any great number of temples built either in many different places, or in the same place, thinking it fitting that as God is one, his temple also should be one.”¹ Likewise, the Jewish historian Josephus, writing toward the end of the first century, stated: “There ought also to be but one temple for one God; for likeness is the constant foundation of agreement. This temple ought to be common to all men, because he is the common God of all men.”²

In contrast to the biblical view of Jerusalem as the site of the only legitimate temple, the Book of Mormon narrates not just the building of a temple in the New World but of multiple temples at various locations. The Book of Mormon mentions a temple built by the first man named Nephi (2 Nephi 5:16; see also Jacob 1:17; 2:11). A second temple was located in the land of Zarahemla (Mosiah 1:18). A third temple was in the land called Bountiful (3 Nephi 11:1). It is unclear whether two or more of these temples ever operated at the same time. However, elsewhere the Book of Mormon clearly speaks of “temples” in the plural (Alma 16:13; 23:2; 26:29; Helaman 3:9, 14). LDS scholar John Welch summarizes the Book of Mormon references to a plurality of temples: “Lamanite temples in the land southward are referred to in Alma 23:2 and 26:29. The cement construction of temples, synagogues, and sanctuaries in the land northward is briefly noted in Helaman 3:9, 14.”³ Thus, the Book of Mormon clearly teaches the legitimacy of multiple temples operating simultaneously. Consistent with this feature of the Book of Mormon, the LDS Church operates numerous temples. The LDS Church had 207 temples operating throughout the world as of mid-2025.

The main response to this issue from Mormon apologists is to appeal to the existence of other Israelite temples in the ancient world other than the one in Jerusalem. Two problems (at least) with this sort of response should be mentioned.

First, the existence of such Israelite temples does nothing to overturn the fact that the Bible, at least as it stands, acknowledges only one temple as a legitimate center for the sacrificial system of the Mosaic covenant. Indeed, some LDS scholars have admitted as such, arguing that the one-temple doctrine was a product of a late “Deuteronomic” movement in Judaism that departed from the acceptance of multiple temples prior to the Babylonian Exile. But this argument admits that the Book of Mormon plurality of temples conflicts with the Bible. Christians and Jews historically have well understood that prior to the Exile, the Israelites of the northern kingdom (called Israel) and even at times the Jews of the southern kingdom (Judah) worshiped other gods and in various ways departed from the standards of the Law of Moses as we find it in the Bible. The point here is that the Book of Mormon approval of multiple temples clearly conflicts with the Bible.

Second, the other ancient Israelite temples of which we have any significant knowledge all appear to have been alternative or even rival centers of Israelite worship. The temple at Elephantine (located on an island in the Nile delta in Egypt) was probably founded around the time of the Babylonians’ conquest of Jerusalem (or possibly in the years approaching this impending event). Its builders were evidently from the northern kingdom of Israel and saw their temple as an alternative to the Jerusalem temple that was doomed and later destroyed. Moreover, the Elephantine Jewish community worshiped other gods (and at least one goddess) alongside Yahweh.⁴ Mormon scholar Jared Ludlow tries hard to defend the Elephantine temple as a legitimate temple in order to serve as precedent for Nephi’s temple in the Book of Mormon. He tries to argue that the Elephantine Jews may have just been “ecumenical” by accepting other gods!⁵

The one rival site of Israelite worship mentioned in the New Testament is Mount Gerizim, where the Samaritans once had their own temple, and which they continued to view as the proper center of the worship of the one God. The Samaritans thus did not dispute that only one temple could be legitimate; they simply maintained that the one temple properly belonged on Mount Gerizim, not Mount Zion, the physical location of the Jerusalem temple. Here again the rival temple location is associated with the long-destroyed northern kingdom, where Gerizim was located. The issue is broached in the Gospel of John by the Samaritan woman with whom Jesus spoke. She comments, “Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship” (John 4:20). Note that her comment reflects the agreement that Jews and Samaritans had that there should be just one temple mount; the disagreement concerned where that mount should be.

Jesus’ response is not what the Samaritan woman expected—nor is it what Jews would have expected or wanted:

Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father. Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. (John 4:21–24)

On the one hand, Jesus firmly took his side with the Jews as the legitimate, authorized custodians of the worship of God and the knowledge of salvation. On the other hand, he asserted that the centralization of worship at one location—whether Gerizim or Jerusalem—was coming to an end. It was ending, not by the proliferation of multiple temples, but by the superseding of man-made temples with worship of God “in spirit and in truth.”

The Book of Mormon thus contradicts the Bible’s teaching that the worship of God under the covenant of the Law of Moses was to be centralized in one place, identified as Jerusalem. In addition, the LDS Church’s teaching that God wants to be worshiped through religious rituals in multiple temples all over the world clearly contradicts the teaching of Jesus (and the rest of the New Testament) that the new covenant Jesus brought meant an end to temple-centered worship.