Center Place, Temple as the

Both ancient and modern sources disclose that the temple was the center place of the earth and her inhabitants; even if the temple is not the actual geographical center, it is always the spiritual core and religious center of God’s covenant people.

The tabernacle, for example, was the actual, geographical center of the Israelite tribes. The order of encampment of the ancient Israelites positioned the tabernacle in the center (see Num. 2:1–31). The Levites and the priestly family (e.g., Moses, Aaron, and priests) encamped adjacent to the tabernacle, and the encampment of other Israelite tribes surrounded the Levites.

Mosaic tabernacle was the geographical center of the Israelite tribes.

Similarly, the entire schematic map of Ezekiel 48 sets Jerusalem at the center of the twelve tribes. Certainly, the notion of the centrality of Jerusalem and the temple is well attested in the period of late antiquity. Scriptural passages present the temple of Jerusalem to be the focus of the nations in the last days (see Isa. 2:1–4; Zech. 8:20–23). “It shall come to pass . . . all nations shall flow” to it, wrote Isaiah (Isa. 2:2). This passage may also apply to all of the Lord’s temples.

Modern geographical arrangements also emphasize the centrality of the temple. Joseph Smith’s 1833 plat of the city of Zion40 positions the temple in the center, with the Saints’ residences built around the temple. Compare also the 1833 plat for Kirtland, Ohio, and the circa 1838 plat for Far West, Missouri.41

Remarkably, the Lord revealed to Joseph Smith that Independence, with its temple, constitutes the center place: “Behold, the place which is now called Independence is the center place; and a spot for the temple is lying westward” (D&C 57:3; see also D&C 84:2–4).

Furthermore, the Salt Lake Temple serves as the center point of the road infrastructure for the city, so that the roads labeled North Temple, South Temple, East Temple (now Main Street), and West Temple frame the temple and Temple Square; and from there the Salt Lake City road system moves outward in the four cardinal directions. This road system emphasizes that the Salt Lake Temple is the focal point of the valley. Nibley, noting the etymological relationship of template and temple, wrote: “Everyone knows what a template is that you put over a map. It’s as if we put a template over the temple in Salt Lake City; most every street in the city, and every city in the state, is measured east, west, north, and south from that arbitrary point.”42

The Salt Lake City road system emphasizes that the Salt Lake Temple is the focal point of the valley.

Associated with the temple as the center place is the ancient idea that the temple is the “navel of the earth.” The concept is found in many literatures, both Jewish43 and non-Jewish, as biblical scholar Mircea Eliade and others have shown.44 An ancient Jewish homiletic statement outlines the idea of the temple as a navel: “Just as the navel is found at the center of a human being, so the land of Israel is found at the center of the world . . . Jerusalem is at the center of the land of Israel. The Temple is at the center of Jerusalem. The Holy of Holies is at the center of the Temple” (Midrash Tanhuma, Qedoshim 10). The author of these words compares a human’s navel to Israel, Jerusalem, and the temple. The five-fold repetition of the word “center” emphasizes the important theme of centrality—each area of sacred space is found within the heart of the former.

The Israelite temple as the earth’s navel denotes both a geometric position (i.e., the localization of the sanctuary at the center of civilization) and a spiritual meaning. The concept of navel suggests a center of nourishment, a place from which temporal and spiritual blessings emanate throughout the land of Israel. Just as a mother nourishes her baby through the umbilical cord, the Lord provides spiritual nourishment to His daughters and sons in the temple! A passage from the Jewish Zohar states that from the temple comes an “abundance of nourishment and all good things . . . and there is no place in this inhabited world that is not nourished and sustained” by the temple (Zohar 4:157a; see also 5:161b). The navel comparison to the Jerusalem temple is not a doctrine, of course, but the idea serves to demonstrate the temple’s power and influence in the thought of the Jews in ages past.