God’s ancient temples have had such an extraordinary and exceptional impact on the world and its religions that remnants of the temple can be found “everywhere”298 in today’s civilization. Stated differently, significant components from ancient temples have diffused throughout the ancient, medieval, and modern world so that now virtually each of the world’s major religions, to a lesser or greater extent, have incorporated such components into its own religious system. As Nibley explained, “One can easily detect familiar echoes of the endowment in religious institutions and practices throughout the world. . . . Students of comparative religion have now come around to the same conclusion, namely, that the real endowment has been on earth from time to time and has also been spread abroad in corrupted forms so that fragments from all parts of the world can be traced back to common beginnings.”299
Elder John A. Widtsoe explained the matter this way: “Let me suggest that the reason why temple building and temple worship have been found in every age, on every hand, and among every people, is because the gospel in its fullness was revealed to Adam, and that all religions and religious practices are therefore derived from the remnants of the truth given to Adam and transmitted by him to the patriarchs. The ordinances of the temple in so far as then necessary, were given, no doubt, in those early days, and, very naturally, corruptions of them have been handed down the ages. Those who understand the eternal nature of the gospel—planned before the foundations of the earth—understand clearly why all history seems to revolve about the building and use of temples.”300
What remnants or categories of components did various religious groups appropriate from God’s ancient temples? Architecture (various synagogues, churches, cathedrals, and shrines have components that recall ancient temples), furniture (including such items as altars and ritual ablution basins or fonts), rituals, gradations of holiness, sacred gestures in the liturgy, ceremonial terminology and expressions, and much more. These items deserve serious study. For example, dozens of religious faiths—ancient, medieval, and modern—utilize sacred vestments; many of these faiths have created sacred vestments based (often loosely) on biblical passages, such as Exodus 28 and 39.
In sum, the Lord’s temples have impacted postbiblical religious institutions in numerous ways, and the diffusion of aspects of the temple is evident in many faiths and religions throughout the world.