A temple (from the Latin word templum) is a structure reserved for religious or spiritual activities, such as prayer and sacrifice, or analogous rites. A ‘'templum constituted a sacred precinct as defined by a priest, or augur. It has the same root as the word “ template, a plan in preparation of the building that was marked out on the ground by the augur. Though a templum, technically speaking, is not a “house of the gods” but a diagram that for the Romans linked the geometries of heaven and earth, it was also indicative of a dwelling place of a god or gods. This tradition, of course, dates back to prehistoric times. For the ancient Egyptians, the word pr could refer not only to a house, but also to a sacred structure since it was believed that the gods resided in houses. The word ‘temple' (which dates to about the 6th century BCE), despite the specific set of meanings associated with the religion of the ancient Rome, has now become quite widely used to describe a house of worship for any number of religions and is even used for time periods prior to the Romans. Stated differently, temple was once a species of sacred structures; today it is, in the English language, often used as a genus.

Ancient Near East

main: Ziggurat The oldest known temple seems to be that found at Göbekli Tepe in southeastern Turkey, dating from the 10th millennium BC.

Jewish synagogues and temples

In Judaism, the ancient Hebrew texts refer not to temples, the word having not existed yet, but to a "sanctuary", "palace" or "hall". (The Jerusalem temples were called Beit Hamikdash, the Holy House. The Greek word synagogue became current during Hellenistic times and it (along with the Yiddish term shul) remained the convention until the middle of the nineteenth century when the word ‘temple' began to be used, almost exclusively by the followers of Reform Judaism, as in Temple Emanu-El, or the Temple Beth-El. The word referred not to Roman temples, but to the Temple of Solomon. Orthodox Judaism considers this inappropriate as it does not consider synagogues a replacement for the Temple in Jerusalem. The Temple Mount in Jerusalem is the site where the First Temple of Solomon and the Second Temple were built. At the center of the structure was the Holy of Holies where only the high priest could enter. The Temple Mount is now the site of the Islamic shrine, the Dome of the Rock (c. 690).