The Boise Temple is distinctive in at least one respect: its walls are of a highly patterned facing. All of the other temples I have visited have been light-colored or nearly white. Another thing about it: it is easy to find. Take the Cole Road exit from I-84 and you are THERE! When it was built, the temple was a ways from the freeway, but they keep widening the freeway, so now the temple and freeway are side by side.



When I first saw the Boise Temple, I thought, "Yuck! Why so dark?" But after I was there a while and walked around and took some photos, I thought, well, that's not so bad. It has an attractiveness all its own.


I have heard that many maybe all, I don't know of the temples have a more-or-less hidden door on the eastern side of the building. In Mormon theology, this is the door Christ will enter on the last day. This is the only one of these doors I have been able to photograph; you can see the outline of the door and the hinges. I did get the stairway leading up to the door at the Seattle Temple, but it was in deep shadow and the photo did not come out well. And at a couple of other temples I saw "a" door, but whether or not it was "the" door I do not know. [I am informed by several correspondants that "the door" is a myth, that there is no door which Christ will enter on the last day; that these doors are entrances to mechanical equipment.]

©D.L. Mark 1997-2003

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