What Jesus meant, has always been 'the truth', 'the correct answer', "I am the way, the truth", so on. The temple in Jerusalem, was a 'genie in a bottle' (Creator of the universe and everything in it - PHENOMENAL COSMIC POWER!… itty bitty living space.). Jesus called it out correctly because he was about the truth and told you that your body should be considered your temple and the life within it a gift from the creator.
The concept of GOD the creator, predates Abraham. The Annunaki bares the name of the original creator GOD concept even still in the bible, the Ann or Annu. The jews were not supposed to make a temple of hewn stone (stone shaped/carved by the hands of man). Jews were supposed to make ALTARS of unhewn (natural) stones, like stone masonry (not to be confused with mason society). This is written in the Torah, in Leviticus or Deuteronomy.
Going back to the Maccabees, the temple was desecrated by the greeks, then replaced with a more decadent temple by Herod the edomite in a campaign to by hearts and minds to his favor and the favor of Rome that funded the building project, again in an attempt to stop unrest against the new rulers of The Kingdom of Judea.
Like in the Aladdin video clip, if GOD was genie, then GOD was made into a prisoner. The temple was a bank, and the peoples would bring whatever offerings they could for favor from GOD and was placed into the temple, which acted more like a bank vault. They said, if anyone enters this building that is not supposed to be there, that GOD would kill them immediately in the harshest way possible. The pyramids were looted over and over, that's why the valley of the kings exists, to hide their dead tombs from grave robbers. I assure you, no poor man ever stole from the temple of the jews. Armies on the other hand is a different story. It looks like everybody else but jews, knew the temple was packed with gold silver and everything else of value. The Babylonians, the Greeks, Romans, everybody went for the temple of the jews to ransack it of all the wealth and value.
GOD is and has been the creator of our reality/univers/world. We can measure it. We can gage it. We see automation and programing. We see the rules and peripherals. We know it so well, we can mod some of it. The most intelligent and wise people even before Abraham understood through astrology, mathematics, geometry, alchemy, accounting and records keeping…GOD comes to us from the most intelligent minds in the history of the planet.
Anyways, carry on.
o7