High places (Hebrew:במות,romanized: bamoṯ, singularבמהbamā) are simple hilltop installations with instruments of religion: platforms, altars, standing stones, and cairns are common. Along with open courtyard shrines andsacred trees orgroves, they were some of the most often-seen public places of piety in theancient Near East. They appear in theearly Bronze Age at the latest.[1]
From theHebrew Bible and from existing remains a good idea may be formed of the appearance of such a place of worship. It was often on the hill above the town, as at Ramah (1 Samuel 9:12–14); there was astele (matzevah), the seat of the deity, and aAsherah pole (named after the goddessAsherah), which marked the place as sacred and was itself an object of worship; there was astone altar (מִזְבֵּחַmizbeḥ "slaughter place"), often of considerable size and hewn out of the solid rock or built of unhewn stones (Exodus 20:21), on which offerings were burnt; acistern for water, and perhaps low stone tables for dressing the victims; sometimes also a hall (לִשְׁכָּהlishkah) for the sacrificial feasts.[2]
Ancient Israelite religion was centred on these sites; at festival seasons, or to make or fulfil a vow, an Israelite might journey to more famous sanctuaries at a distance from home, but ordinarily offerings were made at the bamah of his own town.[2] The building ofthe Temple at Jerusalem, which under theLaw of Moses had an exclusive right to offer sacrifices (Deuteronomy 12), did not stop the bamot sacrifices until KingsHezekiah andJosiah proscribed them.
According to theEncyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, it was believed at the time (1911) that the development of the religious significance of the word took place not inLand of Israel but among theCanaanites, from whom the Israelites, in taking possession of the holy places of the land, also adopted the name.[2] The Hebrew Bible claims that the Canaanites and Israelites were entirely distinct peoples, that their ancestorAbraham hailed fromUr rather than from Canaan, and that the Israelites migrated to the land inhabited by native Canaanites and conquered it by force. The prevailing academic opinion today is that the Israelites were a mixture of peoples predominantly indigenous to Canaan, although an Egyptian matrix of peoples may also have played a role in theirethnogenesis (giving birth to the saga ofThe Exodus),[3][4][5] with an ethnic composition similar to that inAmmon,Edom andMoab,[4] and includingHabiru andShasu.[6]
The culture of ancient Israelite sites was extremely similar to that of other Canaanite sites, with the most significant difference being the worship ofYahweh, so in spite of late Biblical references to Ur, it is probable that the Israelite federation evolved in situ in Canaan, rather than by conquest of a foreign nation, and inherited the cultural concept of high places from indigenous ancestors.[7] While Canaanites associated high places withʼĒl, early Israelites used them for worship of Yahweh in an equivalent sense due to the conflation of Yahweh with ʼĒl. This can be seen in thefrequent Biblical references to Yahweh with terms such asEl,El Shaddai,Elohim, andElyon, instead ofYHWH, which was considered too holy to speak aloud. These El-based terms are likely derived from the original personal name of ʼĒl and from ancient Canaanite titles meaning "son of God," "angel of God," or "God most high." Consequently, high places can be seen as an indigenous development of both the Israelites and the Canaanites, but by the time of the composition of the Hebrew Bible's oldest texts, high places were consideredavodh zereh, foreign worship associated with the Canaanite pantheon.
The prophets of the 8th century BCE assail the popular religion as corrupt and licentious and as fostering the monstrous delusion that immoral men can buy the favour of God by worship, but they make no distinction in this respect between the high places of Israel and the temple in Jerusalem. (cf.Amos 5:21 sqq.;Hosea 4:1–19;Isaiah to sqq.)Hosea stigmatizes the wholecultus as pure heathenism—CanaaniteBaal-worship adopted by apostate Israel. The fundamental law inDeuteronomy 12:1–32 prohibitssacrifice at every place except the temple in Jerusalem; in accordance with this lawJosiah, in 621 BCE, destroyed and desecrated the altars (bamoth) throughout his kingdom (where Yahweh had been worshipped since times before a permanent singular Temple at Jerusalem was erected) and forcibly removed their priests to Jerusalem, where they occupied an inferior rank in the temple ministry.[2]
In the prophets of the 7th and 6th centuries BCE, the wordbamot connotes "seat of heathenish or idolatrous worship"; and the historians of the period apply the term in this opprobrious sense not only to places sacred to other gods but to the old holy places of Yahweh in the cities and villages ofJudah, which, in their view, had been illegitimate since the building ofSolomon's temple, and therefore not valid centers for the worship of Yahweh; even the most pious kings of Judah are censured in theBooks of Kings for tolerating their existence. The reaction that followed the death of Josiah (608 BCE) restored the old altars of Yahweh; they survived the destruction of the temple in 586 BCE, and it is probable that after its restoration (520–516 BCE) they only slowly disappeared, in consequence partly of the natural predominance of Jerusalem in the little territory ofJudaea, partly of the gradual establishment of the supremacy of the written law over custom and tradition in thePersian period.[2]
The rule of the Law of Moses that sacrifice can be offered to Yahweh only at the Temple in Jerusalem was never fully established in fact. The Jewish military colonists inElephantine in the 5th century BCE had their altar of Yahweh beside the highway; the Jews inEgypt in thePtolemaic period had, besides many local sanctuaries, one greater temple atLeontopolis, with a priesthood whose claim to "valid orders" was much better than that of theHigh Priests in Jerusalem, and the legitimacy of whose worship is admitted even by thePalestinian rabbis.[2]
R A Stewart Macalister inGezer.[8]
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In Jewishsynagogues, the "High Place" (bimah; see alsobema) is the elevated platform from which theTorah is read. It traditionally had its origin from the platform erected in theTemple in Jerusalem at which the king would read the Torah during the Hakhel ceremony every seven years at theFeast of Tabernacles (Deuteronomy 31:10–13). Thebimah is located in the center ofOrthodox synagogues, and in the front ofReform andConservative synagogues.
The wordbimah is almost certainly derived from the Ancient Greek word for a raised platform, bema (βῆμα), with the resemblance to the Biblical wordbamah being coincidental.
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In theEastern Orthodox Church andEastern Catholic Churches theHigh Place is the name used for the location of thecathedra (episcopal throne), set in the center of theapse of a church'ssanctuary, behind theHoly Table (altar). In larger churches there may be a literal elevation, but there is often not room for this in smaller churches. The cathedra is surrounded on both sides by thesynthronos, a set of other seats or benches for the use of thepriests. Every Orthodox church and Eastern Catholic church has such a High Place even if it is not acathedral.
The termHigh Place also refers to the central portion of the Holy Table, where theantimension andGospel Book are normally kept. The only other objects that are permitted to occupy this place on the altar are thechalice anddiscos (paten) for the celebration of theDivine Liturgy. On the variousFeasts of the Cross, a tray covered by anaër (liturgical veil) holding aCross and branches ofbasil is placed on the High Place of the Holy Table until it is taken in procession to the center of thenave. OnGood Friday, theEpitaphion is set on the Holy Table until it is taken to the "tomb" in the center of the nave for veneration by the faithful. During thePaschal Vigil, this Epitaphion is taken through theHoly Doors and placed again on the High Place of the Holy Table, where it will remain until theAscension.
One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "High Place".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 13 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 456–457.The ethnically mixed character of the Israelites is reflected even more clearly in the foreign names of the group's leadership. Moses himself, of course, has an Egyptian name. But so do Hophni, Phinehas, Hur, and Merari, the son of Levi.
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