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The prophet Balaam offers sacrifice at a high place east of the Jordan River.

A High Place, (Hebrew bamot or bemah) was a hilltop shrine in ancient Israelite and Canaanite time from the twelth through at least the early sixth century B.C.E. They consisted of a stone altar, often accompanied by a stone or wooden pillar sybolizing the presence of a deity, and sometimes a sacred tree.

Ancient Israelite patriarchs and prophets established high places from the time of Abraham until at least the period of the ministry of the prophet Elijah. A movement against their use developed as the Temple of Jerusalem emerged as a central sancturary and exclusive place of sacrifice to the Hebrew God Yahweh. Scriptures such as the Book of Deuteronomy banned the use of high places by the Israelites and associated these local altars with idolatry. It appears that some high places combined the worship of the Hebrew God with Canaanite fertility rites, leading to increasingly harsh condemnations of them by prophetic and priestly writers. In the late sixth century B.C.E., King Josiah of Judah initiated a religious reform that destroyed some of the high places and attempted to bring local Levite priests who served their to Jerusalem. Henceforth, the Jerusalem Temple, itself a highly insitutionalize major high place, would be the only authorized place of sacrifice in the Jewish tradition.

Early history

From mankind's earliest times, mountain and hilltops were sacred places where humans stood suspended between the heavens and the earth. The earliest biblical description of the sites that were later called "high places" are found in the Book of Genesis. Abraham first built an altar under the "great tree of Moreh" at Shechem and then moved on to Bethel, where he built a hilltop altar (Gen 12:6-8). It would be here that Jacob, later called "Israel," had his famous dream of "Jacob's ladder" (Gen. 28:18). Jacob also reportedly established both an atlar and a sacred pillar at Bethel, which would later become a national shrine when the northern Kingdom of Israel seceded from the united kingdom established by David and [[Solomom].

Prior to the coming of the patriarchs, these sacred sites may already have been use by the Canaanites, who, like the Hebrews, viewed mountaintops as having spiritual significance becuase of their presumed physical proximity to the home of the gods. Abraham established another altar under "the great trees of Mamre at Hebron." (Gen 13:18) Later, he would climb a mountain in the region of Moriah, where he built an altar upon which to sacrifice his son Isaac as a burnt offering to Yahweh. Traditionally, this site is thought to be the same high place on which the Temple of Jerusalem was eventually built (2 Chronicles 3:1).

High places would continue to play a major role in Israelite worship for centuries. Moses would meet God at the top of Mount Sinai (also called Horeb), and the prophet Elijah, several hundred years later, would travel to the same mountain for his own encounter with the Almighty. At Gilgal, Joshua set up twelve stone pillars when the Israelites crossed the Jordan into Canaan. It was here that Joshua re-confirmed the covenant of circumcision for Israelite men, and the site would later become one of the sites visited regularly by the prophet Samuel (1 Samuel 7:16), as well as a place of idolatrous Canaanite worship (Judges 3:19). Samuel also invited King Saul to reconfirm his kingship at Gilgal (1 Samuel 11:14). Bands of Israelite prophets attended various high places from the time of Samuel through period of the prophet Elijah.

High places were equally important in Canaanite and neighboring religions. When the prophet Balaam was hired by the Moabite king Balak to curse the Israelites who threatened his terriority, Balak escorted Balaam to a succession of high places, where the prophet famously blessed Balak's enemies instead of cursing them. King Solomon later established high places dedicated to his Moabite and Ammonite wives outside of Jersualem, earning him, according to the author of the Books of Kings, Yahweh's rejection. During the time of King Ahab, the prophet Elijah battled the prophets of Baal for control of the high place at Mount Carmel.

The Levite priesthood gradually replaced the prophetic bands as officiators at the high places scattered throughout Israel and Judah. These local priests competed with the central sanctuary at Jerusalem for the benefits associated with their sacrificial office. The Book of Deuteronomy, however, stipulates that God would name only one place of sacfrice was authorized, implying that this would be the Temple of Jerusalem. Under King Josiah (late seventh century B.C.E.), Levites were encouraged to move to Jerusalem, where they would be accepted into a second-tier priesthood under the priests descended from Aaron. Josiah destroyed many of the high places and slaughtered those priests who sacrificed to gods other than Yahweh. The Book of Kings mentions specifically that he even dared to destroy the ancient altar at Bethel, just a few miles north or Jerusalem, to which northern pilgrims were likely to go.

Although other high places survived, Jerusalem would henceforth be the only high place of the Jewish tradition. With Bethel out of the picture, the high place at Mount Gerizim would emerge as the central shrine of the northern worshipers of Yahweh, who became known as Samaritans. This was the site of a major Temple for several centuries and is still a sacred place among the small Samaritan community in Israel and Palestine today. Meanwhile, Moabite, Ammonite, and Edomite high places continued as places of worship well into the Christian era.

From the Old Testament 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 (I_Samuel 9:12-14); there was a stele (matzevah), the seat of the deity, and a wooden post or pole (asherah, named after the mother goddess Asherah, Queen of Heaven), which marked the place as sacred and was itself an object of worship; there was a stone altar, often of considerable size and hewn out of the solid rock' or built of unhewn stones (Exodus 20:25; see altar), on which offerings were burnt (mizbeh, lit. "slaughter place"); a cistern for water, and perhaps low stone tables for dressing the victims; sometimes also a hall (lishkah) for the sacrificial feasts.

Around these places the religion of the ancient Israelite centred; at festival seasons, or to make or fulfil a vow, he might journey to more famous sanctuaries at a distance from his home, but ordinarily the offerings which linked every side of his life to religion were paid at the bamah of his own town. The building of royal temples in Jerusalem or in Samaria made no change in this respect; they simply took their place beside the older sanctuaries, such as Bethel, Dan, Gilgal, Beersheba, to which they were, indeed, inferior in repute.

The religious reformers of the 8th century 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 difference 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 whole cultus as pure heathenism—Canaanite baal-worship adopted by apostate Israel. The fundamental law in Deuteronomy 12:1-32 prohibits sacrifice at every place except the temple in Jerusalem; in accordance with this law Josiah, in 621 B.C.E., destroyed and desecrated the altars (bmoth) throughout his kingdom, where Yahweh had been worshipped from time immemorial, and forcibly removed their priests to Jerusalem, where they occupied an inferior rank in the temple ministry.

In the prophets of the 7th and 6th centuries the word bamot 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 of Judah, which, in their view, had been illegitimate from the building of Solomon's temple, and therefore not really seats of the worship of Yahweh; even the most pious kings of Judah are censured for tolerating their existence. The reaction which followed the death of Josiah (608 B.C.E.) restored the old altars of Yahweh; they survived the destruction of the temple in 586, and it is probable that after its restoration (520-516 B.C.E.) they only slowly disappeared, in consequence partly of the natural predominance of Jerusalem in the little territory of Judaea, partly of the gradual establishment of the supremacy of the written law over custom and tradition in the Persian period.

It may not be superfluous to note that the deuteronomic dogma that sacrifice can be offered to Yahweh only at the temple in Jerusalem was never fully established either in fact or in legal theory. The Jewish military colonists in Elephantine in the 5th century B.C.E. had their altar of Yahweh beside the highway; the Jews in Egypt in the Ptolemaic period had, besides many local sanctuaries, one greater temple at Leontopolis, with a priesthood whose claim to "valid orders" was much better than that of the High Priests in Jerusalem, and the legitimacy of whose worship is admitted even by the Palestinian rabbis.

Eastern Orthodoxy

In the Eastern Orthodox Church the High Place is also the name for the location of the episcopal throne, set in the center of the back of the apse of a temple's sanctuary. In larger temples there may be a literal elevation, but there is often not room for this in smaller temples. It is surrounded on both sides by the synthronos, a set of other seats or benches for the use of the priests. Every Orthodox temple has such a High Place even if it is not a cathedral.

References
ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

Baudissin, "Hohendienst," Protestantische Realencyklopadie (viii. 177-195)
Hoonacker, Le Lieu du culte dans la legislation rituelle des Hebreux (1894)
V Gall, Altisraelitische Kultstadle (1898).

External links

Orthodox bishop seated at the High Place
Synthronon ancient church in Paros

This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

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@@ Line 11: / Line 11: @@
 Prior to the coming of the patriarchs, these sacred sites may already have been use by the [[Canaan]]ites, who, like the Hebrews, viewed mountaintops as having spiritual significance becuase of their presumed physical proximity to the home of the gods. Abraham established another altar under "the great trees of Mamre at Hebron." (Gen 13:18) Later, he would climb a mountain in the region of Moriah, where he built an altar upon which to sacrifice his son [[Isaac]] as a burnt offering to [[Yahweh]]. Traditionally, this site is thought to be the same high place on which the [[Temple of Jerusalem]] was eventually built (2 Chronicles 3:1).
-High places would continue to play a major role in Israelite worship for centuries. Moses would meet God at the top of Mount Sinai, and the prophet Elijah, several hundred years later, would travel to the same mountain for his own encounter with the Almighty.
+High places would continue to play a major role in Israelite worship for centuries. Moses would meet God at the top of Mount Sinai (also called Horeb), and the prophet Elijah, several hundred years later, would travel to the same mountain for his own encounter with the Almighty. At Gilgal, Joshua set up twelve stone pillars when the Israelites crossed the Jordan into Canaan. It was here that Joshua re-confirmed the covenant of circumcision for Israelite men, and the site would later become one of the sites visited regularly by the prophet Samuel (1 Samuel 7:16), as well as a place of idolatrous Canaanite worship (Judges 3:19). Samuel also invited King Saul to reconfirm his kingship at Gilgal (1 Samuel 11:14). Bands of Israelite prophets attended various high places from the time of Samuel through period of the prophet Elijah.
+High places were equally important in Canaanite and neighboring religions. When the prophet Balaam was hired by the Moabite king Balak to curse the Israelites who threatened his terriority, Balak escorted Balaam to a succession of high places, where the prophet famously blessed Balak's enemies instead of cursing them. King Solomon later established high places dedicated to his Moabite and Ammonite wives outside of Jersualem, earning him, according to the author of the Books of Kings, Yahweh's rejection. During the time of King Ahab, the prophet Elijah battled the prophets of Baal for control of the high place at Mount Carmel.
+The Levite priesthood gradually replaced the prophetic bands as officiators at the high places scattered throughout Israel and Judah. These local priests competed with the central sanctuary at Jerusalem for the benefits associated with their sacrificial office. The Book of Deuteronomy, however, stipulates that God would name only one place of sacfrice was authorized, implying that this would be the Temple of Jerusalem. Under King Josiah (late seventh century B.C.E.), Levites were encouraged to move to Jerusalem, where they would be accepted into a second-tier priesthood under the priests descended from Aaron. Josiah destroyed many of the high places and slaughtered those priests who sacrificed to gods other than Yahweh. The Book of Kings mentions specifically that he even dared to destroy the ancient altar at Bethel, just a few miles north or Jerusalem, to which northern pilgrims were likely to go.
+Although other high places survived, Jerusalem would henceforth be the only high place of the Jewish tradition. With Bethel out of the picture, the high place at Mount Gerizim would emerge as the central shrine of the northern worshipers of Yahweh, who became known as Samaritans. This was the site of a major Temple for several centuries and is still a sacred place among the small Samaritan community in Israel and Palestine today. Meanwhile, Moabite, Ammonite, and Edomite high places continued as places of worship well into the Christian era.