Israelite worship at Bāmāh (“High Place”) in the Pre-Exilic Period

Syncretistic Phenomenon or Legitimate Religious Practice?

An Abstract by Eun Ju Kim

Bāmāh, often translated to “high place” in English from the Old Testament, refers to a cultic site that usually contained an altar where sacrifices were offered. Bāmāh is used approximately 100 times in the Old Testament.[1] The numerous references to bāmāh in the Old Testament indicate that it is a key element for understanding Israel’s worship. An issue arises, however, when one compares worship at bāmāh in the book of Samuels to worship at bāmāh in the book of Kings. Worship at bāmāh is seen as either sanctioned or unsanctioned.

This paper presents, the Old Testament’s attitude toward worship at bāmāh contradictory particularly in the books of Samuel and Kingsthe nature of bāmāh, the biblical views regarding bāmāh as a cultic site. I begin by examining the terminology and concept of bāmāh. I will then survey Ancient Near Eastern Religions focusing on gods worshiped at bāmāh in Canaan. It is also necessary to investigate the origin of worship at bāmāh and the development of worship at bāmāh in Ancient Israel’s history. Concerning this matter, I will direct my attention to the main functions of bāmāh regarding Israelite worship and a number of actual Israelite bāmāh. I will also do a textual study on Scripture references that signify perspectives on worship at bāmāh. This work naturally requires investigating the reasons that have affected the assessment of the worship at bāmāh in the Old Testament. The paper concludes with the reason behind differing attitudes toward the worship at bāmāh. In spite of God’s command to destroy the high places (bāmôṯ) in Canaan, the Israelites’ worship at bāmāh was allowed until worship was centralized and executed at the temple in Jerusalem.

The preceding was an abstract of a research paper written by Eun Ju Kim as a part of MUMIN 7513 Research in Worship History: Old Testament, a Ph.D. Seminar in Worship at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. If this topic interests you, feel free to click the author’s name above and request a copy of the research paper.

[1]W. Boyd Barrick, BMH As Body Language: A Lexical and Iconographical Study of the Word BMH When Not a Reference to Cultic Phenomena in Biblical and Post-Biblical Hebrew (New York: T&T Clark International, 2008), 3.