In the NT three words are used which are translated basket—
1. Ko<pi.iioi, used in all the accounts of the miracle of feeding the 5000, for the basksts in which the fragments were gathered, Mt 14*", Mk 6*", Lk 9", Jn 6". According to Juvenal (Sat. iii. 14, .i. 541) the Jews carried about with them the.se wicker baskets for their food in Gentile countries to prevent defilement. Kophinoi were used to carry agricultural produce (Columella, xi. 3). Their sizes were probably variable, but the word is used for a Boeotian measure of capacity equal to two gallons (CIG 1625, 46).
2. a<i,vpii, the kind of basket in which the frag- ments were gathered after the feeding of the 4000, Mt 15", Mk 8». It was probably a large provision basket, possibly of ropework, such as those which the lake-dwelling Pieonians used for fishing with (Herodot. v. 16). In such a spuris the disciples lot down St. Paul from the walls of
Damascus, Ac 9^°. The spuria and kuphinus are contrasted in Mt \&- '", Jlk 8'»- =», the former being probably the larger. The mediaival com- mentators fancifully allegorized these baskets (see Itabanus Maurus, Allcg. in Script, ed. Migne, 898 ; and for references to the sportulm of the clergy and others, see Chrysost. Ep. to Valentinus, ed. Migne, iii. 731 ; and Cyprian's Ep. ad clerum et plebem. p. 324).
3. aapyifv, used only in 2 Co 11" in reference to the basket by which St. Paul escaped from Damascus. Tiie word means anything plaited, as in yEschyl. Suppl. 769, but is used of a fish basket by Timokles (AijS. i.). See Pollux, Onomast. vii. 27.
The other receptacles mentioned in the NT, ir^pa or wallet ; yKwaabKoixov, Judas's bag ; and /SaXXdxTioj', used thrice in Luke, were probably of leather. The vlvai, on which John the Baptist's head was brought to Salome, was probably a wooden platter.
In the early Church, cophini or canistra, wicker baskets, were used for carrying the eulogia or con- secrated bread and wine to those not present at the Eucharist (Jerome, Ep. ad Busticum, ed. Migne, cxxv. 1078). Illustrations of these baskets are referred to in Martigny's Diet, des Antiq. Ckrit. p. 246. The word basket is of Celtic origin, from a root which signifies to twist round. Its British source, which has been questioned on dubious grounds by recent etymologists, is referred to by Martial, xiv. 99. From the Schol. on Juv. xii. 46, we learn that baskets were used to hold cups and pots when they were being washed in running water. {See Bulenger. de Conviviis, iv. 10, 11).
A. Macalister.
BASON. — 1. Bason* is the rendering in EV of various Heb. words, and of the Gr. vittttjp (Ja 13'*). Of the former the most frequently used is pyp (LXX 0ia\i), (rvoi-dtlov, of. Jos. I.e. inf.), which denotes a bowl or basin used in the sacrilicial ritual of tabernacle and temple. The officiating priest or priests caught the warm blood, as it streamed from the victim, in the basin, from which it was dashed against the altar (Ex 29"" etc.), or other- wise manipulated as the ritual required (see Sacrifice). The basins used for this purpose were of bronze (Ex 27', 1 K 7"). About their size and shape we have no further information. They probably resembled somewhat the basin of bronze presented by ' a servant of Hiram ' to the Phcen. deity Baal-Lebanon, of which a reconstruction from the remaining fragments is given in the CIS I. i. 23. The same term (p^t?) is applied to the silver bowls or basins presented by the princes of the congregation with a nieal-ofl'ering (Nu 7"*-)- The weight of each basin, 70 shekels, — prob. about 32 oz. troy, — shows that the Pip was not of very large dimensions. Among the furniture of the temple of Solomon, basins of gold are repeatedly mentioned (1 K 7**, 2 K 12", Jer 52'» etc.). The number of these made by Hiram is given as 100 in 2 Ch 4' (with wh. cf. the statements Ezr !'■", and contrast the exaggerations of Jos. Ant. vill. iii. 7, 8). Fifty such golden basins were presented by ' the Tirshatha' to the second temple (Neh 7'").
2. Bason is also in a few places the rendering of IP, which, if the reading of 2 S 17^ be correct (cf. Klosterm. in loc.), was the name for a basin as a common article of household furniture, such as is denoted by unrr-^p (Jn 13'*) With this agrees its use by JE in the account of the institution of the Passover (Ex 12-''' by the LXX mistranslated irapd ■Hin Svpap). In some passages the word is translated ' cup ' bj' RV.
3. A tliird term (I'm?) occurs only in the late book of Ch-Ezr-Neh (1 Ch 28>', Ezr I" 8"), and
* The Amer. Revisers prefer throughout ±e more modem spelliiiif 'baslD.*
BASSAI
BATH, BATHING
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may be considered as a word of later origin than the others. It occurs alongside of p^|C, and must therefore have differed from it ; but in what -aoppct we do not know. It is rendered in RV unitormly by 'bowl' (which see). n^JS 'basins,' occurs only Ex 24». A. R. S. Kennedy.
BASSAI (B Bo<r<ra(, A Baatri, AV Bassa), 1 Es 6" -Bez-u, Ear 2", Neh 7».
BASTARD is one bom out of wedlock ; and that is the meaning in He 12' ' then are ye bastards {v6$oi) and not sons,' its only occurrence in NT ; but in OT it is probable that iiij? mavizir, of which b. is the tr. where it occurs (Dt 23^, Zee 9*, only), means a child of incest, not simply an illegitimate child. See Driver on Dt 23'. Wis 4 (heading) has ' Bastard slips shall not thrive ' as a paraphrase of 4' ' But the multiplying brood of the ungodly shall not thrive,' where Uie meaning is probably general ' = 'base,' as in Spenser, F.Q. i. 24 —