Ba'mah (Heb. Bamah', tltt, a height; Sept. \ lafia), an eminence or high-place, where the Jews worshipped their idols, occurs as a proper name, Ezek. xx, 29. In other passages it is usually translated "high place;" and in Ezek, xxxvi, 2, such spots arc termed 'ancient high places, "or ancient heights. See Bamoth. (In such high places the Hebrews made oblations to idols, and also to the Lord himself, before "lit. lined that unity <>f place for the divine worship was indispensable. The Jewish historians, re, for the most part, describe this as an unlaw- ful worship, in consequence of its being so generally associated with idolatrous rites. See High-place. The above passage in Ezekiel is very obscure, and full
ol' the J • i r asia so dear to the Hebrew poets, so
difficult for us to appreciate : " What is the high place (""9"' whereunto ye hie f^xan)? and the name of it i- called Bamah (rnaa) unto' this day." Ewald (Prophetm, p. 286) pronounces this verse to be an ex- tra, t from an older prophet than Ezekiel. The name here, however, seems to refer, not to a particular spot, but to any Buch locality Individualized by the- term I nderson, Comment, in loe.). Bambas, Nbophytos, an archimandrite of the Greek Church, and on.- of tin- principal prose writers
of modem Gr a, was horn upon the island of I Ihios,
aud died at Athens ja Feb. 1855. lie studied at the
College of Chios and at the University of Paris, reor- ganized, after his return from Paris, the College of Chios, and remained its president until the war of in- dependence in 1821. In 1824 he became Professor of Philosophy at the University of Corfu, afterward di- rector of the college at Syra, and, at last, Professor of Philosophy and Rhetoric at the University of Athens. On account of his extensive learning, the British and Foreign Bible Society confided to him the task of translating, in union with Rev. Mr. Lowndes, and Mr. Nicolaides of Philadelphia in Asia Minor, the Bible into modern Greek. During the latter years of his life, Mr. Bambas attached himself, however, to the Russian or Napsean party, which is hostile to the reformation of the Church. He wrote a manual of sacred elo- quence (Eyxtipiciov Tiig rov \epov «/</3un'or, ptiropiKijr, Athens, 1^51), a manual of ethics ('Eyvnoicioi' rijfc tjBucnc, Athens, 1853), and other works on philosophy, ethics, and rhetoric, and several Greek grammars. See Baird, Modern Greece, p. 80, 330 (N. Y. 1850).
Bambino, the name of the swaddled figure of the infant Saviour, which, surrounded by a halo, and watched over by angels, occasionally forms the sub- ject of altar-pieces in Roman Catholic churches. The Santissimo Bambino in the church of the Ara Coeli at Rome is held in great veneration for its supposed mi- raculous power of curing the sick. It is carved in wood, painted, and richly decorated with jewels and precious stones. The carving is attributed to a Fran- ciscan pilgrim, out of a tree that grew on Mount Oli- vet, and the painting to the evangelist Luke. The festival of the Bambino, which occurs at the Epiphany, is attended by great numbers of country people, and the Bambino is said to draw more in the shape of fees than the most successful medical practitioner in Rome. — Chambers's Encyclopaedia, s. v.
Bambridge. See Baixbridge.
Ba'moth (Heb. Bamoth', niBS, heights; Sept. BafuitSr), the forty-seventh station of the Israelites, on the borders of Moab (Num. xxi, 19, 20) ; according to Eusebius and Jerome (Onomast. s. v. B«/3w3, Bamoth), a city near the river Arnon. As it was the next en- campment before reaching Pisgah (usually identified with Jebel Attarus [see Nebo]), it may not improb- ably be identified with Jebe\-//uitxh, immediately east, a position which seems to agree with the circumstances of all the notices. Kruse, however (in Seetzen's Beise, iv, 225), thinks it the place now called Waleh, on the wady of the same name. It is probably the same place elsewhere called Bamoth-Baal (Josh, xiii, 17).
Ba'moth -ba'al (Heb. Bamoth'- Ba'al, "Piiaa
X'3, heights of Baal; Sept. Bci/auS BaaX v. r. B«t- fuitv BaaX, and a! orsXai rov BaaX), or, as the mar- gin of our version reads, "the high plares of Baal" [see B.vai.J, a place given to the tribe of Reuben, and situated on the river Arnon, or in the plain through which that stream flows, east of the Jordan (Josh, xiii, 17; comp. Num. xxi, 28; xxii, 41; not Jer. xxxii, 35). It is probably the same place elsewhere (Num. xxi, 19) called simply Bamoth (q. v ). Knohel (Com* ment. in loe.) identities it with the modern ./< '>< / .1 //ants, a site marked by stone-heaps observed both by Seetzen (ii, 342) and Burckhardt (Syria, p. 370); but this is rather the summit of Neho.
Bampton Lectures, a course of eight sermons preached annually at the University of Oxford, under the will of the Rev. John Bampton, canon of Salis- bury, who died in 1751. According to the directions in his will, they are to be preached upon any of the fol- lowing subjects: To confirm and establish the Chris- tian faith, and to confute all heretics and schismatics; upon the divine authority of the holy Scriptures ; upon the authority of the writings of the primitive fathers as to the faith and practice of the primitive Church; upon the divinity of our Loud and Saviouk Jesus