– Originates from the Latin altus , elevated. In antiquity, sacrifices were offered preferably on top of the mountains, where it was believed to be closer to the deities. To pray, one went up to a mountain. This custom was still in force in the time of Jesus:
Gen 8:20 : And Noah built an altar to the Lord: he took of all the clean animals and of all the clean birds.
Gen 12:8 : Abram built an altar there to the Lord, and invoked his name.
Gen 13:18 : And there he built an altar to the Lord.
Gen 26:25 : Isaac built an altar there and invoked the name of the Lord.
Gen 22,1-14 : When they arrived at the place indicated by God, Abraham built an altar.
Ex 3,12 : I will be with you – replied God –; and here is a sign that it is I who send you.
Ex 4:27 : The Lord said to Aaron: “Go to meet Moses in the desert”.
Ex 20,18 : Before the thunder, the flames, the voice of the trumpet and the mountain that smoked.
Joshua 8:30ff : So Joshua built an altar to the Lord, the God of Israel, on Mount Ebal.
Is 57:15 : For this is what the Most High says, whose dwelling is eternal and whose name is holy.
1Kings 19,8-18 : Lord,[…] who sit on cherubim, you alone are the God of all the kingdoms of the earth.
Mt 14:23 : Having done this, he went up to the mountain to pray in solitude.
Mk 6:46 : And when the people were dismissed, he withdrew to the mountain to pray.
Mk 9,2 : Six days later Jesus took Peter, James and John with him and led them up a high mountain by themselves.
Jn 6:15 : Jesus, perceiving that they wanted to seize him and make him king, withdrew again to the mountain alone.
– The Hebrews, surrounded by other peoples who offered sacrifices to their gods in the “high places”, began to imitate them. But Yahweh condemns this practice and orders that the stone tables (aras) be replaced by wooden ones, whose dimensions are meticulously provided by himself in a single sanctuary:
1Kings 12,25-33 : He went up to the altar to burn incense.
2Kings 14,3-4 : The high places, however, did not disappear and the people continued to sacrifice and offer incense on them.
Ex 34:13 : You will tear down their altars, break their pillars and cut down their asherahs.
Deuteronomy 7 :5 : But this is how you will deal with them: You will destroy their altars.
Ex 27,1ss : You shall make the altar of acacia wood.
Ex 30,1ss : You will build an altar to burn incense on it.
Ex 38,1ss : He made the altar of burnt offerings out of acacia wood.
Deut 12:1-8 : You will tear down their altars, break their pillars, cut down their asherahs, throw their idols into the fire.
2Ch 32,12 : It was not he, Hezekiah, who removed the high places and the altars of the Lord.
– There is an allusion to this struggle between the Jews, who worshiped the Lord in the Temple of Jerusalem, and the foreign peoples, who continued to do so in the mountains:
Jn 4,20-21 : Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that it is in Jerusalem that we must worship.
– In the NT, there is also only one altar, the supper table, in which Jesus is the priest and the victim unbloodily offered to the Father in sacrifice:
1Cor 11,20-34 : So when you come together, it is no longer to eat the Lord’s Supper.
Heb 13:10 : We have an altar from which those employed in the service of the tabernacle (mosaic) have no right to eat.
– See SACRIFICE.
