Riverwind

How I have missed this for so long, I have no idea, but I happened to notice that certain Catholic translations (perhaps all of them) render the Greek 'presbyter' (in all or some places) as 'priest'. I have always understood 'presbyter' to mean 'elder', literally, so the translation as 'priest' is confusing to me. I do not even find this in lexicons. In what lexicon is this found?

How does one determine from context whether 'presbyter' should be translated as 'priest' or as 'elder'. There seems like a world of difference between the two terms to me, and I can't even find a good precedent in the Septuagint.

Can anyone shed any extra light on this topic?

Toto

Can you provide a specific example of this translation?

In any case, it's not clear that there is a world of difference.

PresbyterEastern Orthodox take

Riverwind

I will try to provide an example when I have the chance.

However, to me there is a world of difference.

Cohen - Hebrew for priest...quite a different type of priest than a modern Catholic priest (or protestant pastor)...and has nothing to do, so far as I know, with 'elders'.

hIEROS - Greek for priest (of the type mentione above in Hebrew). I believe (though I haven't yet checked) that this is the term most often translating Cohen in the Greek Septuagint, and, to my knowledge, having nothing to do with 'elders'.

So, to me, it seems there is an enormous difference between the actual "priests" of the OT (perhaps they should be called something else?) than the "priest" that translates the Greek word 'presbyter', meaning 'elder'.

Riverwind

Promised example.

Douay-Rheims (ie. a "Catholic Bible"):
James 5:14 - "Is any man sick among you? Let him bring in the priests of the church and let them pray over him..."

King James Version (ie. a "Protestant Bible")
James 5:14 - "Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him"

Of course, the word in question here is "presbyteroi".

There are many other such verses, but this should serve as an example to those who might be in the know more than I.

So, what's up with this? Some elaboration anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

gstafleu

To add to the confusion, the word for "church" is ekklesia. This usually means something like assembly, congregation. According to Liddell the NT is an exceptional case: 2. in NT, the Church, as a body of Christians. Nice try, but how accurate is that? "Church" has all kinds of organizational connotations.

So we have two translations for πρεσβυτερους της εκκλησιας: priests of the church and elders of the congregation. That does indeed sound rather different to me.

Gerard Stafleu

Riverwind

Very true.

The "church"/"congregation" thingy doesn't bother and confuse me quite so much as the "priest"/"elder" thingy. Both definitely change the meaning of the verses, though!

Does anyone know any more about the whole priest/elder thing?

Is "priest", perhaps, an unfortunate translation of "cohen"/"hieros" in the OT, since "priest" is supposedly(?) etymologically derived from "presbyter" anyway? Someone HAYLP me!

Pataphysician

I would say gstafleu reference to ekklesia is actually very important. Taken together, we see that elder/presbyteros is used often in the OT, and was interpreted later sometimes as a term for the members of the Sanhedrins(as such courts existed outside Jerusalem as well) as elders/presbytero and the Sanhedrins(from Greek synedrion "sitting together") relates pretty closely to the meaning of ekklesia. So my guess is that the term presbyter relates back to a position in a religious court similar to a Sanhedrin.

So for example by the first century CE many Jews considered the first Sanhedrin to have been formed by Moses in these lines.

Numbers 11:16
"Assemble for Me seventy men of the elders(in the LXX presbyteros) of Israel, whom you know to be the people's elders(in the LXX presbyteros) and officers, and you shall take them to the Tent of Meeting, and they shall stand there with you."