Replies

Petrosius: It is not an assumption but an historical fact that the word "priest" was originally used to describe the office of presbuteros and has been in constant use as such since before the 12th century.

daniel1212: That is a blatant fallacy as concerns Scripture, which is what we are dealing with as the standard. The distinctive word for "priest," “hiereus,” was never originally used to describe one who sat in office of presbuteros in the NT church.

We are speaking of the English word "priest" not the Greek hiereus. I never said that hiereus was used to describe presbuteros. Old English actually had two words preost, which was used only for presbuteros, and sacerd, which was used for hiereus. Preost survived into Modern English as "priest". Sacerd did not survive and its lack was made up by giving "priest" an additional meaning for it. My insistence on "priest" being a proper translation of presbuteros is not based on etymology but on its original and uninterrupted use. If you do not like "priest" being used for both presbuteros and hiereus then perhaps you should work to restore sacerd as the proper translation for hiereus.

"Priest" is not the only word in English that has taken on two meanings. Another is "man." Latin has two distinct words, homo for a human being and vir for a male person. Old English also had two words, mann for a human being and wer for a male person. The former survived into Modern English while the latter did not. Just as "priest" then took on a second meaning to cover for the missing sacerd so did "man" take on the meaning of the missing wer. In neither case did this negate the original and constant meaning of the words.

Petrosius: I am relying on its original and continual meaning.

daniel1212: No you are not, as if the original meaning of presbuteros (senior/elder) or episkopos (superintendent/overseer) meant hiereus, then the Spirit would have it at least once as a title for them.

Again you continually have it backwards. It is not a question of the original meaning of presbuteros but of the original meaning of proest/priest.

Again you continually have it backwards. It is not a question of the original meaning of presbuteros but of the original meaning of proest/priest.

No, you've got it backwards, because it appears, much to my confusion, that you want to start with an English word that has drifted significantly from its etymological origins and project that new meaning back into a Greek word that does not support it. It matters what the lexicons say presbuteros meant during the New Testament period. Semantic drift does occur, and without drawing in good lexicographic analysis as an objective measure of that change, you can't be sure what a word meant at any given stage of it's progression through the various host languages. You can't do good translation without doing the necessary science.

Furthermore, as a matter of practical translation, you have already admitted the main reason you might have a legitimate dilemma in using "priest" in your target language, English. As you suggest, those in English cultures influenced by centuries of Protestant differentiation between "priest" and "elder" will be truly unable to hear "priest" without inferring strong sacerdotal overtones. I cannot do it even with conscious effort. To me it's like trying to picture red while saying blue. No matter what contours "preost" may (or may not) have had in the 12th Century, the derivative sense, as you call it, is arguably the modern winner in this contest, as attested by the Merriam-Webster definition's emphasis that in English, sacerdotal duty is a prominent aspect of the word "priest."

This state of affairs leaves you with only a few choices as a translator. You can go ahead and use "priest" for presbuteros, knowing in advance a large number of your intended readers, and especially those outside of your eclectic group, are going to infer sacerdotalism in the Biblical text where it is not inferred by a proper semantic analysis of presbuteros, such as we find in Louw-Nida. This is something of an activist approach. You can always use a translation to try and institute your own semantic drift in any direction you like. The new "politically correct" Bible translations are a good example of this.

But that's not a particularly helpful approach for those who wish to understand the word of God in it's original sense, on it's own terms. Translation is more than just science. It is also rooted in a certain trust of the translator, that they are making good faith representations of meaning in the choices they make. Using a historically and semantically overloaded term like "priest" for the much more bland and generic presbuteros would be a breach of that trust. Even if I were to turn Catholic tomorrow (God forbid), I could never do that. "Elder" would still be the better way to represent that term.

Or you could do what the translators of the KJV did, skate around a controversy by importing the word whole and untranslated into the host language. That is how we got the word "Baptize," which is nothing but the Greek "baptizo," unadorned with any clear sense of whether we mean "immerse" or "sprinkle." That word stands as an everlasting monument to evasive translating. Something our own Republican party might have done if they were assigned the task of making a Bible translation. Terrifying thought, I know. Nevertheless, using "presbyter" would be an improvement over "priest," if you couldn't bring yourself to use "elder."

However, even that would lead to some oddball situations that solve easily with "elder." For example, in 1 Timothy 5:2 we have this:

Πρεσβυτέρῳ μὴ ἐπιπλήξῃς, ἀλλὰ παρακάλει ὡς πατέρα· νεωτέρους, ὡς ἀδελφούς· 2 πρεσβυτέρας, ὡς μητέρας· νεωτέρας, ὡς ἀδελφάς, ἐν πάσῃ ἁγνείᾳ.

Which translates as:

Rebuke not an elder, but intreat him as a father; and the younger men as brethren; (2) The elder women as mothers; the younger as sisters, with all purity.

Is Paul talking about the office of elder? Hardly, because the passage proceeds to cover proper communication with younger men, older women, and younger women, clearly focusing on age, or age in combination with modes of showing respect.

And then what about those "elder women?" They are not women priests. But the word is presbuteros, with a feminine ending, thus presbuteras. So here it is obvious that "priest" would be completely wrong.

Then there's this passage:

Acts 23:14 And they came to the chief priests and elders, and said, We have bound ourselves under a great curse, that we will eat nothing until we have slain Paul. (KJV)

Which in the Douay Rheims comes out as:

23:14 Who came to the chief priests and the ancients, and said: We have bound ourselves under a great curse that we will eat nothing till we have slain Paul.

So your own translators have punted on this, avoiding "priest" for "presbuteros," because what nonsense it would be to translate it thus:

23:14 Who came to the chief priests and the [priests], and said: We have bound ourselves under a great curse that we will eat nothing till we have slain Paul.

All this to say it matters little for Bible translation purposes what "preost" had bundled into it's meaning in the 12th Century. What matters for translation is, who is my target audience, and how do I get them to hear, in their own, current language, what the Bible actually says in the original, unimpeded by my own biases as translator?

Incidentally, there is another "origin story" for "priest" that takes another genetic path into the Greek, and surprisingly, in this telling it doesn't go back to presbuteros:

[after discussing the standard "presbuteros" theory ... ]

An alternative theory (to account for the -eo- of the Old English word) makes it cognate with Old High German priast, prest, from Vulgar Latin *prevost "one put over others," from Latin praepositus "person placed in charge," from past participle of praeponere (see provost). In Old Testament sense, a translation of Hebrew kohen, Greek hiereus, Latin sacerdos[!?].

From here: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=priest

Granted, this is a minority position. But I find it fascinating that an alternate theory even exists. Take the "v" out of "prevost" and viola! you have "preost." Which again highlights the need to be careful about relying too heavily on etymology. Lexicography doesn't rely on a single fragile data point drawn from an irrelevant time period, but on a large number of data points all working together to give us an accurate view of how a word was used during the period of history and by the people most relevant to our inquiry. We want to know how Paul used presbuteros, not how Chaucer used preost.

I have a response developing for your other comments (on transubstantiation, sacrifice, etc.), but am out of time for now.

Peace,

SR

We are speaking of the English word "priest" not the Greek hiereus. I never said that hiereus was used to describe presbuteros. Old English actually had two words preost, which was used only for presbuteros, and sacerd, which was used for hiereus. Preost survived into Modern English as "priest". Sacerd did not survive and its lack was made up by giving "priest" an additional meaning for it.

Thank you very much for the clarification. Now i understand where you are coming from. Please forgive undue offense.

Old English preost probably shortened from the older Germanic form represented by Old Saxon and Old High German prestar, Old Frisian prestere, all from Vulgar Latin *prester "priest," from Late Latin presbyter "presbyter, elder," from Greek presbyteros - http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=priest

Yet it remains that using the distinctive term which came to be used for hiereus to title presbyteros is wrong. Rather than making hiereus/sacerdos (offerer of sacrifices," from sacer "holy") equate to presbyteros/preost (which the RC Douay Rheims Bible inconsistently does), the distinction should have been maintained, as in the KJV.

So my complaint is not only that "priest" is an inaccurate translation of hiereus/sacerdos , but that it was used as the title for presbuteros instead of elder/overseer.