“Since the English word priest, despite the desire of some, means both presbuteros and hiereus your statement is misleading.”
No, it is not. The English word for priest includes the theology of the Catholic Church - which makes sense in that a Catholic priest functions like a Jewish priest, offering a sacrifice. Indeed, in English, the word “priest” includes the idea of offering sacrifices.
But the Apostles knew of no such thing. There was no offering of sacrifice by the elders. The only sacrifices offered were offered by the universal priesthood of believers offering sacrifices of thanksgiving and good deeds.
When the Apostles used presbutero (elder) and NOT hiereus (priest), there was a reason. The elders were not priests. They were never, ever referred to as priests by the Apostles. To take a meaning from an English word which was born out of Roman Catholic theology and inject it into a word which had no such meaning to the Apostles is at best ignorance and at worst deliberate dishonesty.
If the Apostles had wanted the elder to be thought of as a priest, they could have used the word for it. That they refused to do so, even though they were Jewish, is very important.
The Apostles COULD have described presbutero as overlapping hiereus. They did not. At no time do they call the elders “priests”. Instead, they clearly describe Jesus as the High Priest, serving perpetually and giving ALL access to God:
“24 For Christ has not entered the holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us; 25 not that He should offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood of another— 26 He then would have had to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now, once at the end of the ages, He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself...
...Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus, 20 by a new and living way which He consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, His flesh, 21 and having a High Priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water...
... 15 Therefore by Him let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name.”
Again, you are ignorant of the history of the term priest and its usage in English. Priest/preost was not born out of Catholic theology of the sacerdotal nature of the presbyterate. It was simply the Old English rendering of presbyter and was originally used exclusively for this office. Its original meaning was not that of a sacrificial officer, i.e. hiereus. The term for this was sacerd. As an example, from the Wessex Gospel of Luke from the 10th century.:
1:5 On Herodes dagum, Iudéa cyniges, wæs sum sacerd on naman Zacharias, of Abian túne: his wíf wæs of Aárones dohtrum, and hyre nama wæs Elizabeth.It is indeed unfortunate the two terms became conflated into the one English word but this was the result of natural linguistic development, not a conspiracy by Rome. In Latin, the language of Rome, these two terms have remained distinct. The New Testament office of presbyter has continued to exist in the Catholic Church. In English this office is known by the term priest/preost, a usage that predates the conflation of the terms for presbuteros and hiereus.In the days of Herod, King of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah of the priestly division of Abijah; his wife was from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth.