bishop

Although ‘bishops’ are mentioned five times in the NT and the qualifications for the office defined (1 Tim. 3:1–7), the translation of the Greek episcopos has been controversial: although used by AV, NRSV, and REB, in NJB the term is ‘presiding elder [[➝ elders]], which does justice to the fact that Tit. 1:5–9 equates bishop and elder (Greek, presbuteros). It is clear that the later structure of the Church in which a single bishop presided over each local Church is not the situation in the NT. Certainly the AV suggestion that the traitor Judas had been endowed with a ‘bishopric’ (Acts 1:20) is misleading. One reasonable view is that single presiding bishops evolved out of a body of elders; one of the members showed a special aptitude for teaching. This arrangement established itself throughout the Church by the 2nd cent. CE and is accepted by Ignatius of Antioch in the letters he wrote (107 CE) to Churches as he journeyed to Rome and martyrdom. It was the most effective means of securing community cohesion.