No Greek lexicons or other scholarly
sources suggest that "presbyteros" means "priest" instead of "elder". The
Greek word is equivalent to the Hebrew ZAQEN, which means "elder", and not
priest. You can see the ZAQENIM described in Exodus 18:21-22 using some of
the same equivalent Hebrew terms as Paul uses in the GK of 1&2 Timothy and
Titus. Note that the ZAQENIM are NOT priests (i.e., from the tribe of
Levi) but are rather men of distinctive maturity that qualifies them for
ministerial roles among the people.
Therefore the NT equivalent of the
ZAQENIM cannot be the Levitical priests. The Greek "presbyteros"
(literally, the comparative of the Greek word for "old" and therefore
translated as "one who is older") thus describes the character qualities
of the "episkopos". The term "elder" would therefore appear to describe
the character, while the term "overseer" (for that is the literal
rendering of "episkopos") connotes the job description. To sum up, far
from obfuscating the meaning of "presbyteros", our rendering of "elder"
most closely associates the original Greek term with its OT counterpart, the ZAQENIM.
By the way, we would also question the
fundamental assumption that you bring up in your last observation, i.e.,
that "the church has always had priests among its ordained clergy". We can
find no documentation of that claim.
