1. NT and Patristic Periods

The history of the origin of bishops is obscure. Recent scholarship has attempted to discover pre-Christian antecedents, both Jewish and Gentile, in such sources as the Septuagint and Philo. In the LXX version of the OT, the term episkopos (from which Eng. “bishop”) is used of God (Job 20:29; Wis. 1:6) as well as of ordinary “overseers,” but never of cul…