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Episcopacy

(4,649 words)

Author(s): Wood, Susan K. | Campbell, Ted A.
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 cultic persons. Philo uses the term once, of Moses. The Qumran MSS have also raised again the possible Jewish origins of a position that could be described as an overseer or inspector ( mĕbaqqēr, from bāqar, “look…