the church

Nick M

Happy Thanksgiving from the Plymoth Colony
LIFETIME MEMBER
Hall of Fame
Since the church of Rome is a made up as LDS, Islam, and JW, I asked chatgpt what Paul said when the translators say "Bishop", and that doesn't exist. I think the "church fathers" are people who went with the circumcision as Paul describes in Galatians, that exist in the first century letters. I think they are real. Just wrong.

At the time of Paul's writing, what did the Greek word "ἐπίσκοπον" mean? I am not interested in what church culture claims it means, merely what it meant then. A literal meaning.

ChatGPT said:​

In Paul’s time (mid-1st century CE), the Greek word ἐπίσκοπος (epískopos, accusative ἐπίσκοπον) had a clear, ordinary Greek meaning that pre-dated Christian usage. It did not originally carry the later ecclesiastical sense of “bishop.”
Below is what it meant literally and historically in the Greco-Roman world of Paul.

Literal/Core Meaning

ἐπί- + σκοπός → “one who watches over,” “overseer,” “guardian”

 
Top