I myself am very sympathetic to the King James Onlists on certain matters, like which source texts to use and which books, chapters and verses are and are not Canon, and the biggest issues I have with the KJV aren’t fixed by newer translations but often made worse. I even consider the KJV compatible with certain doctrines many assume you have to reject the KJV to support like Universal Salvation.
The most Extreme KJV Onlists tend to be Baptists or younger sects of partially Baptist origin (Like Millerites and Pentecostals).
Baptists are at their core Hyper Congregationalists, yet part of the agenda behind the King James Bible was doubling down on High Church Translation decisions of the Geneva Bible like translating Ekklesia as Church, Episcopas as Bishop and Diakonos as Deacon.
KJV onlyists get around these issues by simply repeatedly saying that “Church in the Bible just means a gathering of believers”, and that is accurate to what the Greek word Ekklesia means, but that’s not what the English word Church means. In its origin the English word Church refers to a type of building. Words can change meaning over time, some of my issues with the KJV are words that were correct at the time but not anymore. You can’t however simply force it to happen, the word Church still first and foremost puts the idea of either a religious building or a hierarchical organized religion in people's minds.
William Tyndale used the word Congregation for Ekklesia which is why our position on Ecclesiastical Polity is called Congregational Polity. But perhaps an even better English translation would be Assembly, that’s how Ekklesia is usually translated when discussing the word’s use in Secular Greek Politics where it means the gathering together of the Citizenry of a Polis to discuss an issue and then Vote. But nowadays the word Assembly in politics is used by some bodies of Representatives rather than Direct Democracy, but the same has happened to the root of Congregation thanks to Congress.
As a Christian Weeb the word I would suggest if consulting on a Japanese Bible is Shukai.
Episcopas means Overseer and Diakanos means Servant or Minister or Messenger, I think even Secretary could work.
Bishop and Deacon are hard to call absolutely wrong when they are technically just evolutions of the original Greek words. But it’s precisely their lack of nativeness to the English Language that makes them sound like grander positions of prestige than the Scriptures themselves intended. Further reinforced by all the High Church baggage attached to them by Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican and Episcopalian usage where Bishop has come to mean the clerical Monarch of at least an entire City.
KJV Only Baptists don’t usually use the word Bishop outside of directly quoting Scripture because they know the word doesn’t to most people mean what they want it to.
Priest is a uniquely Biblically awkward word since it etymologically derives from the Greek Presbyter but in modern English Bibles isn't used to translate that word instead being used in the Hebrew Bible for Kohen (and the Hurrian loan word Komer) and in the Greek New Testament for Hiereus. All the more reason to just not use it at all anymore.
As someone who does believe in honoring the Hebrew Roots of the faith in certain contexts I would just use Kohen to translate Kohen (and Kehuna for Priesthood) and for Hiereus when it’s referring to the Israelite Priesthood as well as that of Melchizedek and All Believers.
And to add some Anti-Papist flavor I’d use Pontiff for Komer and the Hiereus of Dios/Zeus/Jupiter in Acts 14:13. But since a Japanese Bible isn’t likely to want to be so directly Anti-Catholic it should just use words for Shinto Priests and Priesthood for Komer and Acts 14:13.
Translating Presbyter as Elder isn’t really wrong in any way, but I do feel connotatively many readers will first think a Fifty at the youngest type of Elder. The alternative Senior has a similar problem but at least most people remember it being associated with High School Students. As I’ve said before I very much like identifying Presbyter with Senpai and Newtron with Kohai for Japanese. Senpai however is in the English Urban Dictionary now so is not out of the question for an English Translation, and lacks the potential misunderstanding as a word that refers inherently to someone grandfather aged. Presbuterion I would just translate depending on context either Elders or Council.
1 Timothy 4:14 is the only time Presbuterion is used among Believers, the other two times it’s of the Judean Sanhedrin. So I imagine this verse plays a role in debates between Congregationalists and Presbyterians. I don’t know how most Baptists explain this but I feel it’s just a reference to the believers doing the laying on of hands being older than the person receiving. Nothing here to justify a committee meeting of elders who lead different congregations meeting in a Sanhedrin like fashion.
However I identify as a Congregationalist principally because of my belief in Ecclesiastical Direct Democracy. In terms of the Localism vs Regionalism aspect of where Congregationalists and Presbyterians differ, I kind of fall between them. There is no Biblical support for a single City having more then one Ekklesia, remember an Ekklesia means the entire citizenry of a Polis a City. Fortunately thanks to Galatians 3:28 we know the Ekklesia of Christ does not exclude Women, Slaves or Ethnic Foreigners. When all Believers regardless of location are referred to as one Ekklesia like 1 Timothy 3:15 that's the Ekklesia of the Heavenly Zion/New Jerusalem of Hebrew 12:22. Revelation 3:12, 20:9, and 21-22.
Calvin and Zwingli were also only ever devising Church Governmental structures for City-States, the Swiss regional Synods came after Calvin died and the formation of the Dutch Reformed Church and Church of Scotland came even later then that. But I still think even on a city level their models were too organized and hierarchical, there should be no Council with a fixed membership, when the different congregations in a city need to meet they should send representatives chosen for that specific meeting.
Of course we also need to consider how much bigger many modern cities are then even the largest of Ancient Cities. The Anime Durarara!! Is set in Ikebukuro, Ikebukuro is part of Toshima which is part of Tokyo. The greater Tokyo Metropolitan Area has a population probably larger even then first century Galatia much less Ephesus. In this Anime it sure seems like Ikubukuro alone could be an entire Classical Greek Polis.
I am more Congregationalist even then most Baptists because I don’t believe in there being a single Episcopas even for a local congregation of less than 70 people. I reject the very notion that the primary structure of a gathering of believers is one person giving a speech and everyone else just nodding in agreement, the picture 1 Corinthians paints involves lots of people talking. The Overseer(s) of a given meeting oversee it, nothing more. Sermons have a place, but that’s not what the weekly gathering is for.
Going back to the word Church I actually would consider using it to translate a New Testament Greek word, Naos. There are three Greek words translated Temple in the KJV, one accounts for only one KJV appearance of Temple and is like the Hebrew Beth a word for House so I'd just translate it House. The main two are Hieron and Naos. Hieron is the broader term that can refer to indoor Temples and outdoor Temples and complexes that contain both, that’s the word I’d keep translating as Temple. Naos however very specifically means an enclosed structure containing a god or a representation of one.
It is Naos that is used of the all believers being God’s Temple doctrine in 1 Corinthians 3:16-17, 6:19, 2 Corinthians 6:16, Ephesians 2:20-22 and Revelation 3:12, as well each individual believer's Body, and when John 2 calls Jesus’s Body “this Temple”. In The Hebrew Bible I’d likewise translate Dybir as Church which is a rarely used word for the building that contains the Holy of Holies in Solomon’s Temple.
But for a Japanese Bible I’d translate Dybir and Naos as Honden.
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