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Elders in Every City: The Origin and Role of the Ordained Ministry. By Roger Beckwith. Carlisle, UK and Waynesboro, Ga.: Paternoster Press, 2003. 103 pp. $9.99 (paper).
This is an impressive little book, for into only eighty-four pages of discussion the author compresses a huge body of data, so arranging it as to support a plausible thesis that the threefold Christian ministry of deacon, priest, and bishop has developed from a single office, that of the Jewish elder. The book's title comes from Titus 1:5, in which the Pauline author reminds his fellow worker in Crete to "appoint elders (presbyteroï) in every town as I directed you" (see also Acts 14:23). Beckwith s thesis is not a new one-Bishop J. B. Lightfoot held to a version of it-but here a great deal of Jewish literature, unknown or little known to Christian scholars until the mid-twentieth century, is marshaled in order to build what is arguably one of the better foundations for the elder-origin position.
In Beckwith s view, the term "elder" functions as a great umbrella, comprehending the...