What in the world is an ἐπίσκοπος (episkopos) i.e. "bishop"?

[IshChayil]

ב"ה​

This is important for us because there is a apparently scripture limiting those who would hold whatever office this is to being μιᾶς γυναικὸς ἄνδρα (mias gunaikos andra) lit: "a man of one woman"
As full bible readers we see this as incongruent with the rest of scripture. This may have been a temporary restriction for a special circumstance Paul was handling at that time in that place.
Be that as it may, I would like to do due diligence and research what the heck this word really means.
We've already seen in another thread that "deacon" may very well have meant a pastoral aide, secretary, etc. a quite low level office like a servant or attache to a higher level minister; not really what deacon means in the English language.
In this thread, I would like it if everyone can pitch in with their knowledge and resources to try to flesh out exactly what this word "episkopos" may have really meant. Let's abandon historical churchy baggage and get at the heart of this. Part of the difficulty with this word is in the fact that in Ancient Greek (pre-biblical) it is never used in a religious sense.

The translators of the Septuagint (Jewish Greek translation of the Old Testament often quoted directly in the Greek New Testament) co-opted the word to function in many ways.
The predominant use in the Old Testament is to translate the word פקד (to visit [for good or bad]) and it's derivatives פָּקִיד (overseer,representative) and פְּקֻדָּה (commission, appointment, office, a watch, sentry, vengeance, punishment, administration).
The Greek word maps 1 time to נגשׂ (to oppress; slave driver) in Isaiah 60:17

In the New Testament the word is used only 5 times (though verbal forms occur as well).
1 Tim 3:2
Titus 1:7
1 Pe 2:25
Php 1:1
Act 20:28

I'm still researching as time permits, but today I came across an interesting bit from the English translation of the great Germany scholarly work, "Theological Dictionary of the New Testament".
Partial entry follows (references are mostly to Talmudic tractates) emphasis mine:
The Rabbis added nothing to the development of the thought of divine visitation. On the other hand, visitation, esp. of the sick, is important in Rabb. ethics. It is one of the works of love which it is the religious duty of every Jew to perform. The visitation of the sick, the sheltering of strangers, the helping of the newly married poor, the comforting of the sorrowing and attendance at funerals are all cultic duties acc. to one Rabbinic opinion (Shab., 127a). Clothing the naked, visiting the sick, comforting the sorrowing and burying the dead are mentioned in Sota, 14a. But visitation of the sick comes first: “Be not negligent to visit the sick, for by such conduct thou wilt reap love,” we read already in Sir. 7:35 (36). R. Aqiba is more severe: “If any will not visit the sick, it is as though he shed blood,” Ned., 40a. “Whoso visits a sick man, lifts a sixtieth part of his burden,” Ned., 39b. The point of this visitation is not merely to show sympathy or to convey wishes for recovery, but above all to pray for the sick man.

Beyer, H. W. (1964–). ἐπισκέπτομαι, ἐπισκοπέω, ἐπισκοπή, ἐπίσκοπος, ἀλλοτριεπίσκοπος. G. Kittel, G. W. Bromiley, & G. Friedrich (Eds.), Theological dictionary of the New Testament (English ed., Vol. 2, p. 603). Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.

Why do I think this Rabbinical Jewish aspect is important?
Paul is heavily influenced by Rabbinical perspectives and most of the baraitas (oral sayings of famed teachers) referenced in the Talmudic portions here would have been known to him. Paul also has the audacity to say "I *am* a Pharisee..." so this seems to demonstrate his continued affinity for this mode of learning. A useful process in getting at biblical truth when there are centuries of church cultural tradition is to time travel back and tear it all down and imagine what this would look like to someone in the 1st century.
I think there may be something to this Rabbinical perspective of the this word.
Visitor of the sick and visitor of others in desperate situations. In so doing "Bishops" are embassadors of the L-rd in a very real sense; perhaps trusted with resources of the congregation for this purpose. I can think of many reasons why it would not be fitting in those days to send a man whom 25 souls depended on for livelihood to someone sick with the plague. I'm just stretching my arms here so any input is welcome.
Let's dig deeper together and see where this takes us. I want to find the truth, whether it is comfortable to us or not.
I have a couple other strands of thought but want to take this in bite size chunks, floating it on the Biblical Families "brain trust".

 

[IshChayil]

some pertinent dictionary definitions follow. There is such variance in these that I'm only providing it as an aside. I think the various contexts of usage (such as the Rabbinical perspective surely known to Paul mentioned above ) can help us pin down one of this definitions or something else:

Here are some entries from respected lexicons:
*************begin lexicon entries**********
① one who has the responsibility of safeguarding or seeing to it that someth. is done in the correct way, guardian
...
The ecclesiastical loanword ‘bishop’ is too technical and loaded with late historical baggage for precise signification of usage of ἐπίσκοπος and cognates in our lit., esp. the NT.
• The term was taken over in Christian communities in ref. to one who served as overseer or supervisor, with special interest in guarding the apostolic tradition (Iren., Orig., Hippol.).
Arndt, W., Danker, F. W., Bauer, W., & Gingrich, F. W. (2000). A Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament and other early Christian literature (3rd ed., p. 379). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
*********** discussion ....**********************
Seems that even in the Greek we see this term evolved to mean something more than perhaps was originally intended? "taken over" .. "too technical" etc.

Here's an entry from a hardcore Classical Greek Lexicon that took around 15 years of teams of British scholars to put together (which includes all phases of Classical Greek- Koine as well).
******************more lexicon entries -- I emphasized some parts********
ἐπίσκοπος (A), ὁ, (σκοπός I) one who watches over, overseer, guardian, ἦ γὰρ ὄλωλας ἐπίσκοπος, ὅς τέ μιν αὐτὴν ῥύσκευ (sc. τὴν πόλιν), of Hector, Il.24.729, ἐ. .. ὁδαίων Od.8.163; ἐπίσκοποι ἁρμονιάων watchers over compacts, of the gods, Il.22.255; νεκροῦ S.Ant.217; σῆς ἕδρας Id.OC112; ἐ. ὀϊστῶν, of an archer, v.l. in Theoc.24.107; in education, tutor, Pl.Lg.795d; ἐ. σωφροσύνης καὶ ὕβρεως ib.849a: c. dat., ἀγυιαῖς ἔσσῃ καὶ λιμένεσσιν ἐ. Call.Dian.39; esp. of tutelary gods (cf. ἐπισκοπέω), Παλλὰς ἐ. Sol.4.3; Δίκη Pl.Lg.872e; Κλειὼ ἐ. χερνίβων Simon.45; Χάριτες Μινυᾶν ἐ. Pi.O.14.3; θεοὶ ἐ. ἀγορᾶς A.Th.272; πατρῴων δωμάτων ἐ. Id.Ch.126; τὸ δεινὸν .. φρενῶν ἐπίσκοπον guardian of the mind, Id.Eu.518 (lyr.); νυχίων φθεγμάτων ἐ., of Bacchus, S.Ant.1148 (lyr.); Ἐρινύες IG12(9).1179.33 (Euboea, ii A.D.); [Χριστὸς] ἐ. τῶν ψυχῶν 1Ep.Pet.2.25: rarely c. dat., πᾶσι γὰρ ἐ. ἐτάχθη .. Νέμεσις Pl.Lg.717d.
2. scout, watch, c. dat., ἐ. Τρώεσσι, νήεσσιν ἡμετέρῃσιν, one set to watch them, Il.10.38, 342.
3. supervisor, inspector, sent by Athens to subject states, Ar.Av.1023, IG1.10, 11; of inspector of weights and measures, BE1971.61 (Palestine), officials at Rhodes, ib.12(1).49.42 (ii/i B.C.): generally, PPetr.3 p.75 (iii B.C.), etc.
4. ecclesiastical superintendent, ἐπίσκοποι καὶ διάκονοι Ep.Phil.1.1, cf. Act.Ap.20.28, 1Ep.Ti.3.2, etc. in the more fully developed ministry, bishop, Ἐπιφάνης ἐπι[σ]κόπου Εὐγενίου Mitchell N. Galatia135, SEG31.1396 (Syria, v A.D.), etc.
Liddell, H. G., Scott, R., Jones, H. S., & McKenzie, R. (1996). A Greek-English lexicon (p. 657). Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Some of the entries seem to imply the position had to do with travel perhaps from one area to another to "inspect" or "visit" as the thread post entry suggests. This could be a reason why it'd be best if a man with a large family didn't do it.

 

[Shibboleth]

Another way to determine a meaning of a word is from its usage and context. Episkopos is used 5 times. The WEB translation uses the word "overseer" in each case.

Acts 20:16-18a, 28
For Paul had determined to sail past Ephesus, that he might not have to spend time in Asia; for he was hastening, if it were possible for him, to be in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost. From Miletus he sent to Ephesus, and called to himself the elders of the assembly. When they had come to him, he said to them...
"Take heed, therefore, to yourselves, and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers (episkopous), to shepherd (poimainein) the assembly of the Lord and God which he purchased with his own blood."​

So here Paul identifies the elders of the local assembly as overseers, and says their purpose is to shepherd the assembly.

Philipians 1:1
Paul and Timothy, servants (douloui; bond-slaves) of Jesus Christ; To all the saints (hagiois; holy ones) in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi, with the overseers (episkopois) and servants (diakonois):​

Here, Paul is greeting three groups of people at Philippi: the regular saints that make up the body, the overseers, and the ministers/servants/deacons.

I Timothy 3:1-2, 5
This is a faithful saying: if a man seeks the office of an overseer (episkopēs), he desires a good work. The overseer (episkopon) therefore must be without reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, sensible, modest, hospitable, good at teaching... (but if a man doesn't know how to rule his own house, how will he take care of the assembly of God?)​

The word here translated as "office of an overseer" is a slightly different form of the same Greek root (G1984 vs G1985). It appears three other times, twice to refer to a time or day of visitation, and once in Acts 1, when Judas' replacement is selected, when quoting the OT :"his office, let another take." At any rate, an overseer's duties here include hospitality, teaching, and caring for the assembly.

Titus 1: 5-7
I left you in Crete for this reason, that you would set in order the things that were lacking, and appoint elders in every city, as I directed you; if anyone is blameless, the husband of one wife, having children who believe, who are not accused of loose or unruly behavior. For the overseer (episkopon) must be blameless, as God's steward (oikonomon; household-manager); not self-pleasing, not easily angered, not given to wine, not violent, not greedy for dishonest gain​

Once again, we see the elders of a city being referred to as overseers. Here, instead of a shepherd, they are compared to the manager or steward of a house. I didn't quote it, but the next verse reiterates the requirements for hospitality and teaching.

I Peter 2:24-25
who his own self bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live to righteousness; by whose stripes you were healed. For you were going astray like sheep; but now have returned to the Shepherd (Poimena) and Overseer (Episkopon) of your souls.​

In the final verse, Christ is said to be our overseer, and the parallel to being a shepherd is back, due to Peter's reference to Isaiah 53.

So, in the context of the body of believers, an overseer seems tied to the local assembly of a given city. The office seems to be the same as being an elder, but distinct from being a deacon/minister/servant. Their purpose is to be a shepherd and steward of that assembly, a task which requires hospitality and teaching. This is not necessarily incompatible with Ish's suggestion that travelling was also involved, since each city (and its surrounding areas?) would have been a relatively large area to cover in the days before rapid transportation. Unlike the modern "church on every street corner" model, it seems there was typically one assembly per city.

 

[IshChayil]

Another way to determine a meaning of a word is from its usage and context. Episkopos is used 5 times. The WEB translation uses the word "overseer" in each case.

Acts 20:16-18a, 28
For Paul had determined to sail past Ephesus, that he might not have to spend time in Asia; for he was hastening, if it were possible for him, to be in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost. From Miletus he sent to Ephesus, and called to himself the elders of the assembly. When they had come to him, he said to them...
"Take heed, therefore, to yourselves, and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers (episkopous), to shepherd (poimainein) the assembly of the Lord and God which he purchased with his own blood."​

So here Paul identifies the elders of the local assembly as overseers, and says their purpose is to shepherd the assembly.

Philipians 1:1
Paul and Timothy, servants (douloui; bond-slaves) of Jesus Christ; To all the saints (hagiois; holy ones) in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi, with the overseers (episkopois) and servants (diakonois):​

Here, Paul is greeting three groups of people at Philippi: the regular saints that make up the body, the overseers, and the ministers/servants/deacons.

I Timothy 3:1-2, 5
This is a faithful saying: if a man seeks the office of an overseer (episkopēs), he desires a good work. The overseer (episkopon) therefore must be without reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, sensible, modest, hospitable, good at teaching... (but if a man doesn't know how to rule his own house, how will he take care of the assembly of God?)​

The word here translated as "office of an overseer" is a slightly different form of the same Greek root (G1984 vs G1985). It appears three other times, twice to refer to a time or day of visitation, and once in Acts 1, when Judas' replacement is selected, when quoting the OT :"his office, let another take." At any rate, an overseer's duties here include hospitality, teaching, and caring for the assembly.

Titus 1: 5-7
I left you in Crete for this reason, that you would set in order the things that were lacking, and appoint elders in every city, as I directed you; if anyone is blameless, the husband of one wife, having children who believe, who are not accused of loose or unruly behavior. For the overseer (episkopon) must be blameless, as God's steward (oikonomon; household-manager); not self-pleasing, not easily angered, not given to wine, not violent, not greedy for dishonest gain​

Once again, we see the elders of a city being referred to as overseers. Here, instead of a shepherd, they are compared to the manager or steward of a house. I didn't quote it, but the next verse reiterates the requirements for hospitality and teaching.

I Peter 2:24-25
who his own self bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live to righteousness; by whose stripes you were healed. For you were going astray like sheep; but now have returned to the Shepherd (Poimena) and Overseer (Episkopon) of your souls.​

In the final verse, Christ is said to be our overseer, and the parallel to being a shepherd is back, due to Peter's reference to Isaiah 53.

So, in the context of the body of believers, an overseer seems tied to the local assembly of a given city. The office seems to be the same as being an elder, but distinct from being a deacon/minister/servant. Their purpose is to be a shepherd and steward of that assembly, a task which requires hospitality and teaching. This is not necessarily incompatible with Ish's suggestion that travelling was also involved, since each city (and its surrounding areas?) would have been a relatively large area to cover in the days before rapid transportation. Unlike the modern "church on every street corner" model, it seems there was typically one assembly per city.

Nice breakdown.
One thing I've wondered is why is there no similar apparent restriction over the offices of:
ποιμήν (poimein) shepherd,
προφήτης (profeiteis) prophet,
ἀπόστολος (apostolos) apostle,
εὐαγγελιστής (euangelisteis) evangelist,
διδάσκαλος (didaskalos) teacher

So is the overseer / visitor (I'm inclined to stick with visitor due to my Hebraic bias of the underlying word in LXX but overseer fits too) a post which is bellow that of a shepherd (pastor)? I can certainly see it being bellow an evangelist or prophet or apostle. Teacher seems kind of vague as it could be almost anything.

I like the idea of the overseer / visitor being over a single city which would have been less of a big deal back then since like you said there was likely just one assembly in many of these cities. In the case of Jewish believers they were still meeting in regular recipe synagogues it seems and having informal meetings afterwards (at dark ie. first day).

One can see how this easily becomes an infrastructure / time requirement issue. If the guy is having to run all over the city (on foot or donkey) to visit sick people and organize stuff there may very well have needed to be a restriction to a guy with a smaller family (just hypthesizing here). Like your church-on-every-corner scenario we have such infrastructure today for starting congregations.
Get an overhead, rent some space, make a power point and bam! church is born.
Especially the support one can receive if he picks the right denomination to seed the new assembly.
Easy-peasy using "best practices" and such. Quite different than pioneering it like they were in Paul's day.

 

[Shibboleth]

So is the overseer / visitor (I'm inclined to stick with visitor due to my Hebraic bias of the underlying word in LXX but overseer fits too) a post which is bellow that of a shepherd (pastor)?

I tend to prefer overseer, because it is a very direct translation of the Greek epi- (upon, over), and skopeo (to look, pay attention to, or take heed). A similar word of Latin origin would be supervisor. Side note: I just learned that the noun form, skopos, means goal or end mark, as in a race ("I press towards the mark..."), so the verb form describes looking at or paying attention to that goal, and the prefix epi- often acts as an intensive focusing upon an object. Thus it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to say, in modern lingo, that an episkopon/overseer is "goal-oriented".

Which is not to say that visitation isn't one duty of an overseer; it's hard to watch over someone that you can't see! As a brief anecdote: earlier this year, at my job as a software developer, I was placed for several months into a role called "scrum master". This is sort of like a team-lead, in that my job was essentially to facilitate the rest of the team's smooth execution. As part of that role, I would often bounce around from one person's cubicle to the next, coming along side them, and seeing what problems they were having, and if there was anything I could do to help. Some days, this took up the majority of my day (to where I would sit down around 4 pm, ready to start my own work). So it is not at all surprising to me that visitation would be a big part of an overseer's role.

Also, as a point of clarification: If you check back with Acts 20, and Philippians 1, it seems that there were actually several elders within a city's assembly (not just one).

So now let's look at the word shepherd:
The noun: poimen (G4166) - A shepherd or herdsman.
The verb: poimaino (G4165) - To shepherd, feed, or tend to a flock.

Leaving out the references in the gospels and in Revelation(*), and a few other cases that aren't speaking of church leadership, here's the remaining uses of these words.

We already saw Acts 20:28, where the elders of Ephesus are told they were made overseers (episkopous), "to shepherd (poimainein; feed, tend) the assembly."

We also already saw I Peter 2:25, where Christ is "the Shepherd (Poimena) and Overseer (Episkopon)" of our souls.

Later in I Peter, we come across this passage:

I Peter 5:1-3
I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder... shepherd (poimanate) the flock of God which is among you, exercising the oversight (episkopountes), not under compulsion, but voluntarily, not for dishonest gain, but willingly; neither as lording it over those entrusted to you, but making yourselves examples to the flock.​

First off, this passage is Peter's version of Paul's qualifications for overseers from Titus and I Timothy, right down to the "not for dishonest gain" bit, although without the "one-woman man" bit. Secondly, do you see that word oversight? Turns out I missed another form of the word episkopon this morning. The KJV translates this word as "looking diligently", and this word also shows up in Hebrews 12:15: "Looking carefully lest there be any man who falls short of the grace of God..." (notice that its looking towards a goal). Thirdly, notice the triple-parallel to Acts 20:28 -- it is the elders who have oversight, and who are shepherding the assembly.

(Dis-)honorable mention goes to Jude 1:12, where certain ungodly men are said to be "shepherding/feeding themselves".

And finally, we come to the verse you alluded to:

Ephesians 4:11-12
He gave some to be apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, shepherds (poimenas) and teachers (didaskalous); for the perfecting of the saints, to the work of serving, to the building up of the body of Christ.​

Unlike overseers and deacons, many of these titles don't seem to be tied directly to a specific assembly. That is, the context doesn't seem to be discussing offices within a church government, so much as general roles that individuals may fulfill. That might be too fine a distinction to make, but what I'm getting at, is, I don't know that you can draw from this single verse a complete doctrine for an office of shepherd/pastor. Especially since almost every other time when the role of shepherding is mentioned, it is done so along side the role of overseer, and is either attributed to elders, or to Christ Himself. Even here, it is mentioned alongside teachers, and teaching is another role of overseers, based on Paul's qualifications.

So, in total, what I'm seeing from these verses is that elders/leaders/presbyters of a local assembly are to be the overseers/episkopous/bishops (i.e. watch over the assembly, and keep them focused on the goal of holiness) which may involve visitation, and they are also to shepherd/pastor the flock (i.e. tend to them, and prevent them from straying) which involves teaching them. I may be wrong, but I get the impression you were trying to pull out a meaning for overseer/visitor that was perhaps separate from the elder, but if that's the case, I'm not seeing it. In fact, James supports the idea that it is the elders who are performing the visitation duties of an overseer:

James 5:14
Is any among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the assembly, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord,​

---------
(*) Completely unrelated, but in Revelation, the same verb "to shepherd" appears four times, three of which (Rev 2:27, 12:5, and 19:15) are in alluding to Psalm 2: "rule (poimanei) the nations with a rod of iron." I checked, and this translation is used in the the LXX as well. Literally, he will shepherd the nations with a rod of iron. This is very interesting, because I've always heard Psalm 2 translated more... violently: "Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron." This seems to fit the immediate context better, which also includes dashing them in pieces like a potter's vessel, as vividly portrayed by Handel.

The confusion appears to be over the Hebrew root used there:
H7489 - ra'a' (resh-ayin-ayin) - to be evil, to harm, to injure, to break or shatter.
H7462 - ra'ah (resh-ayin-he) - to shepherd, feed, or tend.

These two meanings almost seem to be at odds with one another: the first one seems to match the context better (breaking pottery), but the second one matches the Septuagint's translation quoted in Revelation multiple times. I suppose maybe you could argue that injuring/harming/breaking is a form of discipline, and thus a form of shepherding/tending, so that both meanings could be true? Is this a Hebrew play on words? Or is one or the other a mistranslation?

 

[Verifyveritas76]

I don't really have the time now to post much. I'm just jumping in here to say I'm really enjoying it.

Good studies guys

 

[IshChayil]

[Sorry for my sloppy sourcing… may try to clean it up later.]
I'm going to piggyback some stuff on @Shibboleth 's discoveries and throw some spaghetti on the wall in case it sparks some creativity.

If I may suggest a slightly different etymology than @Shibboleth (though yours is quite interesting)
Ἐπίσκοπος = Epi + skopos (noun).

First let's do skopos:
σκοπός (skopos) (since Hom. in var. senses)
goal, mark
So we can get also the abstract idea of:

ἐπισκοπος (episkopos) (B), ον, (σκοπός II) hitting the mark, successful
Liddell, H. G., Scott, R., Jones, H. S., & McKenzie, R. (1996). A Greek-English lexicon (p. 657). Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Nailing down prepositions in any language is very difficult. So while it’s true that epi often means “over” as you write @Shibboleth (and likely means “over” in this context, I just want to be sure the brainstrust doesn’t shut down a useful avenue of thought as compound words in Greek often produce counter-intuitive meanings).

ἐπι (epi) also means “with”, “upon”, “depth”, “in the presence of” as in “before”, “in the case of”, “in the time of” when relating to temporal things, “in respect of” , “concerning”, “against” (in a hostile sense) like hebrew beit ב, “after”, “besides”, “in addition to”, “after”, “dependent on”, “according to”, “by” as in (by night), “in possession of”, “multplied by”, “up to” (a height), “in a row” militarily, “towards”, and it is used to imply causality.

Yielding....
ἐπισκοπή (episkopei), visitation; position. Cognate words: ἀλλοτριεπίσκοπος, ἐπίσκοπος.
ἐπίσκοπος (episkopos) — overseer; hitting the mark (15×)
(I trimmed out other possibilities as I listed them in previous post)

Initial investigation of the verbal forms ἐπισκοπέω (episkopeo) / ἐπισκέπτομαι (episkeptomai) follows:

• Around the same time as the LXX is being translated we have Plato (writing of Socrates) using ἐπισκέπτομαι (episkeptomai) of a specific examination in “Protagoras” 348d.
• Near the same time Xenophon (disciple of Socrates) uses it in the same way as the LXX “to visit” but primarily as a doctor visits patients.
• In LXX we have ἐπισκέπτομαι (episkeptomai) being used very often to mean פקד PKD(like the thread beginning) = to visit. In Sirach, however, it’s used for the intensive form of נחם (comfort) as in comforting the sick i.e. “visiting the sick”: μὴ ὄκνει ἐπισκέπτεσθαι ἄρρωστον
• To muddle it some more, the book of Ester in the LXX uses ἐπισκοπέω (episkopeo) for “find out about something” Hebrew ידע YaDA.
• In the Torah LXX it’s used for “to number” as in count. (also in Kings when David tells Jonathan “if your father misses me at roll call” (used for “miss” me and also for “roll call”).

In the time frame of the Koine life-cycle:

• But the “to visit” is by far the most common meaning in LXX (as it maps to the underlying Hebrew).
• Around 1st century AD (when our boy Paul is writing the epistles)... it's used by Koine comtemporaries to mean “to look up a document” (“Sammelbuch griechischer Urkunden aus Ägypten”), Preisigke
• 2nd/3rd century AD we are back to “visit” … “Oxyrhynchus Papyri” Grenfell & Hunt διαβάντος μου ἐκ Τεβέτνου εἰς Κορφοτοῦν ἐπισκέψασθαι τὴν ἀδελφήν. Specifically as in to visit the sick by their friends.
• In other secular sources in this time frame we have accounts of the verb Ἐπεσκόπει (epeskopei) being used of a doctor (i.e. making a house call). Specific sources are Herodian of Antioch in “Historia 4.2” and Lucian in “Philopseudes, seu incredulus” early 2nd century.

So the range of meaning seems to go from Septuagint times (biblical and extra-biblical sources) in order of frequency of meaning:
“to visit, look upon, investigate/inspect, test, show concern / care for”. Note the “visit” meaning can have shades of judgement as in “visit the sins of those who hate me on the 3rd and 4th generations…” (Heb: piked avon al sonai…”) but can also be a visitation for good as in “Adonai visited Sarah” … and we get Isaac.

Other famous names and how they use it:
Philo uses it only to mean “to investigate” (like Plato), while Josephus uses it again for “visiting the sick” (probably due to his Rabbinical influence) [see start of thread].

One more interesting tidbit.
After Yeshua raised a young man from the dead.
Luke 7:16 ἔλαβεν δὲ φόβος ⸀πάντας καὶ ἐδόξαζον τὸν θεὸν λέγοντες ὅτι προφήτης μέγας ἠγέρθη ἐν ἡμῖν καὶ ὅτι ἐπεσκέψατο (epeskepsato) ὁ θεὸς τὸν λαὸν αὐτοῦ⸆
Fear seized them all, and they glorified God, saying, “A great prophet has arisen among us!” and “God has visited his people!” ESV
Remember how the LXX uses "visit" for good or for bad?
Some manuscripts add εἰς ἀγαθόν (eis agathon) = "for good" to ἐπεσκέψατο (epeskepsato) = "visit" making clear it's a visit for good.

(BTW I'm not pushing the visit angle, just looking how versatile this verb and it's noun derivative are)
There's quite a lot more work we can do on this.

 

[Verifyveritas76]

Here's another. Luke 19:44,45
And shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation. (Greek episkope)
And he went into the temple, and began to cast out them that sold therein, † and them that bought;

This never fails to remind me of another Yeshua who is "visited" by the YESHUA in Joshua 5.

 

[Shibboleth]

I don't have a lot of time to post now, but I think we kinda need to start drawing a mind map with all the tangential and idiomatic meanings of these words. My feeling is that visitation is one such idiomatic use, which I'll demonstrate shortly. I'm going to stick to some variation of "look" or "watch" being the primary sense of the verb skopeo, partly because of all the English formations based off of it: telescope (watching distant things), microscope (watching small things), stethoscope (watching the chest), gyroscope (watching gyrations), oscilloscope (watching oscillations), kaleidoscope (watching beautiful forms), etc... And partly because I think such a basic reading can accommodate all of the versatile usages of this word (and the corresponding Hebrew word) that Ish points points out.

Once you couple skopeo with epi-, it's no longer just passively looking at something (as you might watch a television), but is more directed and active: looking to accomplish something, looking over someone, or looking towards a goal, or looking into a matter. In short, paying attention to something, and taking the appropriate action. In fact, attend is another word of Latin derivation (aside from supervise) that covers many of these meanings: ad- (to, toward) + tendere (to stetch, as in tension, or tendon) thus to stretch towards.

So I propose the core meaning is something like: look to, attend to (whether for good or ill), which includes tangential/idiomatic meanings, such as:

• look after -- visit, comfort, attend
  • visitation, a time of being attended to
• look into -- investigate, inspect, pay attention
  • find out about something
• look over -- oversee, officiate, supervise
  • number, take attendance
• look up (a document)

And to bring things full circle, the etymology of visit is from a form of the Latin videre, "to see, notice, observe". So in a way, we're all saying different forms of the same thing.

 

[IshChayil]

(*) Completely unrelated, but in Revelation, the same verb "to shepherd" appears four times, three of which (Rev 2:27, 12:5, and 19:15) are in alluding to Psalm 2: "rule (poimanei) the nations with a rod of iron." I checked, and this translation is used in the the LXX as well. Literally, he will shepherd the nations with a rod of iron. This is very interesting, because I've always heard Psalm 2 translated more... violently: "Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron." This seems to fit the immediate context better, which also includes dashing them in pieces like a potter's vessel, as vividly portrayed by Handel.

The confusion appears to be over the Hebrew root used there:
H7489 - ra'a' (resh-ayin-ayin) - to be evil, to harm, to injure, to break or shatter.
H7462 - ra'ah (resh-ayin-he) - to shepherd, feed, or tend.

These two meanings almost seem to be at odds with one another: the first one seems to match the context better (breaking pottery), but the second one matches the Septuagint's translation quoted in Revelation multiple times. I suppose maybe you could argue that injuring/harming/breaking is a form of discipline, and thus a form of shepherding/tending, so that both meanings could be true? Is this a Hebrew play on words? Or is one or the other a mistranslation?

Hey @Shibboleth I'm just responding to this now because as you said it wasn't super related to the original topic and as I was studying psalm 2 in detail today I remembered your post. So I looked at the LXX behind the Hebrew and you are right that the translator substitutes shepherd for break, but I would like to point out that the verse still contains violence in the Greek as the Hebrew parallelism is maintained by the end verb.
So here is the Greek:
psalm 2:9 ποιμανεῖς αὐτοὺς ἐν ῥάβδῳ σιδηρᾷ,
ὡς σκεῦος κεραμέως συντρίψεις αὐτούς.
Swete, H. B. (1909). The Old Testament in Greek: According to the Septuagint (Ps 2:9). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Here's the Hebrew:
psalm 2:9 תְּ֭רֹעֵם בְּשֵׁ֣בֶט בַּרְזֶ֑ל כִּכְלִ֖י יוֹצֵ֣ר תְּנַפְּצֵֽם׃
Biblia Hebraica Westmonasteriensis with Westminster Hebrew Morphology 4.18. (2013). (Ps 2:9). J. Alan Groves Center for Advanced Biblical Research.

Yes, there are so many word plays going on in Hebrew, however, if the text meant to say "you will shepherd them" in the Hebrew I would have expected to see תרעתם a different spelling (the 'heh' reverts back to archaic hebrew 'tav' when adding pronominal suffix ם here). That being said, one of the fun tools used by sages is to say things like "do not read here banayim, children but read instead bonayim, builders ... for scholars are the true builders of peace" (an actual example using בנים)
I would hypothesize that there was some sort of way of looking at that psalm's verse in the days when the LXX was translated which influenced the translation. Usually the Aramaic targums are quite colorful with this kind of "built in commentary" into the translation.
For the case at hand, we don't do away from the violence you mention entirely as the 2nd word in our Hebrew poetic parallelism shines through even in the Greek (red words).
συντρίψεις αὐτούς = תְּנַפְּצֵֽם you will shatter them
as you can see, the violence remains. This ends up in Revelations since the Greek LXX was already quite respected in the diaspora, it would have been silly for New Testament authors to redo it when quoting from TaNaKH so I think they just grabbed wholesale the verses they had in mind (or the translators from hebrew/Aramaic original documents did this).

To further back up my claim that the Greek LXX is taking some liberty with this word here, I present for you that the Aramaic targum of psalms did not take such a liberty.
We get תתברינון for תְּ֭רֹעֵם = break (to pieces)

 

[Nikud]

I was at an evangelical event meeting and heard a bishop defined as Evangelist. Any thoughts?

 

[IshChayil]

I was at a Revive Texas meeting and heard a bishop defined as Evangelist. Any thoughts?

Seems an incorrect use of language. Words have meanings and Evangelist does not mean Bishop. It's possible for a bishop to also be an evangelist like it's possible for a man to also be a bishop but certainly man doesn't mean bishop

 

[Nikud]

Right the word Evangalist in modern context means a person who seeks to convert others to the Christian faith, especially by (but not limited to) public preaching.

They were speaking more of the duties not the actual word. They were speaking of the going out an finding those who don't know the Messiah about visiting them and comforting them with the good News. That's something that good Evangelist are do. It fullfills 2 of the definitions listed. They were not saying that εὐαγγέλιον (euangelion) meant bishop, but at some time the duties of a bishop transfered to the evangalist or they were parallel Titles for the same postion. Just food for thought, as I think about it I'm not really interested in the subject, so I'll leave it to yall.