“Protestant translations routinely mistranslate the Bible as pertains to the office of priests and bishops.”
Ummm...no. They translate what the words meant at the time, rather than what they came to mean after hundreds or a thousand years.
From Wiki:
“Some modern comentators believe that these presbyters may have been identical to the overseers (episkopoi, i.e., bishops) and cite such passages as Acts 20:17, Titus 1:5,7 and 1 Peter 5:1 to support this claim.[2][3] The earliest post-apostolic writings, the Didache and Clement for example, show the church recognized two local church offices—elders (interchangeable term with overseer) and deacon.”
“[2] Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 1997 edition revised 2005, page 211: “It seems that at first the terms ‘episcopos’ and ‘presbyter’ were used interchangeably ...”
[3] Cambridge History of Christianity, volume 1, 2006, “The general consensus among scholars has been that, at the turn of the first and second centuries, local congregations were led by bishops and presbyters whose offices were overlapping or indistinguishable.”
Christ was seen as High Priest at least since Hebrews was written:
“The former priests were many in number, because they were prevented by death from continuing in office, but he holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues forever. Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them. For it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens. He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself...
...For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.” — Heb 7 / 9
However, the writer of Hebrews doesn’t encourage the idea that the Eucharist is a sacrifice, requiring a human priest. For one thing, it is repeatedly pointed out that the sacrifice of Jesus is PAST, and that “he did this once for all”. And it also points out that Jesus is the one acting as Priest, not any human. He offers himself - he is not offered by a man.
“However, the writer of Hebrews doesn’t encourage the idea that the Eucharist is a sacrifice, requiring a human priest. For one thing, it is repeatedly pointed out that the sacrifice of Jesus is PAST, and that “he did this once for all”. And it also points out that Jesus is the one acting as Priest, not any human. He offers himself - he is not offered by a man.”
Mr. R, the very earliest of the Fathers are quite uniform in their commentary and instruction that the Eucharist is a continuing and necessary “once for all” sacrifice. Indeed, they condemn those who deny that the Eucharist is not the very body and blood of Christ. The Eucharist celebrated in Orthodox and Latin and Oriental Orthodox Churches IS the Last Supper. I suppose the easiest way to explain it is to say that it exists off any mundane time line. At the Divine Liturgy distinctions between heaven and earth vanish.
“elder” is a poor translation for “presbyteros” simply because age is not a requirement for the priestly office. Apostle John, for example, was a teenager yet the command “do this in memorial of me” was directed at him as well. The root of “presbyteros” is the same as the quizzical “presbeia” and if we were to translate “presbyteros” today into English we probably could use “leader”. However, we already have a direct borrow from Greek and we do not need to translate “presbyteros” at all. “Priest” is a contraction from “presbyteros” that went through centuries of the English hideous spelling and pronunciation grinder.
That “bishop” and “priest” were used interchangeably in the early church I have no dispute. First, bishop even today is a subspecies of priest. Second, in a small local church a bishop may not require to delegate his duty as homilist and eucharistic minister to anyone.
It is also true that Christ is the only priest ontologically speaking, and the sacrifice He is offering is He Himself. But Christ did command others to “do it in memorial of [Him]”. So it is the same sacrifice of the hill of golgotha that the priest makes availablel to us at Mass. Compare similar delegation done by Christ to absolve sins in John 20.