"Originally meant" is the nub of the matter. "Rabbis", "Teachers", "Doctors" and "Aldermen" are all anachronistic in connotation if not in denotation. When Jesus was 12 years old, although "rabbi" (and/or "rabboni") was in use as a title of respectful address in Judea, it did not refer (as it does now, usually) either to a professional spiritual leader of a synagogue or (as it does now, in historical contexts) to a member of a subset of the men engaged in the argumentation/compilation/redaction of what came to be the Mishnah, though this latter sense may have begun to pertain at the time Luke was written (the codification of the Oral Law by the Rabbis was begun after, and in reaction to, the destruction of the temple in AD 70 and was completed ca. 200; Luke was written in all probability towards the beginning of that period, but definitely post-70). If one assumes (as many Christians do) the historicity of this pericope, then there is probably no one term that is best, though aldermen is probably a bit closer than the others; if one assumes it is not historical, from "Luke"'s vantage point, but contemporary, then "rabbi" (but in the historical sense) might be better. Perhaps "curia" is a possibility, or "Temple intellectuals".

Liland