To: trimom
"Peace on earth, goodwill to men"? The Latin has it, `et in terra pax hominibus, bonae voluntatis". Note the Latin genetive case in the words `bonae voltuntatis'.
The phrase properly rendered is,
"PEACE ON EARTH TO MEN OF GOOD WILL".
The angels' words are not universalist, if you get my drift.
7 posted on
12/11/2005 4:56:01 PM PST by
elcid1970
To: elcid1970
See # 8.
Take a look at some of the other "bibles" now available if you really want to get ticked.
9 posted on
12/11/2005 4:59:49 PM PST by
clee1
(We use 43 muscles to frown, 17 to smile, and 2 to pull a trigger. I'm lazy and I'm tired of smiling.)
To: elcid1970
But the text was not originally written in Latin, it was written in Greek. The Greek is Δόξα ἐν ὑψίστοις θεῷ καὶ ἐπὶ γῆς εἰρήνη ἐν ἀνθρώποις εὐδοκίας. Epi ges: on earth eirene: peace en anthropois: to people (in the dative, for the preposition) eudokias: good will (accusative) The translation that makes the most sense is, in fact, "good will to men". If you had wanted to say "peace to men of good will", then "good will" would modify "men", and thus it would be in the dative to agree with anthropois. But it's not in the dative. It's in the accusative.
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson