Luke 2:14 Douay Vs King James?

All who are telling you to compare English translations are of absolutely no help.

As the other person stated, you need to know Koine Greek. Why the difference? Simple. You have people translating the Koine Greek of Luke 2:14 into English and one group translates it differently than the other group. It's quite easy to understand, isn't it? Not all people who translate the Greek text of the Bible are geniuses. I know, hard to imagine.

The real question is: what is the correct translation of the Greek text?

The Greek text of Luke 2:14 according to the Textus Receptus is,

Δόξα ἐν ὑψίστοις θεῷ καὶ ἐπὶ γῆς εἰρήνη ἐν ἀνθρώποις εὐδοκία

However, the Greek text according to Nestle-Aland (NA27/ GNT) is,

Δόξα ἐν ὑψίστοις θεῷ καὶ ἐπὶ γῆς εἰρήνη ἐν ἀνθρώποις εὐδοκίας

The difference between the two is εὐδοκία in the nominative and εὐδοκίας in the genitive.

The phrase "glory to God" is common in Greek.

In Luke 17:18, Luke states, "...glory to God..." by the Greek δόξαν τῷ θεῷ (doxan to theo). τῷ θεῷ is in the dative case which one would expect for the phrase "to God."

In Romans 4:20, Paul states, "...glory to God..." by the same exact Greek phrase, viz. δόξαν τῷ θεῷ. Thus, τῷ θεῷ is once again in the dative case.

Joshua 7:19 δόξαν...τῷ κυρίῳ θεῷ Ισραηλ ("glory to the Lord God of Israel") --- dative case.

Jeremiah 13:16 τῷ κυρίῳ θεῷ...δόξαν ("give glory to the Lord God") --- dative case

Thus, Δόξα ἐν ὑψίστοις θεῷ is "Glory in the highest to God."

Δόξα [doxa]: nominative case (subject); "glory"

ἐν [en]: in

ὑψίστοις [hupsistois]: dative case; "the highest [places]"

θεῷ [theo]: dative case; "to God"

καὶ [kai]: "and"

ἐπὶ [epi]: "upon"

γῆς [ges]: genitive; "earth"

εἰρήνη [eirene]: nominative; "peace"

ἐν [en]: "among"

ἀνθρώποις [anthropois]: dative; "men"

εὐδοκία [eudokia]: nominative; "good will"

εὐδοκίας [eudokias]: genitive; "of good will"

The latter half of the verse is καὶ ἐπὶ γῆς εἰρήνη ἐν ἀνθρώποις εὐδοκία. But, I can't produce a practical translation. I think εὐδοκίας makes more sense. If εὐδοκία was the original, that would make both εὐδοκία and εἰρήνη in the nominative, but this seems tenuous because there is no conjunction καὶ to join the two as subjects (i.e., "peace and good will"), and commas didn't exist in uncial manuscripts.

Thus I believe this translation is appropriate: "...and peace upon earth among men of good will."

Altogether, it is "Glory in the highest to God, and peace upon earth among men of good will."

Some find the phrase "men of good will" hard to digest because they perceive it as "peace" being allotted to men who possess works of good will or good intention. But, that's just a product of the faith vs. works mentality which plagues Christianity. Jews never had such a concept; instead, they recognized faith and works as synergistic, rather than antithetical (cp. Jam. 2). When men have faith, they are inclined to good will or good intentions (they are synonyms) because of the Spirit. Thus, God grants them peace (shalom) --- rather than wrath --- especially those who believe in the Son.

So, I guess I agree with the Douay Rheims (except, it should be "among" and not "to" men of good will).

One stated,

"The DR-CR is closer to the meaning found currently in our best source texts but does not provide the best translation of the final portion of the verse."

Says who? It's essentially word-for-word translation of the Greek. KJV has to add words in order to translate the Greek it is based on. DC-CR and NA27 don't.

Well...in this case, it might simply be the result of the fact that the Douay-Rheims Challoner Revision Bible was translated primarily from a Latin translation of an ancient Greek source text, while the King James Version was translated primarily from a late Greek source text.

In other words: neither uses what modern translators would consider a **very** reliable source. We can compare the DR-CR to a modern Roman Catholic Bible and see if they translated the Greek differently than they translated the Latin in the DR-CR:

http://www.usccb.org/nab/bible/luke/luke2.htm#foot...

Which explains the situation well. The New Jerusalem Bible (another modern English Roman Catholic translation, acclaimed for its scholarship) has the same sense as the NAB with a more descriptive footnote: it tells us that the reading "men of good will" is not the best translation of the Greek.

SO - in this case, the KJV is a little wider afield from the actual meaning, but that is because it is based - apparently - on a Byzantine source text. The DR-CR is closer to the meaning found currently in our best source texts but does not provide the best translation of the final portion of the verse.

How do you know? Use a modern, scholarly Bible translation with translator's footnotes included. I highly recommend the New Jerusalem Bible Regular Edition, but others are the Revised English Bible (also excellent), the New Revised Standard Version (very good, but having really good translator's notes even in "bare bones" editions) and the New American Bible (like the NRSV, very good and including the footnotes even in "bare bones" editions).

Jim, http://www.bible-reviews.com/

[14] On earth peace to those on whom his favor rests: the peace that results from the Christ event is for those whom God has favored with his grace. This reading is found in the oldest representatives of the Western and Alexandrian text traditions and is the preferred one; the Byzantine text tradition, on the other hand, reads: "on earth peace, good will toward men." The peace of which Luke's gospel speaks (Luke 2:14; 7:50; 8:48; 10:5-6; 19:38, 42; 24:36) is more than the absence of war of the pax Augusta; it also includes the security and well-being characteristic of peace in the Old Testament.

Keep in mind that each translation of the Bible is usually the result of a number of translators working together to get the truest meaning, but thats not to say that sometimes words can have different meanings based on the context in which their used, and hence, sometimes things differ between translations. Best thing to do is to check a few more translations. Go to Biblegateway.com, there you can easily compare passages between many different translations.

it is part of the hymn sung at a catholic mass,

glory to god in the highest and peace to his people on earth

The only way to know is by learning Koine Greek and translating it from the original yourself.

“Glory in the heights above to God, and upon earth peace among men of goodwill.”

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