Re: Luke 2:14: en uyistois qew, en anqrwpois eudokias

Stephen C. Carlson (scarlson@washdc.mindspring.com)
Tue, 19 Nov 1996 09:35:47 -0500

At 08:18 11/19/96 -0500, Jonathan Robie wrote:
>The Greek for this doesn't seem to match the Gideon Bible in my hotel room,
>which says "Glory be to God in the highest, and on earth, peace, goodwill
>toward men". My Greek text says:
>
>Luke 2:14 (GNT) doksa en uyistois qew kai epi ghs eirhnh en anqrwpois
eudokias.
>
>I translate this as "Glory be to the most high God, and peace to men of good
>will". Am I missing something here?

Yes. The Gideon's Bible is the King James Version, whose translation
base was the Textus Receptus which differs from the modern, critical
Greek New Testament. In this case, the TR as well as the Byzantine
text, families 1 and 13, and the correctors to Aleph and B, have the
reading EUDOKIA instead of EUDOKIAS. EUDOKIAS is the reading of the
Alexandrian and Western text families. Whenever you see the KJV's
rendition differing from the GNT, the first place you should check is
the TR. That's usually the cause.

Stephen Carlson

--
Stephen C. Carlson                   : Poetry speaks of aspirations,
scarlson@mindspring.com              : and songs chant the words.
http://www.mindspring.com/~scarlson/ :               -- Shujing 2.35