Jim asks how people translate Luke 2:14.
δόξα ἐν ὑψίστοις θεῷ
καὶ ἐπὶ γῆς εἰρήνη ἐν ἀνθρώποις εὐδοκίας.
My own version would be something like
Glory to God in the highest heaven
and on the earth peace to people of good will
I read a contrast between ἐν ὑψίστοις (in the highest) and ἐπὶ γῆς (on the earth) that leads me to take the former as meaning the most important heavenly occasion.
I am also influenced by the parallel I see between this short hymn and its paired narrative bookend in the triumphal entry:
ἐν οὐρανῷ εἰρήνη
καὶ δόξα ἐν ὑψίστοις.Peace in heaven,
and glory in the highest heaven.
Luke is such a good storyteller we miss how much apocalyptic lies in his work. He sees the ministry of the disciples on earth as a harbinger of Satan’s downfall, and Jesus’ journey via Jerusalem to heaven as the ending of a heavenly war.
{ 16 comments }
When I look at this, I see more of an inclusio in operation:
δόξα — εὐδοκίας
ἐν ὑψίστοις — ἐν ἀνθρώποις
θεῷ — ἐπὶ γῆς
καὶ
It’s almost perfect, but εἰρήνη is missing! I would love that word to be right after καὶ, and be the focus of the inclusio. Or am seeing things?
I think it might be your eyesight. Logically and semantically θεῷ goes with/against ἀνθρώποις and ἐν ὑψίστοις pairs with ἐπὶ γῆς. So I’m unconvinced
I still feel there’s something more to this: there are strong grammatical connections between δόξα and εὐδοκία, and between the phrases ἐν ὑψίστοις and ἐν ἀνθρώποις. There are problems with the translation of ἐν. Of course, it can mean more than ‘in’, but it is strongly locative, without sense of motion. Also note that the passage does not make use of articles (metrical reasons? or semantic?) So are ‘God’ and ‘men’ to be understood as more indirect, impersonal? I still find this passage difficult to do justice to, but how about this:
That would be a strange use of θεῷ, wouldn’t it?
Yup — trying to do too many things at once:
I have problems with an unchanging interpretation of δόξα as ‘glory’, especially when the line suggests a closer meaning to match εὐδοκία. I think ‘glory’ and ‘good will’ become rather meaningless, and wonder whether there is meant to be some sense of reflection there. Also, why do we need ‘heavens’? The Greek doesn’t use a ’sky’ word for which we would use this translation. We expect ‘highest places’ as a dictionary definition, but perhaps ‘highest ones’ fits well with the context. In the end, I think the Greek is rather beautiful, and I’m not sure many translations do it justice.
I like that a lot better
And thinking back to θεῷ, there are some odd moments when we see it meaning ‘divine’. In Acts 7.20, Stephen describes Moses as ἀστεῖος τῳ θεῷ, which is usually translated in such a way as to suggest that God thought Moses was a pretty baby (as in Exodus 2), but seems to be moving to foreshadow the divine countenance. In II Corinthians 10.4, Paul describes the ‘armoury of our warfare’ as οὐ σαρκικὰ ἀλλὰ δυνατὰ τῳ θεῷ, which is awkward unless they are armaments of divine power, rather than powerful for/to God.
Have I missed out on a shift in scholarship that regards BAGD as incorrect on the meaning of εὐδοκία here? It says that “evidence from Qumran…and recent literary analysis of Lk” points to the meaning “favor, good pleasure”, with men as the object and God as the most likely subject, so “men on whom [God's] favor rests.”
@Steve, what you propose is certainly the majority line in modern translations and for those sorts of reasons. I don;t know what Gareth’s response would be, but I note that where Luke stresses this kind of favour coming from God most elaborately in the annunciation story he uses the χάρις word group. I think this makes it more likely that we should take εὐδοκία here as a human quality, and therefore a possessive genitive.
I admit that I back-translate Luke into ancient Hebrew as a matter of course in my head, which may mislead me into agreeing with the majority line on this one.
But I have other reasons for thinking that Luke 2:14 is all about God on the one hand and humankind as a whole on the other. It has to do with genre and what is appropriate in the plot line of Luke-Acts at this point.
I treat these matters in more detail on the comment thread here:
http://ancienthebrewpoetry.typepad.com/ancient_hebrew_poetry/2009/12/niv-versus-tniv-at-1-sam-226-and-luke-252-.html
I’m a Calvinist and for that reason I am peeved when a text in scripture which has a universal thrust is assimilated to the already very large set of biblical texts with a particularizing thrust. It seems to me that Luke 2 has a consistently universal thrust. If so, “men of goodwill” is out.
I would guess that the question whether this verse had a Hebrew original is open to serious debate.
None of my arguments depend on the notion that this verse or any other in Luke had a Hebrew original. It has to do with background of the kind BAGD emphasizes (much of which is, not surprisingly, in Hebrew), with context, genre, and plot-line in Luke-Acts.
Nonetheless, you started by talking about “back-translating”. I would say that arguments from plot and genre are good ones. Arguments from Calvinism are bad. Once you introduce that you lay yourself open to the accusation that because you can’t theologically think God might grant peace to people on the basis of any intrinsic merit, you can’t accept a linguistic possibility of “people of good will”.
Far be it from me to toy with any such unworthy thought.
I think the question is what Luke’s poetic tradition is. Luke has a lot of poetic text, particularly in the early chapters.
My meandering wrestling with this is continued here.
The expression “people of good will,” or “praiseworthy humanity,” as Gareth has it, does seem unlikely to me.
I don’t think of the idea that on earth God grants peace to well-intentioned people, all others pay cash, as one that prefigures well who Jesus is in the gospel of Luke. You would want to show that Jesus in Luke does precisely that: grant peace to people of good will, all others be damned. One advantage of that take: Santa Claus and Jesus would be alter egos. The task of both would be to identify and reward nice people. Glory to God in the highest.
Gareth’s post is interesting in showing how KJV and the Syriac are practically identical.
I think second guessing an author’s intention can be a bit tricky. You could argue equally that a) the appearance to the shepherds shows it must mean “God’s favoured people” b) that the appearance to the shepherds means Luke is re-defining “good will” as he radically also redefines repentance c) that the presentation narrative shows exactly what he means by “people of good will” and Simeon and Anna are those meant by the angels.
So it comes back to what sort of genitive this is, and what the adjective might mean when applied to people
Comments on this entry are closed.