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Lost in translation: The Bible

Around festivals and especially at the festive time of year you’ll hear people telling you, “Peace on earth, goodwill toward men”, or sometimes you get “good will towards men” or even the semi-homophonic “goodwill to all men”. Which comes from the English King James Bible version of Luke. It’s also a bad translation.
What the person who translated into English didn’t understand, way back all those centuries ago, is that the original Latin from which they were translating, “Et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis” (if you know your Vivaldi Gloria you’ll know that line, which is what I was listening to half an hour ago while writing up the Weekly and is why I stopped and wrote this random post apropos of nothing, thanks for asking now you know why) cannot be translated the way it’s done in the KJB, even allowing for the often impressive leniency and flexibility of Latin and its possible connotations. That line can only be correctly translated as:
And peace on earth to men of good will.
And to clear up the loose ends, for what it’s worth the Latin phrase that was incorrectly translated into English and the KJB comes from the Greek original (had to look that bit up) that’s also translated the same way. In other words, The Bible doesn’t give carte blanche to the world and goodwill to everyone no matter who they are, what they do or the way they think. Sorry folks, first you have to have good will, then and only then do you get your dose of peace on Earth. 
Moral: Members only.

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