CCF #8

[post]

Quote:

Originally Posted by cpks Here, I don't think it's as simple as a mistranslation of "pro multis". I do think that Lavon is right, and moreover that to say "for many" in English is to invite the question "what about the rest?" And from what I understand of scholarly research into what Jesus's actual words would have been, it would not have been an appropriate question to ask of what Jesus himself said. It is therefore my belief that although there are some deeply objectionable mistranslations in the ICEL texts, this is not one of them. There are times when the literal is not the best translation (after all, the task of language is primarily to communicate).

It certainly does invite the question "what about the rest?", a very good question to ask, and one with an answer starting around Matthew 25:31.

I agree that "the task of language is primarily to communicate". But communicate what? In this case, to communicate the meaning of the words of the Mass as found in their official, Latin form. The words in Latin are "pro multis" ("for many"), not "pro omnibus" ("for all").

You may object that our Lord's words were not recorded in Latin, they were recorded in Greek, and the words in the Mass refer back to the words in the gospels. If you read this article you will see that our Lord said "for many", not "for all", not even "for the many".

You may say that our Lord did not speak in Latin or Greek, he spoke in Aramaic, and the ICEL says that there is no word for "all" in Aramaic, so our Lord had to settle for "many" as the best way of expressing what he meant. The article I just mentioned addresses this assertion. Also, if you go to pesh ittata.org, select the Lexicon from the Tools folder, and search for "all", you will see that Aramaic actually does have a word for all, and it does appear in the Aramaic-language version of the Bible, just not in Matthew 26:28 or Mark 14:24. If you follow up with a search for the word "many", you will find that that word does appear in our Lord's words of Consecration, as recorded in Matthew and Mark. You can further verify this by going to the interlinear Aramaic-English translation of the gospels on the same page. The author, fluent in Aramaic, translates saggi'in as "many", not "all".

Finally, as I mentioned in a previous post, translators consistently render Our Lord's words as "for many" rather than "for all". This includes advocates of "dynamic equivalence". See, for example, how the New Living Translation handles Matthew and Mark.

Quote:

Originally Posted by cpks That said, I look forward to the day when Liturgiam Authenticam takes hold in our parishes.

Amen.

PS Apparently, a naughty word blocker is preventing me from writing the name of the Aramaic language website. It is www.p-e-s-h-i-t-t-a.org.

PPS Earlier on this page you quoted an article which stated

Aramaic "saggi'in" at least at times has the same sense as Hebrew "rabbim."

They do mean the same thing: "many". Look at www.pesh...org for the Aramaic and this site for the Hebrew. Since the article you quoted references Isaiah 53:11, you could also look up that verse in the Bible you personally use, and note whether the translators translated rabbim as "all" or "many".