CCF #9

posted here

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lavon the better translation of "pro multis" would be "for the masses", but that sounds a little Marxist, deosn't it?

Are you sure about that? I have heard it said that our Lord's words in Matthew and Mark should be rendered as "for the many", but this was based on the mistaken notion that these passages in Greek have a definite article before the word for "many". They do not. The following article may interest you, or anyone interested in this topic: http://www.latin-mass-society.org/promult.htm. If you want, you can compare the Greek and English side by side at http://www.sacrednamebible.com/kjvs...B40C026.htm#V28 and http://www.sacrednamebible.com/kjvs...B41C014.htm#V24.

Once our Lord's words are mutated from "for many" to "for the many", it is much easier to argue that they should be rendered "for all", since "the many" can, in fact, imply (almost) everyone, as it does in the first half of the often cited Romans 5:19. Notice from the second half of the verse, however, that even "the many" sometimes means merely many, rather than all.