All or Many? (from an Eastern Orthodox forum)

From OrthodoxChristianity.net:

The young fogey wrote:
I don't know if Eastern Orthodoxy has proclaimed anything either way but its consecration prayers get it right and say 'many'.


Νεκτάριος wrote:
Either a bad translation or an attempt to change the theology of the RCC even more. In the Tridentine mass and the latin version of the new missal "for many" is used. You can only come up with calvinism if you read that into the scriptures. Taken in context with the rest of liturgy and the scriptures calvinism has no place... besides if the Lord did die for all, He also died for many.

...I misread, Br. Max's post....since in the current english translation of the RCC mass (which I had thought he was refering to ) "for all" is used. I know "for many" is what Greek says, so I was just tired and confused I think.


But JohnCassian wrote:
Essentially, 'many' is a woodenly literal translation of what Christ said in the words of institution as recorded in Mark. However, the Greek word 'polloi' or 'many', as your initial post pointed out, is used by St. Paul frequently to mean 'all', because it is being used (as it was in the Septuagint) to overlay/translate a Hebrew/Aramaic word that has the connotation of all. So, the first liturgical sample is translating woodenly literally from the Greek. The second is translating for meaning.

The Tridentine explanation is a pretty classic example of late-Medieval rationalizing after the fact, because the discipline of philology was just then being revived by the Humanists and the real reasoning behind the word had been lost.

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I guessed that JohnCassian probably picked up this many = all idea during his journey out of Calvinism, before he arrived at Orthodoxy. His comments sound like something out of ICEL. To confirm that many = all is not the Orthodox view, I asked for comments here. To my surprise, here is the answer I received:

Please pardon my ignorance, but I honestly don't see a difference between saying "for many" or "for all". We believe that Christ shed His blood for all, but not everyone will believe or accept His sacrifice. Therefore, "for many", it (i.e. His Blood) will save them.

Just an additional note... I just opened my Orthodox Study Bible, and according to it:

14:24 For many is the Semitic way of saying for all, for an innumerable people (see Matthew 26:28).

I was curious how an Orthodox Study Bible could say such an unlikely thing. First, I found that the Orthodox do not have much to choose from in the way of study Bibles: just one, according to this book review on Amazon.com. Perhaps that is why it appears to be widely used. Not everyone loves the study guide, however. An Eastern Orthodox Abbot wrote a generally negative review:

There is much that some people may find useful in this book, but there is much that is wrong or misleading. It was not to be expected that the ROCOR would have co-operated in such a project, but it needs a good injection of traditional old-fashioned, even old-world, Orthodoxy.

And on the same site, an EO priest wrote:

As one reads the notes to the text, a false, non-Orthodox tone becomes uncomfortably apparent. ... There is not anything inherently wrong in the idea of writing notes on a Bible to help convince non-Orthodox of the truth of Orthodoxy (assuming the notes accurately reflect the true views and positions of Orthodoxy, which is by no means always the case in the Study Bible) ... These comments are representative of the non-Orthodox viewpoint which permeates this Study Bible and which makes it unsuited for use by Orthodox Christians. ... several more reliable "Orthodox Study" Bible commentaries are available in English for Orthodox readers (e.g. Johanna Manley's "The Bible and the Holy Fathers" her "Grace for Grace: The Psalter and the Holy Fathers" (which has the added advantage of using the Orthodox Psalter as its basic text, rather than the Protestant one); and the ongoing translation of Blessed Theophylact's commentaries on the Gospels.

On a website associated with the very traditional Holy Transfiguation Monastery, a reviewer stated:

The Orthodox Study Bible, as is obvious from the few representative examples, is not patristic either in conception or content, in formulation or expression, in its commentaries or addenda; indeed, it is often not only unpatristic and untraditional, but anti-patristic and anti-traditional. If it is not patristic, to call it Orthodox is a misnomer verging on misrepresentation.

On the other hand, I found more web sites using or recommending the O.S.B. than condeming it. So I don't know. It looks to me like heresy slips past complacent Orthodox as easily as it slips past complacent Catholics, if it comes from a credentialed source.