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Dear Father Deacon,

I believe you have now entirely altered the topic. Things are as they are for now with respect to the curia, and I do not think that the changes you seek in the liturgy will be as you hope. As I said that is my opinion, informed by what I have seen to date on the issue.

If you have more to offer on the original topic of the translation, I'll be happy to consider it, but I believe others are picking up the new thread that you've started here, and so I don't have much other to say.

Eli

Dear All,

Normally, as a Latin here to learn, I just read the Forum, but I feel I may have something to contribute to your discussion on this topic. (To avoid any misunderstandings I should tell you that having retired as a teacher of languages, I have 30 years experience of teaching, among other things, translation.) Please bear with the following statement of basic principles:

The purpose of translation is to repeat a text from the original language to the target language.
�Repeat� means that a reader of the translated text should receive as far as possible the same impression as a reader of the original version.
�Impression� means that the semantic content, style and register should be the same as the original. (For this reason a literal translation is rarely a good translation.)
�Semantic content� means that the words used in the translation should match the words in the original for denotation and connotation.
�Denotation� is the basic meaning of a word, �connotation� is the associated aura. Synonyms are words with the same denotation, the differences between synonyms are due to their connotations. (Obvious example: words denoting bodily functions have connotations ranging from the Clinical and Scientific to the Vulgar and Obscene.)
Style relates to literary genre.
Register relates to the status of the interlocutors.


In the case of �pro multis�:
The immediately obvious rendering (denotation) would be �for many�.
However, in English this carries the clear connotation �not all�, as several contributors have already observed. If this is not the meaning desired, then this is not a good translation.
Is it the meaning intended by our Lord?
The liturgist quoted in the ZENIT article does not think so.
Here is evidence of the use of this idiom:
Psalm 96 (Gelineau Version) from the Lectionary: (USA may use different versions)
The Lord is king, let earth rejoice
the many coastlands be glad.
Same Psalm from Prayer of the Church:
The Lord is king, let earth rejoice
let all the coastlands be glad.
Clearly �all� and �the many� have the same meaning.

Now it is no use saying that the Lord Jesus said �many� because he didn�t. �Many� is English, a language not even in existence when our Lord walked the earth. It is also highly unlikely that he used Greek at the Last Supper. Almost certainly he uttered the words in Aramaic. (We simply do not have verbatim accounts of Jesus� words apart from a few phrases recorded in Aramaic in the Gospels.)
So the underlying Semitic idiom of �pro multis� is the same as in the quote from the psalm.

So how to translate �pro multis�?
Some people have mentioned the modern translations but no-one has mentioned the French version �pour la multitude�. French does not have a simple one-word translation for �many (people)�. The French liturgists could easily have gone the same way as the English and Italian with �pour tous� but they did not. They were able to find a form that got the meaning of the original. Of course, �multitude� is not everyday colloquial French, but it only needs to be explained once.
A possible solution for English is as follows:
�for many� is a literal translation but misses the correct meaning.
�for all� reflects the thought more accurately, but is verbally �loose�.
I would suggest the form �for you and for the many�. (If anyone cared what I think.)
This translates the Latin as literally and accurately as the �for many� version.
It keeps the Semitic idiom presumably used by Christ.
Against it is the fact that it is not �normal� English, but like the French �pour la multitude� it only needs to be explained once.

Please forgive my rather formal didactic approach in this message, but translation is a highly technical process, and as much an art as a science. I felt the discussion could do with some input of a pedagogic nature to nail down what is required here.

God bless you all

Dear Highlander, Christ is Risen!

Thank you for your contribution and welcome to ByzCath.

In the Risen Christ,
Father Anthony+

Actually, ICEL translated it as "for all men" which was used until 15 years ago or so in the Roman church when it was changed to "for all." Any RCs remember the uproar that caused?

And David, yes, while I agree that there could be doctrinal or dogmatic differences in the footnotes in the Orthodox Study Bible, my point was that the footnote on "for many" would probably not be one of them.

"In the absence of a Roman Catholic Bible, the faithful may fulfill their obligation to read Scripture by using the nearest Orthodox Bible." ;-)

Thank you, Highlander, for introducing light among the many posts on this thread.

Dear Highlander,

Yes...thank you!

This is exactly how my Greek Orthodox priest chants it: "for you and for many"....

In Christ,
Alice

There is a misunderstanding going on here - and I'm not referring to "pro multis".

Questions of translation are not subject to a "final authority" or a "magisterium", whether extraordinary or ordinary. To attempt to claim that because someone has approved (even tacitly!) a given translation of this or that phrase, therefore disagreement with that translation is somehow dissent from the authentic teaching of the Church is so much balderdash.

Even if an Ecumenical Council, or the Pope of Rome, or anyone else, attempted to issue an "infallible definition" of a translation issue, the result would be laughter among educated theologians, because no one has or could have the authority to do that.

Unless we are to maintain that Scripture, Liturgy and for that matter patristics must remain exclusively in dead languages - and then forbid the study of those dead languages - we must accept that translation is not an exact science, though it is subject to scientific principles, and that this is an area in which good men may and do differ and will continue to differ. The discussions arising from those differences can be fruitful and increase our understanding.

Those among us who have some knowledge of Greek are only too well aware of how any number of words and phrases have changed their meaning over the centuries. I won't even hint at some examples of the havoc that this could wreak, but I will suggest that one conclusion which follows is that any theory of translation which fails to take shifting meanings into account is going to be a colossal flop.

Incognitus

Wisdom strikes again!

Is there nothing this man (or is it men) can't pronounce on.

Dear Ingognitus

Absolutely spot-on

True. One ought not use a sledge hammer to turn a screw.

It seems to me though that the last part of this thread really had more to do with ideas of what constitute generic delegation of power and authority, how that happens in terms of the mechanism and object of any delegation, and the misapprehension that that very delegation of power, if it comes from the papal office, renders a curial decision with the force of the infallibility of the office without attention to circumstance.

Resolve that and then one could draw down from there to the particular instances, as you have here of course.

On the other hand there is, I think, for the Latin rite folks who care about such things, an interest in knowing that their pastors and bishops are willing to offer obedience to legitimate authority.

In that sense, who delegates what to whom, does become important for who has legitimate authority to command a bishop to do anything at all really? And I think that question underlies many of these sqabbles that appear to be superficial and self-evident to some.

So the issue of many, all, the multitude, or the many is not so much to find the authorative mind of the Church, but to find the willing hearts of obedient pastors and bishops.

Eli

While this is true it is also just as wrong to question the validity of the Mass because of a Translation.

On a side note, I find it funny how many Byzantines here blow a gasket when a Latin Catholic questions things about the Byzantine Churches/Traditions yet those same Byzantines find no problem doing the reverse.

Are you suggesting hypocrisy on THE Byzantine Forum. O dear God!!! Who would have thought...?