I’m a complete novice when it comes to New Testament history, and have only just joined the forum. (I’m an immigration lawyer in England and don’t have any background in Greek or ancient history, although I’ve always been very interested in theology. I was raised Christian but have been an atheist for several years. A lot of my work now involves representing Iranian converts to Christianity, in which a knowledge of theology occasionally comes in handy.)

One thing that suddenly occurred to me last Christmas, and of which I was reminded when reading Dr Ehrman’s posts about the history of the KJV and the Textus Receptus. Many apologies if this is a really silly / obvious / trivial question (like I said, I’m a complete novice). The Gloria in English, in liturgies, hymns and so on, is sometimes rendered as “Glory to God in the highest and on Earth peace to men of good will“, and sometimes as “peace, good will to men“, or (in hymns) various other permutations. This seems to be a more than trivial difference in meaning. (A Christmas musical we performed when I was in primary school turned it into “All Glory be to God on high / And to the Earth be peace / Good will henceforth from heav’n to men / Begin and never cease.”)

Of course I’m familiar (as most people are) with the text from the Vulgate, “Gloria in excelsis Deo et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis,” and I understand that the Latin is clearly “…men of good will”. So I wondered why the difference. I checked online and found that the Greek is Δόξα ἐν ὑψίστοις Θεῷ καὶ ἐπὶ γῆς εἰρήνη ἐν ἀνθρώποις εὐδοκία. I don’t read a word of Greek, but I asked a friend who is a classicist and she confirmed that this is unambiguously “…peace, good will to men.” Is this just a translation error in the Vulgate? Or do different Greek manuscript sources of the NT say different things? Does it have any theological implications?