"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men," or "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!" ?

The King James Bible translates Luke 2:14 as,

"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men."

The English Standard Version translates it as,

"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!"

Which is best?

The King James is far better written. And it is more like the Greek in how it comes across, in saying “good will toward men” instead of “among those with whom he is pleased”. The Greek is “en anthropos eudokias”:

The English Standard Version was marketed as a conservative, traditional, translation, but the translators were so scared of feminism that it isn’t really. Here we have an example. They are too timid to say “Man” or “men”, so they retreat to the nonliteral, vague, and ugly “those”. They would no doubt say, "ἀνθρώποις” refers to humans in general, as opposed to “ἀνήρ” for males specifically, but that’s just an excuse for their cowardice. Notice that “ἀνήρ” is the root for"ἀνθρώποις”, which literally is “man-face”. So we must be suspicious about the English Standard Version. It somehow manages to be both less literal and less poetic than the King James, worse as Greek and worse as English. But we must not dismiss it completely; the English Standard Verion’s aspiration is to be admired by leading academic scholars, or at least by leading academic college professors. Thus, it might be better than the King James in terms of accurate translation of the original Book of Luke. It certainly is based on better ancient manuscripts. Reddit has a good discussion. Someone said,

The difference between the translations is not due to the translations themselves just being different due to the philosophy of the translators. Both translations are quite literal and good in that sense.

The problem is that they are based upon different manuscripts. The NKJV is based upon the Textus Receptus and the Majority Text, while the ESV is primarily based upon the Critical Text. Each translation is accurate to what it is based on, so the real question is which manuscripts are correct.

I believe that the Critical Text is the correct basis for translating the New Testament, because its manuscripts are much older and thus closer to the time of the original NT authors, and was constructed using textual criticism. The Textus Receptus came much later and is only 5 manuscripts, compared to the Critical Text’s thousands. The Majority Text, while being the majority of the manuscripts we have, is not nearly as old as the manuscripts of the Critical Text, and the reason they have a majority is merely circumstantial. They all come from a particular area and time in which very many manuscripts were made and preserved.

Someone else said,

It's worth noting here that the difference between the Textus Receptus and the Critical text in Luke 2:14 is so minor that it took me three looks to even find it.

TR

δόξα ἐν ὑψίστοις θεῷ καὶ ἐπὶ γῆς εἰρήνη ἐν ἀνθρώποις εὐδοκία

CT

δόξα ἐν ὑψίστοις θεῷ καὶ ἐπὶ γῆς εἰρήνη ἐν ἀνθρώποις εὐδοκίας

The KJV translators translate εὐδοκία as "good will" whereas the ESV team translates εὐδοκίας as "with whom he is pleased".

We should also note that in Philippians 1:15 both versions translate εὐδοκίαν as "good will". Also, both versions translate εὐδοκίας as "good pleasure" in Philippians 2:13. They both translate εὐδοκία as "desire" in Romans 10:1.

Someone else said,

It turns on the existence of one letter, sigma, at the end of the noun for "(good opinion". The older Western text forms have it, which makes the word genitive, defining the previous noun "men". Thus: "men of good pleasure (to God)". The Eastern forms lack it, making "good opinion" nominative, so it reads "good will toward men". The scholars line up on either side, and both sides can make a theological case. Basically the Westerners say God's good will is only toward those whose hearts are toward Him. Ultimately that is true, but personally I think it is better in keeping with the Christmas message, and the general invitational nature of the Gospel, that God is offering goodwill toward all men, even though it ultimately will be shown that only some will accept it. So in this case I like the Eastern rendering, "goodwill toward men".

I agree with this last commenter completely. I will say, too, that in translating a Bible verse, the following three motivations are all legitimate:

1. Make it beautiful.

2. Make it theologically sound.

3. Make it fit with the chapter in which it is found.

All three principles are dangerous, of course. Maybe God intended the verse to be ugly. Maybe it is the translator’s theology that is bad, or maybe God intended the verse to be bad theology (e.g., in the arguments of Job’s friends, or the Snake in the Garden). Maybe the verse is supposed to introduce dissonance in its chapter. But they are good principles when it is hard to translate a verse and they do not violate other principles.

I have always been suspicious of the replacement of “good will toward men” by things like “men with whom he is pleased”. It just didn’t sound right. After reading this, I see that yet again, we should be wary of experts who say they know best. As yet another redditer said: