Luke 2:14, peace on earth, good will toward whom?
Luke 2:14 has both readings: good will toward men and peace among those with whom he is pleased. A final sigma distinguishes the Greek forms printed by Robinson-Pierpont Byzantine Textform and Nestle-Aland 28.
The APB text at this verse
The manuscripts, editions, and versions
The committee record at this verse
The APB is translated by a committee of language models that works blind. The translators are never told they are translating the Bible, never given a book name or a verse number, and never shown the witnesses listed above. Where the manuscripts disagree, the choice between readings is made before translation by the same kind of translator working the same way: it sees the competing readings and the witnesses by age and class, but never a reference or a manuscript name. There are 14,877 such places. For APB 4.0 every one was decided again in October 2026. GPT-6.1 Sol decided every one first. Claude Fable 5.1, from another model family, decided 2,483 of them second, including every place where the first translator left the base text. A departure from the base text needs both translators to agree and the first to be at least 0.8 confident. There is no third translator, so the base text stands when the two disagree. APB 4.0 is translated over those decisions. Whatever was done at this verse was done on the language and the evidence alone, and the record is public.
“The base text reads εὐδοκίας. The copies also carry the omission [greek majuscule; greek manuscript; later majority tradition]; the committee kept the base text. The evidence supports retaining the default.”
“The base text reads εὐδοκίας. The copies also carry εὐδοκία [later majority tradition]; the committee kept the base text. Both early evidence and likely smoothing favor the default.”
The APB 4.0 committee kept the base reading εὐδοκίας. Its textual decision states: "Both early evidence and likely smoothing favor the default." GPT-6.1 Sol (OpenAI) was the first translator and retained the base text; the unit did not go to a second translator. The committee's printed text renders the phrase "peace among people of goodwill."
The argument for each reading
If “of his good pleasure”
Reading A places peace among people of his good pleasure. The genitive connects good pleasure with the people who receive peace, so the wording concerns whom the peace is among. Nestle-Aland 28 prints this reading. Its witness description associates the genitive with the first hands of the oldest uncials. That gives this reading a stated basis in early copying evidence. The final sigma therefore affects both the grammar of the song and how the relation between peace and divine favor is expressed.
If “good will toward men”
Reading B gives good will its own place in the angels' song: good will toward men. Robinson-Pierpont Byzantine Textform prints this nominative reading as the Byzantine majority edition. Its support represents the majority tradition's form of the song. The case for this reading rests on that attested transmission and its straightforward expression of goodwill toward people. Without the final sigma, good will is no longer expressed as the genitive phrase describing the people among whom peace comes.
The edition descriptions identify early support for the genitive and majority support for the nominative, but they do not trace every step between the two forms. The history of the change remains uncertain. Both readings retain praise to God and peace on earth. The wording affects how goodwill and the recipients of peace are connected; it does not by itself settle a doctrine of divine favor.
Related entries
Witness readings for critical editions are quoted from the SBLGNT apparatus (CC BY 4.0); Hebrew text from the Westminster Leningrad Codex (Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible). Readings of ancient manuscripts and versions are cited from the sources linked above.