Didn’t Christ die for everyone? Sure not all accept it, but is the mass now really saying that he only died for many people, not all people?
I understand the new words go back to improving the original translation but I want to know what, given that the translation is now more accurate, it is really saying. Seems like this is a major major point of our faith and I don’t understand it now.
“The Many” is actually very theologically rich. It ties in with the prophetic hopes of the restoration of the lost tribes intermingled with the gentiles during the Babylonian exile. This is also where “ransom” imagery derives from. God will “ransom” “the many” similar to the ransom of His people from Egypt, essentially recapitulating in a New Exodus.
Recall that one of the promises to Abraham was that all nations would be blessed through his seed. At the time of the exile, the northern tribes were forced to leave and intermingled with the pagans of the land. The only way for God to restore Israel would be to bring salvation to the Gentiles as well, which in the process fulfilled a much older covenant promise to Abraham.
If you want to get REALLY geeky, there is excellent scholarly work done by Dr. Brant Pitre showing that early Jewish understanding of the “tribulation” was an ending of the exile by the death of the messiah, which would ransom the “many” and usher in the tribulation, resulting in the atonement for the sins of Israel, and their exodus from bondage and sin. Read “Jesus, the tribulation, and the end of the exile: Restoration eschatology and the origin of the atonement.” It covers a very Orthodox Catholic position using the historical critical method on interrelated passages in the prophets, gospels, and Daniel in particular.
Here are a few examples of this language:
Mark 10:45: "For the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a **ransom **for
many.”
Daniel 9:24-27: "Seventy weeks are decreed for your people and for your holy city:
Then transgression will stop and sin will end, guilt will be expiated, Everlasting justice will be introduced, vision and prophecy ratified, and a holy of holies will be anointed. Know and understand: From the utterance of the word that Jerusalem was to be rebuilt. Until there is an anointed ruler, there shall be seven weeks. In the course of sixty-two weeks it shall be rebuilt, With squares and trenches, in time of affliction. After the sixty-two weeks an
anointed one*(messiah)
shall be cut down with no one to help him. And the people of a leader who will come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary.
His end shall come in a flood; until the end of the war, which is decreed, there will be desolation. For one week*
he shall make a firm covenant with the many; Half the week he shall abolish sacrifice and offering; In their place shall be the desolating abomination until the ruin that is decreed is poured out upon the desolator.”
The above passage has many points in contact with the context of the short passage in Mark given above. “Flood” imagery corresponds well with the baptism imagery in Mark, etc.
Read Isaiah 53 about the “suffering servant,” but pay close attention to these passages in particular: “Because of his anguish he shall see the light; because of his knowledge he shall be content; My servant, the just one, shall justify
the many, their iniquity he shall bear. 12Therefore I will give him his portion among
the many, and he shall divide the spoils with the mighty, Because he surrendered himself to death, was counted among the transgressors,
Bore the sins of many, and interceded for the transgressors.”
To more specifically answer your question, “the many” refers to the righteous remnant among an unfaithful, scattered Israel. You can get really indepth with it on a scholarly level and find treasures of information, or you can simply appreciate the language change as a more literal rendering of Jesus’ own words in the Gospels without getting into all the nuances. Either way, I really appreciate the “new” rendering. Hope this helps a bit.
