In Reply to: True meaning of "Peace on Earth, good will towards humans" posted by jo on July 29, 2003 at 11:30:19:
You're right (as Sam also points out) that "men" (anthropos) here means "mankind", or "people", not just males.
I looked through some of my reference books and found some things that might help:
"Good will" (eudokía, 2107) is defined in Strong's as "satisfaction, delight, kindness, wish, purpose". In the KJV it is variously translated "desire", "good pleasure (will)", and "seem good". "Eudokía" combines "eu" (good) and "dokía" (will or pleasure).
Thayer's Greek-English Lexicon (under the section on eudokía, 2107, page 258) renders the phrase, "en anthropis eudokía" either "among [mankind] pleasure" (produced by salvation), or God's "pleasure in [mankind]". It says that this refers "not to a particular class of men (viz. believers), but the whole race, contemplated as blessed in Christ's birth".
Kittel's Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, Abridged (under "eudokia in the N.T.", page 274) says, "In the Christmas saying in Lk. 2:14, we have two versions: 'to men of good will', and 'good will to men'. But the former is better attested, and the latter may have arisen through a failure to understand the Hebrew form of the original ('rason'). The meaning of the declaration is that God is glorified in heaven with the sending of Christ and the implication for earth is peace (i.e. salvation) for the people of good pleasure now that the turning point of the ages has come. These people of good pleasure are not, of course, those who have the good will to open themselves to God's grace or who do acts that will arouse a response of divine favor" [but simply] "the recipients of God's grace by his free and unfathomably sovereign choice or counsel".