Hey everybody, Pastor Steven Anderson here from Faith4 Baptist Church to talk to you about Luke
chapter 17 verse 34 that is translated differently in the King James Bible than it is in the modern
versions. I'm going to prove to you that the King James Bible has correctly translated this verse.
Let me start out by reading it to you from the King James and then the other versions.
I tell you in that night there shall be two men in one bed the one shall be taken and the other
shall be left. Here's the ESV. I tell you in that night there will be two in one bed one will be
taken and the other left so the King James said two men in one bed whereas the ESV just said two
in one bed. Okay then the NIV I tell you on that night two people will be in one bed one will be
taken the other left new living translation two people will be asleep in one bed. NET I tell you
in that night there will be two people in one bed. So basically we have the King James saying two men
we have the ESV just saying two will be in one bed and then we have the other modern versions
like the NIV etc saying two people. Okay so let's look at this in Greek and understand
why the King James is translated the way it is. So it says here lego imin tafti ti nikti
so lego imin means I say to you tafti ti nikti it's date of case so it's in that night okay or
in this night two will be upon or in or on one bed right so we have two will be in one bed right
eso nadio epiklinismias o is paralifisete que o etaros afifisete so we have the one will be taken
paralifisete and the other will be left afifisete. So if we just glanced at this and didn't really
know anything about Greek or just didn't really look at it carefully we would just jump to the
conclusion that oh the King James has added the word men here it isn't here you know the ESV got
it right because it just says two will be in one bed you know case closed right wrong because
actually if you look at the rest of the verse here it's proven that these two are both men because of
the gender of these words right here okay so let me explain some of you real quick in Greek the
word the has three different forms depending on what the genders so just like in Spanish
you would use el and la el for masculine and la for feminine well Greek has the same phenomenon
except instead of just having two genders they actually have three genders masculine feminine
neuter and just about every word in Greek that's a noun is going to be inflected for gender and so
when we see the word the in Greek we know if it's masculine or feminine so here we see o is and o
etros there are three words for that o e and toe o is the masculine e is feminine toe is neuter
so we see here the masculine word for the in both places but not only that even the number one is
inflected for gender in Greek because is is the masculine number one then you have mia which is
the feminine number one and then you have ana or sometimes shortened to n for the neuter number one
so o is masculine is masculine o is masculine and even etros is masculine okay otherwise it would be
etera and it's not it's masculine so when we look at how both the one is masculine and the other
is masculine it makes sense here that the King James is not wanting to lose that nuance in
English so by saying two men it's actually being more specific and more accurate because Jesus
Christ did not have a married couple in mind here because of the fact that he uses two masculine
pronouns right now if we hear about two people in one bed or just two in a bed our assumption is
going to jump to a married couple or an unmarried couple or whatever okay but that's not what's
going on in this verse actually two men in one bed as evidenced by the genders of the definite
articles and the numbers themselves now let me just read for you in fact the next verse
from the Greek New Testament it says
so notice it says
the one shall be taken that's feminine right as opposed to o is so we have the one
feminine shall be taken and the other left here's what's interesting the esv
the niv all of these versions add the word women in verse 35 so when they're confronted with a
feminine emia and etara they add the word women which is exactly what the King James did in verse
34 it's just the King James adds the word men in verse 34 and the word women in verse 35
whereas the the new versions are just uh leaving an ambiguous in verse 34 and then they're adding
the word women in verse 35 because the pronouns are clearly feminine so now you might say well
Pastor Anderson you know sometimes when we use the word men or masculine pronoun that could be
sort of a generic just talking about people in general and that's a valid point and and and
certainly if you wanted to interpret that this way you could you could look at uh the King James
and say okay two men in one bed that that just means people but here's the thing about that if
you want to make that interpretation then you're welcome to make that interpretation
but i want an English Bible that accurately reflects what the Greek text says i don't want
someone else to do that thinking for me i don't want someone else to do that interpretation for
me i'd rather just have the King James Bible giving us what's in the Greek and that's what
they've done here they have accurately represented the Greek to us and then we can make our own
decision about how we're going to interpret it but i don't want a Bible version to decide for
me what they think this means and and decide for me how to uh change this so that it could be
easier to understand or what have you you know the King James is more accurate now here's the thing
you have something very similar in Matthew 24 where the King James does not do this where it
says you know two will be in the field one shall be taken and the other left even though both are
masculine it doesn't add the word men there probably because of the fact that just two in
the field doesn't conjure up an image of a man and a woman as two in a bed would automatically
conjure up so the King James has added the word men here to make sure that this is accurately
understood in English of what the Greek is actually saying now some people would object to
this and and say that this sounds like a homo thing or something but you know the Bible says
unto the pure all things are pure but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure
but even their mind and conscience in is defiled so to the person with a pure mind if they're
reading this verse they're not going to come to some weird homo conclusion here okay i grew up
with this scripture this is a very popular scripture when i was a kid when preachers
are preaching on the rapture they would often read these scriptures from luke 17 in fact the
whole movie series left behind is based on these scriptures the one taken the other left okay
that's where the title of that popular film and book franchise comes from so basically i grew up
reading this and that thought never entered my mind because when you're just an innocent person
you're reading as a child you you know you just understand there's just two men in a bed it's not
something perverse okay now here's the thing we may have trouble understanding this in the
united states of america where we live a very wealthy lifestyle super comfortable everybody's
got their own bed i mean for crying out loud most people in a family now most kids have their own
room their own bed their own wing of the house for crying out loud whereas around the world
it's not like that if you read any history books or if you study anything about poorer cultures
and poorer societies people are frequently sharing beds and it's not just a married couple that would
share a bed it would just be a bunch of people piling into a bed there are all kinds of situations
where i'm sure you the viewer at home have shared beds with people on some kind of a business trip
or a camping trip or you know what about people that are thrown in jail and they're just kind of
forced to all pile into a jail and whatever i mean there are all kinds of situations
where a bed is shared by poor people or people that are in some kind of a rough situation and
and look this would only have to happen one time for this verse to be fulfilled jesus is saying in
that night this is gonna have there there's gonna be at least one situation where two men are in a
bed the one's taken to the other left two women grinding at the mill two women grinding together
the one taken the other left you know two men in the field the one taken the other left this
situation will exist the king james has not translated this wrong the king james got it
right and is being very accurate if you want to interpret this a different way than i interpret i
i take it literally that there are going to be two men in a bed i don't i obviously don't believe
that they're going to be homos because i don't believe that any homos are going to heaven but
the point is that two men in a bed you know if you actually broadened your mind outside of 2019
america and and thought about other parts of the world and other situations i'm sure that there
are millions of situations like this that are a completely normal situation with nothing perverse
okay so i like the fact that the king james has accurately represented this first if you want
to interpret it differently than i do then you're welcome to but there's no need to uh you know
foist that interpretation into the text i like it better how the king james is accurately giving us
what the greek says and then we can decide god bless you have a great day