Jesus said to them: “I tell you this truth: I existed before
Abraham came into existence.”522
I
existed before Abraham came into existence: In Greek the later part of this verse reads:
PRIN ABRAAM GENESTHAI EGO EIMI. This text reads in English in the
Greek-English Interlinear New Testament as: ‘Before Abraham came into being,
I AM.’ We note the “I AM” is capitalized. When we check other translations we
note they tend to also capitalize this “I AM.” We note first that these same
translations do not do this in John 8:28 where Jesus also said, “I am.” This
has us puzzled at first.
Some have suggested that the “I AM” in verse 58 is a quote from Exodus 3:14
and so he believes with great fervor Jesus is making himself the Yahweh of
the Burning Bush account where the Almighty God declares His Name. We turn to
some translations and they do, indeed, have Exodus 3:14 as ‘I am that I AM.’
(KJV) Since some capitalize both “I AM” in John and Exodus it would seem our
friend’s idea has some validity on brief examination. How are we to know
whether the Nazarene is lifting the “I AM” of Exodus 3:14 and applying this title to
himself in John 8:58? What can this mean?
One could go all the way back to John 8:1 (or, John 8:12 in some versions) and check
this dialogue between the Nazarene and the Jewish scribes and Pharisees, but
we note the immediate question at hand. Verse 58 begins, ‘Jesus said to
them,’ so he must be responding to a question. Sure enough, we note in the
previous verse (57) these godly Jews asked, ‘You are not yet fifty years old,
and have you seen Abraham?’ To which Jesus answers in verse 58, ‘Before
Abraham existed, I am.’
We discover that the English “am” is similar to the Greek eimi which, according to Bauer, Arndt and Gingrich,
A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, page 222, means “as a
predicate to be – 1. be,
exist.” As in Shakespeare, “to be or not to be, that is the question.” It
would seem to a fair mind that the subject is, “How could you possibly have
known Abraham?” To which the Nazarene simply answers, ‘Before Abraham
existed, I existed,’ or, ‘I existed before Abraham existed.’ The pre-existence of
Christ is something stressed only in the Gospel of John and it seems that
this is what is being done here. It seems a strange way to go about claiming
one is the Yahweh, or El’Shad-dai of
Exodus 3:14.
We remember that the Nazarene has already used the whole Greek expression
ego eimi in John 8:18, 23, 28 and the
Jews did not seem to think Jesus was laying claim to being Yahweh there. We
note first John 8:17, 18 where Jesus does quote from
Moses (Deuteronomy 19:15) using the rule of ‘the
testimony of two men is true.’ When checking out this verse in Moses we note
it actually says, ‘two or three’! If Jesus believed in a triune view, or any
other concept of “three,” this would have provided an outstanding Trinitarian
opportunity. However, instead of applying “three men” and their testimony, he
only makes application of “two” when he goes on to say: ‘I am (ego eimi) the one testifying about myself.’ Now, that makes “one
person.” Then Jesus adds, ‘and the One having sent me, the Father, testifies
about me.’ That makes, by Jesus’ own addition, “two.” He either misses this
opportunity to make some statement about “three,” as Deuteronomy 19:15 would
allow, or he has no such thought about “three.”
Here, in John 8:17, 18, when the Nazarene used “I am” (ego eimi) there was no confusion among the Jews: Jesus was
some one other than the Father, who was another.
That the Jews understood the Father to be God is shown in John 8:41 and John
8:54. So could not John 8:17, 18 read: “I am the one testifying about myself
and God who sent me testifies about me”? Jesus equals “one” and God equals
“one” which adds up to “two witnesses” with no mention of a third.
The other occurrence of ego eimi is at
John 8:28 where Jesus says, ‘When you lift up the Son of Man then you will
know that I am.’ This comes in answer to the question in verse 25, ‘Who are
you?’ Is it fair to say the Nazarene’s answer is, “the Son of Man”? This is
an expression from Daniel 7:13 and had always been applied
by the Jews to the Messiah or Christ. Here in verses 26-29 Jesus make a clear
distinction between himself and The God who sent him, the Father. This
designation from Daniel 7:13 is a true quote or allusion where the Messiah
is ascending to the one called “the Ancient of Days.”
Now, it seems to us that Jesus had clear opportunity to identify himself with
“three persons” using Deuteronomy 19:15, but he does not. He has another
opportunity when he is directly asked about his identity, but here his answer
is, “the Son of Man.”
We are now wondering whether John 8.58 and its ego eimi is
a quote or allusion at all. First, we check Nestle-Aland’sNovumTestamentumGraece which faithfully identifies source words or
quotes and to our surprise this excellent work does not list Exodus 3:14. We
also check the New Jerusalem Bible that we have found to be reliable in its
cross-references to quotes and allusions. Even this work does not show Exodus
3:14 as a source of Jesus’ “I am.”
How can we know if the ego eimi in
John 8:58 is a quote or strong allusion to Exodus 3.14? We
turn to Exodus 3:14, 15 in the
Jewish Greek Septuagint. There, in answer to Moses’ question of God at the
burning bush, El’Shad-dai reveals
to Moses His sacred name. Rendering this in English at the point of our
interest, it reads: ‘And The God spoke to Moses, saying, (= ego eimi ho on; I AM THE BEING, LXX); and He said, Thus
shall ye say to the children of Israel, ho On (= The
Being) has sent me to you… This is my name for ever.’ Which part of the whole
phrase ego eimi ho On does God take to be
His name? Is it not ho On and not ego eimi.
Here in Exodus 3:14 ego eimi is emphatic,
meaning “I am… somebody.”
Now, we remember that there is something interesting here in the account
about the burning bush. The Nazarene alludes to it at Matthew 22:32 (see also Mark 12:18-27 and Luke 20:20-26) where Jesus seems to be
referring to someone other than himself when he mentions, ‘He is The God (not
“I am God”), not of the dead, but of the living.’ Additionally, Peter alludes
to Exodus 3:14 at Acts 3:13 and he seems to draw a
clear distinction between ‘The God of Abraham (= Yahweh)… and His
Servant-boy, Jesus.’
We also remember that the dear apostle John himself in the Apocalypse uses ho
On and applies it to someone other than the Lamb. Note Revelation 4:8 and ho
On is the “Lord God Almighty” (the El’Shad-dai of
Exodus 3:14) who sits upon the Throne and to whom the Lamb
approaches to receive the Little Bible.
We also note in the process of checking the ego eimi of
Exodus 3:14 (LXX) that the Greek is slightly different
from the ego eimi of John 8:58. In Exodus it is emphatic and
in John it is not. Our good Christian friend has stressed the emphatic “I am”
and we note that ego eimi is often used
in such cases as “I am the Vine.” Note the emphatic ego eimiIesous (“I am
Jesus”) at Acts 26:15. Or, in the case of the blind man who uses the emphatic
“I am…” at John 9:9. That is, “I am… someone (a blind man).” The Greek
ego eimi is not emphatic in John 8:58, though it is in Exodus 3:14.
In John 8:58 there is no suggestion of “I am… someone.”
It is simply, “I am.” Though this is difficult to render in English, judging
from what has been noted above, if Jesus were quoting Exodus 3:14 (in Greek)
he would not have said ego eimi but
rather ho On. If Jesus had respond to the question of the Jews, ‘Before
Abraham existed ho On’ a plausible argument might be presented
that this is the Nazarene’s quote of Exodus 3:14.
Since it is not, the suggested way to translate this unique case of ego eimi is admitted by A Translator’s Handbook on the
Gospel of John (printed by the United Bible Societies): “In many languages it
is impossible to preserve the expression I am in this type
of context, for the present tense of the verb ‘to be’ would be meaningless.
To make sense, one must say, ‘Before Abraham existed, I existed.’” This being
the case we checked other translations: Lamsa:
I was; Moffatt: I have existed before Abraham;
Beck: I was before Abraham; Williams: I existed before Abraham was
born; New
World:
before Abraham came into existence, I have been. So, it seems many
translators do not render ego eimi as I
AM but in harmony with the context show Jesus’ reply had to do with his
confession of pre-existence, not his divinity.
How do some scholars render the I AM of
John 8:58? Compare more than a dozen. 1869: “From before Abraham
was, I have been.” The New Testament, by G. R. Noyes. 1935: “I existed before
Abraham was born!” The Bible-An American Translation, by J. M. P. Smith and
E. J. Goodspeed. 1965: “Before Abraham was
born, I was already the one that I am.” DasNeue Testament, by Jörg Zink.
1981: “I was alive before Abraham was born!” The Simple English Bible. Moffatt: “I have existed before Abraham was born.” Schonfield and An American Translation: “I existed
before Abraham was born.” Stage (German): “Before Abraham came to be, I
was.” Pfaefflin (German): “Before there
was an Abraham, I was already there!” George M. Lamsa,
translating from the SyriacPeshitta, says: “Before Abraham was born, I was.” Dr.
James Murdock, also translating from the SyriacPeshitto Version, says: “Before Abraham existed, I
was.” The Brazilian Sacred Bible published by the Catholic Bible Center
of São Paulo says: “Before Abraham existed,
I was existing.”-2nd edition, of 1960, BíbliaSagrada, Editora “AVE MARIA” Ltda.
Remember, also, that when Jesus spoke to those Jews, he spoke to them in the
Hebrew of his day, not in Greek. How Jesus said John 8:58 to the Jews is therefore
presented to us in the modern translations by Hebrew scholars who translated
the Greek into the Bible Hebrew, as follows: Dr. Franz Delitzsch: “Before Abraham was, I have been.” Isaac Salkinson and David Ginsburg: “I have been when
there had as yet been no Abraham.” In both of these Hebrew translations the
translators use for the expression “I have been” two Hebrew words, both a
pronoun and a verb, namely, aníhayíthi; they do not use the one Hebrew word: Ehyéh.
JN 8:59 As a consequence, the [Jews]
picked up stones in order
to throw them at Jesus.523 However, Jesus hid and
then left the
Temple area.
The
[Jews] picked up stones in order to throw them at Jesus: They attempted to stone
Jesus, not because he claimed to be Yehowah, but
because he claimed a pre-existence before Abraham as the Son of God.