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Results from: Answered Bible Questions, Answers, Unanswered Bible Questions, Notes Ordered by Verse | ||||||
Results | Verse | Author | ID# | |||
1 | Exodus 3:14 connected to John 8:58? | Ex 3:14 | Truthfinder | 76078 | ||
Part 2 Although the natural English translations differ, there are two contexts of this kind in which Jesus uses the words egw eimi alone to identify himself: in 6:20, where the disciples are afraid of the apparition they see walking on the water, and Jesus reassures them by identifying himself, quite naturally, with these words, which translate into English as 'It is I'; and in 18:5, while Jesus acknowledges that he is Jesus of Nazareth by speaking the same words, which are naturally translated into English as 'I am he'. The syntactic difference between them is that in the former egw is the complement, the unexpressed subject being something equivalent to 'what you see', and in the latter egw is the subject, the unexpressed complement being 'Jesus of Nazareth'. In both these passages egw eimi is the natural Greek response [4] in the circumstances, as may be seen in 9:9, where the man cured of blindness uses exactly the same words to acknowledge his identity. The dramatic reaction of the arresting party in 18:6 is readily explained if we note that the confident authority of Jesus's presence was such that he defeated the merchants in the temple (2:15), and he simply walked away when the crowd was intent on throwing him over the brow of the hill near Nazareth (Luke 4:28-30). The verb 'to be' is used differently, in what is presumably its basic meaning of 'be in existence', in John 8:58: prin Abraam genesthai egw eimi, [5] which would be most naturally translated 'I have been in existence since before Abraham was born', [6] if it were not for the obsession with the simple words 'I am'. If we take the Greek words in their natural meaning, as we surely should, the claim to have been in existence for so long is in itself a staggering one, quite enough to provoke the crowd's violent reaction. For the emphasis on the words 'I am' we need to look back to God's words to Moses in Exodus 3:14, 'I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: "I am has sent me to you".' The passage in its Hebrew form has been discussed by many commentators as something of a problem, with possibilities that the verb could mean 'I am', 'I will be', 'I become', or 'I will become', and the pronoun 'that', 'who', 'what', or even 'because'. Some see a need to emend the text, and some stress various critical principles as basic to its interpretation. A few refer to the Septuagint translation of the passage as relevant for understanding it. [7] (continued) Truthfinder |
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2 | Exodus 3:14 connected to John 8:58? | Ex 3:14 | Truthfinder | 76079 | ||
(part 3)Now the Septuagint was the translation done for the benefit of the increasing number of Greek-speaking Jews a couple of centuries earlier, so naturally it is the version of the Old Testament that is normally referred to in the New Testament, and certainly the one most likely to be known to the early readers of John's Gospel. Its translation of Exodus 3:14 follows the sense (as understood by the Jewish translators) rather than the exact form of the Hebrew: egw eimi ho wn ... Ho wn apestalke me, which translates into English literally as 'I am the being one',' [8] and 'the being one has sent me'. Now the words egw eimi here are the emphatic pronoun and the copula as in most of the passages cited above; and ho an represents a relative clause which in its first occurrence would be hos eimi and in its second occurrence would be hos esti, [9] but the most natural translation into English of both would be 'the one who is (who really exists)',' [10] the verb having its basic meaning (and being so accented), and not being a mere copula In neither is there any possibility of inserting an emphatic egw. So the emphatic words used by Jesus in the passages referred to above are perfectly natural in their contexts, and they do not echo the words of Exodus 3:14 in the normally quoted Greek version. Thus they are quite unlikely to have been used in the New Testament to convey that significance, however much the modern English versions of the relevant passages, following the form of the Hebrew words, may suggest it. ------------------------------------------------------- Footnotes: [1] I have seen one such speaker try to impress his audience by writing the words on a blackboard, only to demonstrate that he was ignorant of even the simplest details of Greek. [2] Its position is unemphatic, but the degree of emphasis could be reduced by its omission, which would make no difference to the meaning. The omission of the copula is quite common in Greek, especially, but not exclusively, in the third person. [3] The fact that this is a reported statement, in a hoti clause, does not affect the grammar, but only the degree of emphasis. [4] In translation, if as is likely, the original reply was the equivalent in Aramaic. [5] Note that with this meaning the verb is differently accented in Greek ( E)GW\ E)MI/ instead of E)GW E)IMI ). [6] For the construction see K. L. McKay, A New Syntax of the Verb in New Testament Greek: An aspectual approach (Peter Lang, 1994), 4.2.4. [7] For extensive modern discussion of the problems of interpretation see Brevard S. Childs, Exodus: A Commentary (OTL, SCM, 1974) and John 1. Durham, Exodus (WBC 3, Word, 1987). See also Martin Noth, Exodus (OTL, SCM, 2nd ed. 1966); U. Cassuto, Commentary on the Book of Exodus (Magnes Press), 1. P. Hyatt, Exodus (NCB, Oliphants, 1971); Alan Cole, Exodus (TC, IVP, 1973); J. W. Wevers, Notes on the Greek Text of Exodus (Scholars Press, 1990). [8] As Noth mentions in a footnote. [9] Cf. the Vulgate translation of 14b: Qui est misit me ad vos. [10] English has lost the full range of inflections, and the relative pronoun is now treated as if it were always third person. Truthfinder |
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