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NASB | Exodus 3:14 God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM"; and He said, "Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, 'I AM has sent me to you.'" |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Exodus 3:14 God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM"; and He said, "You shall say this to the Israelites, 'I AM has sent me to you.'" |
Bible Question:
Hi Tim You wrote: There isn't any doubt as to what Jesus was doing in this verse. He uses the exact phrase that Jehovah used of Himself in Ex. 3:14, as translated by the LXX. The LXX says in Ex 3:14: (transliterated) Kai apen ha theos prahs Monsan, legon, eigo emi ha On, (And spoke the God toward Moses, saying, I am the Being. Translation provided in the LXX: And God spoke to Moses, sayking, I am THE BEING. Kenneth L. McKay, who graduated with honors in Classics from the Universities of Sydney and Cambridge, taught Greek in universities and theological colleges in Nigeria, New Zealand, and England, who taught at the Australian National University for 26 years, has written numerous articles on ancient Greek syntax, as well as authored a book on Classical Attic, Greek Grammar for Students, and A New Syntax of the Verb in New Testament Greek: an aspectual approach, provides the following in relation to the alleged "true parallel between Exodus 3:14 (LXX) and John 8:58" . And further recommends an author of whom I make mention of by saying, “ I recommend Rolf Furuli's chapter concerning John 8:58 for a through explanation of this point.” ------------------------------------------------------ 'I am' in John's Gospel The Expository Times, 1996, page 302 BY K. L. MCKAY, MA, FORMERLY OF THE AUSTRALIAN UNIVERSITY ------------------------------------------------------- It has become fashionable among some preachers and writers to relate Jesus's use of the words 'I am' in the Gospel according to John, in all, or most, of their contexts, to God's declaration to Moses in Exodus 3:14, and to expound the passages concerned as if the words themselves have some kind of magic in them. Some who have no more than a smattering of Greek attribute the 'magic' to the Greek words egw eimi. [1] I wish briefly to draw attention to the normality of the Greek in all such passages, and the unlikelihood of the words egw eimi being intended to suggest any special significance of this kind. It is, of course, perfectly reasonable to draw attention to Jesus's claims about himself by noting the 'I am' element common to them: 'I am the bread of life' (6:35), 'I am the light of the world' (8:12), 'I am the gate/door' (10:7), 'I am the good shepherd' (10:11), 'I am the resurrection and the life' (11:25), 'I am the way, the truth and the life' (14:6), 'I am the true vine' (15:1). These statements give important insights into the identity and work of Jesus, and we can be challenged to decide whether the words 'I am' in them convey truth, delusion, deceit, or something else. In each case the Greek words used are egw eimi, the pronoun being emphatic (as is usually appropriate in beginning a startling fresh statement, answering a question of identity or personal activity, and in some other circumstances), and the verb, also slightly emphatic, [2] being the normal use of the verb 'to be' as a copula, the means of linking the subject with the significant words, 'bread', 'light', etc., which occur as noun complements. The same principle applies when the complement is an adjective or an adverb or adverbial phrase used adjectivally. With variations of context the degree of emphasis may vary, and either the pronoun or the verb may be omitted. In the parallelism of 8:23 pronoun and verb are separated: humeis ek ton kato este, egw ek ton ano eimi, but in the immediately following parallel statement the introduction of a negative brings the verb forward (thus also giving extra emphasis to toutou): egw ouk eimi ek tou kosmou toutou. In 14:10 the verb is omitted, because it is understood from the rest of the sentence: egw en tw patri kai ho pater en emoi estin. [3] In 14:20 a development from the same statement, also in a hoti clause, omits the copula entirely: egw en tw patri mou kai humeis en emoi kagw en humin. In 10:36 the personal pronoun is not needed for emphasis, and is omitted: huios tou theou eimi. In 7:34 and 7:36 the clause structure demands the postposition of the subject: hopou eimi egw humeis ou dunasthe elthein. (Continued) |
Bible Answer: The Jehovah's Witnesses and John 8:58 'Let's turn to page 467 of the 1969 Greek Interlinear used by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society:. 'The Watchtower's own interlinear translates John 8:58 as "I am" even though in the NWT it renders it as "I have been." In this, they admit that the Greek is indeed, "I am," the present tense. They will not deny this. What they assert is that it should be translated into the English, "I have been." Should it or could it? If it should, then Greek scholars would echo the NWT rendition in the great majority of instances. But they do not. Essentially, the Watchtower organization is saying that all the translations that have "I am" as the rendering are wrong, that the "proper" translation is "I have been." In a footnote at the bottom of page 467 regarding John 8:58 in the NWT is this comment: '"I have been equals ego eimi after the a'orist infinitive clause prin' Abraam genesthai and hence properly rendered in the perfect tense. It is not the same as ho ohn', meaning "The Being" or "The I Am") at Exodus 3:14, LXX" 'The "LXX" is the Septuagint, a Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament. The question is whether or not Jesus was quoting from the LXX or if He was simply translating the Hebrew. Again, Exodus 3:14 says, "And God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM"; and He said, "Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, 'I AM has sent me to you.'" The phrase "I AM WHO I AM" is rendered in the Greek LXX as "Ego eimi ho on." Literally, this is "I am the being one." Most Bibles translate the Hebrew from Exodus 3:14 as "I am" -- the present tense as did the Hebrew translators of the LXX. The LXX also has it in the present tense which is what the Greek syntax states. Jesus uses the present tense in John 8:58. 'In spite of some of the translations regarding John 8:58, I do not believe the NWT's version of John 8:58 is warranted for three reasons: First, it purports to "transmit his [God] thoughts and declarations as accurately as possible."1 I do not believe this is the case at all. Rather, I see the Watchtower's bias against Jesus' divinity overtaking this verse and altering it as it has done in other verses such as Heb. 1:8 and Col. 1:15-17. Second, the most literal translations such as the NASB, the NIV, and the KJV do not render this verse as "I have been" but as "I AM." And, third, the context of the verse does not support the JW position. (...) 'If Jesus wanted to avoid any confusion with the Pharisees, why didn't He use one of the past tenses? Certainly he must have known that saying "Before Abraham was, I am" to the Pharisees would cause some problems. And it did. The aorist (I was), the perfect (I have been), and the pluperfect (I had been) all deal with the past, yet Jesus chose to deliberately use the present tense "I am." He used a past tense verb when describing Abraham ("before Abraham was..."), but a present tense verb when describing Himself ("I am"). He deliberately brought attention to the words, "I am." The Pharisees understood this and was indeed the last straw for them. 'Conclusion 'The Jehovah's Witnesses have spent a great deal of time developing and crafting linguistic arguments to favor their translation of John 8:58. Wading through their arguments dealing with Greek tenses, verb forms, and grammar rules is beyond the scope of this paper. However, it is sufficient to mention that the Jehovah's Witnesses have a theological bias against the deity of Christ. Their translation of John 8:58 and their attempts to justify this translation are directly related to their presuppositions against Christ and his deity. 'The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society teaches its members to deny the deity of Christ. From this base, any and all affirmations to Jesus' deity will be undermined in whatever way possible. John 8:58 is just another example of this bias.' ___________ 1 New World Translation, 1961, page 5. 2 I should note that, most probably Jesus spoke to the Pharisees in Aramaic, a Hebrew Dialect. It is possible He spoke to them in Greek. But, since all we have is the NT Greek and no Aramaic writings of the NT, we must work from what the Greek says. WE WorldWide English Bible YLT Young's Literal Translation KJ21 21st Century King James Version CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS and RESEARCH MINISTRY (To read the entire article, go to: http://www.carm.org/jw/john8_58.htm) |