"Before Abraham was born, I am." (John 8:58)

For all my fellow Christian "Bible nerds" out there, recently someone asked me about Jesus' use of certain "I am" statements in the Gospel accounts. My effort to respond resulted in some thoughts about the relationship between the OT and the NT, ancient translations and the interplay between biblical Hebrew, Koine Greek and spoken Aramaic. Such a simple phrase in Greek - ἐγώ εἰμι - so many possibilities and so many implications.

Part 1 - My initial response...

The phrase "ἐγώ εἰμι” is found 38 times in the gospel accounts. How it is best understood and thus translated depends on the context and the interpretation of the translators. In Mark 6:50, I think the choice that all the translations I am aware of, “It is I” while not a literal translation, is probably the sense. He’s not trying in the context (IMO) to declare his divinity, but rather letting his disciples know that the one approaching them on the water was not a ghost, but it was he, that is the living, breathing, person they knew…Jesus. A literal (i.e., word for word) translation is not always the best translation. Even in Mark 14:62, I don’t think Jesus is trying to usurp the Greek form of the Hebrew YHWH, but rather he’s answering, directly, their question, “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?” He responds by saying, “I am (i.e., the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?” Without further study, I think the use of "ἐγώ εἰμι” to obviously cause people to recall Exodus 3:14 is found only in a few passages, and maybe even only one e.g., John 8:58. My opinion.

Part 2 - My follow up response...

One other thing I’d say is that the Greek version of Exodus 3:14-15 is quite confusing to me.

וַיֹּ֤אמֶר אֱלֹהִים֙ אֶל־מֹשֶׁ֔ה אֶֽהְיֶ֖ה אֲשֶׁ֣ר אֶֽהְיֶ֑ה וַיֹּ֗אמֶר כֹּ֤ה תֹאמַר֙ לִבְנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל אֶֽהְיֶ֖ה שְׁלָחַ֥נִי אֲלֵיכֶֽם, I think, literally translates as “And God said to Moses, I am who I am. So say to the sons of Israel, ‘I am sent me to you.’” Translators and biblical scholars disagree as to how best to translate אֶֽהְיֶ֖ה (I am or I will be?).

The Greek translation of the Hebrew text reads: καὶ εἶπεν ὁ θεὸς πρὸς Μωυσῆν Ἐγώ εἰμι ὁ ὤν· καὶ εἶπεν Οὕτως ἐρεῖς τοῖς υἱοῖς Ισραηλ Ὁ ὢν ἀπέσταλκέν με πρὸς ὑμᾶς., which literally translates something like, “And God said to Moses, “I am the one who is. And thus speak to the sons of Israel, ‘The one who is has sent me to you.”

When it comes to the name, “Yahweh” (יְהוָ֞ה), the Greek translation always (as far as I know) uses “Lord” (κύριος), which is the very common term meaning “lord, master, sir, etc.”.

So when it comes to the Greek New Testament (John 8:58, etc.), Jesus says "ἐγὼ εἰμί” (I am), whereas God told Moses to tell the Israelites, "Ὁ ὢν” (the one who is). It is my opinion that it wasn’t only that Jesus said “I am”, but rather that he said “before Abraham was born, I am”. So, while it might have been his effort to connect “I am” to “the one who is”, I think it wasn’t just that which set off the Jews, but rather that he was claiming pre-existence, i.e., his eternal existence.

Also, note the parallelism of Exodus 3:14-15.

• (v. 14) “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I am has sent me to you.’ ” 
• (v. 15) “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘Yahweh, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’" 

Thus the author of Exodus quotes God as equating “I am” with “Yahweh, the God of your ancestors”. In the Greek translation, Ὁ ὢν is equated with "Κύριος ὁ θεὸς τῶν πατέρων ὑμῶν”

I realized as I was responding to this question that this is a complex issue as we’re dealing with two languages, both ancient, both dead. Plus, if you understand that the Jews of the first century spoke to each other in Aramaic, then our Greek NT quotations of Jesus are not direct quotations, but translations. So now you’ve got three languages involved.

For me, then, the most convincing reasons to believe that Jesus’ statement in John 8:58 is to be understood as the evangelist's claim of Jesus' divinity is how he reports the Jews' reaction, "So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple” (v. 59). Compare that response to John 10:30–32, "The Father and I are one.” The Jews took up stones again to stone him. Jesus replied, “I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these are you going to stone me?” The Jews answered, “It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you, but for blasphemy, because you, though only a human being, are making yourself God.” In John 8, the evangelist records that the Jews picked up stones to throw at him because they understood him to be making himself to be God.