351 Bible 22 – Did Jesus Claim to Be the I AM? (Translating John 8.58)

Did Jesus claim to be “The Great I AM” in John 8.58?  If not, what was he saying?  In this episode we examine the alleged parallel passage in Exodus where God reveals his name to Moses at the burning bush.  Next, we’ll explore texts with the same Greek construction that Jesus used in an effort to sniff out bias.  In the end we’ll see there are three viable possibilities for translating John 8.58, the least likely of which is what we find in most translations.

—— Books ——

• The First Testament by John Goldingay
• The Hebrew Bible by Robert Alter
• The Schocken Bible by Everett Fox
• A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd Edition (BDAG)
• Greek Grammar by Herbert Weir Smyth (see rule 1885)
• A Greek Grammar of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature by F. Blass, A. Debrunner, and Robert Funk (see rule 322, note the typo John 5.58 should be John 8.58)
• Truth in Translation by Jason David BeDuhn

—— Links ——

• Did Jesus Claim to be the “I Am” in John 8.58? by Victor Gluckin (audio sermon)
• Explanation of John 8.58 by John Schoenheit (from One God & One Lord)
• John 8.58 by Steve Katsaras (audio sermon)
• Debate: Patrick Navas vs. James White on Chris Date’s Theopologetics Podcast (part 2 addresses the “I am” statements in John)
• Check out all the lectures in How We Got the Bible
• See what other classes are available here or on the Restitutio Classes podcast (subscribe in Apple, Spotify, RSS feed)
• If you’d like to support Restitutio, you can donate here.
• Intro music: Good Vibes by MBB Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0) Free Download / Stream: Music promoted by Audio Library