John 8:58

Steven Craig Miller scmiller at www.plantnet.com
Fri Dec 24 09:04:16 EST 1999


To: George Goolde,

<< The passage *at least* means that "before Abraham was, I am" >>

I personally think it should be translated as "before Abraham was, I am he"

SCM: << One could just as easily interpret this passage to mean (something 
like): "before Abraham was, I was appointed to this task" ... >>

GG: << But the context is not discussing "this task." The context is 
discussing the relative age of Abraham and Jesus. This is explicit in verse 
57. It seems to me that to change this thrust requires reading into the 
text. To supply an implied predicate requires that the predicate has been 
previously introduced in the context. No such predicate appears in this 
context, only the discussion of the time. >>

You seem to be suggesting that the conflict between Jesus and his opponents 
in John is no longer about Jesus' religious mission, but rather the 
conflict is merely a discussion about his age. One can almost hear them 
saying: "Well, Jesus, you sure do look fit for someone over two thousand 
years of age. How do you keep yourself looking so young?"

GG: << Of course, as I said before, our interpretations at this point are 
undoubtedly influenced by theological presuppositions, but looking at the 
Greek text alone I think Carl hit the nail on the head when he pointed out 
that there is a certain paradoxical sense that is being clearly portrayed 
here. The translation "My existence antedates the birth of Abraham" seems 
to be the simple, and dare I say the obvious, point of the passage. >>

How could "my existence antedates the birth of Abraham" be the obvious 
understanding of this passage? Why, they could just look at Jesus and see 
that he wasn't that old, yes? (To echo your own words: "This is explicit in 
verse 57. It seems to me that to change this thrust requires reading into 
the text.")

When I read scripture I try to visualize the situation of the story. What 
we have here is a Galilean preacher, a religious leader with disciples, and 
he is confronted by a hostile religious opposition. They claim that Jesus 
is a "Samaritan" and demon possessed (Jn 8:48). Jesus denies that he is 
demon possessed, and claims (like the "Blues Brothers") that he is on a 
mission from God and that whoever "keeps his word" will not die. And then 
they ask Jesus: "Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died? The 
prophets also died. Who do you claim to be?" (Jn 8:53 NRSV). Jesus goes on 
to claim (a claim which no doubt appeared to them as a boast) that "Abraham 
rejoiced that he would see my day; he saw it and was glad" (Jn 8:56 NRSV). 
Jesus' opponents retort: (I paraphrase) "You don't even look fifty years 
old, how do you know what Abraham thought?" And this is when the Johannine 
Jesus utters this famous line: AMHN AMHN LEGW hUMIN, PRIN ABRAAM GENESQAE 
EGW EIMI "Amen amen, I say to you, before Abraham was, I was he" (Jn 8:58 MOT).

My suggestion here is that the whole debate is about Jesus' religious 
mission. Now you seem to want to suggest that the whole debate is about 
nothing more than his age.

<< Theology aside, I have difficulty finding such an "equal weight" in this 
passage. I would personally estimate that to set aside what appears to be a 
"heavy weight on one side" of the Greek text would require a theological 
imposition. >>

I would totally agree with that, perhaps not with the conclusion you had in 
mind, but nonetheless I feel the same way. If one tries to look at this 
Greek text without importing one's theological presuppositions (as much as 
possible) and tries to understand the Greek grammar of this text within the 
context of the story which John is telling, it seems to me that the most 
obvious interpretation of this passage is that Jesus is claiming "I am he," 
that is, that Jesus was appointed for this task even before Abraham was born.

You appear to suggest that these words "EGW EIMI" would imply that Jesus 
was over two thousand years of age. And yet the context of the story 
clearly shows that Jesus didn't look to be fifty years old. Put yourself in 
the sandals of Jesus' opponents for a moment. They are hearing these words 
for the first time. It seems to me that the most natural interpretation is 
that these words merely claim that Jesus had been appointed for this 
religious task.

Of course, a historical visualization of this story might be further 
complicated by the fact that the historical Jesus most likely spoke in 
Aramaic and not Greek, so that if one assumes historicity, these words EGW 
EIMI might be merely a translation from what Jesus was thought to have 
said. But no matter how one looks at it, surely the author of this 
Johannine gospel is trying to tell us something about Jesus. (I would 
assume that at least that much we both would agree to be correct.) Then the 
question is: What is John trying to tell us about Jesus? Your suggestion 
seems to be that this author wanted us to believe that Jesus was over 2,000 
years old (although he didn't look even 50 years old). If this is so, why 
is the tense of EIMI present tense? Surely that is not the most natural way 
in Greek to express such an idea.

 From my point of view, there is only one natural interpretation of the 
Greek grammar of this passage. The phrase EGW EIMI is a common Greek 
phrase, in both classical Greek (for example one can find it in Plato's 
dialogues) and in the NT (as well as the LXX) as simply meaning "I am he" 
(assuming a male speaker, or "I am she" for a female speaker, or one could 
translate it as "I am the one"). Given this fundamental grammatical fact, 
this Greek passage should be translated as: "before Abraham was, I am he." 
And the most natural interpretation of this passage IMO is that the 
Johannine Jesus was simply claiming that before Abraham was, Jesus had been 
appointed to his religious task and thus (Jesus says) "I am he"!

After Jesus says these words, the Johannine gospels tells us that his 
opponents wanted to kill Jesus. Why? Could they want to kill Jesus merely 
because Jesus thought he was over 2,000 years old? I think not, if anything 
that would probably make them fall down laughing. But that Jesus thought 
that he was on a mission from God, that Jesus was claiming that he had been 
appointed for this task even before Abraham, that Jesus was claiming to 
usurp their own authority, that might have motivated them to want to kill 
Jesus, because religious authority was an important issue in 1st century 
Judaism. That Jesus was merely claiming to be over twice as old as 
Methuselah is hardly an issue worth fighting over.

-Steven Craig Miller
Alton, Illinois (USA)
scmiller at www.plantnet.com
Disclaimer: "I'm just a simple house-husband (with no post-grad degree), 
what do I know?"




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