[B-Greek] EGW EIMI in John 8:58

Iver Larsen iver_larsen at sil.org
Wed Mar 17 11:59:26 EST 2004


>
> Dear Friends, re: EGW EIMI. I understand that EGW is a first
> person singular pronoun meaning "I", and that EIMI is the first
> person singular present indicative which means "I am". I was just
> wondering why John 8:58 (also 8:24 et al) uses EGW EIMI,
> literally,  "I, I am" instead of simply EIMI, "I am". Is EGW used
> for the sake of emphasis? Many thanks.
>
> Tony Costa
> Toronto, Canada

Normally the use of EGW indicates emphasis, especially if it is fronted.
However, in John's gospel this is not necessarily the case. John uses a
Semitic flavoured Greek which does not always follow normal conventions.

To illustrate this, here is a list of occurrences of EGW in the four
gospels:

Matthew: 28 times
Mark: 16 times
Luke: 21 times
John: 132 times (about 20 would have been a "normal" distribution, based on
the length of the books)

In my opinion, the context of John 8:58 and 8:24 does not support any
particular emphasis on EGW.

Iver Larsen





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