You should also read these verses to understand what the above means: I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am [he], ye shall die in your sins...Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am... And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you. (John 8:24,58; Exod 3:14)
You still have not figured out that the Son of God is I AM = God. But it is right there before the whole world. And those who will not believe this shall die in their sins.
At John 8:58 several famous scholars translated this scripture into Hebrew as follows:
Dr. Franz Delitzsch: “Before Abraham was, I have been." Isaac Salkinson and David Ginsburg: “I have been when there had as yet been no Abraham." In both of these Hebrew translations the translators use for the expression “I have been” two Hebrew words, both a pronoun and a verb, namely,
aní hayíthi; they do not use the one Hebrew word:
Ehyéh which is used at Exodus 3:14 So they do not make out that in
John 8:58Jesus was trying to imitate Jehovah God and give us the impression that he himself was Jehovah, the I AM.
In what language did John write his life account of Jesus Christ? In the Greek language, not in Hebrew; and in the Greek text the controversial expression is
Egó eimí. Just by itself, without any introductory material ahead of it,
Egó eimí means “I am.” Now this expression
Egó eimí occurs also in
John 8:24,28; and in those verses the
Authorized or
King James Version and the
Douay Version and others render the expression into English as “I am he,” the pronoun
he being put in italics to indicate that the pronoun
he is added or inserted.
(AV; AS; Yg) But here, in
John 8:58, those versions do not render this same expression as “I am he,” but only as “I am.” They evidently want to give us the idea that Jesus was not simply referring to his existence but also giving himself a title that belongs to Jehovah God in imitation of
Exodus 3:14.
When writing
John 8:58, the apostle was not quoting from the Greek
Septuagint Version, a translation of the Hebrew Scriptures made by Greek-speaking Jews of Alexandria, Egypt, before the birth of Christ. Let anyone who reads Greek compare
John 8:58 in Greek and
Exodus 3:14 in the Greek
Septuagint, and he will find that the
Septuagint reading of
Exodus 3:14 does not use the expression
Egó eimí for God’s name, when God says to Moses: “I AM hath sent me unto you.” The Greek
Septuagint uses the expression
ho Ōn, which means “The Being,” or, “The One who is.” This fact is clearly presented to us in Bagster’s translation of the Greek
Septuagint, at
Exodus 3:14, which reads: “And God spoke to Moses, saying, I am THE BEING [
ho Ōn]; and he said, Thus shall ye say to the children of Israel, THE BEING [
ho Ōn] has sent me to you.” According to Charles Thomson’s translation of the Greek
Septuagint, Exodus 3:14 reads: “God spoke to Moses saying, I am
The I Am [
ho Ōn]. Moreover he said, Thus shalt thou say to the children of Israel, The
I Am [
ho Ōn] hath sent me to you.Thus this comparison of the two Greek texts, that of the
Septuagint and that of
John 8:58, removes all basis for trinitarians to argue that Jesus, in
John 8:58, was trying to fit
Exodus 3:14 to himself, as if he was Jehovah God.
O yes, the Greek expression
ho Ōn does occur in the apostle John’s writings. It occurs in the Greek text of
John 1:18; 3:13 (
AV; Yg)
, John 3:31; 6:40; 8:47; 12:17; 18:37, but not as a title or name. So in four of those verses it applies, not to Jesus, but to other persons. However, in the Revelation or Apocalypse the apostle John does use the expression
ho Ōn as a title or designation five times, namely, in
Revelation 1:4, 8; 4:8; 11:17; 16:5. But in all five cases the expression
ho Ōn is applied to Jehovah God the Almighty, and not to the Lamb of God, the Word of God.
For example,
Revelation 1:4, 8 (
AV) reads: “John to the seven churches which are in Asia: Grace be unto you, and peace, from him which is [
ho ōn], and which was, and which is to come; and from the seven Spirits which are before his throne.” “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is [
ho ōn], and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.”
Revelation 4:8 applies
ho ōn to the Lord God Almighty on his heavenly throne, and
Revelation 5:6, 7 shows that the Lamb of God comes to him later on.
Revelation 11:17 applies
ho ōn to the Lord God Almighty when he takes power to rule as King.
Revelation 16:5 applies
ho ōn to the Lord God when he acts as Judge. Hence
John 8:58 fails the clergy as proof of there being a “triune God,” for in that verse, as well translated by Dr. James Moffatt,
An American Translation, and others, Jesus was saying merely that he had had a prehuman existence in heaven with his Father and that this prehuman existence began before Abraham was born.
