CARM: The Jehovah's Witnesses and John 8:58
"Jesus said to them: "Most truly I say to you, Before Abraham came into existence,
I have been" (New World Translation).
The Jehovah's Witnesses deny that Jesus is God. So, when it comes to translating and interpreting Bible verses that show the deity of Jesus, the JW's will go to great lengths to support their false presupposition. Sometimes they will even translate verses in a way that is not consistent with biblical grammar and context. In the Jehovah's Witness Bible, known as the New World Translation (NWT), John 8:58 is a verse that they have translated in a manner deliberately consistent with their theology. Following is the verse in context from the NASB.
In John 8:56-59 says, "'Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad.' 57The Jews therefore said to Him, 'You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?' 58Jesus said to them, 'Truly truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am.' 59Therefore they picked up stones to throw at Him; but Jesus hid Himself, and went out of the temple." (All Bible quotes are from the NASB)

Reply: Did you know that the 1960, 1973 NASB also has "I have been" as a variant reading in the margin.

If the NASB translators accepted the NWT rendering, perhaps their work is not consistent with "biblical grammar and context" either.
In fact, there are quite a few more, and some of them are literal translations:
The Living New Testament: "The absolute truth
is that I was in existence before Abraham was
ever born."
The 20th Century New Testament: "before Abraham
existed I was."
Noyes, G.R. N.T. (1878)
_Jesus said to them, _truly, truly do I say to you, from before Abraham
was, I have been.__
Hanson, J.W. New Covenant (1884)
_Jesus said to them, _truly, truly, I say to you, I am before Abraham was
born.__
Kraeling, E.G. Four Gospels (1962)
_With another amen-saying, Jesus declares to them that before
Abraham was, He (Jesus) is (hint of His preexistence) ._
Parker, P.G. Clarified N.T._Jesus answered, before Abraham existed, I existed._
Cotton Patch Version (1970)
_To this Jesus replied, _I existed before Abraham was born.__
Ledyard, G.H. New Life Testament (1969)
_Jesus said to them, _for sure I tell you, before Abraham was born, I
was and sum and always will be._,,
Dr. E.C. Dymond N.T. (1972)
__Yes, indeed!; said Jesus: _He saw me in prospect. The fact is, that
long before Abraham was conceived in his mother_s womb, that
individual who I now am had been conceived in God_s mind: He had
completed the plan and specifications, so to speak, and therefore He
was able to give Abraham a mental preview of me__.
Good News for the World (1969)
_Jesus answer, _I tell you the truth. I already was before Abraham was
born.__
The New Testament, An American Translation
Goodspeed: "I tell you I existed before Abraham
was born."
The Complete Bible, An American Translation
Goodspeed: "I tell you I existed before Abraham
was born."
New Believers Bible, New Living Translation:
"I existed before Abraham was even born."
The New Testament, C. B. Williams: "I solemnly
say to you, I existed before Abraham was born."
The Book, New Testament: The absolute truth is
that I was in existence before Abraham was ever born."
The Living Bible: "I was in existence before Abraham
was ever born."
Lattimore: "Truly, truly I tell
you, I am from before Abraham was born."
The New Testament, From the Peshitta Text,
Lamsa: "Before Abraham was born, I was."
An American Translation, In The Language of
Today, Beck: "I was before Abraham."
New Testament Contemporary English Version:
"I tell you.that even before Abraham was, I was,
and I am."
The Unvarnished New Testament: "Before
Abraham was born, I have already been."
The New Testament, Kleist & Lilly: "I am here-and
I was before Abraham."
The New Testament in the Language of the People,
Williams: "I existed before Abraham was born."
The New Testament, Noyes: "From before Abraham
was, I have been."
A Translation of the Four Gospels, Lewis: "Before
Abraham was, I have been."
Wakefield, G. N.T. (1795)
_Jesus said unto them: Verily verily I say unto you, before Abraham
was born, I am He._
The Syriac New Testament, Murdock: "Before
Abraham existed I was."
The Curetonian Version of the Four Gospels,
Burkitt& The Old Georgian Version of the Gospel of John,
Blake & Briere "Before Abraham came to be, I was."
The New Testament Or Rather the New Covenant,
Sharpe: "I was before Abraham was born."
The 20th Century New Testament 1904: "Before
Abraham existed I was already what I am."
The New Testament, Stage: "Before Abraham
came to be, I was."
International Bible Translators 1981
_Jesus said to them, _I am telling the truth: I was alive before Abraham
was born!__
The Coptic Version the New Testament in the
Southern Dialect, Horner: "Before Abraham became,
I, I am being."
The Documents of the New Testament, Wade:
"Before Abraham came into being, I have existed."
Noli, M.F.S. N.T. (1961)
_Jesus answered them: _Well, well, I tell you, I existed before Abraham
was born.__
The Concise Gospel and The acts, Christianson:
"I existed even before Abraham was born."
A Translators Handbook to the Gospel of John, Nida:
"Before Abraham existed, I existed, or.I have existed."
The Simple English Bible: "I was alive before
Abraham was born."
The Original New Testament, Schonfield: "I tell you
for a positive fact, I existed before Abraham was born."
The Complete Gospels Annotated Scholars Version,
Miller: "I existed before there was an Abraham."
Swann, G. N.T. (1947)
Jesus said to them, verily, verily I say unto you, I existed before
Abraham was born_
International English Version (2001)
"I was alive before Abraham was born"

CARM: Grammatically, their version is the 'perfect tense.' By contrast, the past tense would be "I was." The future tense would be "I will be." The present tense would be, "I am."

CARM: But the NWT does not prefer the present tense because it is too close to the divine title of God found in Exodus 3:14 where God says to Moses, "I AM." And since the Watchtower Organization erringly teaches that Jesus is not God in flesh, it must alter its Bible to support its theological bias.
…The NASB, for example, is intended to be as literal as possible as does the KJV which both translate the verse as "I AM." Take Young's Literal Translation as another example. In John 8:58 it states, ". . . Before Abraham's coming -- I am."

 In spite of some of the translations regarding John 8:58, I do not believe the NWT's version of John 8:58 is warranted for three reasons: First, it purports to "transmit his [God] thoughts and declarations as accurately as possible."1 I do not believe this is the case. Rather, I see the Watchtower's bias against Jesus' divinity overtaking this verse and altering it as it has done in other verses such as Heb. 1:8 and Col. 1:15-17. Second, the most literal translations such as the NASB, the NIV, and the KJV do not render this verse as "I have been" but as "I AM."

And, third, if you look at the context of John 8:56-59 it says,
"'Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad.' 57The Jews therefore said to Him, 'You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?' 58Jesus said to them, 'Truly truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am.' 59Therefore they picked up stones to throw at Him; but Jesus hid Himself, and went out of the temple."
If Jesus were really saying to the Jews, "I have been," then why would the Pharisees want to kill him (v. 59)? Since blasphemy, or calling yourself God, was punishable by death, isn't this a confirmation that Jesus was saying "I am" and that the Jew's understood what he was saying? Absolutely! That is why the best translation is simply, "I am."2  I also need to mention that in Mark 14:62, where Jesus answered the High Priest who said, "Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed? 62And Jesus said, I am: and ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven. 63Then the high priest rent his clothes, and saith, What need we any further witnesses? 64Ye have heard the blasphemy. . ." Jesus responded with "I am" which provoked the authorities and prompted them to seek death. This is particularly revealing when we compare John 10:34 where the Pharisees want to kill Jesus because they said He was making Himself equal to God. The phrase, "I AM" in these contexts would surely imply that.

Also, note that Jesus said, "Before Abraham was..." Abraham came before Moses and it was to Moses that God said, "I AM..." The Jews knew that when Jesus said, "I AM," particularly in the context of saying "Before Abraham...", that Jesus was identifying Himself as the One at the burning bush. That is why they wanted to kill Him, because He was identifying Himself as the divine "I AM."

The Septuagint
A final note: Around 250 B.C., the Hebrew Old Testament was translated into the Greek. This translation is called the Septuagint which is also known by the letters LXX. The Jews often used the LXX. In John 8:58, Jesus was most probably quoting the LXX in Exodus 3:14 where Moses was at the burning bush and asked God what His name was. God answered and said, "Ego eimi ho on." Translated this literally from the Greek LXX we get, "I am the Being One." Most Bibles translate the Hebrew from Exodus 3:14 as "I am" -- the present tense. The LXX also has it in the present tense. Jesus uses the present tense in John 8:58.

              John's Gospel," Expository Times (1996): 302-303)

              'I am' in John's Gospel

              BY K. L. MCKAY, MA, FORMERLY OF THE AUSTRALIAN UNIVERSITY

              It has become fashionable among some preachers and writers to relate Jesus's
              use of the words 'I am' in the Gospel according to John, in all, or most, of
              their contexts, to God's declaration to MOSES in Exodus 3:14, and to expound
              the passages concerned as if the words themselves have some kind of magic in
              them. Some who have no more than a smattering of Greek attribute the 'magic'
              to the Greek words ego eimi.1 I wish briefly to draw attention to the
              normality of the Greek in all such passages, and the unlikelihood of the
              words ego eimi being intended to suggest any special significance of this
              kind.

              It is, of course, perfectly reasonable to draw attention to Jesus's claims
              about himself by noting the 'I am' element common to them: 'I am the bread
              of life' (6:35), 'I am the light of the world' (8:12), 'I am the gate/door'
              (10:7), 'I am the good shepherd' (10:11), 'I am the resurrection and the
              life' (11:25), 'I am the way, the truth and the life' (14:6), 'I am the true
              vine' (15:1). These statements give important insights into the identity and
              work of Jesus, and we can be challenged to decide whether the words 'I am'
              in them convey truth, delusion, deceit, or something else. In each case the
              Greek words used are ego eimi, the pronoun being emphatic (as is usually
              appropriate in beginning a startling fresh statement, answering a question
              of identity or personal activity, and in some other circumstances), and the
              verb, also slightly emphatic,2 being the normal use of the verb 'to be' as a
              copula, the means of linking the subject with the significant words,
              'bread', 'light', etc., which occur as noun complements.The same principle
              applies when the complement is an adjective or an adverb or adverbial phrase
              used adjectivally.

              With variations of context the degree of emphasis may vary, and either the
              pronoun or the verb may be omitted. In the parallelism of 8:23 pronoun and
              verb are separated: humeis ek ton kato este, ego ek ton ano eimi, but in the
              immediately following parallel statement the introduction of a negative
              brings the verb forward (thus also giving extra emphasis to toutou): ego ouk
              eimi ek tou kosmou toutou. In 14:10 the verb is omitted, because it is
              understood from the rest of the sentence: ego en to (i) patri kai ho pater
              en emoi estin.3 In 14:20 a development from the same statement, also in a
              hoti clause, omits the copula entirely: ego en to(i) patri mou kai humeis en
              emoi kago en humin In 10:36 the personal pronoun is not needed for emphasis,
              and is omitted: huios tou theou eimi. In 7:34 and 7:36 the clause structure
              demands the postposition of the subject: hopou eimi ego humeis ou dunasthe
              elthein.

              Although the natural English translations differ, there are two contexts of
              this kind in which Jesus uses the words ego eimi alone to identify himself:
              in 6:20, where the disciples are afraid of the apparition they see walking
              on the water, and Jesus reassures them by identifying himself, quite
              naturally, with these words, which translate into English as 'It is 1'; and
              in 18:5, whale Jesus acknowledges that he is Jesus of Nazareth by speaking
              the same words, which are naturally translated into English as 'I am he'.
              The syntactic difference between them is that in the former ego is the
              complement, the unexpressed subject being something equivalent to 'what you
              see', and in the latter ego is the subject, the unexpressed complement being
              'Jesus of Nazareth'. In both these passages ego eimi is the natural Greek
              response in the circumstances, as may be seen in 9:9, where the man cured of
              blindness uses exactly the same words to acknowledge his identity.

              The dramatic reaction of the arresting party in 18:6 is readily explained if
              we note that the confident authority of Jesus's presence was such that he
              defeated the merchants in the temple (2:15), and he simply walked away when
              the crowd was intent on throwing him over the brow of the hill near Nazareth
              (Luke 4:28-30).

              The verb 'to be' is used differently, in what is presumably its basic
              meaning of 'be in existence', in John 8:58: prin Abraam genesthai ego eimi,5
              which would be most naturally translated 'I have been in existence since
              before Abraham was born',6 if it were not for the obsession with the simple
              words 'I am'. If we take the Greek words in their natural meaning, as we
              surely should, the claim to have been in existence for so long is in itself
              a staggering one, quite enough to provoke the crowd's violent reaction.

              For the emphasis on the words 'I am' we need to look back to God's words to
              Moses in Exodus 3:14, 'I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the
              Israelites: "I am has sent me to you".' The passage in its Hebrew form has
              been discussed by many commentators as something of a problem, with
              possibilities that the verb could mean 'I am', 'I will be', 'I become', or
              'I will become', and the pronoun 'that', 'who', 'what', or even 'because'.
              Some see a need to emend the text, and some stress various critical
              principles as basic to its interpretation. A few refer to the Septuagint
              translation of the passage as relevant for understanding it.7

              Now the Septuagint was the translation done for the benefit of the
              increasing number of Greek-speaking Jews a couple of centuries earlier, so
              naturally it is the version of the Old Testament that is normally referred
              to in the New Testament, and certainly the one most likely to be known to
              the early readers of John's Gospel. Its translation of Exodus 3:14 follows
              the sense (as understood by the Jewish translators) rather than the exact
              form of the Hebrew: ego eimi ho an ... Ho an apestalke me, which translates
              into English literally as 'I am the being one',' and 'the being one has sent
              me'. Now the words ego eimi here are the emphatic pronoun and the copula as
              in most of the passages cited above; and ho an represents a relative clause
              which in its first occurrence would be hos eimi and in its second occurrence
              would be hos esti,9 but the most natural translation into English of both
              would be 'the one who is (who really exists)',' the verb having its basic
              meaning (and being so accented), and not being a mere copula In neither is
              there any possibility of inserting an emphatic ego. So the emphatic ords
              used by Jesus in the passages referred to above are perfectly natural in
              their contexts, and they do not echo the words of Exodus 3:14 in the
              normally quoted Greek version. Thus they are quite unlikely to have been
              used in the New Testament to convey that significance, however much the
              modern English versions of the relevant passages, following the form of the
              Hebrew words, may suggest it.

              1 I have seen one such speaker try to impress his audience by writing the
              words on a blackboard, only to demonstrate that he was ignorant of even the
              simplest details of Greek.

              2 Its position is unemphatic, but the degree of emphasis could be reduced by
              its omission, which would make no difference to the meaning. The omission of
              the copula is quite common in Greek, especially, but not exclusively, in the
              third person.

              3 The fact that this is a reported statement, in a hoti clause, does not
              affect the grammar, but only the degree of emphasis.

              4 In translation, if as is likely, the original reply was the equivalent in
              Aramaic.

              5 Note that with this meaning the verb is differently accented in Greek
               E)GW\ E)MI/ instead of E)GW E)IMI ).

              6 For the construction see K. L. McKay, A New Syntax of the Verb in New
              Testament Greek: An aspectual approach (Peter Lang, 1994), 4.2.4.

              7 For extensive modern discussion of the problems of interpretation see
              Brevard S. Childs, Exodus: A Commentary (OTL, SCM, 1974) and John 1. Durham,
              Exodus (WBC 3, Word, 1987). See also Martin Noth, Exodus (OTL, SCM, 2nd ed.
              1966); U. Cassuto, Commentary on the Book of Exodus (Magnes Press), 1. P.
              Hyatt, Exodus (NCB, Oliphants, 1971); Alan Cole, Exodus (TC, IVP, 1973); J.
              W. Wevers, Notes on the Greek Text of Exodus (Scholars Press, 1990).

              8 As Noth mentions in a footnote.

              9 Cf. the Vulgate translation of 14b: Qui est misit me ad vos.

              10 English has lost the full range of inflections, and the relative pronoun
              is now treated as if it were always third person.

Date: Mon, 30 Oct 2000 23:48:54 PST [Show full headers]
From: "mattslick" <mattslick@home.com> [Add to Address Book]
To: "Heinz Schmitz" <hector3000@excite.com>
Subject: RE: Triplepoint Theory

You are full of yourself and the watchtower.  You are a watchtowerite,
predictable and led by the organization.  You think like one and talk like
one... of the many many I've met over the years.

The same tone, the same words, the same predictable comments.  You've been
trained into thinking this way like the other jw's.

and you offered nothing substantial as a refutation.  You offered
misrepresentation.

Go ahead, pick ONE thing on my site and show me where i am wrong.

The above is my response to Mr. Slick.