"I Am"?

[Remus]

I heard a while back that the phrase "I am" in certain contexts has special meaning (bascially meaning I am God). This referring back to when God said to Moses "I Am what I Am" and he goes on to say to tell the people that "I Am" sent him. A few places in the NT where Jesus is speaking, one can notice that it really upsets the religious people when he says "I am". John 8:58 is a good example.

First, has anyone else heard of this before? If so, are there some studies or writings on this that I might be able to read? I'm not having a lot of luck myself on this one.

 

[CeCe]

This is all I was able to find right now. Not sure if it's what you're looking for or how helpful it will be.

http://www.bibletexts.com/terms/i-am.htm

 

[Remus]

That's exactly what I'm looking for actualy. Thanks

 

[clinzey]

I heard a while back that the phrase "I am" in certain contexts has special meaning (bascially meaning I am God). This referring back to when God said to Moses "I Am what I Am" and he goes on to say to tell the people that "I Am" sent him. A few places in the NT where Jesus is speaking, one can notice that it really upsets the religious people when he says "I am". John 8:58 is a good example.

First, has anyone else heard of this before? If so, are there some studies or writings on this that I might be able to read? I'm not having a lot of luck myself on this one.

Remus, since "I AM" is the way God revealed himself to Moses that phrase has special significance (especially to the Jews of Jesus' day). In the Gospel According to John, Jesus uses the phrase "I am" many times, followed by "the bread of life," "the way, truth, etc...."

If you want to see something really interesting, look at the passage of Jesus walking on the water in Mark 6. Verse 48 says that Jesus was about to pass by them (the disciples in the boat). This is a veiled reference to God "passing by Moses" on the mountain. But then when the disciples become afraid Jesus calls out and says, "Take courage, it is I." This translation is a little poor. In the original Greek, Jesus literally says, "Be confident, I AM."

Food for thought....

 

[CeCe]

 

[Remus]

Thank you clinzey. That's a very interesting observation. I will have to follow up on that and see what else comes to light.

 

[filosofer]

This is all I was able to find right now. Not sure if it's what you're looking for or how helpful it will be.

http://www.bibletexts.com/terms/i-am.htm

Unfortunately, that link does not deal with the text Exodus 3:14 (even though there is another link that claims to).

In Hebrew the revelation of God's name in Exodus 3:14 is EHYEH ("I AM WHO WHO IAM" or "I WILL BE WHO I WILL BE"), because God is speaking in the first person singular. However, after that, the reference is a derivative of the third person singular form YHWH, often written as Yahweh.

The confusion over God's personal name (YHWH) as opposed to one of his titles (Lord) comes not from the KJV but actually from the LXX (Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures in the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC). The Jews were concerned about misusing the name of God. Thus, whenever the Hebrew speaking Jews came to the name of God (YHWH) they substituted the Hebrew "Adonai" (Lord, master), which in Greek is "Kurios". The question becomes: how to distinguish between the two; that is, if it is God's name and is pronounced "Adonai" or if it is the title "Lord/Master" and is pronounced "Adonai". The Greek LXX used "Kurios" to cover both ways.

Where does "Jehovah" come from? It is actually taking the consonants of YHWH and the vowels of "Adonai" and putting them together - a meaningless word. However, the intent of the KJV translators was properly to distinguish between the name and the title. In modern English translations the "solution" has been to use "LORD" (in small caps) to denote Yahweh and "Lord" to denote the title, Master. [One exception, the New Jerusalem Bible uses Yahweh.] Unfortunately, most English readers never read the introductory notes to their Bibles and are unaware of this.

YHWH occurs ~6,600 times in the Hebrew Scriptures, so this is not a minor issue. Also, there is more to this name of God than just YHWH. There is scholarly discussion still going on about how the Hebrew word YHWH is derived and from what word. Most think that it comes from a form of the verb HYH ("to be"). Thus, it is often translated in Exodus 3:14-15 as

And God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM”; and He said, “Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” And God, furthermore, said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, ‘The LORD, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is My name forever, and this is My memorial-name to all generations.”

or also "I WILL BE WHO I WILL BE."

But also revealing about God's name YHWH is the passage in Exodus 5:22-6:9. It in essence says that the God who is present ("I AM") is specifically present to deliver/save. That changes dramatically our understanding of Old Testament readings. For instance, Psalm 23:1 "The LORD is my Shepherd" does NOT refer to God who is Lord /Master is my Shepherd. Rather it is the ever-present I AM who is ready to deliver who is my Shepherd.

There's more, but at least this shows that Jehovah, while linguistically non-sense, is a valid attempt by the translators to show the distinction.

----------------


I AM WHO I AM = ( hwhy) = YHWH = Yahweh
Note on use of consonants: Y = J = I W = V

Name: YHWH (or JHVH) - consonants only

Title: Adonai = ("Lord" = master)

Taking the consonants from YHWH and the vowels from Adonai and mixing them, then we arrive at Jehovah.

We distinguish between the

1. "name of God" (YHWH) by writing: LORD (all capital letters)

2. "title of God" (Adonai) by writing: Lord

Yahweh— “I am present for the purpose of delivering My people” (Exodus 6:6–8)

Used as prefix or suffix with other words to form names.

Eli - jah = (My God (is) Yahweh

Zechar-iah = Yahweh remembers

Joshua = Jeh-oshua = Yahweh saves

Joshua (Hebrew) = Jesus (Greek)
Matthew 1:21
John 8:51-59

The key in this passage is that the Jews understood Jesus' statement when he says (in Aramaic, but the early and primary manuscripts of the NT are in Greek) EGO EIMI ("I am"), without the qualifiers (Life, bread, etc.) as used elsewhere in John's Gospel. They picked up stones to stone him because he was speaking blasphemy (in their eyes) for claiming to be I AM.


There is also the abbreviated form of YHWH , YH (Hy; ). It occurs mostly in the worship contexts, notably Psalms. However, there are a few hints at Messianic overtones, especially in Exodus and Isaiah. Here are a few passages:
Exodus 15:2
Isaiah 12:2
Isaiah 26:4
Isaiah 38:11 (textual difficulty)
Psalm 68:19
Psalm 118:5, 14, 17, 18, 19

 

[Remus]

Nice post filosofer. Thank you.

I love this place

 

[johnd]

Great!

The text in Exodus 3:14-15 states 'ehyeh 'asher 'ehyeh without textual or grammatic time constraints. So it can be translated "I AM, I WAS, I AM TO COME" the first and the last, I AM THAT I AM, I AM WHAT I AM, I AM WHO I AM, or I AM BECAUSE I AM (my personal favorite). The Apostle Paul later writes:

1 Corinthians 15:10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.

It occurred to me one day that everyone and everything God created must make that acknowledgement "because of God I am..." Only God can say I AM BECAUSE I AM.

Regards,