Re: John 8:58 (longish)

Alan Repurk (lars@repurk.mw.com)
Thu, 08 Aug 1996 09:24:48 -0700

wagers@iglobal.net wrote:

>
> It's an interlingual pun for a bilingual audience, "Before Abraham
> was born, YHWH." (YHWH was before Abraham. Possible defense in
> court ?) This sort of thing may have been a big joke among
> Hellenists even without knowledge of the LXX, a way to tweak the
> Will Wagers

As some of you may know, I am teaching myself Greek with the aid
of a textbook, and comments from this list. I don't know what I
would do without this list ! Thank you all.

I am starting parseing techniques with the Mounce textbooks and
I have a hard time with John 8:58, particulary with the KJV version.

In all my other excercises I am able to substitute nouns for nouns,
adjectives for adjectives and verbs for verbs, etc. This is one
of the ways I check my translations.

But I have a real problem with John 8:58 :

Joh 8:58 Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you,
Before Abraham was, 'Fred'.

If 'I AM' is a proper name, should not this make sense. It seems to
me that what does not make good English also does not make good
Greek.

Respectfully and inquisitively,
-lars