Is my statement blasphemy to you?

[Wootah]

'Wootah is one with God and is in God and is equal to God.'

Is my statement blasphemy to you?

[onewithhim]

...
And just what was it that Jesus said that made the Pharisees think "Jesus was making himself God"? How about "“Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I AM.” in John 8:58? The very same title god gave himself in Exodus 3:14, "where "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.’ ”

.

Jesus doesn't say "I am I am", therefore the scripture doesn't mean he is calling himself God.

Where does scripture use the phrase "I am I am" is necessary? God surely didn't say it of himself. Thing is, 1213, you can't simply make up things and expect them to be taken seriously. Ya gots to have more than just your opinion working for ya.

.

It is not 1213's opinion. It is a fact that Jesus didn't say "I Am" meaning that he was God.

I'm taking that as your opinion as well.

If translators want people who speak English to understand the verses, they must use good English (Robert Bratcher). The rendering of John 8:58 in many Bibles, esp. the King James Version, is not good English at all. (It is absolutely biased when the translation is like the KJV.) It mixes a present tense verb with a past tense verb in a totally ungrammatical construction. What Jesus says is fine, idiomatic Greek. It can be rendered straightforwardly into English by doing what translators always do with Greek, namely, rearrange the word order into normal English order, and adjust things like verbal tense complementarity into proper English expression . (See Jason BeDuhn, Truth in Translation, page 104.) These steps are necessary because Greek and English are not the same language and do not obey the same rules of grammar. Many translations, except the NWT and the Living Bible, use a mangled word order. Because Greek idioms are different from English idioms, translators do not translate these expressions word-for-word, but rather convey the meaning of the Greek idiom in proper, comprehensible English. (At least that is what translators are supposed to do, and many Bible versions do that.)The closest we can get to what the Greek says in our own language is: "I have been since before Abraham came to be," paying attention to all parts of the sentence.

Then why do 95% of the 61 Bibles I checked, 58, use the exact term "I am”?

And while it's somewhat interesting, as mere opinion it doesn't carry any weight. Far better had you cited linkable, authoritative sources.

Both the NWT and the LB offer translations that coordinate the two verbs in John 8:58 according to proper English syntax, and that accurately reflect the meaning of the Greek idiom.

"The Living Bible (TLB or LB) is a personal paraphrase, not a translation, of the Bible in English

Michael Marlowe criticized the edition, saying that it was "the dumbing-down of the Biblical text to a grade-school level" done "in keeping with the linguistic and educational trends of the time." He adds that "very few scholars have given any encouragement to its [The Living Bible] use, and most have either ignored it or have strictly warned against it." Moreover, he claims that the text of The Living Bible contains "venturesome interpretations that no scholar is likely to approve" and that " several places Taylor brazenly wrests the scripture so as to conform it to Arminian teachings about salvation."
[source: Wikipedia]

So, so much for the scholarship of the LB. And everyone knows the NWT was constructed so as to fit its theology. So both interpretations beg to be ignored, which I'm happy to do.

The other translations fail to do this.

And I would say "For good reason other translations chose not to do this"

Gotta say, although I do appreciate the trouble you've gone to present your case, because in scanning what follows

John 14:9 and John 15:27 have exactly the same construction as . . . .


. . . .can see that 1213 is not making up what he said.

I see it too lacks linkable, authoritative sources, so I'm going to pass on it all. Perhaps in the next discussion you'll provide sources we can check.

.

I provided the source of a Bible scholar (Jason BeDuhn) who is an associate professor of religious studies at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff. He has no ax to grind and is just interested in the truth. He holds an MTS in New Testament and Christian Origins from Harvard Divinity School, and a Ph.D in the comparative Study of Religions from Indiana University, Bloomington. He is the author of many articles in the areas of Biblical Studies and Manichaean Studies, and of the book, The Manichaean Body: In Discipline and Ritual (John Hopkins University Press, 2000), winner of the "Best First Book" prize from the American Academy of Religion.

He is a knowledgeable scholar that knows what he's talking about. You will undoubtedly say that he doesn't, but that's your opinion.

(See Truth in Translation/ Accuracy and Bias in English Translations of the New Testament, 2003 by University Press of America, Inc., 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suit 200)

And I said "linkable." I don't expect anyone to take unquoted and unlinked information as anything but opinion, in which case its merit rests on its source, coherence, and reasonableness.

.

I don't know how to do links, childish though that may be. The best I can do is the old-fashioned way of looking at the book itself.

In the interest of global harmony, simply copy the page's address from the address bar at the top of the page, in this case, "htps://debatingchristianity.com/forum/posting.php?mode=quote&f=38&p=1129943 (NOTE: I left out the second "t" in "https://" to help disable the linking function).

Then type in {url= (ALSO NOTE: For illustration purposes I'm forced to use curly brackets { &} instead of regular brackets [ &] to further disable the linking function. Always use regular brackets)

Followed by pasting in the address. Giving you

{url=htps://debatingchristianity.com/forum/posting.php?mode=quote&f=38&p=1129943

End this with a closing bracket }

{url= and insert the address: [url=htps://debatingchristianity.com/forum/posting.php?mode=quote&f=38&p=1129943}

at this point you can type in whatever you like. Usually, I just put in "source"

{url=htps://debatingchristianity.com/forum/posting.php?mode=quote&f=38&p=1129943} source

and close with {/url}

Giving you

{url=htps://debatingchristianity.com/forum/posting.php?mode=quote&f=38&p=1129943}source{/url}

And there you go, all up to speed.

.

Thank you. I'll give it a shot.

[onewithhim]

...
And just what was it that Jesus said that made the Pharisees think "Jesus was making himself God"? How about "“Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I AM.” in John 8:58? The very same title god gave himself in Exodus 3:14, "where "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.’ ”

.

Jesus doesn't say "I am I am", therefore the scripture doesn't mean he is calling himself God.

Where does scripture use the phrase "I am I am" is necessary? God surely didn't say it of himself. Thing is, 1213, you can't simply make up things and expect them to be taken seriously. Ya gots to have more than just your opinion working for ya.

.

It is not 1213's opinion. It is a fact that Jesus didn't say "I Am" meaning that he was God. If translators want people who speak English to understand the verses, they must use good English (Robert Bratcher). The rendering of John 8:58 in many Bibles, esp. the King James Version, is not good English at all. (It is absolutely biased when the translation is like the KJV.) It mixes a present tense verb with a past tense verb in a totally ungrammatical construction. What Jesus says is fine, idiomatic Greek. It can be rendered straightforwardly into English by doing what translators always do with Greek, namely, rearrange the word order into normal English order, and adjust things like verbal tense complementarity into proper English expression . (See Jason BeDuhn, Truth in Translation, page 104.) These steps are necessary because Greek and English are not the same language and do not obey the same rules of grammar. Many translations, except the NWT and the Living Bible, use a mangled word order. Because Greek idioms are different from English idioms, translators do not translate these expressions word-for-word, but rather convey the meaning of the Greek idiom in proper, comprehensible English. (At least that is what translators are supposed to do, and many Bible versions do that.)The closest we can get to what the Greek says in our own language is: "I have been since before Abraham came to be," paying attention to all parts of the sentence. Both the NWT and the LB offer translations that coordinate the two verbs in John 8:58 according to proper English syntax, and that accurately reflect the meaning of the Greek idiom. The other translations fail to do this.

John 14:9 and John 15:27 have exactly the same construction as John 8:58, yet all translations translate the present tense form of "to be" ('I am"; "you are") as "have been" because of its relation to an expression of past time. Certain translations ignore the larger grammatical construct and have "am," with the exception of the NWT and the Living Bible. In these two examples mentioned here, all of the translations put these sentences into proper English order, but the way they render 8:58 is leaving their translation work incomplete by retaining Greek, not English order. Why would translators whose job it is to make the Bible into comprehensible, good quality English choose an awkward, ungrammatical rendering instead? Why do translators, which in thousands of other verses freely change word order relative to the original Greek suddenly find a reason to follow exactly the Greek, producing an ungrammatical and syntactically strained sentence in the instance of John 8:58? The answer is theological bias.

Someone at some point noticed that this perfectly ordinary combination of the first person pronoun "I" and the present tense verb "am" just happens to read the same as what God says at Exodus 3:14. But actually, "I am" is a very uncertain rendering of the Hebrew expression in Exodus. Some translators render that expression as: "I will become whatever I please," (Rotherham) and "I will be there howsoever I will be there," (Everett Fox) and "I will be that I will be" (Leeser). Not "I Am" at all. There is nothing in the original Greek of John 8:58 to suggest that Jesus is quoting the Old Testament here.

The majority of translations recognize idiomatic uses of "I am" and properly integrate the words into the context of the passages where they appear....yet when considering 8:58, they suddenly forget how to translate.

Look at John 9:9. Here the formerly blind man uses the same expression that Jesus spoke. Now if ego eimi is not a divine proclamation in the mouth of the blind man, it cannot be such a proclamation in the mouth of Jesus just a few verses earlier. According to the reasoning of those who insist that the phrase shows a divine exclamation of identity (God), the blind man is also God. It is Jesus' claim to be superior to Abraham and to have superhuman longevity, NOT a claim to be God, that causes the rage of the Pharisees.

So, if you bothered to read all of this, you perhaps can see that 1213 is not making up what he said.

.

[onewithhim]

...
And just what was it that Jesus said that made the Pharisees think "Jesus was making himself God"? How about "“Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I AM.” in John 8:58? The very same title god gave himself in Exodus 3:14, "where "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.’ ”

.

Jesus doesn't say "I am I am", therefore the scripture doesn't mean he is calling himself God.

Where does scripture use the phrase "I am I am" is necessary? God surely didn't say it of himself. Thing is, 1213, you can't simply make up things and expect them to be taken seriously. Ya gots to have more than just your opinion working for ya.

.

It is not 1213's opinion. It is a fact that Jesus didn't say "I Am" meaning that he was God.

I'm taking that as your opinion as well.

If translators want people who speak English to understand the verses, they must use good English (Robert Bratcher). The rendering of John 8:58 in many Bibles, esp. the King James Version, is not good English at all. (It is absolutely biased when the translation is like the KJV.) It mixes a present tense verb with a past tense verb in a totally ungrammatical construction. What Jesus says is fine, idiomatic Greek. It can be rendered straightforwardly into English by doing what translators always do with Greek, namely, rearrange the word order into normal English order, and adjust things like verbal tense complementarity into proper English expression . (See Jason BeDuhn, Truth in Translation, page 104.) These steps are necessary because Greek and English are not the same language and do not obey the same rules of grammar. Many translations, except the NWT and the Living Bible, use a mangled word order. Because Greek idioms are different from English idioms, translators do not translate these expressions word-for-word, but rather convey the meaning of the Greek idiom in proper, comprehensible English. (At least that is what translators are supposed to do, and many Bible versions do that.)The closest we can get to what the Greek says in our own language is: "I have been since before Abraham came to be," paying attention to all parts of the sentence.

Then why do 95% of the 61 Bibles I checked, 58, use the exact term "I am”?

And while it's somewhat interesting, as mere opinion it doesn't carry any weight. Far better had you cited linkable, authoritative sources.

Both the NWT and the LB offer translations that coordinate the two verbs in John 8:58 according to proper English syntax, and that accurately reflect the meaning of the Greek idiom.

"The Living Bible (TLB or LB) is a personal paraphrase, not a translation, of the Bible in English

Michael Marlowe criticized the edition, saying that it was "the dumbing-down of the Biblical text to a grade-school level" done "in keeping with the linguistic and educational trends of the time." He adds that "very few scholars have given any encouragement to its [The Living Bible] use, and most have either ignored it or have strictly warned against it." Moreover, he claims that the text of The Living Bible contains "venturesome interpretations that no scholar is likely to approve" and that " several places Taylor brazenly wrests the scripture so as to conform it to Arminian teachings about salvation."
[source: Wikipedia]

So, so much for the scholarship of the LB. And everyone knows the NWT was constructed so as to fit its theology. So both interpretations beg to be ignored, which I'm happy to do.

The other translations fail to do this.

And I would say "For good reason other translations chose not to do this"

Gotta say, although I do appreciate the trouble you've gone to present your case, because in scanning what follows

John 14:9 and John 15:27 have exactly the same construction as . . . .


. . . .can see that 1213 is not making up what he said.

I see it too lacks linkable, authoritative sources, so I'm going to pass on it all. Perhaps in the next discussion you'll provide sources we can check.

.

I still see doing links as beyond my brain's capacity. I am just not technologically savvy. You can pass, or you can actually read the book that I quoted. I didn't make it all up. It appears in the book basically as how I wrote it here. Stay in your ignorance if you wish. Thanks for your time.