John 8:58, "I Am" and the Name of God: Answering the New World Translation's "I Have Been"

At the end of a long argument in the temple, Jesus said: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am" (John 8:58). The New World Translation of the Jehovah's Witnesses renders the same Greek: "before Abraham came into existence, I have been."¹ One English sentence is a claim to the divine name; the other says that Jesus existed a long time ago. The difference is not small, and it is not a matter of taste. It is the question the Council of Nicaea answered in 325: is the Son of God a creature, however great, or is He the eternal God?

This article states the Witnesses' reading fairly, then answers it from the Greek of John 8:58, from the Septuagint of Exodus 3:14 and Isaiah 43:10-13, from the scene that follows in verse 59, and from the Fathers. It also says what cannot be claimed: the two Greek words egō eimi do not, by themselves, always mean "I am the Lord." For the wider debate over the translation see A Bible Translated Toward a Conclusion? and John 1:1 and "the Word Was a God"; for the name Jehovah see Should "Jehovah" Appear in the New Testament?; and for the whole case that the Son is God see The Biblical Case for the Trinity, our Why Orthodoxy page and Athanasius Against the Arians.

In brief

Jesus' words in John 8:58 are not "I was" or "I have been" but egō eimi, "I am," set against Abraham's "coming to be." Behind the phrase stand the Septuagint's own words for the Lord: "I am THE BEING" (Exodus 3:14) and "that ye may know, and believe, and understand that I am" (Isaiah 43:10). The crowd's response, taking up stones, fits what John elsewhere says about the charge of blasphemy. The Fathers, from Athanasius to Chrysostom and Augustine, read the verse as a claim to eternal being.

Thesis: John 8:58 is a claim that the Son has no beginning. "I have been" is a possible English wording of the Greek, but it is not what the Greek contrast with "came to be" naturally says, and it fails when set beside Exodus 3:14, Isaiah 43:10 and John 1:1-3. Jesus is the Lord who spoke to Moses.

What the text says

The setting is a long dispute in the temple in John 8. Jesus has promised that those who keep His word "shall never taste of death," and the Jews answer, "Abraham is dead... whom makest thou thyself?" (8:52-53). Jesus says, "Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad," and they reply, "Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham?" (8:56-57). The Greek of the answer is:

Ἀμὴν ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν, πρὶν Ἀβραὰμ γενέσθαι ἐγὼ εἰμί. Amēn amēn legō hymin, prin Abraam genesthai egō eimi.²

Two verbs are set against each other. Genesthai is the aorist infinitive of ginomai, "to come to be, to be born." It speaks of Abraham's entry into existence at a moment. Eimi is the present tense of "to be," and it is said in the first person by the man they say is not yet fifty. Then comes the next verse: "Then took they up stones to cast at him: but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple" (8:59).

The Witnesses' reading, stated fairly

The Watch Tower Society's own text of John 8:58 in the New World Translation Study Edition reads: "Most truly I say to you, before Abraham came into existence, I have been." Its study note says that some argue the Greek egō eimi alludes to the Septuagint of Exodus 3:14 and should be translated "I am," and it disagrees. It says that in this context the action of eimi "started 'before Abraham came into existence' and was still in progress," so that it is "properly translated 'I have been' rather than 'I am'"; it cites John 14:9, where the same form of the verb is used, and a list of other verses (Luke 2:48; 13:7; 15:29; John 15:27; Acts 15:21; 2 Corinthians 12:19; 1 John 3:8) in which a present Greek verb is rendered by a present perfect; and it adds that Jesus' reasoning in John 8:54-55 "shows that he was not trying to portray himself as being the same person as his Father." It describes Jesus' reply as telling the Jews "about his prehuman existence as a mighty spirit creature in heaven."³

Two other things belong in the fair statement. First, the Witnesses do not deny that Jesus existed before Abraham. They teach that the Son lived before He was born in Bethlehem, "as a spirit creature in heaven," and that "God created Jesus before creating Adam."⁴ Their reading of John 8:58 is a claim about the Son's age, not His eternity. Second, the New World Translation renders Exodus 3:14 from the Hebrew, not as "I am": "I Will Become What I Choose to Become."⁵ Their conclusion is that John 8:58 neither says nor implies that Jesus is the God who spoke to Moses. The Church says that it does. Here are the reasons.

First answer: the contrast is between coming to be and being

The question is what the sentence contrasts. Jesus does not say, "Before Abraham was, I was." As Augustine put it: "He did not say, Before Abraham was, I was; but, Before Abraham was made, who was not made save by me, I am."⁶ His comment on the two verbs is exact: "Understand, that was made refers to human formation; but am to the Divine essence." The first verb marks a beginning. The second does not. St John Chrysostom asks the same question and answers it: "wherefore said He not, Before Abraham was, I was, instead of I Am? As the Father uses this expression, I Am, so also does Christ; for it signifies continuous Being, irrespective of all time."⁷

John writes this way from his first lines. In the Prologue the Word was (ēn) in the beginning, and "All things were made [egeneto] by him; and without him was not any thing made [egeneto] that was made" (1:1-3). Whatever "comes to be" came to be through the Word; the Word Himself is described by "was," not "came to be." In prayer Jesus says, "the glory which I had with thee before the world was" (17:5). The contrast in 8:58 is the same pattern in one sentence.²

The Witnesses' answer is a real grammatical point. In Greek a present-tense verb can describe something that began in the past and goes on now, as in John 14:9: "Have I been so long time with you?" (Tosoutō chronō meth' hymōn eimi). John 15:27 is similar: "ye have been with me from the beginning." But look at what those verses have in common: each carries a phrase that gives the length of time, "so long a time" and "from the beginning." The same is true of the other verses in the Society's own list: "these three years" (Luke 13:7, KJV), "these many years" (Luke 15:29), "of old time" (Acts 15:21) and "from the beginning" (1 John 3:8). 2 Corinthians 12:19 has one too in the critical text, palai, which the New World Translation renders "all along" (the KJV, from the Byzantine text, has "Again"). Only Luke 2:48 lacks one in its clause, and there the SBL text has an imperfect (Westcott and Hort print a present) and the story has just given the time: "after three days" (2:46).² A. T. Robertson's grammar says of this "present of past action still in progress" that "usually an adverb of time (or adjunct) accompanies the verb," and adds: "In Jo. 8:58 εἰμί is really absolute." Friedrich Blass, on the other hand, lists John 8:58 beside Luke 15:29 and John 15:27.¹⁴ John 8:58 has no phrase of duration. It has a "before," followed by an infinitive that marks a point in time: before Abraham came to be. A speaker who meant "I have been here since long ago" would be saying that he had a starting point; one who says "before Abraham came to be, I am" is placing himself outside the series that began with Abraham. The argument from these texts is our own, Robertson supports it, and the Fathers made the same point. Even on the New World Translation's own reading, "before Abraham came into existence" gives no starting point for the Son, and Chrysostom's "irrespective of all time" is the natural conclusion.

Second answer: the Lord's own words in the Septuagint

The Greek Old Testament, which the apostles and the Church read, renders the Lord's answer at the burning bush as egō eimi ho ōn (Exodus 3:14), which Brenton's translation gives as "I am THE BEING"; the name Moses is to carry is ho ōn: "THE BEING has sent me to you."⁸ The Hebrew behind it is ehyeh asher ehyeh, which English Bibles have long rendered "I AM THAT I AM" (KJV, ASV) and which the New World Translation renders "I Will Become What I Choose to Become." Whatever one thinks of the Hebrew verb, the Greek-speaking Jews who made the Septuagint chose the present tense, I am, and it is their wording that Greek-speaking Christians heard.

The Septuagint uses egō eimi again and again as the Lord's self-declaration. Isaiah 43:10-13 is the key passage. The Septuagint reads: "that ye may know, and believe, and understand that I am [egō eimi]: before me there was no other God [emprosthen mou ouk egeneto allos Theos], and after me there shall be none. I am God; and beside me there is no Saviour." It continues, "I, even I, am he that blots out thy transgressions" (43:25, Egō eimi egō eimi), and elsewhere "I God, the first and to all futurity, I AM" (41:4), "I am he; and until ye shall have grown old, I am he" (46:4), and "Behold, behold that I am he, and there is no god beside me" (Deuteronomy 32:39).⁸ In Isaiah 41:4, 43:10 and 46:4 and in Deuteronomy 32:39 the Hebrew behind egō eimi is ani hu, "I am he."⁹

Now set Jesus' own words beside Isaiah 43:10. The Lord says, "that ye may know and believe... that I am." Jesus says to the Jews, "if ye believe not that I am [he], ye shall die in your sins" (8:24); "When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I am [he]" (8:28); and to the disciples, "Now I tell you before it come, that, when it is come to pass, ye may believe that I am [he]" (13:19).² The last has the same shape as Isaiah's: in the Greek, hina pisteusēte... hoti egō eimi, "that you may believe that I am," as the Septuagint has hina gnōte kai pisteusēte... hoti egō eimi. Jesus speaks, in John, in the way the Lord speaks in Isaiah.

There is a second link in the same verse. The Septuagint says of the Lord, "before me there was no other God," and the verb is egeneto, "came to be," the same verb as genesthai in John 8:58. In the New World Translation the sentence reads, "Before me no God was formed, And after me there has been none."⁵ The Lord says that no god came to be before Him, and none will after Him. The Son is the one who says, "before Abraham came to be, I am," and who, on the Witnesses' own teaching, was made by God; the Church replies that One who is outside every "coming to be" is not a creature but stands where the Lord stands.

The scene that follows: the stones

John 8:59 says, "Then took they up stones to cast at him." The Law's penalty for blasphemy was stoning (Leviticus 24:16: "he that blasphemeth the name of the LORD, he shall surely be put to death... all the congregation shall certainly stone him").² The Witnesses' study note says instead that the Jews wanted to stone Jesus "for claiming that he had 'seen Abraham.'"³ The Gospel itself tells us how John reports such moments. After "I and my Father are one," "the Jews took up stones again to stone him," and when Jesus asked why, they said: "For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God" (10:30-33). Earlier, they "sought the more to kill him, because he... said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God" (5:18).² A claim only to great age would not obviously call for stones. The reaction fits the Church's reading better than the Witnesses'.

This is a point of fit, not of proof. John 8:59 does not say why they took up stones. Chrysostom gives two reasons: they felt put beneath a greater one, "as though the nobility of their descent were debased," and the "I Am" itself "seemed to them to be blasphemous."⁷ We rest the case on verse 58, Isaiah, and the pattern across John, and say plainly that the stones are consistent with it and not decisive in themselves.

What cannot be claimed

It is not true that egō eimi always means the divine name, and the article does not say so. The blind man who was healed says it of himself in John 9:9: "Some said, This is he: others said, He is like him: but he said, I am he." The New World Translation has "I am he" there too.¹⁰ The phrase is also used with a predicate, "I am the bread of life" (6:35), "I am the light of the world" (8:12), which are Jesus' claims about what He does for us, not a use of the divine name by itself. No one argues from John 9:9. The argument is from this one: an absolute egō eimi placed against "before Abraham came to be," in a book whose Prologue says the Word was God, in a speech that echoes Isaiah's "that ye may know, and believe, and understand that I am." The Church's reading rests on the combination, not on two words.

Nor does the Church say that the Father and the Son are one Person. The Witnesses' note on John 8:54-55 correctly observes that Jesus there speaks of "my Father" as another. That is the Nicene faith: the Son is not the Father, and is not less than the Father. He is "begotten, not made," of one essence with Him.

What the Fathers heard

The Fathers read the verse as the Church reads it, and the ground was laid early: Justin Martyr, writing about 150, taught that He who said from the bush, "I am that I am, the God of Abraham," was the Son, who, "being the first-begotten Word of God, is even God."¹¹ Athanasius, answering the Arians, quotes "Before Abraham came to be, I am" as showing that the Lord "existed before" His taking of manhood, and adds: "as He Himself was before Abraham came to be, and Israel had come into being after Abraham, and plainly He exists first and is formed afterwards." In another place he says that the Jews, asking "How then is it that He says, Before Abraham was, I am," and the Arians alike "deny the Eternity and Godhead of the Word in consequence of those human attributes which the Saviour took on Him."¹² Augustine and Chrysostom, quoted above, hear the same.

This is the faith of Nicaea. The Creed of 325 confesses the Son as "begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father," and anathematizes those who say "that there was a time when the Son of God was not... or that he is a creature."¹³ See also The Nicene Creed: Line-by-Line Study Guide. The Witnesses' denial of the Son's full divinity is the ancient Arian view that the Council condemned, and Athanasius used John 8:58 against the Arians of his day. The Church does not say this to wound the Witnesses, who read their Bibles and honour the name of the Lord, and whom she wants to see in the fullness of the faith. She says it because the verdict matters: if the Son is a creature, He cannot save us as God, and the Scriptures call Him "my Lord and my God" (John 20:28) and say that "every knee should bow" at the name of Jesus (Philippians 2:10), words that Isaiah 45:23 gives to the Lord alone.²

What we can say confidently

• In John 8:58 Jesus contrasts Abraham's "coming to be" (genesthai) with His own "I am" (egō eimi); He does not say "I was." Rating: Very Strong.
• The Septuagint renders the Lord's words in Exodus 3:14 as egō eimi ho ōn and uses egō eimi as His self-declaration in Isaiah 41:4, 43:10, 43:25, 46:4 and Deuteronomy 32:39. Rating: Very Strong.
• Jesus' sayings in John 8:24, 8:28 and 13:19 share the form of Isaiah 43:10 ("that ye may know, and believe, and understand that I am"). Rating: Strong.
• Athanasius, Chrysostom and Augustine read John 8:58 as a claim to eternal being; Justin already taught that the One who spoke from the bush was the Son. Rating: Very Strong.
• "I have been" is a possible English rendering of a present verb with past reference in John 14:9 and 15:27, but those verses, like nearly every example in the Watch Tower's list, carry phrases of duration that John 8:58 lacks. Rating: Strong.

What remains disputed

• How grammarians classify eimi in John 8:58 is debated: Blass groups it with presents of past action still continuing, Robertson calls it "really absolute." Even on the first view, the verse names no beginning for the Son.
• Whether John in 8:58 alludes to Exodus 3:14 specifically, or to the "I am he" sayings of Isaiah, or to both, is debated. The argument above does not depend on choosing.
• Whether the stones of 8:59 are a reaction to blasphemy or to the claim of age is not stated in the verse; it is the Church's reading of 5:18 and 10:33 that makes the first likely.
• The Hebrew ehyeh of Exodus 3:14 is a verb form that translators render as "I am" or "I will be"; the Septuagint's present tense is the Church's received text.

Conclusion

The hearers in the temple took up stones, and Chrysostom says why: the words "seemed to them to be blasphemous." The Church, hearing the same words in the Greek of the Septuagint and of John, says "I am" back to Him: "My Lord and my God." The Witnesses are right that the verse says Jesus existed before Abraham. They are wrong that it says only that. It says that He is the Lord, who has no "before" at all. For the full Orthodox case, continue to Why Orthodoxy.

Notes

1. New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures (Study Edition), John 8:58, https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/b/r1/lp-e/nwtsty/43/8, read 2026-11-08.
2. Greek text from the SBL Greek New Testament and English from the King James Version, both as served by this site's Bible API (https://honestapologist.com/api/bible/connections/texts), read 2026-11-08: John 1:1-3; 5:18; 6:35; 8:12, 24, 28, 52-59; 9:9; 10:30-33; 13:19; 14:9; 15:27; 17:5; 20:28; Luke 2:46-48; 13:7; 15:29; Acts 15:21; 2 Corinthians 12:19; 1 John 3:8; Leviticus 24:16; Philippians 2:9-11; Isaiah 45:23. The Westcott and Hort (1881) reading of Luke 2:48 is from the parallel Greek texts at https://biblehub.com/texts/luke/2-48.htm.
3. Same page: NWT Study Edition, study note on John 8:58 ("I have been"), and John 8:54-55, https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/b/r1/lp-e/nwtsty/43/8; NWT Study Edition, 2 Corinthians 12:19, https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/b/r1/lp-e/nwtsty/47/12, read 2026-11-08.
4. "Bible Questions Answered" ("Why is Jesus called God's Son?" and "When was Jesus created?"), The Watchtower (public edition), March 2013, as dated in the page header at jw.org, https://www.jw.org/en/library/magazines/wp20130301/when-jesus-created-why-son/, read 2026-11-08.
5. NWT Study Edition, Exodus 3:14, https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/b/r1/lp-e/nwtsty/2/3, and Isaiah 43:10-11, https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/b/r1/lp-e/nwtsty/23/43, read 2026-11-08.
6. St Augustine, Tractates on the Gospel of John 43.17, trans. John Gibb, NPNF1 vol. 7, https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1701043.htm.
7. St John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Gospel of John 55 (on John 8:58), trans. Charles Marriott, NPNF1 vol. 14, https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/240155.htm.
8. Septuagint (Greek) and Brenton's English translation, as served by the site's Bible API (versions lxx and brenton), read 2026-11-08: Exodus 3:14-15; Isaiah 41:4; 43:10-13, 25; 46:4; 51:12; Deuteronomy 32:39. Also the KJV, ASV and WEB renderings of Exodus 3:14 from the same API.
9. Masoretic Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex) as served by the same API (version wlc), read 2026-11-08: Exodus 3:14; Isaiah 41:4; 43:10; 46:4; Deuteronomy 32:39. The Hebrew phrase quoted is ani hu.
10. NWT Study Edition, John 9:9, https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/b/r1/lp-e/nwtsty/43/9, read 2026-11-08.
11. Justin Martyr, First Apology 63, trans. Marcus Dods and George Reith, ANF vol. 1, https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0126.htm. The date "about 150" follows Justin's own reckoning in chapter 46, where he speaks of Christ as born "one hundred and fifty years ago."
12. Athanasius, Four Discourses Against the Arians 2.53 and 3.27, trans. John Henry Newman and Archibald Robertson, NPNF2 vol. 4, https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/28162.htm and https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/28163.htm.
13. The Creed (Ecthesis) of the Synod at Nicaea (325) with its anathema, trans. Henry R. Percival, NPNF2 vol. 14, https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3801.htm.
14. A. T. Robertson, A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research (New York: Hodder and Stoughton, George H. Doran, 1914), pp. 879-880, "The Progressive Present" (scan at https://archive.org/details/grammarofgreekne00robeuoft); Friedrich Blass, Grammar of New Testament Greek, trans. Henry St John Thackeray, 2nd ed. (London: Macmillan, 1905), section 56.7, p. 189 (scan at https://archive.org/details/grammarofnewtest00blasuoft).

Bibliography

Scripture

• The Holy Bible, King James Version (1769 text); SBL Greek New Testament; the Septuagint (Greek) and Brenton's English translation; the Masoretic text (Westminster Leningrad Codex).

Fathers

• The Creed of Nicaea (325). NPNF2 vol. 14.
• Justin Martyr. First Apology. ANF vol. 1.
• Athanasius. Four Discourses Against the Arians. NPNF2 vol. 4.
• John Chrysostom. Homilies on the Gospel of John. NPNF1 vol. 14.
• Augustine of Hippo. Tractates on the Gospel of John. NPNF1 vol. 7.

Jehovah's Witnesses sources

• New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures (Study Edition), at wol.jw.org: Exodus 3:14; Isaiah 43:10-11; John 8:58; 9:9.
• "Bible Questions Answered." The Watchtower (public edition), March 2013.

Grammars

• Blass, Friedrich. Grammar of New Testament Greek. Trans. H. St J. Thackeray. 2nd ed. London: Macmillan, 1905.
• Robertson, A. T. A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research. New York: Hodder and Stoughton, 1914.