The Name of the Lord, part 4

In this series of musings on the name of the LORD/YHWH, I have confined my focus to the Old Testament for obvious reason: That is where we find the tetragrammaton. But follow me now and you (and those you disciple?) can gain some insight in how to respond to interesting people who knock on our doors when we least expect them....

When the 70 Jewish elders translated the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek (the Septuagint or LXX), they came to this term YHWH. I don't know if what follows applies to all the places in the OT where YHWH is used or only to the conversation with Moses when God revealed his name. The sense I got when I first learned this was that what follows was the case throughout the OT. But I cannot say for certain; perhaps you can clarify for me.

When the elders came to YHWH and translated it into Greek, they used the Gk phrase, "ego eimi," translated "I AM." The thing about this phrase is this: If all they wanted to say was, "I am," they could have done so with only the verb, "eimi." By including the pronoun "ego" they employed a usage that has special significance. If you know Spanish, you will be familiar with the same kind of pattern. If you want to say "I am" in Spanish, all you need to say is, "Soy." If you say, "Yo soy," then you either reveal your ignorance of the language or you are trying to communicate something out of the ordinary. Well, the translaters of the OT wanted to communicate something out of the ordinary: That YHWH always has been and always will be; that YHWH exists beyonw the boundaries of time; that YHWH is eternal.

Now here is the interesting: In John 8:58, Jesus uses the exact same phrase: "Before Abraham was ego eimi." This is not an accidental slip of the language. The apostles understood the significance of the statement (witness the fact that John remembered it 50 years later); and Jesus' opponents understood his claim (witness their reaction).

So what was Jesus claiming in this statement? Jesus claimed to be the same person who met with Moses on Mt. Sinai. This statement claims the same eternality that the OT assigns to the one true God.

Now for those people who knock on our doors from time to time:

1. For the Jehovah's Witnesses: This claim in John 8:58 reveals to them that Jesus saw himself as one and the same person as the one who spoke to Moses. If Jehovah spoke to Moses, Jesus was claiming that he himself was/is/will be Jehovah. And in doing so, he claimed that he has always existed, that there never was a time when he did not exist, that he is eternally one with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Try sharing that with the JWs next time they come around. Do it in a friendly way. And watch their reaction. The down side: You won't get many visits from them in the future. :)

2. For the LDS missionaries: This claim in John 8:58 is a claim to eternality. As I understand the LDS teaching, Jehovah is the god of this world, that he was begotten by the god of another world, and that Jehovah begot Jesus. Well, the very name Jehovah is a claim to eternality. So how could Jehovah claim eternality if he was in fact begotten by some other god? And how could Jesus claim eternality if in fact he was begotten by Jehovah?

Well, I eagerly await your feedback on these thoughts!

ttfn