Where did Jesus say 'I Am'?

Answer 1

A:In John's Gospel, Jesus says "I am" several times in a play on words that has Jesus claim to be God:

• In John 18:4-6, when the Jewish authorities came asking for Jesus in the garden, he answered 'I am', using the absolute form of ego eimi, which is the Greek translation in the Septuagint for Yahweh (God), based on a possible meaning of the tetragrammaton (YHWH). The reaction of the authorities demonstrates John's intent: Jesus asked, 'Whom seek ye?' They answered him, 'Jesus of Nazareth.' He said to them, 'I AM' [the KJV makes this 'I AM he', with 'he' in italics to show that it is not a literal translation; other Bibles, more correctly, do not]. When he said to them, 'I AM', they turned away and fell to the ground.

  Provided that he was speaking in fluent Greek, the language of the Gospel, Jesus was claiming to be God by saying 'I am' in the absolute form, and the Jews clearly understood his intent. This conversation is not intended to be read in Aramaic or Hebrew.

• In another version of the same word game earlier in this Gospel, the Jews did not at first understand the hidden meaning, that Jesus spoke to them of the Father. At John 8:23-24, with translations from both the King James Version and the New American Bible:

  (KJV) And he said unto them, Ye are from beneath; I am from above; ye are from this world; I am not of this world. I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins; for if ye believe not that I AM he, ye shall die in your sins.

  (NAB) He said to them, 'You belong to what is below, I belong to what is above. You belong to this world, but I do not belong to this world. That is why I told you that you will die in your sins. For if you do not believe that I AM, you will die in your sins.'

  In the above passage, KJV again has 'he' in italics to show that it is not a literal translation, and in any case there is no one previously mentioned, that the pronoun 'he' can refer back to. NAB acknowledges that the reference is to Yahweh. John was causing Jesus to make a claim to divinity in a very careful way.

Additional Answer:

As the Word who became Jesus, is the only member of the God Family with direct contact with man, the term 'I am' is found throughout the Scripture starting in Genesis. The specific title is first used in Exodus 3:14 when Moses asked what name should he tell the captive Israelites sent him. The most prevalent use of the term as a title of particular significance comes in John who uses it 7 times - the number of completion/perfection. "I am the bread of life' in chapter 6; 'I am the light of the world' in chapter 8; 'I am the door of the sheep' in chapter 10; 'I am the good shepherd' also in chapter 10; 'I am the resurrection and the life' in chapter 11; 'I am the way, the truth, and the life' in chapter 14; and 'I am the true vine' in chapter 15.