The

Koine Greek Koine Greek (, ), also variously known as Hellenistic Greek, common Attic, the Alexandrian dialect, Biblical Greek, Septuagint Greek or New Testament Greek, was the koiné language, common supra-regional form of Greek language, Greek spoken and ...

term (, ), I am or It is I, is an emphatic form of the

copulative verb In linguistics, a copula (; : copulas or copulae; abbreviated ) is a word or phrase that links the subject of a sentence to a subject complement, such as the word ''is'' in the sentence "The sky is blue" or the phrase ''was not being'' in the ...

εἰμι that is recorded in the

Gospels Gospel originally meant the Christian message (" the gospel"), but in the second century AD the term (, from which the English word originated as a calque) came to be used also for the books in which the message was reported. In this sen ...

to have been spoken by

Jesus Jesus (AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and many Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament, other names and titles, was a 1st-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the Jesus in Chris ...

on several occasions to refer to himself not with the role of a verb but playing the role of a name, in the

Gospel of John The Gospel of John () is the fourth of the New Testament's four canonical Gospels. It contains a highly schematic account of the ministry of Jesus, with seven "Book of Signs, signs" culminating in the raising of Lazarus (foreshadowing the ...

occurring seven times with specific titles. It is connected to the passage in Exodus 3:14 in which God gives his name as , translated most basically as "I am that I am" or "I shall be what I am". These usages have been the subject of significant

Christological In Christianity, Christology is a branch of theology that concerns Jesus. Different denominations have different opinions on questions such as whether Jesus was human, divine, or both, and as a messiah what his role would be in the freeing of ...

analysis.''Encyclopedia of theology: a concise Sacramentum mundi'' by Karl Rahner, 2004. p. 1082. .Hurtado, Larry W. (June 2003). ''Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity''. Grand Rapids, Mich.: W. B. Eerdmans. pp. 370–371. .

New Testament

In the

New Testament The New Testament (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus, as well as events relating to Christianity in the 1st century, first-century Christianit ...

, the personal pronoun in conjunction with the present first-person singular copulative is recorded to have been used mainly by Jesus, especially in the

. It is used in the Gospel of John both with and without a

predicate nominative A predicative expression (or just predicative) is part of a clause predicate, and is an expression that typically follows a copula or linking verb, e.g. ''be'', ''seem'', ''appear'', or that appears as a second complement (object complement) of ...

. The seven occurrences with a predicate nominative that have resulted in some of the titles for Jesus are: * I am the Bread of Life (John 6:35) * I am the Light of the World (John 8:12) * I am the Door (John 10:9) * I am the

Good Shepherd The Good Shepherd (, ''poimḗn ho kalós'') is an image used in the pericope of , in which Jesus in Christianity, Jesus Christ is depicted as the Good Shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep. Similar imagery is used in Psalm 23 and Ezeki ...

(John 10:11,14) * I am the Resurrection and the Life (John 11:25) * I am the Way and the Truth and the Life (John 14:6) * I am the Vine (John 15:1,5)

With predicate nominative

There are other times the phrase is used in the New Testament, but with a predicate nominative and/or adjectives in between and : a

centurion In the Roman army during classical antiquity, a centurion (; , . ; , or ), was a commander, nominally of a century (), a military unit originally consisting of 100 legionaries. The size of the century changed over time; from the 1st century BC ...

in Matt 8:9 and Luke 7:8, Zechariah in Luke 1:18,

Gabriel In the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam), Gabriel ( ) is an archangel with the power to announce God's will to mankind, as the messenger of God. He is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament and the Quran. Many Chris ...

in Luke 1:19, a man blind from birth in John 9:9 who is healed by Jesus and told to go wash in the Pool of Siloam,

Peter Peter may refer to: People * List of people named Peter, a list of people and fictional characters with the given name * Peter (given name) ** Saint Peter (died 60s), apostle of Jesus, leader of the early Christian Church * Peter (surname), a su ...

in Acts 10:21 and Acts 10:26,

Paul the Apostle Paul, also named Saul of Tarsus, commonly known as Paul the Apostle and Saint Paul, was a Apostles in the New Testament, Christian apostle ( AD) who spread the Ministry of Jesus, teachings of Jesus in the Christianity in the 1st century, first ...

in Acts 22:3, Acts 23:6, Acts 26:29, Romans 7:14, Romans 11:1, Romans 11:13, 1 Corinthians 15:9 and 1 Timothy 1:15, some Corinthian believer in 1 Corinthians 1:12 and 1 Corinthians 3:4,

John the Baptist John the Baptist ( – ) was a Jewish preacher active in the area of the Jordan River in the early first century AD. He is also known as Saint John the Forerunner in Eastern Orthodoxy and Oriental Orthodoxy, John the Immerser in some Baptist ...

in the negative (, 'I am not') in John 3:28 and Acts 13:25 (compare with Jesus in John 8:23, 17:14,16), and Pilate in a question (, 'Am I Jew?') in John 18:35.

Old Testament

εἰμι also occurs without an explicit or implicit predicate nominative in the

Septuagint The Septuagint ( ), sometimes referred to as the Greek Old Testament or The Translation of the Seventy (), and abbreviated as LXX, is the earliest extant Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible from the original Biblical Hebrew. The full Greek ...

, but instead either with a prepositional phrase such as in ("Am I in place of God ...") Genesis 30:2, or with a predicative clause such as in ("As a foreigner and a sojourner I am with you") in Genesis 23:4, or with the idiomatic meaning 'It is I' such as in ("And Joab said: I hear; it is I") in 2 Samuel 20:17. It has been suggested that the unique expression of the

Tetragrammaton The TetragrammatonPronounced ; ; also known as the Tetragram. is the four-letter Hebrew-language theonym (transliteration, transliterated as YHWH or YHVH), the name of God in the Hebrew Bible. The four Hebrew letters, written and read from ...

(YHWH) is a verbal cognate noun derived from (), the Hebrew linking (or 'copular' or 'copulative') verb, 'to be'. Translations often render this word in compliance with the tradition of the Septuagint, "Lord".

In Christian philosophy

The philosopher Joseph de Torre, commenting on the philosophical implications of "I am" as the name of God, wrote:

References

{{Jesus footer Christian terminology Gospel of John Language and mysticism Biblical phrases

New Testament

With predicate nominative

Old Testament

In Christian philosophy

See also

Further reading

References