"A Spirit Does Not Have Flesh and Bones": Another Application of Luke 24:39

A text which has been frequently cited by Trinitarians and others who do not accept the biblical teaching that Jesus of Nazareth was raised to life as a "spirit" is Luke 24:39. For example, according to Dr. Walter Martin, the founder of the Christian Research Institute and the author of a variety of books and other materials concerning many of the beliefs promoted by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society and by Jehovah's Witnesses:

[Acts 1:9] shows that the disciples were "looking on" and saw him "lifted up and a cloud caught him up from their vision" (v. 9). They could hardly have been looking at a spirit, which by definition is incorporeal, not with human eyes at least, and Christ had told them once before, "Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have" (Luke 24:39). [Walter Martin, The Kingdom of the Cults, Revised, Updated, and Expanded Edition, Ravi Zacharias, General Ed. (Bloomington, Minn.: Bethany House Publishers, 2003), page 102; compare also page 121.]

In a footnote to the word "incorporeal" Martin writes, "Even angels have to take a human form in order to be seen (Genesis 19:1-2)," and so it is a genuine mystery why Martin did not see that Jesus, since his resurrection as a "spirit" (1 Corinthians 15:45 [see discussion below]), could also have taken on various human forms, including the one he chose in Acts Chapter 1, but without requiring him (or the angels in Genesis 19) to actually have a real human body apart from such physical manifestations. 

Where it concerns Jesus' words in Luke 24:39, here is the text together with verses 36-38 and 40-43 according to the New Revised Standard Version (with my added underlining):

Luke 24:36-43 (NRSV [1989])

While they were talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, "Peace be with you." They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost.  He said to them, "Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have." And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet.  While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, he said to them, "Have you anything here to eat?" They gave him a piece of broiled fish,  and he took it and ate in their presence.

The NRSV uses "ghost" to translate the Greek word pneuma, which also and regularly means a "spirit," that is, either an evil, demonic angel or a righteous, holy angel. Compare the use of pneuma in Luke 4:33, 8:29, 9:39, 9:42, Acts 16:16, 19:15, 16, and in Revelation 16:13-14, where pneuma clearly refers to a demonic spirit, and then compare the use of pneuma in Hebrews 1:14 and Revelation 1:4, where it clearly refers to angelic or to other holy spirits in Jah God's service.

Returning to the account associated with Luke 24:39, those in the room did not recognize Jesus by his face when he "stood among them" or by his voice as he spoke to them (Luke 24:35); they thought he may have been a "ghost" or some kind of harmful spirit (hence, they were "startled and terrified"). But Jesus reassured them by "showing them his hands and his feet" which in this instance had the wound marks from his execution. This was proof Jesus provided to help others who could not otherwise recognize his voice or his temporary physical form, because he did not look or sound like he did before he died. Related to this, Jesus then also explained, "A spirit/ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have."

It is therefore without question that on this occasion Jesus did have the marks of execution in the body in which he appeared to them. But was this the same "body" in which he was raised to life before his appearance in this room, or elsewhere? If Jesus is correct, namely, that "a spirit does not have flesh and bones," then the body which he manifested to his followers according to Luke 24:39 was not the same body in which he was raised to life. Note what is written concerning this raising to life, that is, the actual resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth from the dead according to 1 Corinthians 15:35-45 (with my underlining added):

1 Corinthians 15:35-45 (New International Version [1984])

But someone may ask, "How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?" How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else.  But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body. All flesh is not the same: Men have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another and fish another. There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies; but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is another.  The sun has one kind of splendor, the moon another and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendor. So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. So it is written: "The first man Adam became a living being"; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit [Greek: pneuma].

According to Paul the "last Adam," Jesus of Nazareth, was "raised a spiritual body," meaning he "became a life-giving spirit" (Greek: pneuma). Therefore, merely by comparing what Jesus said in Luke 24:39 with the teaching here in 1 Corinthians 15:45, it is clear that the body in which Jesus was raised to life was a "spiritual body," one  meant for a "life-giving spirit" and so not a body with "flesh and bones," which he did manifest in different forms after his resurrection had already taken place.—See Luke 24:13-35; John 20:14-17; compare Mark 16:9-14 (note the longer ending's wording in verse 12, "He [Jesus] appeared in another form [Greek: ephanerothe en hetera morphe]").

Apart from his appearances in different bodies/forms prior to his ascension but since his actual presentation of his "body" to Jah God the Father (John 20:14-17; Acts 1:1-8; Hebrews 10:5, 10), which appearances are similar to the manner in which angelic spirits are said to have taken on human forms (even to the point of eating; compare Genesis 19:1-3 with Luke 24:43), Jesus' resurrected spirit body, according to his own testimony in Luke 24:39, does not have "flesh and bones." Rather, the actual "spiritual body" in which Jesus was raised to life is much different from those which he took on during some of his earthly, post-resurrection appearances. Here is how his actual "spiritual body" is described by those who saw him with it (with my underlining added):

Revelation 1:12-16 (New World Translation [1984])

And I turned to see the voice that was speaking with me, and, having turned, I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the lampstands someone like a son of man, clothed with a garment that reached down to the feet, and girded at the breasts with a golden girdle. Moreover, his head and his hair were white as white wool, as snow, and his eyes as a fiery flame; and his feet were like fine copper when glowing in a furnace; and his voice was as the sound of many waters. And he had in his right hand seven stars, and out of his mouth a sharp, long two-edged sword was protruding, and his countenance was as the sun when it shines in its power.

As I wrote in Chapter 6 of my Third Edition of Jehovah's Witnesses Defended: An Answer to Scholars and to Critics (Murrieta, CA: Elihu Books, 2009), page 436, after citing the above description of Jesus' resurrection body according to his apostle John:

Here we have a clear description of what Jesus’ heavenly body looks like to humans. Jesus’ “head” and his “hair” are said to be “white as wool, as snow, and his eyes as a fiery flame.” His feet are “like fine copper when glowing in a furnace” and “his voice was the sound of many waters.” Finally, his “countenance was as the sun when it shines in its power.” This is a far cry from the human forms Jesus took on after his resurrection! Revelation 2:18 also describes the heavenly Jesus in similar terms, where it says he has “eyes like a fiery flame, and his feet are like fine copper.” These descriptions are also very similar to the angel in Revelation 10:1, whose “face was as the sun, and his feet were as fiery pillars.” It is little wonder, then, that the apostle Paul refers to Jesus as ‘not a man’ in Galatians 1:12.

The descriptions of Jesus’ heavenly body in Revelation 1 and 2 have several striking similarities with other angelic spirits who are described in the Bible. In Ezekiel 1:7, 13 the cherubs are described as “gleaming as with the glow of burnished copper,” and "like burning coals of fire." Their voices are even similar in sound to Jesus’ voice, for they are both like "vast waters, like the sound of the Almighty."—Ezekiel 1:24.

Further, in Ezekiel 40:3 an angel is described as "like the appearance of copper." Also, in Daniel 10:6 the eyes, the body, and the voice of the angel who appeared to Daniel is described in terms which are very similar to how Jesus and the cherubs in Ezekiel are described. Consider (again with my underlining added):

And his body was like chrys´o·lite, and his face like the appearance of lightning, and his eyes like fiery torches, and his arms and the place of his feet were like the sight of burnished copper, and the sound of his words was like the sound of a crowd [NWT].

It is clear, then, that the body in which Jesus was raised to life is not the same body in which he died, even though he did use that same body or one like it when appearing to others after his resurrection in order to provide proof that he was not "a ghost," or some terrifying, demonic "spirit." Yet, apart from these appearances Jesus is presented just like other spirit beings in the Bible and in other literature written during the biblical periods about such beings, namely, as a "spirit" being with a "spiritual body" (1 Corinthians 14:45), a body "not made with hands" but made by God just for him (1 Corinthians 15:38; 2 Corinthians 5:1-3), a body "raised imperishable" and so one with no "flesh and bones" as we see him with before his death and when appearing on earth to others before his ascension.—Luke 24:39; Acts 1:1-9; 1 Corinthians 15:52.

For additional discussion of these and other, related texts and arguments concerning the 1) physical body in which Jesus died and 2) the spiritual body in which he was raised to life, including a complete discussion of the context and understanding of John 2:19-21, the empty tomb and the non-corruption of Jesus' "flesh" according to Acts 2:31 and Acts 13:36-37, see Chapter 6 of my Third Edition of Jehovah's Witnesses Defended (2009).

New World Translation Footnotes to John 8:58

In the New Testament (NT) Jesus of Nazareth is presented to us as a preexistent Son of God who “stepped out of heaven” to do only the God Jah’s will (John 3:13; 7:16-18; 8:47, 54: 12:49). Jesus’ real, personal preexistence can be seen in his identity as “the Word” and “Wisdom” of God according to the Bible (Proverbs 8:22-31; Micah 5:1-2; John 1:1; Revelation 19:3; see also my Third Edition of Jehovah’s Witnesses Defended: An Answer to Scholars and Critics [Murrieta, CA: Elihu Books, 2009], Chapter 4, pages 308-316, and Chapter 5, pages 406-418). This teaching is also consistent with what Jesus is recorded as having said in John 8:58 (see Jehovah’s Witnesses Defended, Third Edition, Chapter 3, pages 223-225).

As for whether Jesus claimed to have eternally preexisted or to have preexisted “before Abraham was born,” or whether Jesus used “I AM” as a divine name in John 8:58 and also for an extended discussion about how John 8:58 should be translated into English, see pages 274-296 of my Third Edition of Jehovah’s Witnesses Defended. See also my recent answer to the question, “Why do different editions of the New World Translation (NWT) contain different footnotes to its rendering of John 8:58?” published December 17, 2009, online through Elihu Books’ “Upon the Lampstand.”

The question and the answer in the above referenced “Lampstand” article indicates that since its first edition of the New World Translation (NWT) New Testament (NT) in 1950 to its latest 1984 Reference Bible and 1985 Kingdom Interlinear Translation (KIT), the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society (the publisher of the NWT and the KIT) has had more than one footnote in its English translation of John 8:58. In my recent “Lampstand” Q&A I provide an extended evaluation of these different NWT/KIT footnotes to John 8:58, in response to many harsh and unfounded criticisms made over the past 50+ years by scholars and critics of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Indeed, scholars and critics of Jehovah’s Witnesses through to this past year 2009 have published what is demonstrably false and which contradicts readily available information, including the originally misunderstood and misused 1950 John 8:58 (NWT) footnote’s use of the incontrovertibly clear English expression “rendered in.”

First, consider how Ron Rhodes captioned the 1950 NWT’s use of “perfect indefinite tense” in his 1993 book Reasoning from the Scriptures with the Jehovah’s Witnesses (Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 1993), page 116:

Scholars agree that the Watchtower Society has no justification for translating ego eimi in John 8:58 as “I have been.”

The above has been removed from Rhodes’ 2009 edition of his Reasoning from the Scriptures with the Jehovah’s Witnesses (Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 2009), which is a positive indication. Indeed, Rhodes must now realize that many scholars not only agree with the NWT translation of John 8:58, but it has been sufficiently demonstrated that Rhodes’ preferred “I am/AM” translation of John 8:58 is unacceptable for many good reasons. For example, after categorizing the Greek idiom correctly as an “Extension from Past” (also known as a “Present of Past Action Still in Progress”) in which the present verb eimi (“I am”) is “used with an expression of either past time or extent of time with past implications” (as in “before Abraham was born”), K.L. McKay gives an English rendering that is almost identical to the NWT’s, namely, “I have been in existence since before Abraham was born” (Kenneth L. McKay, A New Syntax of the Verb in New Testament Greek [SBG 5; New York: Peter Lang, 1994], pages 41-42).

As I attempted to make plain in my online Q&A, “Why do different editions of the New World Translation (NWT) contain different footnotes to its rendering of John 8:58?” page 11, note 9, while addressing some of the claims made by Robert M. Bowman, Jr.:

As I have shown on pages 283-284 of my Third Edition of Jehovah’s Witnesses Defended, Bowman misquotes every single one of the Greek grammars he cites in connection with his claim, “most grammars specifically state that accompanying the present tense verb is some adverbial expression indicating the extent of the duration of the time indicated by the verb” (Bowman, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Jesus Christ, and the Gospel of John, page 105 [underlining added]). Each one of Bowman’s referenced grammars makes it clear that a past expression and a present verb together denote duration from the past point of reference (“before Abraham was born”) to the present (“I am”). Yet, not one of the grammars cited by Bowman on this point says anything about “the extent of the duration of the time” being indicated by the adverbial, past-referring expression. Shifting the focus (as Bowman does) from a past expression modifying a present verb to “a clause beginning with prin” ignores the role of the present verb in relation to the adverbial clause. By doing this, Bowman can disconnect “‘duration’ up to the present” from the past expression. But the adverbial “prin clause” is not considered in isolation from the present verb! It is, in fact, the present verb which denotes duration (though not always the extent of the duration) from the time indicated by the past-referring adverbial clause.

You may review for yourself the what I recently referenced again in my new “Upon the Lampstand” Q&A regarding NWT footnotes to John 8:58 (see page 7), and in my Third Edition of Jehovah’s Witnesses Defended (see Chapter 3, pages 277-294), namely, the following writers who describe or who classify the Greek idiom of John 8:58 just as the Watchtower Society now does:

1) J.A. Bengel, Gnomon of the New Testament, vol. 2 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1858), page 370.

2) A. Tholuck, Commentary on the Gospel of John (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1859), page 243.

3) H.A.W. Meyer, Critical and Exegetical Hand-Book to the Gospel of John, trans. William Urwick (New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1884), page 293.

4) G.B. Winer, A Grammar of the Idiom of the New Testament, trans. J. Henry Thayer (Andover: Warren Draper, 1897), page 267.

5) F. Blass, A. Debrunner, and R.W. Funk, A Greek Grammar of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, trans. Robert W. Funk (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961), page 168, sec. 322. (Note: John 8:58 is cited erroneously in the grammar’s text, in the referenced section, as John 5:58.)

6) N. Turner, A Grammar of New Testament Greek, vol. 3, Syntax (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1963), page 62, sec. 1(c).

7) J.N. Sanders and B.A. Mastin, A Commentary on the Gospel According to St. John (New York: Harper & Row, 1968), page 236.

8) Kenneth L. McKay, “Time and Aspect in New Testament Greek,” NovT 34 (1992), page 212.

— A New Syntax of the Verb in New Testament Greek (SBG 5; New York: Peter Lang, 1994), pages 41-42.

— “‘I am’ in John’s Gospel,” ExpT 107.10 (1996), page 302.

Rhodes neglected to consider each and every single one of the above in connection with this issue in his 1993 edition (which means Rhodes would not have had available to him only the last two cited sources) and Rhodes does not consider or reference any of them in his 2009 edition of Reasoning from the Scriptures with the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Yet, in 1993 Rhodes wrote that “scholars agree” there is “no justification” for the NWT rendering! Then sixteen (16) years later in 2009 Rhodes still hides available references which clearly support the NWT rendering and/or the Greek idiom cited explicitly by the Watchtower Society since its 1984 NWT Reference Edition was published.

In so doing, Rhodes makes it nearly impossible for his readers to completely and accurately understand these issues. Therefore, I believe for the above and for other reasons stated elsewhere in documents referenced in this Bog that Ron Rhodes and those who support his work against Jehovah’s Witnesses are misleading people by what Rhodes writes about the NWT and about John 8:58.

Further concerning John 8:58 and the NWT, consider the following from Rhodes’ 1993 edition of his Reasoning from the Scriptures with the Jehovah’s Witnesses, page 116 (with my underlining added):

It is highly revealing that at one time, the Jehovah’s Witnesses attempted to classify the Greek word eimi as a perfect indefinite tense rather than a present tense.

The above words are gone from Rhodes’ 2009 edition. Indeed, at no time have Jehovah’s Witnesses or the Watchtower Society attempted to “classify the Greek word eimi as a perfect indefinite tense rather than a present tense”!

Rhodes’ claim is a fabrication, one easily contradicted by the expressed use of “rendered in” in the very same 1950 NWT footnote to John 8:58 which is the source of the issue Rhodes’ writes about above concerning the “perfect indefinite tense”! The original fabrication begun by Dr. Walter Martin on this issue has been carried forward by many of Martin’s disciples since at least 1957, and possibly as early as 1953 (see notes 1, 2, 24, and 25 in my “Why do different editions of the New World Translation (NWT) contain different footnotes to its rendering of John 8:58?”). Unless Martin was intending to deceive people by his treatment of John 8:58 in the NWT, his false claims could have been avoided had Martin and his research staff understood the simple English expression, “rendered in,” which expression plainly reveals that “perfect indefinite tense” in the 1950 NWT footnote to John 8:58 has to do with the English translation, not with “the Greek word eimi as a perfect indefinite tense.”

Even more outrageous is the following 1993 description of the alleged reaction by Jehovah’s Witnesses to Martin’s false claims concerning the 1950 NWT footnote to John 8:58, which alleged reaction is portrayed by Rhodes as follows:

However, this claim proved to be very embarrassing when Greek scholars pointed out to the Jehovah’s Witnesses that there is no such thing as a perfect indefinite tense in Greek grammar. [Rhodes, Reasoning from the Scriptures with the Jehovah’s Witnesses (1993), page 116].

The above has now been eliminated from Rhodes’ 2009 edition, not because it no longer fit with the text and overall scope and subject of Rhodes’ work on Jehovah’s Witnesses (obviously). Rather, it seems clear that the change was made because Rhodes’ claim “proved to be very embarrassing when” English-speaking persons pointed out to Rhodes and to the Christian Research Institute which Martin founded that the NWT’s use of “perfect indefinite tense” had nothing to do with “Greek grammar”! 

Many of these same and other Trinitarian apologists and scholars still seem unable or unwilling to try and further unwind Walter Martin’s mishandling of NWT footnotes to John 8:58. The result is the NWT is continuously tainted unfairly over this issue when, in true and unfortunate irony, the NWT’s footnotes to John 8:58 should continue to serve as an embarrassing reminder of the false and misleading claims made by many Trinitarian scholars and critics of Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Rhodes has a note at the end of the above quotation (note 63) which refers to Robert M. Bowman, Jr.’s 1989 publication Jehovah’s Witnesses, Jesus Christ, and the Gospel of John (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1989), pages 90-98. Yet, Bowman’s publication reveals the truth of the matter (in part) involving the 1950 NWT’s use of “perfect indefinite tense” in its footnote to John 8:58. Note Bowman’s weak but revealing admission on his page 94, “it may be ... that the expression ‘rendered in’ in [the 1950 NWTNT] footnote should be understood to refer to the tense of the English rendering.”

It not only “may be,” it is clearly true (based on the 1950 NWT footnote’s use of “rendered in”) that “the expression should be understood to refer to the tense of the English rendering.” Further ‘embarrassment’ for many Evangelicals, such as those who support the claims made by Martin, Rhodes, Bowman, Morey, Ankerberg, Weldon, and others who followed Dr. Martin down this path in varying degrees, can be seen in Martin’s book, The Kingdom of the Cults, Revised Edition (Minneapolis, Minnesota: Bethany Fellowship, 1977 [1965]), page 78. Here Martin alleges “the term ‘perfect indefinite tense’ is an invention of the author of the note.” 

Yet, twenty (20) years after the publication of Martin’s The Kingdom of the Cults in 1965, in Martin’s 1985 Revised edition, his strong allegation has been significantly changed. In fact, the change made in the 1985 edition of The Kingdom of the Cults still remains in editions of Martin’s work published almost forty (40) years after the book was first published according to the Revised, Updated, and Expanded Edition of Martin’s book edited by Ravi Zacharias (Grand Rapids: Bethany, 2003). Consider the following comparison of these editions of Martin’s Kingdom of the Cults (with underlining added):

1977 (1965) Kingdom of the Cults, pages 77-78:

It is difficult to know what the author of the note [on page 312 of the 1950 NWT] means since he does not use standard grammatical terminology, nor is his argument documented from standard grammars. The aorist infinitive as such does not form a clause. It is the adverb Prin which is significant here, so that the construction should be called [a] Prin clause. The term “perfect indefinite” is an invention of the author of the note, so it is impossible to know what is meant.

1985 Kingdom of the Cults, page 88:

It is difficult to know what the author of the note [on page 312 of the 1950 NWT] means since he does not use standard grammatical terminology, nor is his argument documented from standard grammars. The aorist infinitive as such does not form a clause. It is the adverb Prin which is significant here, so that the construction should be called a Prin clause. The term “perfect indefinite” is not a standard grammatical term and its use here has been invented by the authors of the note, so it is impossible to know what is meant.

2003 Kingdom of the Cults, page 111:

It is difficult to know what the translator means, since he does not use standard grammatical terminology, nor is his argument documented from standard grammars. The aorist infinitive as such does not form a clause. It is the adverb prin that is significant here, so that the construction should be called a prin clause. The term “perfect indefinite” is not a standard grammatical term, and its use here has been invented by the authors of the note, so it is impossible to know what is meant.

Note that in the later edition of Martin’s work it is not said the NWT translators ‘invented’ “the term ‘perfect indefinite tense.’” Rather, in the 1985 edition of Kingdom of the Cults Martin’s charge is that the NWT footnote authors “invented” the perfect indefinite’s “use here” in John 8:58! As I wrote in my recent Q&A on NWT footnotes to John 8:58:

It is unclear how those responsible for the 1985 and later 2003 editions of Martin’s work (quoted above) could have made such a change (but without any retraction for Martin’s false claim that the NWT authors invented “the term ‘perfect indefinite tense’”), but at the same time fail in their research (all the way up to at least 2003) to note the explanation of the NWT authors’ “use” of “perfect indefinite” given by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society in its 1978 letter to Firpo Carr. In fact, this 1978 letter (which I discuss in the main body of this article) is referenced and considered in part by Robert M. Bowman, Jr., in his 1989 book Jehovah’s Witnesses, Jesus Christ, and the Gospel of John (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1989), pages 93-94, and 100. So it was not “impossible to know what” was meant in 2003, that is, had those responsible for editing Martin’s work bothered to fully research the matter according to the published explanation given by the Society over thirty (30) years ago, and subsequently critiqued by Bowman twenty (20) years ago! [Greg Stafford, “Why do different editions of the New World Translation (NWT) contain different footnotes to its rendering of John 8:58?,” note 1 continued on page 9.]

I have attempted to fairly consider issues pertaining to Jehovah’s Witnesses, the NWT, and John 8:58 in my three editions of Jehovah’s Witnesses Defended (1998, 2000, and 2009), in my answer to the December 17, 2009, “Upon the Lampstand” question, “Why do different editions of the New World Translation contain different footnotes to its rendering of John 8:58?” and now here in this Blog. I plan on continuing to engage all demonstrably false teachers over this or concerning any other important biblical text or issue, in order to try and help those who are truly attempting to learn about the best available reasons for beliefs concerning Jah God, Jesus of Nazareth, and the Bible.

In closing, I will here again produce a listing of several English translations which are similar to NWT’s rendering of John 8:58 in that they, too, attempt to express Jesus’ preexistence rather than an identity as “I AM” or an explicit claim to have existed eternally. Neither of these latter conclusions have any place in John 8:58, for neither of them come from the grammar or from any of the clear teachings of this text in its context, as I have repeatedly and expressly shown:

“From before Abraham was, I have been”

George R. Noyes, The New Testament (Boston: A. Williams and Company, 1871).

“Before Abraham was born I was already what I am” and (in the 1904 edition) “I was”

The Twentieth Century New Testament (Chicago: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1904).

“I have existed before Abraham was born”

James Moffatt, The Bible: A New Translation (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1935).

“I am here – and I was before Abraham!”

J.A. Kleist and J.L. Lilly, The New Testament (Milwaukee: The Bruce Publishing Company, 1956).

“I was before Abraham”

William F. Beck, The New Testament in the Language of Today (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1963).

“I was in existence before Abraham was ever born”

Kenneth N. Taylor, The Living Bible (Wheaton, Illinois: Tyndale, 1979).

“I am from before Abraham was born!”

Richard Lattimore, The Four Gospels and the Revelation (New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1979).

“I existed before Abraham was born”

C.B. Williams, The New Testament in the Language of the People (Nashville: Holman Bible Publishers, 1986).

“I have been in existence since before Abraham was born”

Kenneth L. McKay, A New Syntax of the Verb in New Testament Greek (SBG 5; New York: Peter Lang, 1994), page 42.

For more on the history and meaning of John 8:58, and on the use of ego eimi by Jesus and by others in the New Testament and in related literature, see my Chapter 3, “Jesus of Nazareth: The Christ from Heaven,” in the Third Edition of Jehovah’s Witnesses Defended: An Answer to Scholars and Critics (Murrieta, CA: Elihu Books, 2009), and also my online Q&A, “Why do different editions of the New World Translation (NWT) contain different footnotes to its rendering of John 8:58?”