From Samuel Charles Fripp B.A. 1822
I take this opportunity of noticing the circumstance (which to some of my readers may possibly be new) that Luther's translation is, in some other important cases, closer to the original than our public version. For instance, in that very interesting passage, (Exod. iii. 14.) where Moses asks by what name he is to describe the GREAT ETERNAL to his countrymen, “God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM.” Thus it is translated in our common version. Luther's is, more correctly, as follows: “I will be what I will “be.” (Ich werde seyn der ich seyn werde.) i. e. The Eternal, Immutable. It so happens, however, that our translators have rendered John viii. 58, thus: “Before Abraham was, I AM.” (ego eimi) From this verbal parallelism, occasioned by the inaccurate translation of these two texts, many a plausible argument has been constructed in favour of the eternity and immutability of Christ Jesus our Lord. That the mere English reader should draw such a conclusion, is not to be wondered at: but that grave and learned divines should have fought, vi et unguibus, in defence of an argument, which rests entirely on a mistranslation, is indeed astonishing. To a reader of the Septuagint, as well as of Luther's version, the supposed allusion of our Lord to the words in Exodus, must appear groundless. (The LXX. translate Exodus iii. 14, thus: ego eimi ho on: “I am He that exists—THE BEING.) That John viii. 58, ought to be rendered, “Before Abraham was [born] I am He,” or “I was “He,” is, I think, evident. For the expression ego eimi, is the same that is thus rendered in this very chapter twice: (v. 24.) “If ye believe not that I am “HE, ye shall die in your sins:” (v. 28.) “then shall “ye know that I am HE;” i.e. the Messiah: “He “who was to come.” (Compare also John iv. 26.— ix. 9.—xviii. 5. Luke xxi. 8. Matt. xxiv. 5. Mark xiii. 6. Matt. xiv. 27. Mark vi. 50. John vi. 20.) To prove the utter impropriety of ego eimi being rendered (in the fiftieth verse) “I am,” let us translate those very words, as they stand in the twenty-fourth verse, in the same manner: “When ye have “lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know “(hoti ego eimi) that I AM, AND THAT I DO NOTHING OF “MYSELF,” What! He who is the self-existent Jehovah? Doth HE, verily, do nothing of HIMSELF? But Christ Jesus does incontestibly assert this of HIMSELF, (and not of his human nature, as is erroneously affirmed;) and in the very same breath too, with which he utters those words (ego eimi) “I AM,” which are supposed to assert his eternity and immutability. This expression must, therefore, refer to his Messiahship, not to his supposed eternity and Godhead. As God’s Christ, “he did nothing of himself,” nothing without the Father: as God Almighty, he could not but do all things of himself, else he were less than God. But he himself (v. 40.) assured the Jews that he was “a man who told them the truth “which he had heard of God.” And is he not the “true and faithful witness,” who was born “that he “might bear witness unto the truth?”
As the great appointed, promised, and expected Messiah, he doubtless pre-existed before Abraham was born: and Abraham saw him with the eye of faith, which realizes “things to come,” and sees “Him that is invisible.” He pre-existed, as “the “Lamb slain from the foundation of the world:” “fore-ordained then, though manifest in these last “times for us.” The implacable enemies of our Lord flew into a paroxysm of rage at his declaration, and, armed with malice and religious hatred, strove to overwhelm their meek and lowly Messiah in a whirlwind of stones. This was just what might be expected from cold-hearted proud bigots of their stamp. Had they not already stigmatized him as a Sabbath-breaker, a Samaritan (or heretic), a Daemoniac, because Christ had performed a miracle of mercy on the Sabbath-day? And could these stanch defenders of the dignity of Abraham, brook any expression of the lowly Prophet of Nazareth, which implied that “a “greater than Abraham is here?” No, surely. The Messiah did not answer their proud, exclusive, earthly expectations: hence their blind animosity, and their vehement accusations of blasphemy. But, is it at all probable that they understood Christ's declaration aright? Was there no wilful misunderstanding on their part? Did the turbulent passions with which their malignant hearts were boiling, send up no intoxicating fumes “to mantle their cooler reason?” Shall we say that Christ, who was so cautious in declaring his Messiahship even to his most intimate friends and disciples, and who, nevertheless assured them that he spoke to them plainly, though to others in parables, that he revealed to these miscreants, (it is an orthodox expression, and the Bishop of St. David's tracts will supply the proper meaning) the great, astonishing, amazing secret, that He, Jesus of Nazareth, was, under the guise of a man, no less than the ineffable Jehovah—the great Eternal, who filleth heaven and earth with his immensity—to whom an “atom is a world, and a world an atom!” Unbelieving Jews may so profess to understand Christ's words, and look about for stones wherewithal to crush their Messiah;—for my part, I am content to be able to say with honest Nathaniel: “Rabbi! Thou “art the Son of God, thou art the King of Israel!”
I take this opportunity of noticing the circumstance (which to some of my readers may possibly be new) that Luther's translation is, in some other important cases, closer to the original than our public version. For instance, in that very interesting passage, (Exod. iii. 14.) where Moses asks by what name he is to describe the GREAT ETERNAL to his countrymen, “God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM.” Thus it is translated in our common version. Luther's is, more correctly, as follows: “I will be what I will “be.” (Ich werde seyn der ich seyn werde.) i. e. The Eternal, Immutable. It so happens, however, that our translators have rendered John viii. 58, thus: “Before Abraham was, I AM.” (ego eimi) From this verbal parallelism, occasioned by the inaccurate translation of these two texts, many a plausible argument has been constructed in favour of the eternity and immutability of Christ Jesus our Lord. That the mere English reader should draw such a conclusion, is not to be wondered at: but that grave and learned divines should have fought, vi et unguibus, in defence of an argument, which rests entirely on a mistranslation, is indeed astonishing. To a reader of the Septuagint, as well as of Luther's version, the supposed allusion of our Lord to the words in Exodus, must appear groundless. (The LXX. translate Exodus iii. 14, thus: ego eimi ho on: “I am He that exists—THE BEING.) That John viii. 58, ought to be rendered, “Before Abraham was [born] I am He,” or “I was “He,” is, I think, evident. For the expression ego eimi, is the same that is thus rendered in this very chapter twice: (v. 24.) “If ye believe not that I am “HE, ye shall die in your sins:” (v. 28.) “then shall “ye know that I am HE;” i.e. the Messiah: “He “who was to come.” (Compare also John iv. 26.— ix. 9.—xviii. 5. Luke xxi. 8. Matt. xxiv. 5. Mark xiii. 6. Matt. xiv. 27. Mark vi. 50. John vi. 20.) To prove the utter impropriety of ego eimi being rendered (in the fiftieth verse) “I am,” let us translate those very words, as they stand in the twenty-fourth verse, in the same manner: “When ye have “lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know “(hoti ego eimi) that I AM, AND THAT I DO NOTHING OF “MYSELF,” What! He who is the self-existent Jehovah? Doth HE, verily, do nothing of HIMSELF? But Christ Jesus does incontestibly assert this of HIMSELF, (and not of his human nature, as is erroneously affirmed;) and in the very same breath too, with which he utters those words (ego eimi) “I AM,” which are supposed to assert his eternity and immutability. This expression must, therefore, refer to his Messiahship, not to his supposed eternity and Godhead. As God’s Christ, “he did nothing of himself,” nothing without the Father: as God Almighty, he could not but do all things of himself, else he were less than God. But he himself (v. 40.) assured the Jews that he was “a man who told them the truth “which he had heard of God.” And is he not the “true and faithful witness,” who was born “that he “might bear witness unto the truth?”
As the great appointed, promised, and expected Messiah, he doubtless pre-existed before Abraham was born: and Abraham saw him with the eye of faith, which realizes “things to come,” and sees “Him that is invisible.” He pre-existed, as “the “Lamb slain from the foundation of the world:” “fore-ordained then, though manifest in these last “times for us.” The implacable enemies of our Lord flew into a paroxysm of rage at his declaration, and, armed with malice and religious hatred, strove to overwhelm their meek and lowly Messiah in a whirlwind of stones. This was just what might be expected from cold-hearted proud bigots of their stamp. Had they not already stigmatized him as a Sabbath-breaker, a Samaritan (or heretic), a Daemoniac, because Christ had performed a miracle of mercy on the Sabbath-day? And could these stanch defenders of the dignity of Abraham, brook any expression of the lowly Prophet of Nazareth, which implied that “a “greater than Abraham is here?” No, surely. The Messiah did not answer their proud, exclusive, earthly expectations: hence their blind animosity, and their vehement accusations of blasphemy. But, is it at all probable that they understood Christ's declaration aright? Was there no wilful misunderstanding on their part? Did the turbulent passions with which their malignant hearts were boiling, send up no intoxicating fumes “to mantle their cooler reason?” Shall we say that Christ, who was so cautious in declaring his Messiahship even to his most intimate friends and disciples, and who, nevertheless assured them that he spoke to them plainly, though to others in parables, that he revealed to these miscreants, (it is an orthodox expression, and the Bishop of St. David's tracts will supply the proper meaning) the great, astonishing, amazing secret, that He, Jesus of Nazareth, was, under the guise of a man, no less than the ineffable Jehovah—the great Eternal, who filleth heaven and earth with his immensity—to whom an “atom is a world, and a world an atom!” Unbelieving Jews may so profess to understand Christ's words, and look about for stones wherewithal to crush their Messiah;—for my part, I am content to be able to say with honest Nathaniel: “Rabbi! Thou “art the Son of God, thou art the King of Israel!”
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