John 8:58 according to a Native Speaker of Koine Greek

John 8:58 ESV Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.”

Trinitarians point out that Jesus’ use of the expression “I am” in John 8:58 echoes the “I am” statements of Jehovah in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament).

In order to refute this interpretation of Jesus’ saying, recorded in Koine Greek, it is sometimes asserted that the present tense of the verb for “I am” here should be understood as expressing past action extending into present time, as if Jesus was simply saying that he existed before Abraham came into existence.

It is certainly true that in Koine Greek, the present tense can be used to express past action extending into present time. However, the syntax of Jesus’ saying makes it highly unlikely that such is the case here. (That is for another article.) This is further confirmed by a native speaker of Koine Greek!

John Chrysostom, who lived during the fourth century CE, was a native speaker of Koine Greek. In fact, his nickname Chrysostomos, meaning “golden tongued”, was earned due to his eloquence. In one of his sermons, preached in Koine Greek, John Chrysostom comments on Jesus’ saying in John 8:58:

Διατί δὲ μὴ εἶπε, Πρὸ τοῦ Ἀβραὰμ γενέσθαι, ἐγὼ ἤμην· ἀλλ’ Ἐγὼ εἰμί; Ὥσπερ ὁ Πατὴρ αὐτοῦ ταύτῃ κέχρηται τῇ λέξει τῇ Εἰμί· οὕτω καὶ αὐτὸς. Τοῦ διηνεκῶς γὰρ εἶναι σημαντικὴ αὕτη, παντὸς ἀπηλλαγμένη χρόνου· διὰ τοῦτο καὶ βλάσφημον εἶναι αὐτοῖς δοκεῖ τὸ ῥῆμα.

But why did he not say, “Before Abraham came to be, I have been,” but “I am”? Just as his Father used this word “am”, in the same way he himself also used it, because its meaning is to continuously be, irrespective of all time. Because of this, his saying seemed to them to be blasphemous. — Homilies on the Gospel of John, Homily 55.

John Chrysostom picked up on the oddity of Jesus’ use of the present tense “I am” in the passage. His question implies that it would be more natural for Jesus to use the imperfect tense “I have been” instead, if he had simply meant that he existed before Abraham came into existence. In other words, as a native speaker of Koine Greek, John Chrysostom did not naturally perceive that the present tense “I am” in the passage expressed past action extending into present time, or else he would not have raised this question, or gone on to explain its significance.

John Chrysostom was the most senior Christian leader in the city of Constantinople, the capital of the Roman Empire, where Koine Greek was spoken as the primary language. He was preaching a sermon in Koine Greek to a congregation of people whose native language was Koine Greek. If he had said something false or misleading about the linguistic features of the biblical text at this point, it would have been easily and quickly detected, and he would have certainly lost a lot of credibility regarding his handling of the Scriptures.