Exodus 3:14 “At this God said to Moses: ‘I shall prove to be what I shall prove to be.’ And he added: ‘This is what you are to say to the sons of Israel, “I shall prove to be has sent me to you.'" (NWT)
The website says: The Hebrew phrase, ‘eheyeh ‘asher ‘eheyeh, literally is “I am who I am.” But Jesus alludes to this statement in John 8:58 by calling himself “I am,” and Jehovah’s Witnesses reject the deity of Jesus so this passage was modified.
Reply: Does Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh literally mean “I am who I am?”
Look at this image that shows the same word used two verses prior at Exodus 3:12 where it is translated in your Bible as "I Will Be." It seems odd to translate it so oddly at Exodus 3:14, unless you are going to great pains to link it to Jesus' words at John 8:58.
I have looked at many occurrences of the Hebrew word `hyh (ehyeh) I could find with the pronoun, and the results are overwhelming that "I AM" is a poor translation. Unless otherwise stated, the Bible used is the Revised Standard Version:
Exo 3:12 And he said, Certainly I will be with thee ASV
Exo 3:14 snip
Exo 4:12 Now therefore go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak."
Exo 4:15 And you shall speak to him and put the words in his mouth; and I will be with your mouth and with his mouth, and will teach you what you shall do.
Deu 31:23 And the LORD commissioned Joshua the son of Nun and said, "Be strong and of good courage; for you shall bring the children of Israel into the land which I swore to give them: I will be with you."
Jos 1:5 No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life; as I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will not fail you or forsake you.
Jos 3:7 And the LORD said to Joshua, "This day I will begin to exalt you in the sight of all Israel, that they may know that, as I was with Moses, so I will be with you.
Jdg 6:16 And the LORD said to him, "But I will be with you, and you shall smite the Mid'ianites as one man."
Jdg 11:9 Jephthah said to the elders of Gilead, "If you bring me home again to fight with the Ammonites, and the LORD gives them over to me, I will be your head."
1Sa 18:18 And David said to Saul, "Who am I, and who are my kinsfolk, my father's family in Israel, that I should be son-in-law to the king?"
1Sa 23:17 And he said to him, "Fear not; for the hand of Saul my father shall not find you; you shall be king over Israel, and I shall be next to you; Saul my father also knows this."
2Sa 7:14 I will be his father, and he shall be my son. When he commits iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men;
2Sa 15:34 But if you return to the city, and say to Ab'salom, 'I will be your servant, O king
2Sa 16:18 And Hushai said to Ab'salom, "No; for whom the LORD and this people and all the men of Israel have chosen, his I will be
2Sa 16:19 so I will be in your presence. NASB
Isa 3:7 in that day he will speak out, saying: "I will not be a healer; in my house there is neither bread nor mantle; you shall not make me leader of the people."
Isa 47:7 You said, "I will be the mistress for ever," HCSB
Jer 11:4 which I commanded your fathers when I brought them out of the land of Egypt, from the iron furnace, saying, Listen to my voice, and do all that I command you. So shall you be my people, and I will be your God,
Jer 24:7 I will give them a heart to know that I am the LORD; and they shall be my people and I will be their God, for they shall return to me with their whole heart.
Jer 30:22 And you shall be my people, and I will be your God."
Jer 31:1 "At that time, says the LORD, I will be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be my people."
Jer 32:38 And they shall be my people, and I will be their God.
Eze 11:20 that they may walk in my statutes and keep my ordinances and obey them; and they shall be my people, and I will be their God.
Eze 14:11 and they shall be my people, and I will be their God, saith the Lord Jehovah. Darby Bible
Eze 34:24 And I, the LORD, will be their God, and my servant David shall be prince among them; I, the LORD, have spoken.
Eze 36:28 You shall dwell in the land which I gave to your fathers; and you shall be my people, and I will be your God.
Eze 37:23 They shall not defile themselves any more with their idols and their detestable things, or with any of their transgressions; but I will save them from all the backslidings in which they have sinned, and will cleanse them; and they shall be my people, and I will be their God.
Hos 1:9 Then He said, Call his name Not My People, for you are not My people, and I will not be for you. LITV [RSV has "I am"]
Zec 2:5[9] And I will be to her a wall of fire all around, and I will be for glory in her midst, declares Jehovah. LITV
Zec 8:8 and I will bring them to dwell in the midst of Jerusalem; and they shall be my people and I will be their God, in faithfulness and in righteousness."
Psa 50:21 You have done these things, and I have kept silence; you thought that surely I would be like you LITV
Job 3:16 Or as a hidden untimely birth I had not been, As infants that never saw light. ASV
Job 10:19 I should have been as though I had not been ASV
*Job 12:4 I am as one that is a laughing-stock to his neighbor ASV
[Compare NIV "I have become a laughingstock to my friends"]
*Job 17:6 He has made me a byword of the peoples, and I am one before whom men spit.
[Compare NKJV "I have become one in whose face men spit."
KJV "and aforetime I was as a tabret."
DARBY "and I am become one to be spit on in the face."]
Song 1:7 for why should I be like one who wanders beside the flocks of your companions?
Rth 2:13 though I am not one of your maidservants
[Compare KJV, ASV "though I be not like unto one of thine handmaidens."
NET "though I could never be equal to one of your servants."
1Ch 17:13 I will be his father, and he shall be my son
1Ch 28:6 I will be his father
For this reason, many other Bibles do not translate Exodus 3:14 as I AM, but rather "I will be," such as The James Moffatt Translation and Smith & Goodspeed's An American Translation. The Jewish Study Bible: Jewish Publication Society Tanakh Translation By Adele Berlin, Marc Zvi Brettler says that Exodus 3:14 is "probably best translated as 'I Will Be What I Will Be'" and Robert Alter in his Hebrew Bible concludes as well that "I Will Be Who I Will Be" is the most plausible construction. Frederic Huidekoper in his "Genesis, Chapters I.-XI.: In Parallel Columns" also believes "I Will Be What I Will Be" "is the only translation." https://tinyurl.com/se9cupw . Even Walter Martin in his The Kingdom of the Occult at footnote 25 in the Eastern Mysticism and the New Age section that "the original words literally signify 'I will be what I will be.'"
"YHWH is the name that describes this essence and identity most clearly: 'I will be what I will be.'" Reformed Dogmatics: God and Creation By Herman Bavinck, John Bolt, John Vriend
"The traditional English translation within Judaism favors 'I will be what I will be' because there is no present tense of the verb 'to be' in the Hebrew language." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_that_I_Am
Elsewhere in Judaism, The book "An Introduction to Judaism" By Nicholas de Lange prefers "I shall be what I shall be" https://tinyurl.com/sxtq8z9 as does "Ehyeh: A Kabbalah for Tomorrow" By Arthur Green https://tinyurl.com/qko3w3a and "Tales of the Village Rabbi: A Manhattan Chronicle" By Harvey M. Tattelbaum https://tinyurl.com/tuf4wv9 and "Gan Sofer" by Baruch Myers (Page 275) and "The Jewish Study Bible: Second Edition" https://tinyurl.com/udpkgmo and "Prophecy: The History of an Idea in Medieval Jewish Philosophy" By Howard Kreisel https://tinyurl.com/vnwca73 and "Crescas: Light of the Lord (Or Hashem): Translated with introduction and notes" by Roslyn Weiss https://tinyurl.com/yx2o9qdb and Rational Rabbis: Science and Talmudic Culture by Menachem Fisch (Page 194) and "Religion of the Age and of the Ages" by Abraham Moses Hershman (Page 61) and "Judaism: an Analysis and an Interpretation" by Israel Herbert Levinthal (Page 61) and Journal of Reform Judaism, Volume 32, 1985 (Page 112) and it is ascribed to the great medieval Jewish commentator Rashi in "The God Who May Be: A Hermeneutics of Religion by Richard Kearney (Page 25).
See also The Exodus 3:14/John 8:58 Nothing-Burger
https://newworldtranslation.blogspot.com/2018/10/the-exodus-314john-858-nothing-burger.html
The Present of Past Action and John 8:58
https://newworldtranslation.blogspot.com/2018/08/the-present-of-past-action-and-john-858.html
EGW EIMI (ego eimi), I AM and John 8:58
https://newworldtranslation.blogspot.com/2018/07/egw-eimi-ego-eimi-i-am-and-john-858.html
Buy: And the Word was a god: A New Book on the Most Disputed Text in the New Testament - John 1:1 and The Dark History of the Trinity, is now available on Amazon by clicking here...and both are only 99 cents
[The newer NWT has “I Will Become What I Choose to Become.”]
I will become what i choose to become is a very good simple rendition, similar to pro. Rotherham
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