Jesus och tetragrammaton i Johannesevangeliet. Jesu användning av gudsnamnet i modern bibelöversättning

Abstract

The tetragrammaton – God’s name, YHWH – appears in Old Testament (OT) texts Exodus 3:14 and Deutero-Isaiah. In LXX the phrase is written as ἐγώ εἰμι, literally ‘I am’. John, more than any other gospel writer, places these words in the mouth of Jesus, and this essay focuses on dismantling these verses with the help of grammatical criticism, in search of answering whether the phrase is intended as a reference to the OT tetragrammaton or simply a way of presenting oneself. Building on this analysis, the essay continually studies how this phenomenon is translated in modern Bible translations built on exegetical methods such as textual criticism, which will be examined through a comparative analysis between five translations in English and Swedish. The study leads me to conclude that the seven Johannine ‘I am’-metaphors should not be considered direct tetragrammaton references while the majority of the absolute ἐγώ εἰμι statements should. The comparison between Bible translations shows that the translators chose different approaches to display the references, such as capital letters or commentary notes, while some translations contained few to no signs of the tetragrammaton in these verses.