[8:57] 1 tn Grk “Then the Jews.” See the note on this term in v. 31. Here, as in vv. 31, 48, and 52, the phrase refers to the Jewish people in Jerusalem (“Judeans”; cf. BDAG 479 s.v. ᾿Ιουδαῖος 2.e) who had been listening to Jesus’ teaching in the temple courts (8:20) and had initially believed his claim to be the Messiah (cf. 8:31). They have now become completely hostile, as John 8:59 clearly shows.
[8:57] 2 tn Grk “said to him.”
[8:57] 3 tn Grk ‘You do not yet have fifty years” (an idiom).
[8:58] 5 tn Grk “Truly, truly, I say to you.”
[8:58] 6 tn Grk “before Abraham was.”
[8:58] 7 sn I am! is an explicit claim to deity. Although each occurrence of the phrase “I am” in the Fourth Gospel needs to be examined individually in context to see if an association with Exod 3:14 is present, it seems clear that this is the case here (as the response of the Jewish authorities in the following verse shows).
