[Eagle Eye]

Can you tell us about the punctuation in the Greek texts?

Oh, there isn’t any?

So any punctuation in the KJV or other English version is private interpretation and devoid of any authority?

So going into the context that the religious leaders are arguing about Abraham being the way of truth, Jesus is responding by telling them that in times past, Abraham was the way but now, today, I am.

Before, Abraham was. Today, I am; not prior to Abraham, I existed.

Repunctuate the verse and it makes sense with the rest of the Bible that CLEARLY says that God is spirit, invisible and the Father of Jesus Christ who is a visible man and died on the cross.

[Mad Dawg]

There are six uses of πριν in the NT, two in John. If you are right this would be the only time that it is used as an adverb and not as an adverbial conjunction (or a preposition with a verbal object, like an infinitive).

My Lexicon (Brown Driver Briggs) says that it was used as an adverb in Homeric Greek, but that was quite a while before the NT. My super, killer, Mother of All Lexicons, Kittel, doesn't think the word important enough to discuss,

It's an interesting linguistic challenge, but I'm not buying without contemporary evidence of the use of the word as an adverb.