The Koine Greek term (, ), I am or It is I, is an emphatic form of the copulative verb õἰüù that is recorded in the Gospels to have been spoken by Jesus on several occasions to refer to himself not with the role of a verb but playing the role of a name, in the Gospel of John occurring seven times with specific titles. It is connected to the passage in Exodus 3:14 in which God gives his name as , translated most basically as "I am that I am" or "I shall be what I am". These usages have been the subject of significant Christological analysis.
In the New Testament, the personal pronoun in conjunction with the present first-person singular copulative is recorded to have been used mainly by Jesus, especially in the Gospel of John.
It is used in the Gospel of John both with and without a predicate nominative. The seven occurrences with a predicate nominative that have resulted in some of the titles for Jesus are:
There are other times the phrase is used in the New Testament, but with a predicate nominative and/or adjectives in between and : a centurion in and , Zechariah in , Gabriel in , a man blind from birth in who is healed by Jesus and told to go wash in the Pool of Siloam, Peter in and , Paul the Apostle in , , , , , , and , some Corinthian believer in and , John the Baptist in the negative (, 'I am not') in and (compare with Jesus in John 8:23, 17:14,16), and Pilate in a question (, 'Am I [a] Jew?') in .
õἰüù also occurs without an explicit or implicit predicate nominative in the Septuagint, but instead either with a prepositional phrase such as in ("Am I in place of God ...") , or with a predicative clause such as in ("As a foreigner and a sojourner I am with you") in , or with the idiomatic meaning 'It is I' such as in ("And Joab said: I hear; it is I") in .
It has been suggested that the unique expression of the Tetragrammaton (YHWH) is a verbal cognate noun derived from (), the Hebrew linking (or 'copular' or 'copulative') verb, 'to be'. Translations often render this word in compliance with the tradition of the Septuagint, "Lord".
The philosopher Joseph de Torre, commenting on the philosophical implications of "I am" as the name of God, wrote: