Now I Am Become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds — J. Robert Oppenheimer
Oppenheimer famously quoted this from The Bhagavad Geeta in the context of the nuclear bomb. The way this sentence is structured feels weird to me. “Now I am Death” or “Now I have become Death” sound much more natural in English to me.
Was he trying to simulate some formulation in Sanskrit that is not available in the English language?
But in that example isn’t the “am” replacing the “have”?
Yes. The conjugates for “to be” are: I am, You are, He/she is, etc.
If you think about it the fact that modern English uses “Have” in this context (primarily describing something you own) is actually weirder than “Am” (something you are)