John is misunderstood because it reveals Jesus’s mystical connection itself. He never claimed to be god by saying he and the father were one any more than the common Christian who claims to have Jesus in their heart. They aren’t claiming equality but everyone knows that. Yet here, it’s assumed he meant he was the same or equal. Oneness in the sense of unified and his evidence for sonship is the father backing him up with miracles even he didn’t claim as his own. He also described a river of life springing up from within and much of what he described he was doing to show what’s possible for anyone with faith. Anyone with a mystical connection themselves can see these things as a description of his awareness of himself but not really worshipping his own image. John did exactly what he said he would do at the beginning. To tell a different side of the story of this intimate side of Jesus and how he related to the father. For me, it’s compelling evidence for its truth even if it’s been horribly interpreted. The Word was simply the other side of the conversation that’s always been with the Father. I guess you could say he suffered from psychosis hearing voices in his head so he decided to place the voice in a body and share life in that temple on this earth he also created. No big deal. So Jesus is a normal man but born with a little extra sauce and had help the whole way. But he had to be agreeable to this in all his lives. He believed in reincarnation and before Abraham he was Adam but in reality he was also Abraham. Thus the confusion. Also Moses and David too. That’s who the Son of Man has been and still is. A human, the only one in fact, that can legitimately call god his father. Special? Sure,  but just that plant tended to by the father  He never said he was god and this is all the Christians creating a false image and it’s the Antichrist they worship now being a fake. 

I don’t disagree that he preexisted and basically was the little voice in gods head he decided to make into a body. That’s not saying he’s now god but it is saying he’s the other half to the voice in Gods head and who he has communed with from the beginning. But on this earth, he is just a man and really only operating as a shaman or high priest who has a bit deeper thing going than we have. He lives on this earth but behind a veil and is the only one in that room but not god. What I mean is that John was showing not Jesus’s godhood but his humanity wrapped in a divine expression. He said when you see him, you see the father. Not that he was the father, but the miracles backed him up. No one sees god except that reflection when he does something supernatural. Because we saw a tender father, we have a kinder more loving Jewish type god to fall in live with again. That was the gist of it anyway. 

Robert said
Welcome. Divinity, God, Father, Son, pre-existence, subordinationism, etc, were sometimes more elastic in the NT than we imagine in our post Nicea-Chalcedon world. Also pay attention to the “I am” statements in the gospel of John and the post-resurrection confession of Thomas to Jesus (20,28): “My Lord and my God.”

   

I always find it hard to agree with orthodox interpretation of the “I am” statements, they could be attributed to any Prophet. The Jews repeatedly mistook metaphors for literal statements. In keeping with the pre-existence narrative in the Prologue and other various monotheistic statements, even John 8:58 seems as though the Jews once again took Jesus literally as opposed to him being the Christ since the beginning. Though I can understand the interpretation to the contrary, it seems to me that there would then be a contradiction. We have no explicit contextual evidence in the Gospel that Jesus was God manifest. Perhaps in the Epistles the rebuke against those who viewed Jesus as a spirit being insinuates the community encompassed members that might have had a high Christology. Yet the Epistles distinguish Jesus and God 1 John 4:12. Thomas’s statement is connected John 14:8-11, and the argument goes on… Moreover, davidpneff makes a very good point about 10:33-39. 

You sir, are probably far more knowledgeable than me regarding this subject! I don’t disagree that the Gospel is not entirely historically accurate, however I do think that it is plausible that the Gospel exemplifies how ‘the Jews’ deliberately took everything literally to form a case against Jesus. I think it is possible that Jesus may have said something along the lines of, for example, him being the Messiah since the beginning (see Jeremiah 1:5) and this was reworded to something more memorable, “before Abraham was I am”. Pretty much every other time Jesus says ego emi he refers to himself being the Messiah. We part ways my friend regarding the author’s christology, I feel as though contextually the Gospel falls short of a high christology, except maybe John 1:3 (if that counts as a high christology!). For example I take John 1:1 to mean “a god” based on John 10:34; 17:3; 20:17 etc. And I most certainly do not think the Johannine community toyed with the idea of a man-God messiah due to lack of evidence for this.

Robert said
I don’t think I’m arguing for an ‘orthodox monotheistic’, interpretation of the “I am” statements in John, but merely for an elastic sense of divinity in the ancient world, including within Judaism. I do think the author of the fourth gospel does indeed have a very high christology, including attributing some kind of divinity to Jesus.

“The Jews repeatedly mistook metaphors for literal statements. In keeping with the pre-existence narrative in the Prologue and other various monotheistic statements, even John 8:58 seems as though the Jews once again took Jesus literally as opposed to him being the Christ since the beginning.”

I don’t think the “I am” statements, or their misunderstanding by ‘the Jews’ should be considered historical. Is that what you are suggesting?