The site also has, “Jesus said, "I AM the Bread of Life" -
John 6:35,
41,48,51”.
This is a bit misleading, in that a normal Greek construction –
egō eimi (I, I myself am) – is in full caps, probably meant & easily taken to imply Jesus’ deity. By this logic the man born blind also claimed deity, for “h[FONT="]e kept saying, ‘I am [[/FONT]
egō eimi] [FONT="]the man’” (Jhn.9:9)! There is a tie in of [/FONT]
egō eimi to deity, but Ex.3:14 is probably not one of them even though in English it can look like it. Ex.3:14 highlighted
ho ōn (the being): ...[FONT="] Εγω ειμι ὁ ων...Ὁ ων ἀπεσταλκεν με[/FONT]/...I am the being...The being has sent me.
However there are 7
egō eimi predicates, and 7 is a symbolic number of perfection. As John very carefully crafted his Gospel we can see that recording 7 ‘I am’ predicates carried its own message of perfection sweeping in. This is in line with the idea that Jesus was Israel, a concept at last brought in after its ethnic foreshadowing. Thus whereas the Jews had a literal temple, with Yeshua the supreme prophetic message (Gk.
alēthinos) of temple had been born, all previous shadows becoming redundant (
cf. Jhn.2:21). In God’s plan ethnic Israel preshadowed global Israel.
The only Johnnine
egō eimi that clearly asserts deity is the absolute use, which is in Jhn.8:58. To mind-blowingly say that he was before Abraham would be done by saying, “I was”, but by saying “I am” went beyond mere pre-existence & into the uncreatedness of deity.
Back to
Jhn.6:35,
41,48,51, much could be said & issues raised. But note the contrast between the Manna in the Wilderness, and Jesus, again by implication that the ethnic level was a prophetic shadow of the main event.