In an attempt to confuse Jesus as Jehovah some suggest that ego eimi is the same as the Hebrew expression ani hu, "I am he," which is used by God, but it is also used by man. (
1 Chronicles 21:17)
Others try and use the Septuagint's reading of
Exodus 3:14 which reads Ego eimi ho on meaning "I am The Being," or "I am The Existing One" which can't be sustained because the expression at
Exodus 3:14 is different than
John 8:58.
At
Exodus 3:14 the Hebrew Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh "I shall prove to be what I shall prove to be" is God's self designation. Leeser reads "I will be that I will be;" Rotherham reads "I Will Become whatsoever I please." Latin ego sum qui sum "I am Who I am." Ehyeh comes from a verb hayah which means to "become; prove to be" and at
3:14 is in the imperfect state, first person singular meaning "I shall become" or "I shall prove to be." It isn't a comment on God's self existence but a statement about what he intends to become towards others.
John 10:30-31 - "I and my Father are one. Then the Jews took up stones again to stone him."
Novatian (c. 200-258 C.E.) wrote: "Since He said 'one' thing, let the heretics understand that He did not say 'one' person. For one placed in the neuter, intimates the social concord, not the personal unity. . . . Moreover, that He says one, has reference to the agreement, and to the identity of judgment, and to the loving association itself, as reasonably the Father and Son are one in agreement, in love, and in affection." - Treatise Concerning the Trinity, chapter 27.
What Havatian meant is that the word for "one" in the verse is in the neuter gender. So its actual meaning is "one thing."
John 17:21 uses the exact same syntax. This would mean that if Jesus and the Father were one in as the same one in the same then those to whom Jesus spoke of at
John 17:21 were God as well.
John 10:38-39 - "The Father is in me, and I in him. Therefore they sought again to take him."
The Catholic Jerusalem Bible reads: "Jesus said to them, 'I have done many good works for you to see, works from my Father; for which of these are you stoning me?' The Jews answered him, 'We are not stoning you for doing a good work but for blasphemy: you are only a man and you claim to be God'. Jesus answered: 'Is it not written in your Law: I said, you are gods? So the Law uses the word gods of those to whom the word of God was addressed, and scripture cannot be rejected. Yet you say to someone the Father has consecrated and sent into the world, "You are blaspheming", because he says, "I am the Son of God". If I am not doing my Father's work, there is no need to believe me; but if I am doing it, then even if you refuse to believe in me, at least believe in the work I do; then you will know for sure that the Father is in me and I am in the Father'" -
John 10:32-38
Notice that Jesus wasn't claiming to be the God, the Father or even be equal but rather the Son of God.
John 14:9 - "he that hath seen me hath seen the Father."
Jesus wasn't saying that he was God, so that anyone seeing him would be seeing God. For no man has seen God. Jesus was the image of as well as the representative of God. (
Genesis 1:26 /
Exodus 33:20 /
John 1:1, 18 /
Colossians 1:15)
John 20:28 - "And Thomas answered and said unto him, My LORD and my God."
A god is anything that anyone attributes might or venerates. The Bible calls Moses, Jesus, the judges of Israel, Tammuz - all mortal men who are called gods. It also calls angels, including Satan and Michael as gods. Also pagan Gods like Dagon, Molech, Baal, Bel, Astarte. Carved idols. The dictionary definition agrees.
Atheists don't agree because they are influenced by the apostate and uninformed teachings of Christianity and because, really, the very definition of atheism is a belief that there are no gods, and if anything, whether or not it exists, can be a god, that makes their position sort of silly and obviously influenced by the inaccurate teachings of modern day Christianity.
The very Hebrew word translated god is El and various forms of El (Elohim for example, applied to Jehovah, men and pagan gods and goddesses) which means simply "mighty" or "strong one." It is a similar title as Lord, which usually signifies authority over something or someone. Land lord, for example. God father.
As indicated earlier in this response the scriptures teach that Jesus, like other men, are gods, but not that he is the same as Jehovah God. This is evident only three verses after the Thomas account given where John writes that these things were written down so that we would believe that Jesus was the Christ, Son of God. Not that he was God. (
Isaiah 9:6 /
John 1:18;
20:30)
Acts 20:28 - "Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood."
The Jerusalem Bible, Douay, and NAB all use similar wording in translation of
Acts 20:28. The NWT and TEV reads to the effect of "the blood of his own [Son."] The RS 1953 reads "with his own blood," but the 1971 edition reads "with the blood of his own son."
J. H. Moulton in A Grammar of New Testament Greek, Vol. 1 (Prolegomena), 1930 ed., p. 90, says: "Before leaving idios something should be said about the use of ho idios without a noun expressed. This occurs in
Jn 1:111:31,
Ac 4:23;
24:23. In the papyri we find the singular used thus as a term of endearment to near relations . . . . In Expos. VI. iii. 277 I ventured to cite this as a possible encouragement to those (including B. Weiss) who would translate
Acts 20:28 'the blood of one who was his own.'"
The New Testament in the Original Greek, by Westcott and Hort, Vol., 2, London, 1881, pp. 99, 100 of the Appendix, Hort stated: "it is by no means impossible that huiou, "of the Son" [dropped out after tou idiou, "of his own"] at some very early transcription affecting all existing documents. Its insertion leaves the whole passage free from difficulty of any kind."
The KJV and others are not grammatically incorrect in the way they translate "with his own blood." However the Codex Alexandrinus, Codex Ephraemi rescriptus (5th century), Bezae Codices (Greek and Latin 5th / 6th Century) and the Philozenian-Harclean Syriac Version (6th / 7th century) and thus Moffat's translation all contain a marginal reading of "the congregation of the Lord" instead of "the congregation of God" to avoid confusion. The Codex Sinaiticus (4th century) Vatican ms 1209 (4th century) and Latin Vulgate all read God (articulate) and so translate 'God's blood."
With the Greek tou idiou which follows the phrase "with the blood" the expression conveys the notion that it was "with the blood of his own." The noun in the singular being God's closest relative, his only begotten Son, Jesus Christ.
Colossians 1:16 - "For by him [Jesus] were all things created."
This text speaks nothing of Jesus as being God or being equal to Jehovah God, it is in harmony with scripture in that Jesus was the master worker of God. (
Proverbs 8:27-30 /
John 1:3)
Colossians 2:9 - "For in him [Jesus] dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily."
From the Greek theotetos and Latin divinitatis comes the term "godhead" or "divine quality," "godship."
2 Peter 1:4 uses the same "divine quality" or "godship" in application to the first century Christians he was addressing. Just as the Christian can be of "divine nature" through the decision of God and not being God or being equal to God so was Jesus. (
Colossians 2:9)