>>46725
most of the verses that people point to as examples of jesus identifying himself as god are more accurately read as him identifying a unique relationship with the divine name of yhwh. in the earliest literary layers of the hebrew bible, ywhw- adonai- is identified as an anthropomorphic being, he walks around the garden of eden, he has a back and face and hands, he even wrestles with jacob (genesis 32:22-32). later, just before the babylonian exile, those verses would become theologically complicated because yahwists started to believe that no one could be in the presence of god without dying (this corresponds with the rhetoric of incomparability in books like deuteroisaiah) since adonai was so much more powerful than the other gods, the radiance that came off of him and blinded anyone near him was also thought to be more powerful than that of all the other gods. because of this, the verses about god interacting with humans were often altered to refer to 'malak adonai' or the angel of the lord, but they weren't entirely altered. there are a lot of stories where they start by referring to 'malak adonai' and then drop the 'malak' (angel) and just refer to 'adonai'. because of this, people believed that the angel of the lord was given power by their special relationship to the divine name. in exodus, god tells moses that he must listen to the angel of the lord 'for my name is in him' (exodus 23:21). after the exile into the greco-roman period, the bearer of the divine name was associated with the son of man which was a messianic figure briefly mentioned in the book of david and then expanded upon in the book of enoch. since platonist greeks believed that divinity could not interact with the physical world, the son of man was supposed to be the human figure who would exercise god's authority and bring about the kingdom of heaven on earth (sounds familiar, right?) this is the landscape that the first gospels were written in, so when jesus forgives the sins of the paralytic in mark 2, and the pharisees call him a blasphemer for claiming to do what only god can do, he responds by saying 'which is easier: to say to the paralytic, ‘your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘stand up and take your mat and walk’? 10 but so that you may know that the Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins'—he said to the paralytic— 11 'i say to you, stand up, take your mat, and go to your home.'' he's not claiming to be god, he's claiming to be the son of man who has a special relationship with the divine name and can therefore exercise the power of god on earth
(and then john has a different theology, but i think i've already written enough)