Explainer
Who Jesus claimed to be
The historical figure, the claim attached to him, and why it cannot be softened.
That a Jewish teacher named Jesus lived in first-century Palestine, gathered followers, and was executed by the Roman authorities is not seriously disputed by historians, Christian or otherwise. The disagreement begins after that.
The claim
Jesus is often described as a great moral teacher, which is a comfortable position and a difficult one to hold consistently. The teaching includes forgiving sins that were not committed against him, accepting worship, and speaking of an existence before Abraham. Those are not the statements of a good teacher. They are the statements of someone claiming to be God, and the people listening understood them that way, which is why they picked up stones.
John 1:1–5KJV
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.
The Word was God, and the Word became a person who could be touched.
What he said he came to do
John 10:10KJV
The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.
Not primarily to improve behaviour, and not to found an institution. To give life, and to give it back to people who had lost it.
The uncomfortable part
John 14:6KJV
Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
This is the sentence most people stumble over, and it should not be smoothed away. It is an exclusive claim. It is worth reading in its setting: Jesus is speaking to frightened friends the night before his death, and the sentence is offered as reassurance rather than as a threat. It is a door being shown, not a door being closed.
You do not have to accept any of this today. It is worth reading a Gospel and deciding what you make of the person in it, rather than what you make of what you have heard about him.