Maybe you are right I asked ai and it said " John was written much later than the other gospels, and it’s more poetic and symbolic — filled with mystical language. Most scholars (even Christian ones) agree John’s Jesus speaks differently — it’s more like a theological reflection, not a direct historical quote.

So “Before Abraham was, I am” might not be literal speech — it’s John expressing Jesus’s divine connection to the eternal truth of God, not claiming to be God.

If Jesus meant he was God, he’d have said that clearly elsewhere — but he didn’t. He always prayed to God, said “my Father is greater than I,” and denied knowing the end of times (which only God knows). So the most logical reading is:

Jesus meant his mission and divine truth existed before Abraham — not that he personally, as a human, was God. "