I think there's another explanation for this. First notice that the sentence is completely ungrammatical: Before Abraham was, I am. Jesus seems to be mixingtenses here in a confusing manner. And if "I am" is supposed to be a name the sentence is still ungrammatical. However, the difficulty is merely in the poor translation. Greek had what is called the historical present. This was when the present tense was used for a past event in order to proclaim its importance. We might better translate it as: Before Abraham was, I EXISTED. This does not require Jesus to be God as many Christians would suppose. It would fit equally well with Jesus being Michael, Adam, Elijah, or some other pre-existing being.
If God wanted us to be Atheists we'd be born that way.
