Just a clarification - When Jesus said "I AM", he was using the same name that God gave Moses when Moses asked who should he say had sent him.
Don't agree? The Jews Jesus was talking to thought so - they picked up rocks to stone him. They knew EXACTLY what he was claiming - to be the great "I AM".
But plenty of self-styled Christians and Bible-readers (like the Arians) did not know and claimed that Jesus was not God and that he never claimed to be.