Because, maybe, in the back of your mind, you know that it is singificant although not desirable in your preconceived picture of the development of Christianity?
From your above, it sounds like you are saying that Christians didn't believe that Christ was God until John was written 60 or 70 years after the fact. Is that right?
We can only speculate what was taught orally. And we can hope that what was taught orally is the same thing that was written down later on, beginning after 70 AD (destruction of Jerusalem's Temple).
Unless something changed between 33 AD and after 70 AD, and the Epistles and Synoptic Gospels took a u-turn, Christ is not specifically called God (again "Lord" is not exclusively used for God), and neither is the Spirit of God. Son of God and Spirit of God are Jewish terms interpreted by Christians in a different fashion as, for instance, the word "cool" has evolved into something other than indicating ambient temperature.
History tells us that calling Christ or any human for that matter "God" in Israel would have bee taken as utmost blasphemy and would have meant an automatic death, by stoning or otherwise. So, obviously the followers of Christ could not go to synagogues they attended and preached Jesus to be God.
So, neither do the early Gospels, nor the Epistles explicitly call Christ "God," nor did they treat Him as deity. In the time span, between the Synoptic Gospels and St. John's Gospel (20-30 years), something happened.
At the tail end of that time span, the rabbis rejected everything Christian (Jamnia), and instituted a daily prayer cursing "heretics" (minim), as the last remnants of the Church were evicted from the synagogues.
It is rather obvious that Christians, in time, did come to believe that Christ is God (they sure didn't in Acts 1!), and that Son of God in His case was not just a title reserved for the angles and kings (as in Judaism) but literally means God's only begotten Son, God of God, True Light of True Light, of one essence as the Father, as the Creed was was later formulated, just as they, in time, came to believe that the Holy Spirit is not just the "power of God" (Judaic meaning), but actually God Himself, co-eternal and co-substantial with the Father and the Son.
Synoptic Gospels express Christ's humanity as much as, some 20-30 years later—free form constraints of Judaism, and Sanhedrin, St. John's Gospel expresses Christ's divinity.
But we also know that St. Paul's Epistles do not call him God, but an image of God (as one would expect from second Adam, a perfect man), even though Paul was not constrained by Israel's rule of the Sanhedrin, which tells us that Christ's divinity is something that became gradually known because, as the Holy Apostle reminds us, we "see dimly" now and things become clearer as we continue life in Christ.
The fact that the Epistles of St. Paul express the same humanity of Christ and not His divinity as the Synaptic Gospels gives us every reason to believe that the Synaptic Gospels, when they were written some 40 years after the Crucfixion, reflected what was taught up to that point in Christian history, and that St. John's Gospel is a new development in Christian understanding of Christ as fully divine as well as fully human.
If the early church did not believe Jesus was God or treat him as such until John wrote the Gospel around 90 A.D. then what were they celebrating in the bread and wine during communion? As Jews they were forbidden to eat or drink anything with blood and that was confirmed in the early church in Acts 15. If they did not believe Jesus was God why would they break the commandment and disobey the Elders in Jerusalem?
***St. John’s Gospel is a new development in Christian understanding of Christ as fully divine as well as fully human.***
Let me see if I understand the “logic” here. John is a direct witness to the events. He later writes about the events and claims that Jesus was crucified for claiming equality with God. Yet, it wasn’t until many years later that anyone would think that Christ was God even though that was what he was crucified for, claiming to be God.
Now I’m sure we can expect you to respond with some atheistic Bible criticism claiming that was not the case.
Because, maybe, in the back of your mind, you know that it is significant although not desirable in your preconceived picture of the development of Christianity?
I'm honestly not sure what that means. My complaint is that, for example, you appear to be saying that since John was written in 90 A.D. no one knew anything in John until that time. HOWEVER, at the same time your Church (I think) maintains that all truth was orally transmitted until the Canonization of scripture, for which your Church takes full credit. These both cannot be true (if either if them is). My contention is that the conversations appearing in John were "basically" orally and correctly taught leading up to the actual drafting of the text. If that happened, then it's no wonder that the Book of John was rubber-stamped by the Council. Therefore, the conversations in John were already known to the people before John was written.
FK: "From your above, it sounds like you are saying that Christians didn't believe that Christ was God until John was written 60 or 70 years after the fact. Is that right?"
We can only speculate what was taught orally. And we can hope that what was taught orally is the same thing that was written down later on, beginning after 70 AD (destruction of Jerusalem's Temple).
Well, then when did your Church assume the mantle of being the one and only true Church that was infallible in its holdings? When did "always and everywhere believed" begin?
It is rather obvious that Christians, in time, did come to believe that Christ is God (they sure didn't in Acts 1!), and that Son of God in His case was not just a title reserved for the angles and kings (as in Judaism) but literally means God's only begotten Son, God of God, True Light of True Light, of one essence as the Father, as the Creed was was later formulated, just as they, in time, came to believe that the Holy Spirit is not just the "power of God" (Judaic meaning), but actually God Himself, co-eternal and co-substantial with the Father and the Son.
You are describing a progression of Christian faith here that is all over the place, especially if you see John as incompatible with the other Gospels. Assuming that it was your men, and your men alone who brought order to all this, when did that happen, and how?