Well, IMRight isn't around right now. ;o)
Yes, pretty much. He is literally a passageway through whom the sheep enter Heaven.
That is not a literal reading. The way you are reading this is the way the NCs read John 6. Let's juxtapose these verses.
So Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you ... For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. (John 6:53,55)
So Jesus again said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep ... I am the door; if any one enters by me, he will be saved (John 10:7,9)
A literal reading of the first is that you literally have to eat Jesus's flesh and drink his blood, that his flesh is actual, literal food, and his blood is actual, literal drink. A literal reading of the second is that Jesus is an actual, physical door through which one needs to pass.
There is no reason to favor a literal reading of one and not the other. The structure of the statements is identical. The only difference is that one has been "fleshed out" (pardon the pun) sacramentally, and the other has not. One can imagine a sacramental implementation of John 10:7, where the door to the church (or, even better, to the sanctuary), is literally understood to be Jesus, Really Present under the Accidents of the wood and the hardware.
Or, you could read both passages figuratively.
I think I agree. Given the text itself and no other guidance. Both use language the same way.
I don't have a problem admitting that Tradition colors the way the text is read.
SD
Sorry to jump in, here. And maybe this has already been said, but your argument holds only if we take these two verses in isolation. What differentiates John 6, v. 53,55 from John 10: 7,9, is the Last Supper. You know the words, "On the night He was betayed He took bread, breaking the bread and blessing it He said, "Take this all of you and eat it, it is my Body which will be given up for you...." or words to that effect. Now, if on the night He was betrayed He would have stood, crossed to the door in the room, blessed it and said, "Take this all of you, and open it, this is my Body which will be given up for you..." well, then, Mass would look completely different, now wouldn't it? -) Also, it is in the breaking of the bread that the two from Emmaus recognize Him, they don't recognize Him when He passes through their door.
Finally, I think I would take issue with you when you state the structure of the two scriptures you qouted is identical. I don't know if I can put this into words, but I'll try. It seems to me the scripture you qoute from John 10 is a basic assertion by Jesus of just who He is. I don't imagine any Christian would disagree with it. For us, (though not you, I understand) Jesus is the door through which we must pass to enter heaven. In essence, in this passage Jesus tells us to get to heaven we must go through Him.
The verse you qoute from John 6, however, gives us the "how to." It tells us what we must do to pass through Him -we must eat His flesh and drink His blood. And then, at the Last Supper, He gives us bread and wine and tells us, "This is My Body...This is My Blood."
Thus, there is a subtle difference between the two scriptures in purpose. The first (which actually comes later) tells us who He is, while the second tells us how we are to come to Him.