peacefulpete, your second paragraph seems to suggest a mythicist interpretation of early Christianity. Mythicism is rejected by scholars as being almost on a par with flat-earth theories.
Your first paragraph is correct that early Christians drew on concepts Jews were already familiar with to make sense of who Jesus was, such as Wisdom, Logos, Son of Man, and so on. These pointed to a ‘second god’ who was distinct from and subject to God. As scholar of ancient Judaism, Peter Shäfer describes it:
The two Gods of ancient Judaism are not antagonistic powers fighting against each other but instead rule peacefully with and next to one another. This is of course always on the assumption that one of the two is the ancestral "first" (as a rule, older) God of higher rank, who generously makes space in heaven next to and beneath him for the second (as a rule, younger) God.
Peter Schâfer, Two Gods in Heaven: Jewish Concepts of God in Antiquity (2020), page 135.
For the early Christians, as these concepts were applied to Jesus, he remained distinct and subordinate to God, as New Testament scholar John Ziesler explains (when discussing Philippians 2:5–11):
The ruling function that belongs properly to Yahweh alone is now Christ's also; he is cosmic Lord and as such receives the honour that hitherto has been given only to Yahweh.
Yet before we rashly conclude that the two have simply become identified, we must note that the element of subordination remains. It all happens, even the exaltation of Christ, 'to the glory of God the Father' (v. 11), and Christ does not exalt himself but is exalted by God and is given the title 'Lord' by him (v. 9). Christ has become the bearer of the powers of God and the recipient of divine homage (v. 10), but is still distinct from him and subject to him.
John Ziesler, Pauline Christianity (1990), page 46.
It was not until subsequent centuries that Jesus was conflated with God and eventually made part of a Trinity of equals. Geza Vermes explains the process this way:
By the start of the fourth century the church, although not wholly ready, was pressed to make up her mind. The divine quality of Christ, the Son of God, his closeness to God the Father, his pre-existence and role in the creation of the universe were generally agreed by all the leading thinkers. They also agreed on a lack of equality between the Father and the Son. Even Origen was adamant: the Father was ‘the God', the Son was only 'God'; he was ‘second God', placing himself below the Master of the universe. Every single mouthpiece of Christian tradition from Paul and John to Origen firmly held that the Father was in some way above the Son. The ante-Nicene church was ‘subordinationist' and did not believe in the full co-equality and co-eternity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit …
All the evidence we possess of nearly three centuries of theological thinking on the subject would suggest that, after some give and take, a creed quietly voicing Arius' ideas would have commanded a substantial majority among the bishops assembled at Nicaea, Yet the dogma of consubstantiality (homoousia) triumphed, no doubt thanks to the clever politicking of the party led by Bishop Alexander and Athanasius, which succeeded in winning over to their side the all-powerful emperor. After some ebbing and flowing, belief in the consubstantiality of the Son with the Father ultimately prevailed in the fourth-century church, and the profession of this belief became the authenticating stamp of post-Nicene Christianity.
Yet it is impossible to ignore the colossal difference between the Christ concept of Nicaea and the Christology that preceded the council. The idea of consubstantiality never occurred to any of the leading representatives of Christianity prior to 325; it would have indeed sounded anathema. By contrast, after 325 the claim of inequality between Father and Son amounted to heresy.
Geza Vermes, Christian Beginnings: From Nazareth to Nicaea, AD 30–325 (2013), pages 241 and 242.
