Well 1:3 cant be any clearer
John 1:3
3 All things came into being through Him, and
apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.
NASU
The latter statement is the clincher. ANYTHING that can be said to have a beginning does so APART FROM HIM. Anything that can be in the category of having been GENERATED is so THROUGH HIM and apart from Him this category (something that "has come into being") DOESNT EXIST.
He is NOT PART OF THE CATEGORY OF THINGS THAT HAVE COME INTO BEING. For that category IS IN HIM not he in it. IOW, He is not only creator, HE IS UNCREATED.
Further, the tense of John 8:58 in the Koine places the generation of Abraham (with the word genesthai in the aorist) as over and against the "am" ness of Christ (with the word eimi in the present tense).
This word play, in the Greek and by its tenses, MEANS ETERNALITY. Abraham had a beginning and I DONT. He could have used the imperfect tense emen to stress that he merely existed before Abraham w/ no clear connection to eternal existence. He could have used first person aorist with egenomen, to say that before Abraham was generated I had a beginning (something similiar to Arianism where Jesus exists before Abraham but still is created in some sense). But he did none of these, he placed eimi (which by itself really means nothing special, hence the blind man also says ego eimi) alongside genesthai, which refers to created existence, MAKING A CLEAR CLAIM TO ETERNALITY, UNCREATEDNESS. He IS. John 8:58 is the SELF CLAIM OF JESUS TO THE STATEMENT OF JOHN in 1:3.
It has nothing to do with interpretation by INTENT of the author. Someone wants to believe John is wrong, OK . . . John didnt write it, sure . . . but someone cannot claim that the Bible itself doesnt teach it . . . IT DOES.
The connection to Ex 3:14 is NOT that the LXX uses the same greek, tho it does in the FIRST statment of "I Am" (it doesnt in the second, it is "o on" or the being), BUT IN THE CLAIM OF THE PERSON WHO SPEAKS (YHWH) to being ETERNAL HIMSELF. Jesus claims the SAME QUALITY.
U r correct, it is not the Bible or letters that is the subject of 1:1 but the person of Christ in 1:14 per antecedant usage.
But there really is no other interpretation that is tenable in the Greek. Greek is rather precise as to what it says of itself.
Say I say the word "fly" to u, what do I mean?
1. Bug
2. to soar through the air
3. my zipper
4. A slang term for a goodlooking lady (man she is fly)
5. a fishing lure
6. To go really fast (we were flying down the road)
What determines meaning? Context and intent of the author determined by context.
So if I say to you "I was down by the water with my rod and reel and my fly got stuck"
well it really can mean only two things, my zipper as I was fishing, or my lure.
Say I ADD to the statement "I was down by the water with my rod and reel and my fly got stuck. It took me a few minutes to get the hook undone from the tree it was stuck in and then I could fish"
well the rule of antecedant take the "it" that was stuck in the tree and qualifies the term as refering to the "fly" and now we see THAT ONLY ONE OPTION REMAINS AS TO WHAT THE WORD MEANS. It is a fishing lure.
Same principles work with biblical interpretation. In both cases, the CLEAR meaning of the author (meaning being found in the intent of the author) is that JESUS IS ETERNAL.
Of course your not. You are using a catch phrase to confer exclamation. I hope ur not trying to make this be the same as Thomas' statement

if u are I can deal rather easily with dismissing that.
I am saying that within the scope of the entirety of scripture, it can be demonstrated per a proper systematic, interpreting scripture by its whole scope, that the "being" called "father" as refering to "God" can be shown to demonstrate the qualities of personality. Thereby it is proper to say "He is a person" or "He has a personhood"
It is silly because generally it is not the personhood of the Father at which people balk, it is the deity of the Son and the personhood of the Spirit. The personhood of the FATHER is OVERWHELMING so much so that I dont kno of ONE person in the history of biblical theology who has questioned the personhood of the Father.
1. The term omnipotent is not in the bible either but we find the CONCEPT of all powerful EVERYWHERE . . . no dice. BAD ARGUEMENT.
2. 2 John states QUITE clearly that orthodoxy in understanding the relationship between the Father and the Son is ESSENTIAL TO SALVATION
this doesnt mean it IS trinity (tho I believe it is) but IF Trinity IS true, then Trinity IS essential for salvation. What ever the TRUTH is about the relationship between the Father and the Son, CORRECT understanding of it IS NECESSARY FOR SALVATION. Hence IT IS A SALVIFIC ISSUE.
2 John 9-11
9 Anyone who goes too far and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God; the one who abides in the teaching, he has both the Father and the Son. 10 If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house, and do not give him a greeting; 11 for the one who gives him a greeting participates in his evil deeds.
NASU
Again, not having said these things means nothing. They are terms to express concepts that ARE in the bible . . . God never said the word car either or computer yet I am sure u travel on wheels and use a PC to interact with this site. BAD ARGUEMENT.
This is a form of false logic called a false dilemma. Ur creating a problem where there is none.
1. Being a person DOESNT PRECLUDE ONE FROM BEING GOD. We derrive personality FROM GOD, not the other way around. He is the FIRST BEING with personality . . . personhood is NOT UNIQUE TO HUMANS. IOW, being a person, or having personhood or being personal DOESNT MEAN ONE IS HUMAN. There is NO problem with God having personhood.
2. I have recently found a great parallel of Trinity in reality. I dont like metaphors of Trinity because all of them fail at some point. Clover, water, egg, etc. The problems with them, take water for example, is that they are not all three distinct AND the same AT THE SAME TIME. When water is steam, its molecular make up is the same as water as liquid or solid, but it is NOT STEAM LIQUID SOLID AND H20 AT THE SAME TIME.
However, I recently came across something called the "triple point" of water. It is a principle in thermodynamics in which the pressure and temp of a substance that can have three phases (in this case gas solid and liquid) exist in "thermodynamic equilibrium."
This means that the reason that "three persons of the same substance is illogical and, really, results in three gods" IS FALSE. U may not grasp it, but it is a REALITY as seen EVEN IN OUR OWN REALM.
Cheers!
MTK