Christianity as the true religion

Reading Lost Christianities by Ehrman reminds me once again how the Christian propensity to claim that there is only one way to God, and Christianity is it, is ancient and genetic. Judaism made the same exclusivist claims, but managed to coexist with the various pagan religions in the Roman Empire:

But then came Christianity. Soon as some of Jesus followers pronounced their belief that he had been raised from the dead, Christians began to understand that Jesus himself was, in some way, the only means of a right standing before God, the only way of salvation. But once that happened, a new factor entered the religion scene of antiquity. Christians by their very nature became exclusivists, claiming to be right and such a way that everyone else was necessarily wrong. (Page 92).

My own understanding of the Jesus scholarship I read is that the Johnanine "I am" claims are John speaking and not Jesus. Jesus probably held typical Jewish monotheistic beliefs. But from Paul on, Jesus was the only way. This is one of those places where I part ways with what I read in the Christian Scriptures. There is no place in our world anymore for those kinds of exclusivist claims.