The title “Lord”, Kyrios in Greek, carried high associations at this time. It pointed to the emperor, the Lord Caesar, whose Latin epithet was “divine”, as in divus Augustus. In turn, among Greek-speaking Jews, whose Bible the early church appropriated, Kyrios (Lord) was the regular substitute for the Hebrew four-lettered sacred and secret name of God. Quite naturally, in the Gospel read in the Greek churches, “the Lord Christ” (Kyrios Christos) promptly acquired divine flavour. By contrast, in Jewish circles, with an infinite gap between the divine and the human reality, such a combination was well-nigh inconceivable.

Beside Caesar and God, what other meanings did the title “Lord” possess? What did the Galileans imply when they addressed Jesus as “Lord”, or Mar in Aramaic? The title, reminiscent of “Sir” in English, could refer to a variety of persons: to a secular dignitary, to the head of the family, to an authoritative teacher, to a prophet and to a miracle-worker. The last three nuances perfectly suit the Jesus portrait of the Synoptic Gospels.

Finally, the appellation “Son of God”, the title in the Hellenistic world of the deified Roman emperor and synonymous with God in early Christianity, is nowhere attested in that sense in Judaism. It is, however, capable of carrying at least five other meanings. It can designate an angel in the superhuman world. In the terrestrial domain, each Jew was entitled to call himself “son of God”. But the term underwent a series of restrictive interpretations. In the post-exilic age only the Jews whose heart was circumcised and filled with holy spirit were allotted that name. Also, both the Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls assign filial status to the Messiah, metaphorically the son of the living God. Moreover, some charismatic contemporaries of Jesus were referred to as sons of God. For example, Honi, who managed to produce rain by pestering God, was compared to a son importuning his long-suffering and loving father.

Finally, there is the image of the divine voice from heaven proclaiming someone the “son of God”. This is reported about the Galilean Hanina ben Dosa. Both sayings indicate that in Jewish parlance “son of God” implies divine favour rather than the sharing of the divine nature.