The divine sonship of Jesus is a major component of Paul’s christology, though in Paul’s letters the references to Jesus as God’s “Son” (seventeen times in the entire traditional Pauline corpus and only four instances of the full title “Son of God”) are considerably fewer than Paul’s many designations of Jesus as “Lord” and “Christ.” Some have alleged that the idea of Jesus’ divine sonship was an appropriation of pagan religious traditions, and that Paul thereby presented Jesus after the