was taken directly from the pagan religious environment where sons of the gods were themselves venerated as divine beings. Paul had thus appropriated a religious category from the pagan religious setting of his converts that would promote cultic reverence of Jesus in terms they could readily appreciate.51 In effect, Bousset portrayed divine sonship as a clever marketing device used by Paul. There is no dispute that divine sonship was a category in the pagan religious environment of the Roman era,