Christological approach to titles in the New Testament

Abstract

The question is: were the Christological titles present in the New Testament (Christ, Servant of Yahweh, Son of Man, Prophet, Savior, Lord etc.) used as they are by Jesus himself or were they applied to him by others? In the second hypothesis, was the attribution of such titles to Jesus the initiative of his listeners during his earthly life or the initiative of the apostolic Church after the Resurrection? Furthermore, was the title used in its original sense or did it receive an “added meaning” and, if so, where and how? It is undoubtedly not an easy task to answer these questions. Christological titles retain different levels of meaning according to the different cultural contexts. These titles have meaning in the Old Testament, in the Jewish context; in the Hellenistic context they have another meaning and in the New Testament, however, they have a different meaning when applied to Jesus.