Just as place-names and personal names become liable to alteration, subtraction and addition in the handing on of the tradition in the primitive community, so it is reasonable to assume that the titles used of Jesus might also have been changed. If the same person is known by a number of titles it is a priori probable that the title used in a particular speech or account could be varied, provided the particular title is not relevant to the content of what is being said. Preachers, speaking from memory, constantly misquote texts through the substitution of one title of Jesus for another. Young people repeating answers to catechism questions frequently make the same mistake. Paul had a number of variants for the phrase ‘in Christ’, for example ‘in the Lord’, and there does not appear to have been much alteration in the total meaning of the phrase when he varied the title. Different schools of theological thought have favourite titles for Jesus; for example, the liberal school popularised the title ‘Master’, and this because it represented a strong strain in their thinking about Jesus. It may thus be that an author's choice of titles for Jesus may reveal something of his theology. We therefore examine the titles used by Mark to see what we can learn from them about his theology in relation to the mission of Jesus.

If we consider the manner in which Luke and Matthew have varied the titles used by Mark of Jesus, it will be seen that they cannot have regarded Mark's choice as sacrosanct.