The Lord

• A very common way of referring to the Buddha in many Buddhist sutras.

• Yet another thing Christians have borrowed from Buddhism. No, just kidding on this one. Actually, English translators no doubt borrowed the term from them. It is not a very good translation of Bhagavan - the generous one, but it can be seen in many English translations anyway.

  Though Christians did borrow from Buddhism: e.g., the Catholic rosary, or the story of the wise men (often misinterpreted as "Three Kings"), and of course both the Buddha and Jesus said "Eat what's put into your bowl."

Bhagavan - generous has no socio-political implications. After his awakening the Buddha was at first hesitant about teaching others but then decided to do so anyway. His generosity is his willingness to share his understanding with others.

In the Bible, "God" is simply a proper noun made from the generic "god", and is more of a title than a name. The Biblical name of God in Hebrew is "Jahweh" or "Jehovah" (which sounds like the Hebrew for "I am", the name God gives himself in Exodus 3:14). "Jehovah" which is usually rendered as "the LORD" into English, with the word "LORD" written in small caps to indicate its meaning as a proper name, not a title.

The word "lord" is actually a translation from the Hebrew 'adon means one who possesses absolute control: either a master of slaves (Genesis 24:14, 27), a ruler of subjects (Genesis 45:8), or a husband (as lord of his wife) (Genesis 18:12). All three metaphors are used to characterize the Hebrew/Christian God in the Bible. The old plural form of this Hebrew word is 'adonai. Out of reverence for the name "Jehovah", the Jews always replaced it with 'adonai when reading their Scriptures.