I don't think Paul's use of 'Lord' is accurately summarized, but I think of course it's correct that Paul's letters are the earliest case of writings describing Jesus as God/Son of Man etc:
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Indeed, it is widely recognized that Paul is clearly drawing upon the core monotheistic confession of ancient Israel, the "shema" of Deut 6:4: "Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is One."
What is noteworthy, however, is that Paul has now included the Lord Jesus Christ within the shema, even using the same word ("Lord") to describe him. Paul is not adding Jesus to the godhead, as if there were now two gods, but rather he is including Jesus in the divine identity of Yahweh.
This is confirmed by the fact that Paul attributes to Jesus the very same act of creation that he attributes to God: "through whom are all things and through whom we exist." Jesus is not the recipient of a creative act, but the one who performs the creative act.
Thus, Bauckham concludes, "A higher Christology than Paul already expresses in 1 Corinthians 8:6 is scarcely possible, and…is the common character of all New Testament Christology" (2008:30).
NT Wright's voluminous "New Testament People of God" is a great place to see a long form discussion in lay terms laid out, imho. Excerpt from V1 "Christian Origins and the Question of God":
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The two main questions which we have posed break down into more detailed ones. To begin with, there are questions to be raised about the literary study of these texts. What is to count as an appropriate reading of them? How might we tell? Looking at the methods of reading the New Testament that have become institutionalized and even sacralized over the years in the public and private devotion of the church, we are bound to ask whether such readings do justice to the texts: whether, for instance, a book like the Gospel according to Mark is well served by being read a dozen or so verses at a time, taken out of context. We are looking for an appropriate reading, and there is at present no agreement as to what might count.
We shall continue this quest in chapter 3. Looking next at the historical set of questions, we find the issues focused on Jesus, Paul and the gospels. (a) Who was Jesus, and was he in any sense responsible for the beginning of 'Christianity'? What were his aims, what did he hope to achieve, why did he die, and why did (what we now call) the church come into being? (b) Was Paul the real founder of 'Christianity', the corrupter of the original message, or was he the true interpreter of Jesus? What was the structure and content of the belief-system that motivated him to undertake such extraordinary labour? (c) Why are the gospels what they are? Where do they stand in relation to Jesus and Paul? And, in answering these three sets of questions, can we relate them to each other? Can we draw the lines of early Christian thought so that they pass in some way or other through all of them, and if so how? These are the questionsto say nothing of other important and interesting ones, such as the origin and theology of the Letter to the Hebrews, or of major non-canonical works such as the Didache or the Gospel of Thomaswhich, I suggest, must be looked at.
They are open to any historian, of whatever ideological or cultural background, who wishes to understand and do justice to the first century and the extraordinary phenomenon which confronts us there, namely, the rise of a new and exceedingly powerful movement which some called a religion, some a sect, and its own adherents 'the way'. From one point of view, it is an accident that we happen to need to study the New Testament in depth in order to answer historical questions about early Christianity.
It might in principle have been the case that we had excellent alternative records which would have enabled us to provide a thorough and adequate set of historical answers with only occasional recourse to the books written by Christians themselves. Some, of course, might want to object to this suggestion, and to insist that the events could only be understood through the eyes of faith, so that nothing short of the New Testament would doand perhaps that Providence has ordered the obliteration of almost all other evidence in order to make the point clear. I think this smacks of cooking the evidence in advance, but such a retort could only properly be made when the bulk of the work is done. But whatever option we take here, this second set of questions remains firmly within what is normally thought of as 'history'. We shall look at the methodological issues raised by all this in chapter
