Core Glossary
Core Glossary — James 1–5
This glossary catalogs every load-bearing theological term identified in 07_semantic_analysis.md, across the entire book of James. Terms marked [BASELINE REUSE] are recorded exactly as in the Romans translation_memory.json and must not be altered. Terms marked [NEW] are proposed for this curriculum and require formal risk-registry and translation-memory entry in subsequent Phase 1 steps before Phase 2 use.
Risk tiers follow the baseline’s doctrine_risk_registry.json definitions (Critical / High / Medium / Low).
Reused Baseline Terms (James Occurrences)
| English Term | Greek | Bavarian (baseline) | Risk (baseline) | James Passages | James-Specific Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Faith | πίστις | Glaam | Medium (Faith and Works: Critical in this curriculum’s core passage) | 1:3,6; 2:1,5,14-26; 5:15 | Risk escalates to Critical within 2:14-26 due to the faith/works collision; see doctrine registry below. |
| Grace | χάρις | Gnad | High | 4:6 | Directly reinforces baseline grace-vs-merit guarding. |
| Righteousness | δικαιοσύνη | Gerechtigkeit | Critical | 2:23; 3:18; 5:6 | Same term family as Romans; must be taught with harmonizing cross-reference. |
| Justification | δικαιόω/δικαίωσις | Rechtfertigung (extend to verb form grechtfertigt wern) | Critical | 2:21, 23, 24, 25 | Critical, cross-curriculum: identical Greek verb as Romans, distinct sense (demonstrative vindication, not initial forensic conferral) — mandatory harmonizing framing. |
| Imputed righteousness | ἐλογίσθη…εἰς δικαιοσύνην | zuagrechnete Gerechtigkeit | Critical | 2:23 | Identical phrase/OT citation as Romans 4:3; must be taught alongside Romans, not in isolation. |
| Salvation (eternal) | σῴζω (eternal sense) | Erlösung / erlösn | High | 2:14 | Must be kept lexically distinct from the physical-healing sense of σῴζω elsewhere in the book (5:15, 20). |
| Lord | κύριος | Herr | Critical/High | 1:1,7,12; 2:1; 4:10,15; 5:4,7,8,10,11,14,15 | Very frequent in James; consistent rendering required throughout. |
| God | θεός | Gott | Critical | throughout | Stable. |
| Jesus (Christ) | Ἰησοῦς (Χριστός) | Jesus (+ Christus) | Low/Critical | 1:1; 2:1 | Standard form retained. |
| Glory | δόξα | Herrlichkeit | Medium/High | 2:1 | ”Lord of glory” — Christological weight. |
| Father | πατήρ | Voda | Medium/High | 1:17,27; 3:9 | Includes poetic epithet “Father of lights” (1:17). |
| Peace | εἰρήνη | Friad | Low/Medium | 2:16; 3:18 | Note ironic use in 2:16 (hollow blessing). |
| Church | ἐκκλησία | Kirch | High | 5:14 | Paired with the new, High-risk term “elders” (see below) — combined risk exceeds either term alone. |
| Holy Spirit | πνεῦμα ἅγιον | Heiliger Geist | Critical | (contested at 4:5) | Do not default to this rendering for πνεῦμα at 2:26 (human breath) or 4:5 (ambiguous) without deliberate, flagged decision. |
| Called/Calling | κλητός/κλῆσις (κληθῆναι family) | beruafa/Beruafung | Medium/High | 2:23 (“called a friend of God”) | Extends the baseline’s established context-sensitivity note to a fourth sense: an honorific title bestowed by God. |
| Election | ἐκλογή (ἐξελέξατο) | Erwählung | High | 2:5 | Reuse exactly; register-gap note applies equally in Bavarian Catholic James-teaching contexts. |
| Kingdom of God | βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ | s’Reich vo Gott | Medium | 2:5 | Stable. |
| Law | νόμος | Gsetz | High | 1:25; 2:8-12; 4:11-12 | James’s “law of liberty” and “royal law” are new compounds built on this reused root — see below. |
| Sin | ἁμαρτία | Sünd | High | 1:15; 2:9; 4:17; 5:15-20 | Same colloquial-trivialization risk as in Romans (“what a shame” reading of Sünd) applies throughout James’s sin vocabulary. |
New Terms Proposed for James
| English Term | Greek / Transliteration | Proposed Bavarian Rendering | Risk | Doctrine | Key Passages | Grounded Risk Reason |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Works | ἔργα / erga | Werk | Critical | Faith and Works | 1:25 (implied); 2:14-26 (11x) | Collides with existing, positive Bavarian Catholic “good works” devotional vocabulary (almsgiving, votive practice, Werke der Barmherzigkeit), risking a merit-based misreading opposite in direction to the Romans register-gap problem. |
| ”Not by faith alone” | οὐκ ἐκ πίστεως μόνον | net durch’n Glaam alloa | Critical | Faith and Works | 2:24 | The Reformation-era flashpoint clause; must always be taught with the “faith that produces fruit is not faith at all if fruitless” resolution to avoid contradicting the Romans curriculum’s sola fide teaching. |
| Anoint with oil | ἀλείφω/ἔλαιον | mit Öl salbn | Critical | Prayer and Healing | 5:14 | Direct collision with the named Catholic sacrament of Krankensalbung/Letzte Ölung (Anointing of the Sick), historically associated with imminent death; James’s practice differs in expectation and administration. |
| Confess sins to one another | ἐξομολογέω | enk gegnseitig eure Sünd eingesteh’n (NOT beichten) | Critical | Confession and Restoration | 5:16 | Direct collision with the named Catholic sacrament of Beichte (private confession to a priest with sacramental absolution); James commands mutual lay confession, a structurally different practice. |
| Cover a multitude of sins | καλύψει πλῆθος ἁμαρτιῶν | deckt a Menge Sünd zua | High | Confession and Restoration / Faith and Works | 5:20 | Risks reintroducing a merit-based “my restorative deed earns another’s forgiveness” reading at the letter’s close, structurally parallel to the ἔργα risk. |
| Worked together with (faith and works) | συνεργέω / synērgei | hod mitgwirkt | High | Faith and Works | 2:22 | ”Cooperation” language sits close to a synergistic, works-contribute-to-salvation soteriology the Romans baseline explicitly guards against. |
| Friend of God | φίλος θεοῦ | Freund vo Gott | High | Faith and Works | 2:23 | Everyday Bavarian “Freund” carries a casual register that risks flattening a unique covenantal-intimacy title into ordinary acquaintance language. |
| Elders of the church | πρεσβύτεροι τῆς ἐκκλησίας | de Ältestn vo da Kirch | High | Prayer and Healing | 5:14 | Names a lay-leadership church office structurally absent from Bavarian Catholic parish polity (priest-centered, not elder-led); a structural mismatch, not merely a lexical gap. |
| Trial/temptation (dual sense) | πειρασμός | Prüfung (trial) / Versuachung (temptation) — context-sensitive | High | Trials and the Testing of Faith | 1:2-4,12 (trial) vs. 1:13-14 (temptation) | Same Greek noun covers two theologically distinct senses (God-permitted testing vs. never-from-God enticement to sin) within one chapter; requires disambiguation per occurrence. |
| Double-minded | δίψυχος | zwiespoltig im Glaam | High | Trials and the Testing of Faith / Worldliness | 1:8; 4:8 | A rare NT theological neologism with no dialect precedent; a literal calque would sound invented, while an over-simplified rendering loses the inward-division nuance. |
| Favoritism / partiality | προσωπολημψία | Parteilichkeit | High | Favoritism and the Poor | 2:1, 9 | Historical Bavarian parish practice of reserved/paid pews by social status (Kirchenstühle) offers a real but double-edged cultural parallel requiring careful framing as sin, not mere historical custom. |
| Devil | διάβολος | Teife/Deife | High | Worldliness versus Friendship with God | 4:7 | Alpine Bavarian folk culture’s theatrical/comedic folk-devil imagery (Perchtenlauf, Krampus-adjacent processions) risks undercutting the seriousness of the real spiritual adversary James describes. |
| Friendship with the world / enmity with God | φιλία τοῦ κόσμου / ἔχθρα τοῦ θεοῦ | Freundschaft mit da Welt / Feindschaft mit Gott | High | Worldliness versus Friendship with God | 4:4 | A totalizing either/or claim; any softening toward partial/mixed allegiance would gut the passage’s force. |
| Assembly (synagōgē) | συναγωγή | Versammlung/Zammkunft (NOT Synagoge) | High | Favoritism and the Poor | 2:2 | Literal rendering as “Synagoge” would anachronistically suggest a Jewish worship building distinct from the church, rather than James’s early Jewish-Christian usage for the Christian gathering itself. |
| Perfect law of liberty | νόμος τέλειος τῆς ἐλευθερίας | s’vollkomme Gsetz vo da Freiheit | High | Wisdom from Above / Faith and Works | 1:25; 2:12 | Pairing “law” with “liberty” risks being heard as contradictory or as antinomian license if not carefully framed alongside the reused baseline Gsetz. |
| Forgive/forgiveness (sins forgiven) | ἀφίημι | vergem (vergeben) | High | Prayer and Healing / Confession and Restoration | 5:15 | Bavarian Catholic piety routes forgiveness heavily through the specific sacramental absolution formula of Confession; James describes forgiveness through communal, faith-filled prayer, not priestly mediation. |
| Save/heal (physical sense) | σῴζω (physical) | gsund mochn / hoiln | High | Prayer and Healing | 5:15, 5:20 | Same Greek verb as the core passage’s eternal-salvation σῶσαι (2:14); must be kept lexically distinct to avoid conflating physical healing with soteriological salvation. |
| Spirit/breath (of the body) | πνεῦμα (non-Holy-Spirit sense) | Otem/Lebensotem | High | Faith and Works | 2:26 | Must not be rendered as Heiliger Geist or unqualified Geist, which would misread the simple body/breath analogy as a Trinitarian statement. |
| The Spirit (ambiguous) | τὸ πνεῦμα | da Geist (ambiguous referent flagged) | High | Worldliness versus Friendship with God | 4:5 | Genuinely ambiguous even in the Greek (Holy Spirit’s jealous care vs. human spirit’s envious tendency); must not be unilaterally resolved without theologian input. |
| Pray for one another | εὔχεσθε ὑπὲρ ἀλλήλων | bet’s fia oanand (avoid baseline Fürbitt here) | High | Prayer and Healing | 5:16 | Using baseline Fürbitt would pull this mutual-believer instruction toward the already-documented Marian/saints-intercession collision risk (Altötting devotional tradition). |
| Wisdom | σοφία | Weisheit | Medium | Wisdom from Above | 1:5; 3:13-17 | Register-gap borrowing; risk of being heard as “cleverness/shrewdness” (a live colloquial sense) rather than God-given moral-practical insight. |
| Natural/demonic wisdom | ψυχική / δαιμονιώδης | bloß menschliche Weisheit / teuflische Weisheit | Medium-High | Wisdom from Above | 3:15 | ψυχική must not be rendered with any cognate suggesting the modern “psychic/psychological” sense. |
| Tongue | γλῶσσα | Zung | Medium | Taming the Tongue | 1:26; 3:1-12 | Rare positive resonance (existing Bavarian idiom “a schlechte Zung ham”) reinforces rather than competes with the doctrine, but idiom alone will not carry the full theological weight (3:9). |
| Endurance/steadfastness | ὑπομονή | Standhaftigkeit/Ausdauer | Medium | Trials and the Testing of Faith | 1:3-4; 5:11 | Must be kept lexically distinct from μακροθυμία (below) to preserve James’s two-strand perseverance vocabulary. |
| Patience (toward God’s timing/others) | μακροθυμία | Geduld | Medium | Patience and the Lord’s Return | 5:7-8, 10 | Must be kept lexically distinct from ὑπομονή. |
| Coming (Parousia) of the Lord | παρουσία τοῦ κυρίου | d’Wiederkunft vom Herrn | Medium | Patience and the Lord’s Return | 5:7-8 | Strong positive liturgical resonance (Nicene Creed), but risk that rote-liturgical familiarity dulls James’s urgent, expectant-patience framing. |
| Perfect/complete/mature | τέλειος | vollkomma | Medium | Trials and the Testing of Faith / Wisdom from Above | 1:4, 17, 25; 3:2 | Risk of being heard as “flawless/sinless” rather than “mature/complete.” |
| Rich/poor | πλούσιος/πτωχός | reich/oarm | Medium | Favoritism and the Poor | 1:9-11; 2:1-6; 5:1-6 | Economically transparent; doctrinal weight (eschatological reversal) must be carried by surrounding context. |
| Religion | θρησκεία | Religion | Medium | (general — introduces “pure religion” motif) | 1:26-27 | Modern usage skews institutional/administrative (church-tax registration, school subject) rather than lived devotion; James’s redefinition must be made explicit. |
| Mercy | ἔλεος | Barmherzigkeit | Medium (positive resonance) | Favoritism and the Poor | 2:13 | Strong existing Catholic catechetical grounding (Werke der Barmherzigkeit) — a rare case of helpful rather than competing resonance; risk is mainly ensuring the favoritism/judgment link in context is not lost. |
| Likeness of God (imago Dei) | ὁμοίωσις θεοῦ | s’Ebnbild vo Gott | Medium | Taming the Tongue | 3:9 | Foundational doctrine not otherwise present in the Romans baseline; flag for consistency if future OT-adjacent curricula follow. |
| Royal law | νόμος βασιλικός | s’königliche Gsetz | Medium | Favoritism and the Poor | 2:8 | Reuse baseline Gsetz root; ties love-of-neighbor to divine kingship authority. |
| Fire/hell (Gehenna) | γέεννα | Höll | Medium | Taming the Tongue | 3:6 | Vivid folk-devotional hell imagery (church frescoes) is a generally helpful resonance but risks flattening the specific NT γέεννα concept into generic folk imagery. |
| Heir | κληρονόμος | Erb | Medium | Favoritism and the Poor | 2:5 | Connects naturally to baseline Kindschaft (adoption) doctrine. |
| Dead (of faith) | νεκρά | toud | Medium-High | Faith and Works | 2:17, 20, 26 | Colloquial Bavarian “hi” (broken/done-for) is too casual a register for this doctrinal claim; toud preserves gravity. |
| Word of truth / implanted word | λόγος ἀληθείας / ἔμφυτος λόγος | s’Wort vo da Wahrheit / s’eingpflanzte Wort | Medium | (general — Scripture/new birth) | 1:18, 21 | Agricultural grafting metaphor has natural, helpful resonance in rural Altbayern fruit-growing culture. |
| Doer vs. hearer of the word | ποιητὴς λόγου / ἀκροατής | oana, der’s tuat / bloß a Hörer | Medium | Faith and Works (foreshadowing) | 1:22-25 | Directly foreshadows the 2:14-26 doctrine; consistency of phrasing across both passages is recommended. |
| Fruit of righteousness | καρπὸς δικαιοσύνης | Frucht vo da Gerechtigkeit | Medium | Wisdom from Above | 3:18 | Reuse baseline Gerechtigkeit exactly. |
| Widow/orphan | χήρα/ὀρφανός | Witfrau/Waisenkind | Low | Favoritism and the Poor | 1:27 | Stable, concrete social-justice terms. |
| Blessed | μακάριος | gseg’nt | Low | Trials and the Testing of Faith | 1:12 | Divine commendation, not mere emotional happiness. |
| Crown of life | στέφανος τῆς ζωῆς | Kron vom Lebm | Low-Medium | Trials and the Testing of Faith | 1:12 | Watch for unhelpful folk-festival “crown” associations (e.g., Kirwakönig); context should clarify eschatological reward sense. |
| Desire/lust | ἐπιθυμία | Gier / böse Begehrn | Medium | Trials and the Testing of Faith | 1:14-15 | Distinguish from ordinary neutral “wanting something.” |
| World (moral sense) | κόσμος | Welt | Medium | Worldliness versus Friendship with God | 1:27; 3:6; 4:4 | Context must always signal the moral/spiritual sense versus the neutral physical-world sense; escalates to High when paired with φιλία (4:4). |
| Wages (withheld) | μισθός | Lohn | Medium | Favoritism and the Poor | 5:4 | Socially resonant given Bavaria’s agrarian labor history. |
| Lord of Sabaoth/hosts | κύριος Σαβαώθ | Herr Zebaoth | Medium | Favoritism and the Poor | 5:4 | Transliterated per German/Bavarian Bible-citation convention; reuse baseline Herr. |
| Turn back a sinner | ἐπιστρέφω ἁμαρτωλόν | an Sünder wieder zruckbringa | Medium | Confession and Restoration | 5:19-20 | Reuse baseline Sünd root. |
| Jealousy/selfish ambition | ζῆλος/ἐριθεία | Neid/Eigennutz | Low-Medium | Taming the Tongue | 3:14, 16 | Named root of “earthly” false wisdom’s fruit. |
| Servant/slave (of God) | δοῦλος | Diena/Knecht | Medium | (general — authorial self-designation) | 1:1 | Modern Knecht carries agrarian-servant-class connotations; must retain the honorific covenant-service sense. |
| Naked/ill-clad | γυμνός | nackat / schlecht ognaht | Low | Faith and Works | 2:15 | Concrete material need, not spiritual metaphor. |
| Prostitute (Rahab) | πόρνη | Dirn | Medium-High | Faith and Works | 2:25 | Must neither euphemize (losing the passage’s deliberate shock value) nor sensationalize; follow the source text’s own directness. |
| Oath-swearing | ὀμνύω | schwörn | Low-Medium | (general — truthfulness ethic) | 5:12 | Echoes Matthew 5:33-37. |
| Sick/weak | ἀσθενέω | kronk | Low | Prayer and Healing | 5:14 | Concrete, stable term. |
Doctrine-to-Term Cross-Reference
| Curriculum Doctrine | Primary New/Escalated Terms | Overall Doctrine Risk |
|---|---|---|
| Faith and Works | ἔργα (Werk), νεκρά (toud), συνεργέω (mitgwirkt), φίλος θεοῦ (Freund vo Gott), “not by faith alone,” πνεῦμα (breath sense) | Critical |
| Trials and the Testing of Faith | πειρασμός (Prüfung/Versuachung), δίψυχος (zwiespoltig im Glaam), τέλειος (vollkomma), ὑπομονή (Standhaftigkeit) | High |
| Wisdom from Above | σοφία (Weisheit), ψυχική/δαιμονιώδης, νόμος τέλειος τῆς ἐλευθερίας | High |
| Favoritism and the Poor | προσωπολημψία (Parteilichkeit), πλούσιος/πτωχός (reich/oarm), ἔλεος (Barmherzigkeit), συναγωγή | High |
| Taming the Tongue | γλῶσσα (Zung), γέεννα (Höll), ὁμοίωσις θεοῦ | Medium-High |
| Worldliness versus Friendship with God | φιλία τοῦ κόσμου/ἔχθρα τοῦ θεοῦ, διάβολος (Teife), κόσμος (Welt), δίψυχος, τὸ πνεῦμα (4:5, ambiguous) | Critical (4:4 clause) |
| Prayer and Healing | ἀλείφω/ἔλαιον (mit Öl salbn), σῴζω (physical: gsund mochn), ἀφίημι (vergem), πρεσβύτεροι (de Ältestn), ὑπὲρ ἀλλήλων prayer | Critical (5:14 anointing) |
| Patience and the Lord’s Return | μακροθυμία (Geduld), παρουσία (Wiederkunft) | Medium |
| Confession and Restoration | ἐξομολογέω (Sünd eingesteh’n), καλύψει πλῆθος ἁμαρτιῶν | Critical (5:16 confession) |
All new terms above require formal risk-registry entry (Phase 1 Step 2) and translation-memory entry (Phase 1 Step 3+) before Phase 2 segment translation may proceed. Baseline-reused terms require no re-approval but must be cross-checked for James-specific contextual notes recorded above.
Critical Risk Terms
Faith
Approved rendering: Glaam
Transliteration: Gloam
Doctrine: Faith and Works
Original: πίστις
Category: Faith
Inherited from Romans package (baseline risk Medium: personal trust in Christ, not generic folk-Catholic religiosity). ESCALATED to Critical for this curriculum: within James 2:14-26 ‘Glaam’ is put in sustained, structural contrast with ‘Werk’ (works) in a culture with unusually rich lived Bavarian Catholic works-devotion vocabulary; every occurrence within 2:14-26 requires theologian review. Occurrences elsewhere in James (1:3,6; 5:15) retain the baseline Medium sensitivity.
Righteousness
Approved rendering: Gerechtigkeit
Transliteration: Gerechtigkeit
Doctrine: Salvation
Original: δικαιοσύνη
Category: Salvation
Inherited from Romans package, exact rendering and risk tier. Occurs at James 2:23 (citing Genesis 15:6, identical to Romans 4:3), 3:18, and 5:6; must be taught with explicit cross-reference to the Romans curriculum so the shared vocabulary does not read as a competing definition.
Justification
Approved rendering: Rechtfertigung
Transliteration: Rechtfertigung
Doctrine: Justification by Demonstration (James’s Sense)
Original: δικαίωσις / δικαιόω
Category: Salvation
Inherited from Romans package, extended here to the verb form ‘is grechtfertigt worn’ / ‘wird grechtfertigt’ per the established apocope pattern (ge- > g-). James uses the identical Greek verb family as Romans (2:21,23,24,25) but for the demonstrative, public vindication of an already-existing righteous standing (Genesis 22), not its initial forensic conferral (Genesis 15:6). Mandatory harmonizing teaching note required at every occurrence so learners do not perceive a contradiction with the Romans curriculum.
Imputed Righteousness
Approved rendering: zuagrechnete Gerechtigkeit
Transliteration: zuagrechnate Gerechtigkeit
Doctrine: Salvation
Rejected alternatives: verdiante Gerechtigkeit
Original: ἐλογίσθη αὐτῷ εἰς δικαιοσύνην
Category: Salvation
Inherited from Romans package, exact rendering, no deviation permitted. James 2:23 cites the identical OT text as Romans 4:3 to show Abraham’s crediting (Genesis 15) preceded and grounded, rather than resulted from, his later obedience (Genesis 22). Never render ‘verdiante Gerechtigkeit’ here any more than in Romans.
Lord
Approved rendering: Herr
Transliteration: Herr
Doctrine: Lordship of Christ
Original: κύριος
Category: Christology
Inherited from Romans package, exact rendering. Very high-frequency term across James (1:1,7,12; 2:1; 4:10,15; 5:4,7,8,10,11,14,15); consistency of rendering across every occurrence is required for learner navigation between the Romans and James curricula. Never substitute a transliterated divine-name form (cf. Neue-Welt-Übersetzung ‘Jehova’ risk documented in 05_translation_landscape.md).
God
Approved rendering: Gott
Transliteration: Herrgott
Doctrine: Deity of Christ
Original: θεός
Category: God
Inherited from Romans package, exact rendering. Stable throughout James; reserve ‘Herrgott’ only for culturally warm, folk-devotional contexts as established in the baseline, never for James’s more argumentative/didactic passages (e.g., 2:19, 4:6-8).
Holy Spirit
Approved rendering: Heiliger Geist
Transliteration: Heiliga Geist
Doctrine: Sanctification
Original: πνεῦμα ἅγιον
Category: God
Inherited from Romans package, exact rendering. Must NOT be used by default for the two other pneuma occurrences in James: the ordinary human breath/life-force of 2:26 (render ‘Otem/Lebensotem’) and the genuinely ambiguous referent of 4:5 (render ‘da Geist’ with an explicit ambiguity flag). Defaulting to this rendering in either place risks a false Trinitarian reading the source text does not clearly support.
Works
Approved rendering: Werk
Transliteration: Werk
Doctrine: Faith and Works
Original: ἔργα
Category: Faith and Works
NEW. Visible, concrete deeds; the necessary, observable fruit of genuine faith (James 2:14-26, 11 occurrences), not works that earn salvation. Reverse-direction collision unique to this book: Bavarian Catholic folk piety already possesses vivid, positive lived vocabulary for ‘good works’ (Almosen geben, Wallfahrt, Werke der Barmherzigkeit, votive practice), risking the audience hearing James 2 as confirming a merit-based system rather than James’s claim that living faith inevitably produces works. Mandatory theologian review and ‘fruit not root’ teaching frame at every occurrence in 2:14-26.
Not By Faith Alone
Approved rendering: net durch’n Glaam alloa
Transliteration: net durch’n Gloam alloa
Doctrine: Faith and Works
Original: οὐκ ἐκ πίστεως μόνον
Category: Faith and Works
NEW. James 2:24, the single most historically contested clause of the letter. Must never appear without accompanying exposition clarifying that James addresses a faith that has never produced fruit (functionally no faith at all), not qualifying Paul’s sola fide as taught in the Romans curriculum. Mandatory theologian review and translator’s note at every occurrence.
Anoint With Oil
Approved rendering: mit Öl salbn
Transliteration: mit Öl solbn
Doctrine: Prayer and Healing
Rejected alternatives: Krankensalbung/Letzte Ölung terminology (direct sacramental naming, forbidden)
Original: ἀλείψαντες ἐλαίῳ
Category: Prayer and Healing
NEW. James 5:14, elder-led prayer with oil, expecting recovery. Collides directly with the living Catholic sacrament of Krankensalbung/Letzte Ölung (historically ‘Last Rites’), tied culturally to imminent death. James’s practice differs in expectation (recovery) and administration (any elder, any illness). Mandatory theologian review; must clarify this is neither a claim about, a substitute for, nor a polemic against the Catholic sacrament.
Confess Sins To One Another
Approved rendering: enk gegnseitig eure Sünd eingesteh’n
Transliteration: enk gegnseitig eure Sind eingesteh’n
Doctrine: Confession and Restoration
Rejected alternatives: beichten (FORBIDDEN — denotes sacramental confession to a priest with absolution authority)
Original: ἐξομολογεῖσθε ἀλλήλοις τὰς ἁμαρτίας
Category: Confession and Restoration
NEW. James 5:16, mutual lay confession among believers. ‘Beichten’ is a forbidden default substitution requiring explicit theologian sign-off if used at all; note that both the Einheitsübersetzung and the Luther Bible independently avoid ‘beichten’ here for the same reason (documented precedent in 05_translation_landscape.md), confirming this is not an invention.
Friendship With World
Approved rendering: Freundschaft mit da Welt / Feindschaft mit Gott
Transliteration: Freindschaft mit da Wejt / Feindschaft mit Gott
Doctrine: Worldliness versus Friendship with God
Original: φιλία τοῦ κόσμου / ἔχθρα τοῦ θεοῦ
Category: Worldliness versus Friendship with God
NEW. James 4:4, a totalizing either/or claim: one cannot simultaneously be a friend of the fallen world-system and a friend of God. Any Bavarian softening implying partial or mixed allegiance is acceptable would gut the passage; landscape survey confirms unanimous non-softening across mainstream German translations (05_translation_landscape.md).
High Risk Terms
Grace
Approved rendering: Gnad
Transliteration: Gnod
Doctrine: Grace
Original: χάρις
Category: Salvation
Inherited from Romans package, exact rendering and risk tier. James 4:6 (citing Proverbs 3:34) contrasts grace with pride, directly reinforcing the Romans baseline’s grace-versus-merit guarding; no new risk introduced but the guard must be actively maintained given this book’s works-vocabulary density.
Salvation
Approved rendering: Erlösung
Transliteration: Erlesung
Doctrine: Salvation
Rejected alternatives: Heil (Nazi-era contamination risk)
Original: σωτηρία / σῴζω (eternal sense)
Category: Salvation
Inherited from Romans package, exact rendering and risk tier. James 2:14 uses the eternal/soteriological sense (‘can that faith save him?’). Must be kept lexically distinct from the physical-healing sense of the same Greek verb (sozo) elsewhere in James (5:15, 5:20), which uses ‘gsund mochn/hoiln’ instead; never use ‘erlösn’ for the physical-healing sense.
Church
Approved rendering: Kirch
Transliteration: Kircha
Doctrine: Church as God’s People
Rejected alternatives: Gmoa (secular-administrative default, rejected)
Original: ἐκκλησία
Category: Church
Inherited from Romans package, exact rendering and risk tier. In James 5:14 ‘Kirch’ is paired with the new, structurally foreign term for ‘elders’ (see elders entry); the combined risk of the two terms together in one verse exceeds either term’s risk alone, since Bavarian Catholic parish life has a priest-centered, not lay-elder-led, structure for exactly this kind of pastoral visitation.
Called
Approved rendering: beruafa
Transliteration: beruaft
Doctrine: Divine Calling
Original: κλητός / καλέω
Category: Salvation
Inherited from Romans package stem; risk raised from baseline Medium to High for James. James 2:23 (‘was called a friend of God’) extends the baseline’s established context-sensitivity note to a fourth sense: an honorific relational title bestowed by God, adjacent to but distinct from the effectual-calling-to-salvation sense of Romans 8:28-30.
Election
Approved rendering: Erwählung
Transliteration: Erwöahlung
Doctrine: God’s Election of the Poor as Heirs
Original: ἐκλογή / ἐξελέξατο
Category: Salvation
Inherited from Romans package, exact rendering and risk tier. The baseline’s register-gap note applies equally here (no lived predestination-controversy tradition), but James 2:5 gives the term a vivid, concrete anchor (the poor as heirs of the kingdom) that can help supply real content behind the borrowed word if taught deliberately.
Law
Approved rendering: Gsetz
Transliteration: Gsötz
Doctrine: Wisdom from Above
Original: νόμος
Category: Covenant
Inherited from Romans package, exact rendering. James elaborates two new Jamesian compounds on this root not found in Romans: the ‘perfect law of liberty’ (1:25; 2:12) and the ‘royal law’ (2:8). Must be handled alongside Romans’ more restrictive framing of nomos so learners do not perceive a contradiction between the two curricula’s law vocabulary.
Sin
Approved rendering: Sünd
Transliteration: Sind
Doctrine: Confession and Restoration
Original: ἁμαρτία
Category: Sin
Inherited from Romans package, exact rendering and risk tier. The colloquial-trivialization risk documented in the Romans baseline (‘a Sünd is des scho’ — roughly ‘what a shame/waste’) applies throughout James, and is especially acute in 5:15-20 where sin, forgiveness, confession, and restoration are treated as weighty, communally significant realities, not minor lapses.
Cover Multitude Of Sins
Approved rendering: deckt a Menge Sünd zua
Transliteration: deckt a Menge Sind zua
Doctrine: Confession and Restoration
Original: καλύψει πλῆθος ἁμαρτιῶν
Category: Confession and Restoration
NEW. James 5:20, the letter’s closing verse. Structurally parallel to the ergon risk in the core passage: must not be read as the restoring person’s own deed earning or purchasing another’s forgiveness, but as the natural, God-honoring fruit of loving restoration.
Worked Together With
Approved rendering: hod mitgwirkt
Transliteration: hot mitgwirkt
Doctrine: Faith and Works
Original: συνήργει
Category: Faith and Works
NEW. James 2:22, faith and works pictured as cooperating partners. ‘Cooperation’ language sits close to a synergistic, merit-cooperation soteriology the Romans baseline explicitly guards against; must be framed as faith’s outworking, not its supplementation.
Friend Of God
Approved rendering: Freund vo Gott
Transliteration: Freind vo Gott
Doctrine: Faith and Works
Original: φίλος θεοῦ
Category: Faith and Works
NEW. James 2:23, honorific title of covenantal intimacy bestowed on Abraham (cf. Exodus 33:11, Isaiah 41:8). Everyday Bavarian ‘Freund’ carries a casual ‘buddy’ register; must be protected from flattening via surrounding context or a qualifying phrase.
Elders
Approved rendering: de Ältestn vo da Kirch
Transliteration: de Öitestn vo da Kircha
Doctrine: Prayer and Healing
Original: πρεσβύτεροι τῆς ἐκκλησίας
Category: Prayer and Healing
NEW. James 5:14. Structural, not merely lexical, mismatch: Bavarian Catholic parish leadership is priestly/hierarchical (Pfarrer, Kaplan, Bischof) with no lay-elder office in lived ecclesial structure. Also distinct from the Neuapostolische Kirche’s own living-apostle/elder office (see 05_translation_landscape.md Section 4) — must not be heard as endorsing that group’s polity. Requires explicit teaching-note clarification and theologian review.
Trial Temptation
Approved rendering: Prüfung / Versuachung
Transliteration: Prüfung / Versuchung
Doctrine: Trials and the Testing of Faith
Rejected alternatives: single undifferentiated word for both senses
Original: πειρασμός
Category: Trials and the Testing of Faith
NEW. One Greek noun (peirasmos) covers two theologically distinct senses within James 1: external, God-permitted testing that produces endurance (1:2-4,12), rendered ‘Prüfung’; and internal enticement to sin, never from God (1:13-14), rendered ‘Versuachung’. Must be disambiguated per verse; collapsing them erases James’s explicit point that God tests but never tempts toward sin (1:13).
Double Minded
Approved rendering: zwiespoltig im Glaam
Transliteration: zwiaspoltig im Gloam
Doctrine: Trials and the Testing of Faith
Rejected alternatives: zwoa-seelig (literal ‘two-souled’ calque — sounds invented and confusing), unentschlossen (merely undecided — loses inward-division nuance)
Original: δίψυχος
Category: Trials and the Testing of Faith
NEW. James 1:8; 4:8. A rare NT theological coinage (dipsychos, ‘two-souled’) with no dialect precedent; describes inward division between trust in God and doubt, not simple indecision.
Favoritism
Approved rendering: Parteilichkeit
Transliteration: Parteilichkeit
Doctrine: Favoritism and the Poor
Rejected alternatives: Leut noch ihrm Ausschaung beurteiln (descriptive paraphrase, retained as explanatory gloss only)
Original: προσωπολημψία
Category: Favoritism and the Poor
NEW. James 2:1,9. Historically, Bavarian village parish churches literally practiced reserved/paid pew seating by social status (Kirchenstühle) — a real, grounded cultural parallel to James’s illustration, double-edged: it can anchor the teaching as direct indictment or be dismissed as ‘that’s just how it was.‘
Devil
Approved rendering: Teife / Deife
Transliteration: Deifi
Doctrine: Worldliness versus Friendship with God
Original: διάβολος
Category: Worldliness versus Friendship with God
NEW. James 4:7, the personal spiritual adversary requiring active resistance, not a metaphor for impersonal evil. Alpine Bavarian folk culture’s theatrical, even comedic folk-devil imagery (Perchtenlauf, Krampus-adjacent processions) risks undercutting the seriousness of real spiritual opposition; teaching material must actively counter a folklorized reading.
Assembly
Approved rendering: Versammlung / Zammkunft
Transliteration: Versammlung / Zammkunft
Doctrine: Favoritism and the Poor
Rejected alternatives: Synagoge (anachronistic — implies a distinct Jewish worship building/institution)
Original: συναγωγή
Category: Favoritism and the Poor
NEW. James 2:2, James’s early Jewish-Christian usage for the Christian gathering itself. A literal rendering as ‘Synagoge’ would confusingly suggest a Jewish institution distinct from the church rather than James’s own early-church usage.
Perfect Law Of Liberty
Approved rendering: s’vollkomme Gsetz vo da Freiheit
Transliteration: s’vollkomma Gsetz vo da Freiheit
Doctrine: Wisdom from Above
Original: νόμος τέλειος τῆς ἐλευθερίας
Category: Wisdom from Above
NEW. James 1:25; cf. 2:12’s ‘law of liberty’. Pairing ‘law’ and ‘liberty/freedom’ risks sounding contradictory or antinomian (‘free from law = no law’) if not carefully framed alongside the reused baseline Gsetz term and its Catholic natural-law resonance.
Forgiveness
Approved rendering: vergem
Transliteration: vergeem
Doctrine: Confession and Restoration
Original: ἀφίημι (ἀφεθήσεται)
Category: Confession and Restoration
NEW. James 5:15 (‘sins will be forgiven’), from ‘vergeben’ via the established be>b/geben>gem lenition pattern. Bavarian Catholic piety routes forgiveness heavily through the sacrament of Confession’s specific priestly absolution formula; James describes forgiveness through faith-filled communal prayer, not priestly mediation.
Save Heal Physical
Approved rendering: gsund mochn / hoiln
Transliteration: gsund machn / hein
Doctrine: Prayer and Healing
Rejected alternatives: erlösn (reserved exclusively for the eternal-salvation sense at James 2:14)
Original: σῴζω (physical sense)
Category: Prayer and Healing
NEW. James 5:15, 5:20. The physical-recovery sense of the same Greek verb (sozo) used for eternal salvation at 2:14. Must be kept lexically distinct from ‘Erlösung/erlösn’ to avoid either collapsing physical healing into salvation-by-works or draining the healing of spiritual significance.
Spirit Breath
Approved rendering: Otem / Lebensotem
Transliteration: Ootem / Lebmsotem
Doctrine: Faith and Works
Rejected alternatives: Heiliger Geist (would misread the illustration as a Trinitarian statement), unqualified Geist
Original: πνεῦμα (2:26)
Category: Faith and Works
NEW. James 2:26, the ordinary animating breath of physical life (cf. Genesis 2:7), unrelated to the Holy Spirit. Must not use ‘Heiliger Geist’ or bare ‘Geist’ here.
Spirit Ambiguous
Approved rendering: da Geist
Transliteration: da Gaist
Doctrine: Worldliness versus Friendship with God
Rejected alternatives: Heiliger Geist (unilateral resolution of a genuine ambiguity without theologian sign-off)
Original: τὸ πνεῦμα (4:5)
Category: Worldliness versus Friendship with God
NEW. James 4:5, a genuinely ambiguous referent even in Greek scholarship (Holy Spirit’s jealous care vs. human spirit’s envious tendency). Must not default to ‘Heiliger Geist’; recommend leaving ambiguous with a translator’s note.
Pray For One Another
Approved rendering: bet’s fia oanand
Transliteration: bet’s fia oanaunda
Doctrine: Prayer and Healing
Rejected alternatives: Fürbitt (baseline Romans intercession term — avoided here to prevent pull toward the Altötting Marian/saints-intercession devotional frame)
Original: εὔχεσθε ὑπὲρ ἀλλήλων
Category: Prayer and Healing
NEW. James 5:16, mutual intercessory prayer among ordinary believers, not through a separate class of intercessors. Use a general prayer verb rather than the baseline ‘Fürbitt’ term.
Natural Demonic Wisdom
Approved rendering: bloß menschliche Weisheit / teuflische Weisheit
Transliteration: bloss menschliche Weisheit / teifliche Weisheit
Doctrine: Wisdom from Above
Rejected alternatives: any cognate suggesting ‘psychisch’ (modern psychic/psychological false-friend)
Original: ψυχική / δαιμονιώδης
Category: Wisdom from Above
NEW. James 3:15. Psychike (‘soulish/natural’, merely human, not sinful per se) and daimoniodes (actively demonically-inspired). Must never use a Psyche-/psych- cognate for the former.
Dead Of Faith
Approved rendering: toud
Transliteration: toad
Doctrine: Faith and Works
Rejected alternatives: hi (colloquial ‘broken/done-for’ — far too casual a register for this doctrinal claim)
Original: νεκρά
Category: Faith and Works
NEW. James 2:17, 20, 26 (nekra). Faith without works is not weaker faith but no functional faith at all, like a corpse. ‘Toud’ (regular Bavarian vowel-diphthongization of ‘tot’, parallel to Brot > Broud) preserves the claim’s gravity; the colloquial ‘hi’ must never be used here.
Prostitute Rahab
Approved rendering: Rahab, de Dirn
Transliteration: Rahab, de Diarn
Doctrine: Faith and Works
Rejected alternatives: euphemistic softening (loses the passage’s deliberate shock value), sensationalized rendering
Original: Ῥαὰβ ἡ πόρνη
Category: Faith and Works
NEW. James 2:25 (Rhaab hē pornē). A deliberately unlikely second example (alongside the venerated patriarch Abraham) of faith-and-works vindication. Must follow the source text’s own bluntness, neither softened nor sensationalized.
Medium Risk Terms
Glory
Approved rendering: Herrlichkeit
Transliteration: Herrlichkeit
Doctrine: Deity of Christ
Original: δόξα
Category: God
Inherited from Romans package, exact rendering. James 2:1 packs high Christology (‘the Lord of glory’) into an ethics-of-favoritism passage; the ethical demand against partiality is grounded in who Christ is, not merely social etiquette.
Father
Approved rendering: Voda
Transliteration: Voter
Doctrine: Adoption into God’s Family
Original: πατήρ
Category: God
Inherited from Romans package, exact rendering. Includes the poetic epithet ‘Father of lights’ (1:17, rendered ‘Voda vo alle Lichter’), source of every good and unchanging gift, plus 1:27 (pure religion) and 3:9 (human dignity). The epithet requires some unpacking in teaching material for full comprehension though it carries no doctrinal risk of its own.
Peace
Approved rendering: Friad
Transliteration: Friade
Doctrine: Peace with God
Original: εἰρήνη
Category: Salvation
Inherited from Romans package, exact rendering; risk raised from baseline Low to Medium for James specifically. Used both sincerely (3:18, ‘fruit of righteousness sown in peace’) and ironically (2:16, a hollow blessing substituting for real material help). The ironic 2:16 usage requires enough surrounding warmth that the irony remains legible rather than being mistaken for a sincere blessing.
Calling
Approved rendering: Beruafung
Transliteration: Berufung
Doctrine: Divine Calling
Original: κλῆσις
Category: Salvation
Inherited from Romans package, exact rendering and risk tier. Not a major standalone occurrence in James beyond the ‘called’ verb family at 2:23; retained for cross-curriculum consistency.
Kingdom Of God
Approved rendering: s’Reich vo Gott
Transliteration: des Reich vom Gott
Doctrine: Kingdom Mission
Original: βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ
Category: Kingdom
Inherited from Romans package, exact rendering. James 2:5: the inheritance promised to those who love God, especially the poor.
Royal Law
Approved rendering: s’königliche Gsetz
Transliteration: s’königliche Gsötz
Doctrine: Favoritism and the Poor
Original: νόμος βασιλικός
Category: Favoritism and the Poor
NEW. James 2:8, the love-command (Leviticus 19:18) elevated as supremely authoritative, ‘belonging to the King’. Reuses the baseline Gsetz root; ties love-of-neighbor to divine kingship authority.
Wisdom
Approved rendering: Weisheit
Transliteration: Weisheit
Doctrine: Wisdom from Above
Original: σοφία
Category: Wisdom from Above
NEW. James 1:5; 3:13-17. Register-gap borrowing with no dialect coinage; risks being heard as ‘cleverness/shrewdness’ (the live colloquial sense of ‘gscheid sei’) rather than God-given, prayerfully-sought, moral-practical insight.
Tongue
Approved rendering: Zung
Transliteration: Zunge
Doctrine: Taming the Tongue
Original: γλῶσσα
Category: Taming the Tongue
NEW. James 1:26; 3:1-12. Existing Bavarian idiom (‘a schlechte Zung ham’) gives a rare positive resonance, but idiom alone will not carry the full weight of 3:9’s blessing/cursing-those-made-in-God’s-image argument without explicit teaching.
Endurance
Approved rendering: Standhaftigkeit / Ausdauer
Transliteration: Standhaftigkeit / Ausdaua
Doctrine: Trials and the Testing of Faith
Original: ὑπομονή
Category: Trials and the Testing of Faith
NEW. James 1:3-4; 5:11 (hypomone). Active perseverance under pressure. Must be kept lexically distinct from ‘Geduld’ (patience, makrothymia) so James’s two-strand perseverance vocabulary is not flattened into one word.
Patience
Approved rendering: Geduld
Transliteration: Gduld
Doctrine: Patience and the Lord’s Return
Original: μακροθυμία
Category: Patience and the Lord’s Return
NEW. James 5:7-8, 10 (makrothymia). Patient waiting regarding God’s timing and forbearance toward people. Must be kept lexically distinct from ‘Standhaftigkeit/Ausdauer’ (hypomone).
Parousia
Approved rendering: d’Wiederkunft vom Herrn
Transliteration: d’Wiedakunft vom Herrn
Doctrine: Patience and the Lord’s Return
Original: παρουσία τοῦ κυρίου
Category: Patience and the Lord’s Return
NEW. James 5:7-8. Strong positive liturgical resonance (recited in the Creed at every Bavarian Catholic Mass), but this very familiarity risks dulling James’s urgent, farmer-awaiting-harvest framing of patient expectancy rather than sharpening it.
Perfect Mature
Approved rendering: vollkomma
Transliteration: vollkomman
Doctrine: Trials and the Testing of Faith
Original: τέλειος
Category: Trials and the Testing of Faith
NEW. James 1:4, 17, 25; 3:2 (teleios). Complete, mature, whole through process — NOT sinless moral perfection. Strong risk of being heard as ‘flawless/sinless’, an English/German idiom collision.
Rich Poor
Approved rendering: reich / oarm
Transliteration: reich / oam
Doctrine: Favoritism and the Poor
Original: πλούσιος / πτωχός
Category: Favoritism and the Poor
NEW. James 1:9-11; 2:1-6; 5:1-6. Economically transparent, but the doctrinal weight (God’s eschatological reversal, not mere social commentary) must be carried by context and explicit teaching.
Religion
Approved rendering: Religion
Transliteration: Religion
Doctrine: Pure Religion and Care for the Vulnerable
Original: θρησκεία
Category: General
NEW. James 1:26-27 (thrēskeia). Modern Bavarian usage skews institutional/administrative (church-tax registration, the school subject ‘Religion’) rather than lived devotion; James’s redefinition toward practical mercy for widows and orphans must be made explicit.
Mercy
Approved rendering: Barmherzigkeit
Transliteration: Barmherzigkeit
Doctrine: Favoritism and the Poor
Original: ἔλεος
Category: Favoritism and the Poor
NEW. James 2:13 (eleos), ‘mercy triumphs over judgment’. Unusually positive resonance: strong existing Catholic catechetical grounding (Werke der Barmherzigkeit). Risk is mainly ensuring the specific link to favoritism and judgment in context is not lost amid familiar catechetical associations.
Likeness Of God
Approved rendering: s’Ebnbild vo Gott
Transliteration: s’Eabnbuidl vo Gott
Doctrine: Taming the Tongue
Original: ὁμοίωσις θεοῦ
Category: Taming the Tongue
NEW. James 3:9 (imago Dei). A foundational doctrine not otherwise present in the Romans baseline; grounds the prohibition on cursing any person, believer or not, in universal human dignity.
Hell Gehenna
Approved rendering: Höll
Transliteration: Heij
Doctrine: Taming the Tongue
Original: γέεννα / πῦρ
Category: Taming the Tongue
NEW. James 3:6, the tongue ‘set on fire by hell’ (geenna). Bavarian Catholic folk-devotional hell-imagery (Weltgerichtsbilder church frescoes) is generally a helpful resonance but risks flattening the specific NT geenna concept into generic fire-and-brimstone folklore rather than James’s precise point about a demonic-adjacent destructive source.
Heir
Approved rendering: Erb
Transliteration: Erm
Doctrine: God’s Election of the Poor as Heirs
Original: κληρονόμος
Category: Favoritism and the Poor
NEW. James 2:5 (klēronomos). Connects naturally to the baseline Kindschaft (adoption) doctrine’s full-inheritance-rights emphasis.
Word Of Truth Implanted
Approved rendering: s’Wort vo da Wahrheit / s’eingpflanzte Wort
Transliteration: s’Woat vo da Wahrheit / s’eigpflanzte Woat
Doctrine: Doers of the Word (Foreshadowing Faith and Works)
Original: λόγος ἀληθείας / ἔμφυτος λόγος
Category: General
NEW. James 1:18, 1:21. The gospel as generative (birthing believers) and as an internalized, rooted reality. The agricultural grafting metaphor has natural, helpful resonance in rural Altbayern fruit-growing culture.
Doer Vs Hearer
Approved rendering: oana, der’s tuat / bloß a Hörer
Transliteration: oana, dea’s tuat / bloss a Heara
Doctrine: Doers of the Word (Foreshadowing Faith and Works)
Original: ποιητὴς λόγου / ἀκροατὴς μόνον
Category: Faith and Works
NEW. James 1:22-25, the mirror illustration. Directly foreshadows the core passage’s Faith-and-Works doctrine; consistency of phrasing across both passages is required so learners perceive one continuous argument.
Fruit Of Righteousness
Approved rendering: Frucht vo da Gerechtigkeit
Transliteration: Frucht vo da Gerechtigkeit
Doctrine: Wisdom from Above
Original: καρπὸς δικαιοσύνης
Category: Wisdom from Above
NEW. James 3:18. Reuses baseline Gerechtigkeit exactly; ties wisdom-from-above directly to righteous living and peace.
Desire Lust
Approved rendering: Gier / böse Begehrn
Transliteration: Gia / böse Begehrn
Doctrine: Trials and the Testing of Faith
Original: ἐπιθυμία
Category: Trials and the Testing of Faith
NEW. James 1:14-15 (epithymia). Sinful appetite that entices toward sin — the internal source of temptation. Must be distinguished from ordinary neutral ‘wanting something.‘
World Moral
Approved rendering: Welt
Transliteration: Wejt
Doctrine: Worldliness versus Friendship with God
Original: κόσμος
Category: Worldliness versus Friendship with God
NEW. James 1:27; 3:6; 4:4 (kosmos). Can mean the neutral created order or the fallen human value-system opposed to God; context must always signal which sense is active. Escalates to Critical when paired with ‘Freundschaft’ at 4:4 (see friendship_with_world entry).
Wages
Approved rendering: Lohn
Transliteration: Loh
Doctrine: Favoritism and the Poor
Original: μισθός
Category: Favoritism and the Poor
NEW. James 5:4 (misthos), wages withheld by exploitative landowners. Socially resonant given Bavaria’s own agrarian labor history.
Lord Of Sabaoth
Approved rendering: Herr Zebaoth
Transliteration: Herr Zebaoth
Doctrine: Favoritism and the Poor
Rejected alternatives: Herr der Heerscharen (paraphrase, rejected in favor of the established transliterated Bible-citation convention)
Original: κύριος Σαβαώθ
Category: Favoritism and the Poor
NEW. James 5:4. OT-rooted divine military title. Transliterated per established German/Bavarian Bible-citation convention; reuses baseline Herr.
Turn Back Sinner
Approved rendering: an Sünder wieder zruckbringa
Transliteration: an Sinda wieda zruckbringa
Doctrine: Confession and Restoration
Original: ἐπιστρέψῃ ἁμαρτωλόν
Category: Confession and Restoration
NEW. James 5:19-20. Restoring a straying believer to right relationship with God and community; reuses the baseline Sünd root.
Servant Slave
Approved rendering: Diena / Knecht
Transliteration: Diena / Knecht
Doctrine: General — Authorial Self-Designation
Original: δοῦλος
Category: General
NEW. James 1:1 (doulos). James’s self-designation, echoing OT prophetic and apostolic self-identification. Modern ‘Knecht’ carries agrarian-servant-class connotations (farmhand); must retain the honorific covenant-service sense, not a menial-labor reading.
Low Risk Terms
Jesus
Approved rendering: Jesus
Transliteration: Jesus
Doctrine: Christology
Original: Ἰησοῦς (Χριστός)
Category: Christology
Inherited from Romans package, exact rendering. Stable proper name at James 1:1 and 2:1 (‘our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory’).
Widow Orphan
Approved rendering: Witfrau / Waisenkind
Transliteration: Witfrau / Woasnkind
Doctrine: Pure Religion and Care for the Vulnerable
Original: χήρα / ὀρφανός
Category: Favoritism and the Poor
NEW. James 1:27. Paradigmatic vulnerable persons under OT covenant protection; James’s concrete test-case for ‘pure religion’.
Blessed
Approved rendering: gseg’nt
Transliteration: gsegnet
Doctrine: Trials and the Testing of Faith
Original: μακάριος
Category: Trials and the Testing of Faith
NEW. James 1:12 (makarios). Divine commendation, not mere emotional happiness.
Crown Of Life
Approved rendering: Kron vom Lebm
Transliteration: Kroun vom Lebm
Doctrine: Trials and the Testing of Faith
Original: στέφανος τῆς ζωῆς
Category: Trials and the Testing of Faith
NEW. James 1:12. Athletic/military victory-wreath imagery applied to eschatological reward. Watch for unhelpful folk-festival ‘crown’ associations (Kirwakönig/Kirwakönigin); context should clarify the eschatological sense.
Jealousy Selfish Ambition
Approved rendering: Neid / Eigennutz
Transliteration: Neid / Eignutz
Doctrine: Taming the Tongue
Original: ζῆλος / ἐριθεία
Category: Taming the Tongue
NEW. James 3:14, 16 (zēlos/eritheia). Named as the root of ‘earthly’ false wisdom’s fruit.
Naked
Approved rendering: nackat / schlecht ognaht
Transliteration: nacket / schlecht ognaht
Doctrine: Faith and Works
Original: γυμνός
Category: Faith and Works
NEW. James 2:15 (gymnos). Real material destitution (‘poorly/inadequately clothed’), not literal nudity or spiritual metaphor.
Oath Swearing
Approved rendering: schwörn
Transliteration: schwöan
Doctrine: General — Truthfulness Ethic
Original: ὀμνύω
Category: General
NEW. James 5:12 (omnyō). Echoes Matthew 5:33-37; James calls for truthfulness needing no external guarantee.
Sick Weak
Approved rendering: kronk
Transliteration: krank
Doctrine: Prayer and Healing
Original: ἀσθενέω
Category: Prayer and Healing
NEW. James 5:14 (astheneō). The concrete situation triggering the anointing-and-prayer instruction.
Referenced passages