Semantic Analysis
Semantic Analysis — 1 Corinthians (English → Burmese)
Methodology
This analysis follows the PRD Phase 1 Step 1 mandate: full-book coverage of 1 Corinthians in the original Koine Greek, chapter 1 through chapter 16, with the core passage (1 Corinthians 15:1–11) given verse-by-verse treatment. Every other chapter receives a chapter-level section documenting its load-bearing theological terms using the same field set:
- Original (Greek word, transliteration)
- Literal meaning
- Semantic range
- English variants (as found across major English versions)
- Contextual theological meaning (in 1 Corinthians)
- Destination-language rendering risk (Burmese rendering, risk tier, and rationale)
Any term already established in the baseline Romans translation_memory.json is reused exactly and marked “(TM reuse).” New terms discovered in 1 Corinthians are marked “(NEW)” and are candidates for addition to translation memory (see 08_core_glossary.md).
Risk tiers follow the baseline doctrine_risk_registry.json definitions: Critical (essential doctrine at stake, human theologian review mandatory), High (significant confusion/syncretism risk), Medium (clarity risk, native speaker review), Low (minor imprecision, automated review sufficient).
A note on “Christ”: per the baseline AI instruction set’s transliteration standards, Χριστός as part of the proper name/title “Jesus Christ” is rendered ခရစ်တော် (Khayitto) throughout, distinct from the TM’s “messiah” entry (မေရှိယ), which names the Old Testament title/concept being fulfilled. Both are retained and used contextually.
PART 1 — Core Passage: 1 Corinthians 15:1–11 (Verse-by-Verse)
This passage is the theological anchor of the entire curriculum: Paul’s own summary of the gospel he received and delivered, and Christ’s resurrection appearances as eyewitness-attested historical fact.
15:1 — “Γνωρίζω δὲ ὑμῖν, ἀδελφοί, τὸ εὐαγγέλιον ὃ εὐηγγελισάμην ὑμῖν, ὃ καὶ παρελάβετε, ἐν ᾧ καὶ ἑστήκατε”
| Terms | Variants | Contextual Theological Meaning | Burmese Rendering & Risk |
|---|---|---|---|
| εὐαγγέλιον (euangelion) good news / good announcement | authoritative proclamation of a saving event, not a generic pleasant report gospel, good news | The specific, fixed content of apostolic proclamation Paul is about to summarize (vv.3-5) | သတင်းကောင်း (TM reuse). Risk: High. Must be anchored to the specific content that follows (Christ died, was buried, was raised), not left as a vague “good message.” |
| παρελάβετε (parelabete, from παραλαμβάνω) you received | to receive something handed down, esp. a tradition or teaching passed from one to another received, accepted | The Corinthians received this gospel as fixed apostolic tradition, not their own invention | လက်ခံရရှိသည် (let-khan-ya-shi-thi). Risk: High (NEW). Must convey reception of an authoritative, externally-given deposit, not a personally-arrived-at insight — this pairs with παρέδωκα in v.3 as a technical receive/deliver tradition-pair; loss of that technical pairing weakens the historical-eyewitness argument of the whole passage. |
| ἑστήκατε (hestēkate, from ἵστημι) you stand / you have taken your stand | to stand firm, be established, persevere stand, stand firm | Continuing to stand on this gospel as foundation | တည်နေသည် (tè-nay-thi). Risk: Low. Convey settled, ongoing firmness, not a momentary posture. |
15:2 — “δι’ οὗ καὶ σώζεσθε, τίνι λόγῳ εὐηγγελισάμην ὑμῖν εἰ κατέχετε, ἐκτὸς εἰ μὴ μάτην ἐπιστεύσατε”
| Terms | Variants | Contextual Theological Meaning | Burmese Rendering & Risk |
|---|---|---|---|
| σώζεσθε (sōzesthe, from σώζω) you are being saved | present passive; ongoing/continuing state of deliverance grounded in a past accomplished act are saved, are being saved | Salvation as a present reality resting on the gospel content of vv.3-5, not a one-time ritual merit-transaction | ကယ်တင်ခြင်းခံရသည် / ကယ်တင်ခြင်း (TM reuse root: ကယ်တင်ခြင်း). Risk: Critical. NEVER နိဗ္ဗာန်ရောက်ခြင်း. The present-passive form must not be flattened into a self-attained ongoing achievement; it is a continuing benefit of a completed rescue accomplished by another. |
| κατέχετε (katechete) you hold fast / retain firmly | to hold down, retain, keep possession of hold fast, keep in memory | Continued grip on the received gospel content as the condition of genuine faith | ဆက်လက်ခိုင်မြဲစွာဆွဲကိုင်ထားသည် (Risk: Medium, NEW). Convey tenacious retention of a specific content, not vague ongoing sentiment. |
| ἐπιστεύσατε (episteusate, from πιστεύω) you believed | to place trust/confidence in, be persuaded of, rely upon believed, had faith | Saving faith directed at the specific historical gospel content, capable of being “in vain” if the content is denied (cf. vv.14-19) | ယုံကြည်သည် (TM reuse root: ယုံကြည်ခြင်း). Risk: Medium. Object of faith must remain the specific historical events named in vv.3-5, not generalized religious confidence. |
| μάτην (matēn) in vain / to no purpose | fruitlessly, without effect in vain, for nothing | A real possibility Paul raises: faith without true historical content is empty — sets up the argument of vv.12-19 | အချည်းနှီးသို့ / အချည်းနှီးဖြစ်စေခြင်း (Risk: Low, NEW). |
15:3 — “παρέδωκα γὰρ ὑμῖν ἐν πρώτοις, ὃ καὶ παρέλαβον, ὅτι Χριστὸς ἀπέθανεν ὑπὲρ τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν ἡμῶν κατὰ τὰς γραφάς”
| Terms | Variants | Contextual Theological Meaning | Burmese Rendering & Risk |
|---|---|---|---|
| παρέδωκα (paredōka, from παραδίδωμι) I delivered / handed over | to pass on a tradition, entrust, transmit formally delivered, passed on | Paul transmitting a fixed, pre-existing apostolic creed/tradition (likely older than his own conversion), not personal opinion | အပ်ပေးသည် (ap-pay-thi). Risk: High (NEW). This receive/deliver technical vocabulary (παραλαμβάνω/παραδίδωμι) is the linguistic marker of a formal, fixed, communally-verified tradition; a loose paraphrase (“I told you”) loses the historical-evidentiary weight the passage builds toward v.6’s “500 brothers, most of whom are still alive.” |
| ἀπέθανεν ὑπὲρ τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν ἡμῶν (apethanen hyper tōn hamartiōn hēmōn) died on behalf of / for our sins | ὑπέρ = on behalf of, for the sake of, in place of; substitutionary/representative death died for our sins | Substitutionary atonement: Christ’s death dealt with the guilt of human ἁμαρτία (sin) | ငါတို့၏အပြစ်အတွက် အသေခံတော်မူသည် — အပြစ် (TM reuse: sin). Risk: Critical. Must preserve substitution (“for/on behalf of,” ်not merely “died because of” or “died alongside”), and must not be reduced to a moral example or misfortune; this is the atoning center of the gospel content itself. |
| κατὰ τὰς γραφάς (kata tas graphas) according to the Scriptures | in fulfillment of, in agreement with, as foretold in according to the Scriptures, as the Scriptures said | Fulfillment of specific OT prophecy (cf. Isaiah 53), part of the “fulfillment_of_prophecy” doctrine already documented in the baseline package | ကျမ်းစာလာသည်နှင့်အညီ (Risk: High — reuses baseline’s fulfillment_of_prophecy doctrine). Linear, one-time historical fulfillment of specific written promise, not a cyclical or generalized “as scriptures generally teach.” |
15:4 — “καὶ ὅτι ἐτάφη, καὶ ὅτι ἐγήγερται τῇ τρίτῃ ἡμέρ�ᾳ κατὰ τὰς γραφάς”
| Terms | Variants | Contextual Theological Meaning | Burmese Rendering & Risk |
|---|---|---|---|
| ἐτάφη (etaphē, from θάπτω) he was buried | placed formally in a tomb/grave was buried, was entombed | Establishes the physical reality of Christ’s death — a genuine corpse, genuinely buried, ruling out any docetic or illusory-death reading | မြှုပ်နှံခြင်းခံရသည် (Risk: Medium, NEW). Must convey a real body placed in a real tomb. |
| ἐγήγερται (egēgertai, from ἐγείρω) he has been raised / he is risen (perfect tense) | the perfect tense signals a past completed action with continuing present result/state is risen, has been raised, was raised | The heart of the resurrection doctrine: a completed, historical, once-for-all bodily raising with ongoing present significance | ထမြောက်တော်မူပြီ (TM reuse root: ထမြောက်ခြင်း). Risk: Critical. NEVER ပဋိသန္ဓေတည်ခြင်း (rebirth into samsara) or ပြန်လည်မွေးဖွားခြင်း. The Greek perfect tense’s “completed-with-lasting-effect” force should be preserved where possible (e.g., “ထမြောက်တော်မူပြီ” rather than a simple past), reinforcing that this is not one link in a repeating cycle but a permanent, unrepeatable, historical accomplishment. Mandatory translator note per baseline instructions. |
| τῇ τρίτῃ ἡμέρᾳ (tē tritē hēmera) on the third day | specific, dateable, historical timeframe on the third day, the third day | Fixes the resurrection as a specific historical event, not a mythic or timeless motif | တတိယနေ့တွင် (Risk: Low). |
15:5 — “καὶ ὅτι ὤφθη Κηφᾷ, εἶτα τοῖς δώδεκα”
| Terms | Variants | Contextual Theological Meaning | Burmese Rendering & Risk |
|---|---|---|---|
| ὤφθη (ōphthē, from ὁράω) he was seen / he appeared | passive of “to see” — to be seen, to become visible/manifest to someone, often used of a genuine, objective visual encounter appeared, was seen, showed himself | Christ’s bodily resurrection appearances were objective events witnessed by named, checkable individuals, not visions, dreams, or subjective inner experiences alone | ကိုယ်ထင်ရှားပြတော်မူသည် (koe-htin-shar-pya-taw-mu-thi). Risk: Critical (NEW). This verb recurs five times in vv.5-8 as the evidentiary backbone of the passage; it must be rendered consistently and must convey a real, external, bodily manifestation to a witness — not an inward spiritual impression, and never with vocabulary suggesting a nat-medium’s vision or trance experience. |
| Κηφᾷ (Kēpha) Cephas (Peter) | proper name, Aramaic “rock” Cephas, Peter | First named eyewitness of the risen Christ | ကေဖ (Kayhpa) — established Myanmar Bible proper-name form. Risk: Low. |
| τοῖς δώδεκα (tois dōdeka) to the Twelve | the twelve apostles as a defined, known group the Twelve, the twelve apostles | A verifiable, named body of witnesses | တစ်ကျိပ်နှစ်ပါး (Risk: Low). |
15:6 — “ἔπειτα ὤφθη ἐπάνω πεντακοσίοις ἀδελφοῖς ἐφάπαξ, ἐξ ὧν οἱ πλείονες μένουσιν ἕως ἄρτι, τινὲς δὲ ἐκοιμήθησαν”
| Terms | Variants | Contextual Theological Meaning | Burmese Rendering & Risk |
|---|---|---|---|
| ἐφάπαξ (ephapax) at one time / once for all | a single occasion, all together at once, all at one time | Emphasizes a single, collectively-verifiable mass appearance, strengthening the eyewitness argument | တစ်ကြိမ်တည်း တစ်ခါတည်း (Risk: Low). |
| ἐκοιμήθησαν (ekoimēthēsan, from κοιμάομαι) they fell asleep | euphemism for death among believers, implying a temporary rest with expectation of waking (resurrection) fallen asleep, have died | Death for believers is described as “sleep,” presupposing bodily resurrection to come — must not be confused with any notion of a temporary intermediate rebirth-state | အိပ်ပျော်သွားကြပြီ (Risk: Medium, NEW). The sleep-euphemism must retain its resurrection-hope implication (waking bodily), not merely mean “died” flatly, nor suggest an intermediate reincarnation state. |
15:7 — “ἔπειτα ὤφθη Ἰακώβῳ, εἶτα τοῖς ἀποστόλοις πᾶσιν”
| Terms | Variants | Contextual Theological Meaning | Burmese Rendering & Risk |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ἰακώβῳ (Iakōbō) to James | proper name — James, the Lord’s brother, later Jerusalem church leader James | Another named, checkable witness whose transformation (from skeptic, cf. John 7:5, to church leader) corroborates the resurrection’s historical reality | ယာကုပ် (Yakoat) — established Myanmar Bible proper-name form. Risk: Low. |
| τοῖς ἀποστόλοις πᾶσιν (tois apostolois pasin) to all the apostles | the full apostolic company, wider than “the Twelve” all the apostles | Broadens the circle of eyewitnesses | တမန်တော်အားလုံး (TM reuse: apostle = တမန်တော်). Risk: Low. |
15:8 — “ἔσχατον δὲ πάντων ὡσπερεὶ τῷ ἐκτρώματι ὤφθη κἀμοί”
| Terms | Variants | Contextual Theological Meaning | Burmese Rendering & Risk |
|---|---|---|---|
| ἔσχατον (eschaton) last | final, last of all in a sequence last of all | Paul places himself as the final, latest resurrection witness, completing the apostolic list | နောက်ဆုံးတွင် (Risk: Low). |
| ἐκτρώματι (ektrōmati) to the untimely born / miscarriage | one born abnormally, prematurely, out of the ordinary process untimely born, one born out of due time, miscarriage | Paul’s startling self-description of his unworthy, “abnormal” entry into apostleship (via a resurrection encounter, not by following Jesus’ earthly ministry) — his humility sets up v.9 | မမှီတင်းမွေးသောသူ / မွေးလွန်းစွာနောက်ကျစွာမွေးသောသူ (Risk: Low, NEW). A vivid self-deprecating image; a plain paraphrase is acceptable, but flatten it too much and the rhetorical humility of vv.9-10 is weakened. |
15:9 — “Ἐγὼ γάρ εἰμι ὁ ἐλάχιστος τῶν ἀποστόλων, ὃς οὐκ εἰμὶ ἱκανὸς καλεῖσθαι ἀπόστολος, διότι ἐδίωξα τὴν ἐκκλησίαν τοῦ θεοῦ”
| Terms | Variants | Contextual Theological Meaning | Burmese Rendering & Risk |
|---|---|---|---|
| ἐλάχιστος (elachistos) least | smallest, most insignificant (superlative) least, the very least | Paul’s self-assessment relative to his former persecution of the church, setting up the grace-contrast in v.10 | အနည်းငယ်ဆုံး (Risk: Low). |
| καλεῖσθαι ἀπόστολος (kaleisthai apostolos) to be called an apostle | to be named/designated with this title to be called an apostle | Apostleship is a designation given by God’s calling, not self-appointed status | တမန်တော်ဟု ခေါ်ဝေါ်ခြင်း (TM reuse: called = ခေါ်တော်မူသော; apostle = တမန်တော်). Risk: Medium. |
| ἐδίωξα (ediōxa, from διώκω) I persecuted | to pursue with hostile intent, harass, oppress persecuted | Paul’s pre-conversion violent opposition to the church, the backdrop against which grace (v.10) is magnified | ညှင်းပန်းနှိပ်စက်သည် (Risk: Low). |
| τὴν ἐκκλησίαν τοῦ θεοῦ (tēn ekklēsian tou theou) the church of God | God’s own assembled/called-out people the church of God | The church belongs to God himself — persecuting it is opposing God directly | ဘုရားသခင်၏အသင်းတော် (TM reuse: church = အသင်းတော်; god = ဘုရားသခင်). Risk: Medium. |
15:10 — “χάριτι δὲ θεοῦ εἰμι ὅ εἰμι, καὶ ἡ χάρις αὐτοῦ ἡ εἰς ἐμὲ οὐ κενὴ ἐγενήθη, ἀλλὰ περισσότερον αὐτῶν πάντων ἐκοπίασα, οὐκ ἐγὼ δὲ ἀλλὰ ἡ χάρις τοῦ θεοῦ ἡ σὺν ἐμοί”
| Terms | Variants | Contextual Theological Meaning | Burmese Rendering & Risk |
|---|---|---|---|
| χάριτι θεοῦ (chariti theou) by the grace of God | dative of means/cause: God’s unearned favor as the operative cause by the grace of God | Paul’s entire transformation from persecutor to apostle, and his subsequent labor, is attributed wholly to God’s unmerited favor, not to his own moral improvement or accumulated merit | ဘုရားသခင်၏ကျေးဇူးတော်ဖြင့် (TM reuse: grace = ကျေးဇူးတော်). Risk: Critical. This verse is a premier text for the grace-versus-merit doctrine: Paul explicitly denies personal merit (“not I, but the grace of God”) even while affirming his own vigorous labor — the Burmese rendering must keep both halves intact (grace as ultimate cause; labor as grace’s genuine fruit, not its co-equal partner), directly countering any reading through the lens of ကုသိုလ် (merit accumulation). |
| κενὴ (kenē, from κενός) empty | without effect, fruitless, void of result in vain, without effect | God’s grace toward Paul was not wasted; it produced real fruit (his apostolic labor) | အချည်းနှီးမဖြစ်ခဲ့ (Risk: Low). |
| ἐκοπίασα (ekopiasa, from κοπιάω) I labored | to work with effort to the point of weariness labored, worked hard, toiled | Grace-produced effort, not merit-earning effort — the distinction is between the source of labor’s power and labor itself | ကြိုးစားလုပ်ကိုင်သည် (Risk: Low). |
15:11 — “εἴτε οὖν ἐγὼ εἴτε ἐκεῖνοι, οὕτως κηρύσσομεν καὶ οὕτως ἐπιστεύσατε”
| Terms | Variants | Contextual Theological Meaning | Burmese Rendering & Risk |
|---|---|---|---|
| κηρύσσομεν (kēryssomen, from κηρύσσω) we proclaim / we preach | to herald, announce publicly and authoritatively, as a herald announcing a king’s decree preach, proclaim | All the apostles — Paul and the others named in vv.5-8 — proclaim one identical gospel content; unity of apostolic testimony | ဟောပြောသည် (Risk: Low, NEW). Convey a public, authoritative herald-announcement, consistent with “gospel” (သတင်းကောင်း) as an announcement rather than personal opinion. |
| ἐπιστεύσατε (episteusate) you believed | see v.2 you believed | The Corinthians’ faith rests on this single, apostolically-unified gospel content | ယုံကြည်သည် (TM reuse). Risk: Medium. |
PART 2 — Chapter-by-Chapter Study of the Whole Book
Chapter 1 — Christian Unity versus Factionalism; The Cross as Wisdom and Power
| Terms | Variants | Contextual Theological Meaning | Burmese Rendering & Risk |
|---|---|---|---|
| κλητός ἀπόστολος (klētos apostolos) called apostle | see baseline “called”/“apostle” called to be an apostle | Paul’s apostleship originates in God’s summons, not self-appointment | ခေါ်တော်မူသော တမန်တော် (TM reuse). Risk: High/Medium. |
| ἐκκλησία τοῦ θεοῦ (ekklēsia tou theou) church of God | the local assembly belonging to God church of God | The Corinthian congregation as God’s own gathered people, despite its dysfunction | ဘုရားသခင်၏အသင်းတော် (TM reuse: church). Risk: Medium. |
| ἡγιασμένοις (hēgiasmenois) / κλητοῖς ἁγίοις sanctified / called saints | see baseline “holy”/“saints”/“sanctification” sanctified, called to be saints | Corporate identity as set-apart people, in tension with the chapter’s report of quarreling — sainthood is God-given status, not achieved perfection | သန့်ရှင်းခြင်းခံရသော / ခေါ်တော်မူထားသော သန့်ရှင်းသူများ (TM reuse). Risk: High/Medium. |
| σχίσμα (schisma) tear, split | a rip in cloth, applied metaphorically to factional division within a group division, dissension, split | The Corinthian church has split into rival loyalty-camps (Paul/Apollos/Cephas/Christ), the central problem the epistle addresses first | စိတ်ဝမ်းကွဲပြားခြင်း (NEW). Risk: High. Rejected alternative: ဂိုဏ်းကွဲမှု (“sect division”) — rejected because ဂိုဏ်း carries strong associations with Buddhist monastic orders/sects (nikaya) and political factions, which could recast the problem as institutional sectarianism rather than relational quarreling within one body. |
| σοφία (sophia) wisdom | intellectual/rhetorical skill; also, in this chapter, God’s saving wisdom displayed paradoxically in the cross wisdom | Contrasts the “wisdom of this age” (Greek rhetorical/philosophical sophistication) with God’s wisdom revealed in a crucified Messiah — foolish by worldly standards, yet the very power of salvation | ပညာ / ဘုရားသခင်၏ပညာတော် (NEW, qualified form mandatory). Risk: Critical. ပညာ is the standard Burmese word for wisdom and is also the precise term for paññā, wisdom as the third of the Buddhist Threefold Training (sīla-samādhi-paññā) attained through one’s own moral and meditative discipline leading to liberating insight. Every occurrence referring to God’s wisdom in the cross MUST be qualified as ဘုရားသခင်၏ပညာတော် (God’s own wisdom) and taught as wisdom revealed and given by God centered on Christ’s atoning death — not self-attained insight arising from meditative cultivation, and considered “foolishness” by both Jewish and Greek human standards precisely because it comes by revelation, not attainment. |
| μωρία (mōria) foolishness | folly, absurdity from a human standpoint foolishness | The cross appears foolish to those without the Spirit — this contrast is the chapter’s central rhetorical device | မိုက်မဲခြင်း (NEW). Risk: Medium. Must be held in tension with σοφία, not resolved by softening either term. |
| σταυρός (stauros) cross, stake | the Roman instrument of execution; by extension, Christ’s atoning death the cross, the message of the cross | The central saving event, described in 1:18 as both “foolishness” to those perishing and “the power of God” to those being saved | လက်ဝါးကပ်တိုင် (established Myanmar Christian term). Risk: High. Must retain the historical scandal (a shameful public execution device) alongside its salvific power; risk of the term becoming a purely decorative/devotional symbol without the concrete scandal Paul is emphasizing. |
| δύναμις θεοῦ (dynamis theou) power of God | God’s own effective might, specifically for salvation power of God | Parallel to Romans 1:16’s “power of God for salvation” | ဘုရားသခင်၏တန်ခိုးတော် (TM reuse: power_of_god). Risk: High. |
| καύχημα/καυχάομαι (kauchēma/kauchaomai) boast(ing) | to take pride in, glory in boast, boasting, pride | 1:29-31 — “no one may boast before God”; boasting is redirected to “boasting in the Lord” only | ကြွားဝါခြင်း (NEW). Risk: Low. |
| κλῆσις (klēsis) calling | see baseline “calling” your calling | 1:26 “consider your calling” — God’s sovereign choice of the “foolish,” “weak,” and “despised” | ခေါ်တော်မူခြင်း (TM reuse). Risk: High. |
Chapter 2 — The Cross as Wisdom and Power (continued); Spirit-given discernment
| Terms | Variants | Contextual Theological Meaning | Burmese Rendering & Risk |
|---|---|---|---|
| μυστήριον (mystērion) mystery | that which was hidden and is now disclosed by revelation, formerly inaccessible to ordinary reasoning mystery, secret truth | ”God’s wisdom in a mystery” (2:7) — the crucified Christ as God’s long-hidden, now-revealed saving plan | နက်နဲသောအရာတော် (NEW). Risk: Medium. Must be distinguished from esoteric occult secret knowledge accessible only to initiates (astrology, weizza-adept practice, or the layered “secret” teachings sometimes associated with tantric practice); God’s mystery is revealed truth now openly proclaimed to all who believe, not privileged hidden knowledge for spiritual elites. |
| πνευματικός (pneumatikos) spiritual (person) | one indwelt by, taught by, and discerning through the Holy Spirit the spiritual person, spiritually discerning | The believer who, by the Spirit, discerns and receives the things of God that natural reason cannot grasp (2:14-15) | ဝိညာဉ်ရေးရာလူ / ဝိညာဉ်တော်ဖြင့်လမ်းညွှန်ခံရသောသူ (NEW). Risk: High. Must be taught as a person indwelt and led by the (personal, divine) Holy Spirit — not a person who has cultivated a heightened meditative consciousness-state through their own practice. |
| ψυχικός (psychikos) natural / soulish (person) | a person operating only by natural human faculties, without the Spirit the natural man, unspiritual person | 2:14 — the person without the Spirit cannot receive/understand spiritual truth; it appears foolish to them | ဝိညာဉ်ကိုမခံယူရသေးသောလူ (NEW). Risk: High. Must be presented as a category defined by lacking the Spirit, paired directly with πνευματικός — not a moral insult, but a diagnostic category explaining spiritual blindness apart from the Spirit’s work. |
| πνεῦμα τοῦ θεοῦ / ἅγιον πνεῦμα (pneuma tou theou / hagion pneuma) Spirit of God / Holy Spirit | see baseline “holy_spirit” Spirit of God, Holy Spirit | The Spirit who reveals God’s wisdom and indwells believers, searching even “the deep things of God” | သန့်ရှင်းသောဝိညာဉ်တော် (TM reuse). Risk: Critical. |
| δόξα (doxa) glory | see baseline “glory” glory | ”The Lord of glory,” crucified (2:8) — a paradox central to this chapter | ဘုန်းတော် (TM reuse). Risk: High. |
Chapter 3 — Christian Unity versus Factionalism (continued)
| Terms | Variants | Contextual Theological Meaning | Burmese Rendering & Risk |
|---|---|---|---|
| σαρκικός (sarkikos) fleshly | governed by the sinful, unregenerate nature rather than the Spirit carnal, fleshly, worldly | 3:1-3 — the Corinthians’ quarreling shows they are acting “fleshly” despite being believers | ဇာတိပကတိဆိုင်ရာ / ဇာတိပကတိအလိုကျ (NEW). Risk: Medium. Distinguish from a purely physical/bodily meaning of “flesh”; here it names a moral-spiritual orientation opposed to walking by the Spirit. |
| θεμέλιος (themelios) foundation | the base on which a building is constructed foundation | Christ alone as the only legitimate foundation of the church (3:11); ministers build upon, but do not replace, this foundation | အုတ်မြစ် (NEW). Risk: Low. |
| ναός θεοῦ (naos theou) temple of God | the sanctuary, God’s dwelling place God’s temple, temple of God | 3:16-17 — the church corporately is God’s temple, indwelt by the Spirit; destroying it (through factionalism) invites judgment | ဗိမာန်တော် (established Myanmar Bible term for “temple,” reused here with new corporate-ecclesial referent). Risk: Critical. Must be explicitly taught: the church (not a building) is now God’s dwelling place through the Spirit — must not be confused with a pagoda (ဘုရားကျောင်း/စေတီ), which the baseline church entry already excludes for “church” itself; here the collision risk is specifically that ဗိမာန် contexts in Burmese religious vocabulary can evoke sacred physical shrine-space rather than a living, corporate, Spirit-indwelt people. |
| οἰκοδομή/οἰκοδομέω (oikodomē/oikodomeō) building / to build up | construction; metaphorically, edification build, build up, edify | Ministers as builders on Christ’s foundation, with quality of work to be tested by fire (3:12-15) | တည်ဆောက်ခြင်း (TM reuse: mutual_edification). Risk: Low. |
Chapter 4 — Christian Unity versus Factionalism (continued); Apostolic ministry
| Terms | Variants | Contextual Theological Meaning | Burmese Rendering & Risk |
|---|---|---|---|
| ὑπηρέτης (hypēretēs) servant, attendant | one who serves under another’s direction, an assistant servant, minister | 4:1 — apostles are Christ’s servants, not independent authorities to be factionally championed | အစေခံ (NEW). Risk: Low. |
| οἰκονόμος (oikonomos) steward, household manager | one entrusted with managing another’s property/affairs steward, manager | 4:1-2 — apostles as stewards entrusted with “the mysteries of God,” accountable to their master, not to factional popularity | ဘဏ္ဍာစိုး (NEW). Risk: Medium. Must convey entrusted responsibility and future accountability to God, not ownership or independent authority — directly undercuts the factional “my leader is better” dynamic of chs.1-4. |
| κρίνω (krinō) to judge | to evaluate, discern, pass judgment, or discipline judge | 4:3-5 — Paul refuses human judgment of his ministry, deferring to the Lord’s future judgment; this term recurs as a load-bearing term for the Church Discipline doctrine in chs.5-6 | စစ်ဆေးစီရင်ခြင်း (NEW). Risk: Medium-High. Distinguish final divine judgment (eschatological, by the Lord) from present congregational discipline (chs.5-6) — both senses occur across the letter and must be disambiguated by context. |
| μιμηταί (mimētai) imitators | those who copy/model themselves after another imitators, followers | 4:16 — “be imitators of me” — following Paul’s example of Christ-centered life, not forming a personality-faction around him (the very problem of ch.1) | အတုယူသူများ (NEW). Risk: Low. |
Chapter 5 — Church Discipline and Holiness
| Terms | Variants | Contextual Theological Meaning | Burmese Rendering & Risk |
|---|---|---|---|
| πορνεία (porneia) sexual immorality | any sexual relations outside the God-given bounds of marriage sexual immorality, fornication | 5:1 — a case of incest tolerated by the church, requiring discipline | မတရားသောမေထုန် (established Myanmar Bible term). Risk: High. Church Discipline and Holiness doctrine requires this be taught as a serious, communally-relevant sin requiring corrective church action, not merely a private moral failing to be overlooked for social harmony. |
| ζύμη (zymē) leaven, yeast | a small agent that spreads pervasively through dough leaven, yeast | 5:6-8 — sin tolerated in the church spreads like leaven through the whole “lump” | တဆေး (established general Burmese term). Risk: Low. |
| πάσχα (pascha) Passover | the Jewish Passover feast and its sacrificial lamb Passover, Passover lamb | 5:7 — “Christ our Passover has been sacrificed” — Christ as the fulfillment of the Passover lamb, whose blood delivers from judgment | ပသခါ (established Myanmar Bible OT term, transliterated). Risk: Critical. Requires explicit Old Testament sacrificial background teaching (parallel to how the baseline package flags “seed_of_david” and “davidic_covenant” as requiring OT background); without that background, “our Passover” has no substitutionary-sacrifice meaning for a reader unfamiliar with Exodus 12. |
| κρίνω (krinō) to judge | see ch.4 judge | 5:12-13 — the church is called to judge (discipline) those inside; God judges those outside | စစ်ဆေးစီရင်ခြင်း (NEW, reused from ch.4). Risk: Medium-High. Here specifically the congregational-discipline sense, distinct from the eschatological sense in 4:3-5. |
Chapter 6 — Church Discipline and Holiness (continued); Christian Liberty (lawsuits); the body as temple
| Terms | Variants | Contextual Theological Meaning | Burmese Rendering & Risk |
|---|---|---|---|
| κρίνω (krinō) to judge | see chs. 4-5 judge | 6:1-6 — believers taking each other to secular courts instead of resolving disputes within the church, since “the saints will judge the world” | စစ်ဆေးစီရင်ခြင်း (reused). Risk: Medium. |
| πορνεία (porneia) sexual immorality | see ch.5 sexual immorality | 6:13, 18 — “the body is not for πορνεία but for the Lord” | မတရားသောမေထုန် (reused). Risk: High. |
| σῶμα (sōma) body | the physical human body, in Paul’s theology also the locus of the Spirit’s indwelling and of future resurrection body | 6:13-20 — “your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit… you were bought with a price” — the body has abiding dignity and destiny, purchased and Spirit-indwelt | ကိုယ်ခန္ဓာ (NEW). Risk: Critical. Must be taught as possessing lasting dignity, destined for bodily resurrection (ch.15) and presently indwelt by the Holy Spirit — directly countering any framing (e.g., asubha/foulness meditation on the body, or a view of the body as merely a temporary vessel to be transcended toward an ultimately bodiless liberation) that treats the body as spiritually negligible or an obstacle to be escaped. |
| ναός τοῦ ἁγίου πνεύματος (naos tou hagiou pneumatos) temple of the Holy Spirit | the individual believer’s body as God’s dwelling temple of the Holy Spirit | 6:19 — extends the ch.3 corporate temple image to the individual body | ဗိမာန်တော် (reused, individual-body referent). Risk: Critical. See ch.3 note; here the collision risk is acute because it locates sacred, indwelt space in an ordinary human body rather than any consecrated shrine-building — a genuinely startling claim requiring careful teaching. |
| ἠγοράσθητε τιμῆς (ēgorasthēte timēs) you were bought with a price | purchased through payment of a price; redemption language bought with a price, purchased | 6:20 — believers belong to God because Christ’s atoning death purchased them; this grounds bodily holiness in gratitude for a completed redemption, not merit-earning self-purification | ရွေးနှင်းခြင်း / ဖိုးငွေဖြင့်ဝယ်ယူတော်မူသည် (NEW). Risk: Critical. Must show Christ’s atoning death as the “price” paid, and believers as belonging wholly to God as a result — not a debt believers must still work off, nor a self-purchased liberation achieved by one’s own discipline. |
| ἁγιάζω / δικαιόω (hagiazō / dikaioō) sanctify / justify | see baseline “sanctification”/“justification” sanctified… justified | 6:11 — “washed, sanctified, justified” as a completed, Spirit-and-Christ-accomplished transformation from the vice-list of 6:9-10 | သန့်ရှင်းခြင်း / ဖြောင့်မတ်ရာသို့ ရောက်ခြင်း (TM reuse). Risk: Critical/High. |
Chapter 7 — Marriage and Singleness
| Terms | Variants | Contextual Theological Meaning | Burmese Rendering & Risk |
|---|---|---|---|
| γάμος / γαμέω (gamos / gameō) marriage / to marry | the marital union and the act of entering it marriage, to marry | Paul’s extended teaching affirming marriage as good while commending singleness for undivided devotion to the Lord | အိမ်ထောင်ပြုခြင်း (NEW). Risk: Medium. Burmese Buddhist culture does not sacralize marriage as a religious rite (no Buddhist marriage sacrament); the doctrine here must be taught as marriage being a good gift within God’s created design, entered and sustained “in the Lord,” not merely a civil/social arrangement. |
| παρθένος (parthenos) virgin | an unmarried woman (or, contextually, an unmarried person generally) virgin, unmarried woman/person | 7:25-38 — Paul’s counsel to the unmarried, commending singleness for focused service to the Lord in the present circumstances | အပျို (NEW). Risk: Medium. Must be distinguished from vowed monastic celibacy undertaken for merit (ရဟန်းပြု / သီလရှင်ပြု); Pauline singleness is freely chosen devotion to Christ’s service, not a higher, merit-earning spiritual path superior to marriage. |
| χάρισμα (charisma) gift | a Spirit-given enablement or circumstance gift | 7:7 — Paul describes both marriage and singleness as each a “gift” from God suited to different callings | ဆုကျေးဇူး (TM reuse root: spiritual_gifts). Risk: Medium. |
| ἐγκράτεια / ἐγκρατεύομαι (enkrateia / enkrateuomai) self-control | mastery over one’s own desires/impulses self-control | 7:9 — “if they cannot exercise self-control, they should marry” | မိမိကိုယ်ကိုချုပ်တည်းခြင်း (NEW). Risk: Medium. Must be presented as a Spirit-enabled virtue exercised within ordinary married or single life, not an ascetic technique for merit accumulation. |
| χωρίζω / ἀπολύω (chōrizō / apolyō) to separate / to release | to divide, separate, or dissolve a marriage bond separate, divorce | 7:10-16 — Paul’s teaching on the permanence of marriage and the exceptional case of an unbelieving spouse departing | ကွာရှင်းခြင်း (NEW). Risk: High. Marriage and Singleness doctrine requires careful, non-legalistic teaching distinguishing Paul’s pastoral exceptions from a general permission, given Burmese civil divorce practice and social stigma dynamics that differ from the first-century context. |
| κλῆσις (klēsis) calling | see baseline “calling” calling, state | 7:17-24 — “remain in the calling/situation in which you were called” — one’s life-circumstance at conversion is not itself a barrier to serving God | ခေါ်တော်မူခြင်း (TM reuse). Risk: High. Here used in a broader vocational/circumstantial sense alongside its salvation-calling sense; context must disambiguate. |
Chapter 8 — Christian Liberty and Idol Meat
| Terms | Variants | Contextual Theological Meaning | Burmese Rendering & Risk |
|---|---|---|---|
| εἴδωλον (eidōlon) idol | an image representing a false god; by extension, the false god itself idol | 8:4 — “an idol has no real existence… there is no God but one” — foundational monotheistic claim underlying the whole liberty discussion | ရုပ်တု (established Myanmar Bible term). Risk: Critical. This term in Myanmar Bible tradition names false-god images (pagan/foreign cult objects) and must be taught with precision: it targets the specific theological category of images/objects claimed to represent or embody a deity other than the true God (paralleling Greco-Roman temple cult statues), and is not intended as a blanket description of all Buddhist devotional images; the pastoral point (there is only one true God, and idols have no independent divine reality) must be preserved without becoming an indiscriminate insult that shuts down teaching before it begins. |
| εἰδωλόθυτον (eidōlothyton) thing sacrificed to idols | meat/food that had been offered in a pagan sacrificial ritual before being sold in the market food offered to idols, idol meat | The chapter’s central practical question: may a believer eat meat previously offered to an idol? | ရုပ်တုအား ပူဇော်ထားသော အစားအစာ (NEW). Risk: Critical. Direct functional parallel to food offered to nats (ကပ်လှူသောအစာ) at spirit-shrines and to food dedicated in Buddhist merit-offering ritual (ဆွမ်းကပ်ခြင်း, offerings to monks/images) in Burmese religious life. Teaching must carefully preserve Paul’s actual argument: the food itself is not spiritually contaminated (since idols have no real being, 8:4), yet believers must act in love, considering the conscience of weaker believers who may still associate such food with real spiritual allegiance to false gods — this is a liberty issue governed by love, not a simple purity-taboo issue. |
| γνῶσις (gnōsis) knowledge | intellectual understanding/insight knowledge | 8:1 — “knowledge puffs up, but love builds up” | အသိပညာ (NEW). Risk: Medium. Must be held in tension with ἀγάπη (ch.13); correct doctrine without love toward the weak is the chapter’s warning. |
| συνείδησις (syneidēsis) conscience | inner moral awareness/judgment of one’s own actions conscience | 8:7-12 — a weaker believer’s conscience can be “defiled” by following a stronger believer’s example without full understanding | သိစိတ် (NEW). Risk: Medium. Present as a genuine, God-given inner moral faculty capable of being wounded, not merely a cultural taboo-sense. |
| ἀσθενής (asthenēs) weak | lacking strength; here, lacking settled conviction/knowledge weak (brother) | 8:9-12 — the “weaker” believer whose conscience is more easily troubled, whom the stronger believer must not cause to stumble | အားနည်းသူ (NEW). Risk: Low. |
Chapter 9 — Apostolic Rights Surrendered for the Gospel
| Terms | Variants | Contextual Theological Meaning | Burmese Rendering & Risk |
|---|---|---|---|
| εὐαγγέλιον (euangelion) gospel | see ch.1; TM reuse gospel | 9:12-18 — Paul forgoes his rightful apostolic support “for the sake of the gospel” | သတင်းကောင်း (TM reuse). Risk: High. |
| βραβεῖον (brabeion) prize | the award given to the winner of an athletic contest prize | 9:24 — “run that you may obtain the prize” — athletic metaphor for wholehearted gospel labor and self-discipline | ဆုလာဘ် (NEW). Risk: Low. Must not be read as a merit-reward earning salvation itself; the prize imagery describes faithful ministry, within a chapter explicitly about forgoing personal “rights” for gospel service. |
| στέφανος (stephanos) crown, wreath | victor’s wreath in athletic games; by extension, an imperishable reward crown, wreath | 9:25 — contrast between a perishable athletic wreath and an imperishable reward | ဆုတံဆိပ် / ပန်းရစ် (NEW). Risk: Low. |
| ἐγκρατεύομαι (enkrateuomai) to exercise self-control | see ch.7 exercises self-control | 9:25 — the athlete’s rigorous self-discipline as a model for gospel ministry | မိမိကိုယ်ကိုချုပ်တည်းခြင်း (reused from ch.7). Risk: Medium. |
Chapter 10 — Christian Liberty and Idol Meat (continued); warnings from Israel’s history; the Lord’s Table
| Term | Literal Meaning | Semantic Range | English Variants | Contextual Theological Meaning | Burmese Rendering & Risk | |---|---|---|---|------| | εἰδωλολατρία (eidōlolatria) | idolatry | the worship of idols/false gods | idolatry | 10:7,14 — “flee from idolatry” — the OT wilderness generation’s idolatry as a warning example | ရုပ်တုကိုးကွယ်ခြင်း (NEW). Risk: Critical. See ch.8 note on εἴδωλον; here the active worship/participation (not merely eating food previously offered) is in view — a stronger prohibition than the liberty-in-eating discussion of ch.8, and must not be blurred with it. | | δαιμόνιον (daimonion) | demon | a spiritual being, in NT usage consistently hostile to God and to human wellbeing | demon | 10:20-21 — “what pagans sacrifice, they offer to demons… you cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons” | နတ်ဆိုး (NEW). Risk: Critical. This is a major collision point: the Burmese folk-religious category of “nat” (နတ်) is morally ambivalent — many nats are venerated as protective or ancestral guardian spirits (cf. the baseline’s note on the 37 nats under “intercession”), not uniformly regarded as evil. The NT δαιμόνιον, by contrast, names spiritual powers consistently opposed to God, behind all false worship. The Burmese rendering နတ်ဆိုး (“evil nat/spirit”) is used to mark this moral distinction explicitly, but teaching must clarify that Paul’s warning applies to the whole category of spiritual power behind pagan/false worship — including veneration of ambivalent or seemingly benevolent nats — not only to spirits already popularly labeled “evil.” | | τράπεζα κυρίου (trapeza kyriou) | table of the Lord | the Lord’s Supper, contrasted with pagan sacrificial banquets | the Lord’s table | 10:21 — exclusive loyalty: one cannot share both the Lord’s table and a table devoted to false gods/spirits | သခင်ဘုရား၏စားပွဲတော် (NEW; feeds into ch.11’s Lord’s Supper terms). Risk: Critical. | | κοινωνία (koinōnia) | participation, sharing, fellowship | shared partaking in a common reality | fellowship, participation, communion | 10:16-18 — participation in the cup and bread is participation in Christ’s body and blood; participation in pagan sacrifice is participation with demons — κοινωνία functions as a technical term for the reality shared through Lord’s Supper participation | မိတ်သဟာယ (TM reuse). Risk: High in this specific Lord’s Supper context (elevated beyond baseline’s Low-risk general “fellowship” usage) — must convey genuine spiritual participation in what is offered, not mere social association, since the whole argument depends on real participatory stakes on both sides. | | πειρασμός (peirasmos) | temptation, testing | trial, test of faithfulness | temptation, trial | 10:13 — “God is faithful… he will provide a way of escape” — testing permitted by a personal, faithful God with a purposeful limit | စုံစမ်းခြင်း (NEW). Risk: Medium. Must be presented as testing under the sovereign, faithful oversight of a personal God (echoing baseline’s “providence” doctrine), not impersonal karmic consequence working itself out. | | τύπος (typos) | type, pattern, example | a model or pattern intended to instruct/warn | example, type, warning | 10:6,11 — Israel’s wilderness failures stand as “examples” (types) written for the Corinthians’ instruction | နမူနာ (NEW). Risk: Low. |
Chapter 11 — Order in Worship (head coverings, propriety); The Lord’s Supper
| Terms | Variants | Contextual Theological Meaning | Burmese Rendering & Risk |
|---|---|---|---|
| κεφαλή (kephalē) head | literal physical head; metaphorically, source/authority/preeminence in a relational order head, headship | 11:3 — “the head of Christ is God, the head of man is Christ, the head of woman is man” — an ordered relational structure within the Godhead-modeled creation order | ဦးခေါင်း / ဦးဆောင်မှု (NEW). Risk: High. A theologically sensitive term requiring careful teaching notes: headship here concerns relational order and origin/derivation (creation order, cf. v.8-9), not differing worth or value before God (contrast with the full equality affirmed in v.11-12 and Galatians 3:28-style unity); must not be flattened into a purely social-hierarchy term that ignores the mutuality Paul also affirms in this very passage. |
| κατακαλύπτομαι (katakalyptomai) to cover oneself, be veiled | to wear a head covering to cover the head, to be veiled | 11:4-16 — first-century Corinthian propriety concerning head coverings in worship as an expression of the created order and cultural decorum | ဦးခေါင်းဖုံးအုပ်ခြင်း (NEW). Risk: Medium. This is a culturally-contextual practice; Burmese dress norms do not carry the same head-covering symbolism, so teaching notes must distinguish the abiding principle (order, propriety, mutual honor in worship) from the first-century cultural form (a literal veil), to avoid either dismissing the passage or wrongly mandating an unfamiliar practice as timelessly binding in identical form. |
| δεῖπνον κυριακόν (deipnon kyriakon) the Lord’s supper | the sacred communal meal instituted by Christ the Lord’s Supper | 11:20 — the corrective centerpiece of the chapter: the Corinthians’ selfish, unequal feasting has corrupted this sacred meal | သခင်ဘုရား၏ညစာတော်ပွဲ (NEW). Risk: Critical. Must be distinguished from the Burmese Buddhist merit-feeding ritual of offering food to monks (ဆွမ်းကျွေးခြင်း) or ancestral/nat food offerings; the Lord’s Supper is a corporate, faith-received memorial and proclamation of Christ’s atoning death and return (11:26), not a merit-generating ritual act or an appeasement offering to a spiritual power. |
| ἄρτος (artos) bread | ordinary bread; here, the bread of the Supper representing Christ’s body bread | 11:23-24 — “this is my body, which is for you” | မုန့် (NEW). Risk: Medium in this ritual context (elevated from a generally Low-risk everyday word); must retain its symbolic, not literal-transformative, connection to Christ’s body as Paul frames it — a memorial proclamation, avoiding both an empty-symbol reduction and any magical/merit-transactional reading. |
| ποτήριον (potērion) cup | drinking vessel; here, the cup of the Supper representing the new covenant cup | 11:25 — “this cup is the new covenant in my blood” | ခွက် (NEW). Risk: Medium, parallel to ἄρτος above. |
| αἷμα (haima) blood | literal blood; theologically, the blood of the new covenant sealing atonement blood | 11:25 — “the new covenant in my blood,” directly tied to the atoning death summarized in 15:3 | သွေးတော် (NEW, reverential form). Risk: High. Must retain the atoning, covenant-sealing significance (paralleling baseline’s “covenant” entry) — Christ’s blood inaugurates the promised new covenant, not a ritual blood-offering to appease a spirit or accrue merit. |
| διαθήκη καινή (diathēkē kainē) new covenant | see baseline “covenant” new covenant | 11:25 — the Lord’s Supper as the sign of the new covenant, fulfilling the OT covenant promise pattern | ပဋိညာဉ်သစ် (TM reuse: covenant = ပဋိညာဉ်). Risk: High. |
| ἀνάμνησις (anamnēsis) remembrance, memorial | an act of calling to mind, commemorating remembrance, memorial | 11:24-25 — “do this in remembrance of me” — the Supper as a proclamatory memorial of Christ’s death until his return | အောက်မေ့ခြင်း (NEW). Risk: Medium. Must convey active, communal proclamation of a past atoning event with future hope, not mere private sentimental recollection. |
| σῶμα (sōma) body | see ch.6; here specifically “discerning the body” in the Supper body | 11:27-29 — eating/drinking “in an unworthy manner” without discerning the body brings judgment; also may refer to failing to recognize the unity of the church body (cf. ch.12) | ကိုယ်ခန္ဓာ(တော်) (reused). Risk: Critical. |
Chapter 12 — Spiritual Gifts and the Body of Christ
| Terms | Variants | Contextual Theological Meaning | Burmese Rendering & Risk |
|---|---|---|---|
| χαρίσματα (charismata) spiritual gifts | see baseline “spiritual_gifts” spiritual gifts | 12:4-11 — the Spirit distributes diverse gifts for the common good of the church | ဝိညာဉ်ဆုကျေးဇူး (TM reuse). Risk: Medium. Must not be rendered as merit-earned powers or occult ability (e.g., associated with weizza-adept practice); these are Spirit-given, Spirit-distributed enablements for communal benefit, sovereignly apportioned, not sought or self-cultivated for personal status. |
| διαίρεσις (diairesis) division, apportionment, variety | distinct varieties/distributions of a single source varieties, diversities | 12:4-6 — “varieties of gifts… same Spirit” — unity of source amid diversity of manifestation | အမျိုးမျိုးသောဆု (NEW). Risk: Low. |
| σῶμα Χριστοῦ (sōma Christou) body of Christ | the church as a single organic, interdependent body united to Christ body of Christ | 12:12-27 — the church’s corporate identity: many members, one body, mutual interdependence regardless of status, gift, or (echoing Romans) ethnic origin | ခရစ်တော်၏ကိုယ်ခန္ဓာတော် (NEW, built on reused ကိုယ်ခန္ဓာ). Risk: High. Must be taught as organic union with Christ as living Head and with one another, extending the Romans baseline’s unity_of_jews_and_gentiles doctrine into the Christian Liberty/Body of Christ material — not a voluntary club or a shared merit-generating collective. |
| μέλος (melos) member, body part | an individual organ/part of a physical body member, part | 12:14-26 — each believer as an indispensable “member” with a distinct function, none dispensable, none superior | အင်္ဂါ (NEW). Risk: Low. |
| βάπτισμα / βαπτίζω (baptisma / baptizō) baptism / to baptize | ritual/spiritual immersion marking incorporation baptism, baptized | 12:13 — “by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body” — Spirit-baptism uniting believers, regardless of ethnic or social background, into Christ’s one body | နှစ်ခြင်းဗတ္တိဇံ (established Myanmar Christian term). Risk: Critical. Must be distinguished from ritual purification bathing (ရေချိုးသန့်စင်ခြင်း, already rejected for “sanctification” in the baseline), here specifically the Spirit’s own act of incorporation into Christ’s body, prior to and distinct from water baptism as an ordinance. |
Chapter 13 — Love as the Greater Way
| Terms | Variants | Contextual Theological Meaning | Burmese Rendering & Risk |
|---|---|---|---|
| ἀγάπη (agapē) love | self-giving, others-centered, covenantal love; in the NT, grounded in and modeled on God’s own character revealed supremely at the cross love, charity | 13:1-13 — the “greater way”: without ἀγάπη, even the most impressive spiritual gifts (tongues, prophecy, knowledge, ch.12) are worthless; the chapter’s extended character-portrait (13:4-7) and climactic claim that love “never ends” while gifts will cease | မေတ္တာ (established Judson-tradition Myanmar Bible rendering — retained). Risk: Critical. This is one of the most significant syncretism risks in the entire curriculum, on par with grace and salvation in the baseline package. မေတ္တာ (Pali: mettā) is precisely the named first of the Four Brahmavihāra (sublime states) in Burmese Theravada Buddhism — loving-kindness cultivated through deliberate meditation practice (mettā-bhāvanā), extended impersonally and equally toward all beings (including strangers and enemies) as a technique for purifying one’s own mind and generating merit, without necessarily any personal relationship, sacrificial cost, or reciprocal covenant bond with the object. Biblical ἀγάπη in 1 Corinthians 13, by contrast, is: (1) a fruit of the Holy Spirit’s work, not a self-cultivated mental state achieved through jhāna/samādhi practice; (2) modeled on and flowing from God’s own self-giving love revealed in Christ’s atoning death (cf. Romans 5:8, already in the baseline package); (3) exercised concretely toward specific persons in real relationship (spouse, fellow believer, neighbor, even enemy) with real sacrificial cost, not a detached, equally-diffused benevolence; (4) permanent and eschatologically climactic (“love never ends,” 13:8), not one meditative attainment among others to be transcended toward final liberation. There is no viable alternative Burmese word carrying comparable weight and established Bible usage, so မေတ္တာ is retained per Judson-tradition precedent — but every occurrence in ch.13 teaching material MUST carry an explicit distinguishing note, following the precedent set by the baseline’s “mission” entry (သာသနာပြု, retained despite institutional collision, with mandatory clarifying notes). |
| ἐλπίς (elpis) hope | confident expectation of a future good, grounded in a reliable promise hope | 13:13 — “faith, hope, and love… these three” — hope as confident expectation grounded in God’s promises (including bodily resurrection, ch.15), not vague optimism | မျှော်လင့်ခြင်း (NEW). Risk: Medium. Must be distinguished both from a generic wish/optimism and from the Buddhist aspiration for a favorable future rebirth; Christian hope is fixed confidence in specific, already-guaranteed promises (Christ’s resurrection and return) secured by God himself, not a hoped-for improvement in one’s karmic position. |
| μακροθυμία / μακροθυμέω (makrothymia / makrothymeō) patience, longsuffering | forbearance, slowness to anger or retaliation patience, longsuffering | 13:4 — “love is patient” — the opening character trait of the love-portrait | စိတ်ရှည်ခြင်း (NEW). Risk: Low. |
| χρηστεύομαι / χρηστότης (chrēsteuomai / chrēstotēs) to be kind / kindness | gentle goodness toward others kind, kindness | 13:4 — “love is kind” | ကြင်နာခြင်း (NEW). Risk: Low. |
| πίστις (pistis) faith | see baseline “faith” faith | 13:13, paired with hope and love | ယုံကြည်ခြင်း (TM reuse). Risk: Medium. |
Chapter 14 — Order in Worship; Tongues and Prophecy
| Terms | Variants | Contextual Theological Meaning | Burmese Rendering & Risk |
|---|---|---|---|
| γλῶσσα (glōssa) tongue, language | literal tongue/organ of speech; by extension, the spiritual gift of speaking in languages, whether known human languages or Spirit-given utterance tongues, speaking in tongues | 14:1-25 — the gift of tongues, its proper use (with interpretation, for edification), and its limits in corporate worship | ဘာသာစကားဆု (gift of tongues) / ဘာသာစကားအမျိုးမျိုးဖြင့် ပြောခြင်း (speaking in various tongues) (NEW). Risk: Critical. Major syncretism risk: Burmese folk religion recognizes nat-medium (နတ်ကတော်) trance phenomena in which a medium speaks in an altered voice/register while believed to be possessed by a nat spirit. The gift of tongues in 1 Cor 14 MUST be taught as clearly distinct: it is a Spirit-given, intelligible-to-God (14:2) form of prayer/utterance exercised by a believer’s own will and self-control (the speaker “can” choose to be silent, 14:28), always subject to orderly regulation and interpretation for the church’s edification — never an involuntary trance-possession phenomenon, and never valued above intelligible teaching that builds up the whole congregation. |
| ἑρμηνεία / διερμηνεύω (hermēneia / diermēneuō) interpretation / to interpret | translation or explanation of an utterance’s meaning interpretation, interpret | 14:5,13,27-28 — tongues must be accompanied by interpretation for corporate edification, or otherwise remain a private matter | အနက်ဖွင့်ခြင်း (NEW). Risk: Medium. |
| προφητεία (prophēteia) prophecy | see baseline “prophecy” prophecy, prophesying | 14:1-5,29-32 — prophecy is preferred over uninterpreted tongues because it directly edifies, encourages, and builds up the church in intelligible speech | ပရောဖက်ပြုချက် (TM reuse). Risk: Low/High (per baseline: Low general risk, but High when overlapping with inspiration-of-scripture concerns; here primarily the church-edification sense). |
| οἰκοδομή (oikodomē) building up, edification | see ch.3 build up, edify | 14:3,5,12,26 — the controlling principle for all worship practices in this chapter: “let all things be done for building up” | တည်ဆောက်ခြင်း (TM reuse). Risk: Low. |
| τάξις (taxis) order, arrangement | orderly sequence, proper arrangement order, orderly | 14:40 — “let all things be done decently and in order” — the chapter’s summary principle for the Order in Worship doctrine | အစဉ်အလိုက် / စည်းစနစ်တကျ (NEW). Risk: Low. |
Chapter 15 — The Resurrection of Christ and Believers
(15:1-11 receives full verse-by-verse treatment in Part 1 above. The following covers the load-bearing terms of the remainder of the chapter, 15:12-58.)
| Terms | Variants | Contextual Theological Meaning | Burmese Rendering & Risk |
|---|---|---|---|
| ἀνάστασις (anastasis) resurrection | see baseline “resurrection” resurrection | 15:12-23 — the logical argument: if there is no resurrection of the dead generally, Christ was not raised, and the whole faith collapses; but Christ’s resurrection guarantees believers’ future bodily resurrection (“firstfruits,” v.20) | ထမြောက်ခြင်း (TM reuse). Risk: Critical. This chapter extends the resurrection doctrine from Christ alone (already Critical in the baseline) to the resurrection of all believers as an equally essential, equally bodily, equally historical event — never ပဋိသန္ဓေတည်ခြင်း (rebirth in samsara), which would make each believer merely re-enter the cycle rather than being permanently, bodily raised once for the age to come. |
| σῶμα πνευματικόν (sōma pneumatikon) spiritual body | a real, physical body transformed and empowered by/for the Spirit, not a disembodied spirit spiritual body | 15:35-49 — the nature of the resurrection body: sown perishable, raised imperishable; sown natural, raised spiritual — a real transformed body, not the shedding of embodiment altogether | ဝိညာဉ်ခန္ဓာကိုယ် (NEW). Risk: Critical. Must be taught carefully as a real, transformed, imperishable BODY (continuous with, yet gloriously changed from, the present body) — not a disembodied spirit-existence, and not one further body among an ongoing series of rebirths, but the final, permanent embodied state of the resurrected believer. |
| φθαρτός / ἄφθαρτος (phthartos / aphthartos) perishable / imperishable | subject to decay and death / not subject to decay or death perishable/mortal … imperishable/immortal | 15:42,50-54 — the present body is sown perishable; the resurrection body is raised imperishable, a one-time, permanent transformation | ပုပ်သိုးနိုင်သော / ပုပ်သိုးမနိုင်သော (NEW). Risk: High. Must be distinguished from the Buddhist doctrine of anicca (universal impermanence as an ongoing, cyclical feature of all conditioned existence); here imperishability is a specific future, one-time, permanent gift bestowed at the resurrection, ending change and decay altogether — not simply one more phase within an endlessly repeating cycle of arising and passing away. |
| εἰκών (eikōn) image, likeness | a visible representation or resemblance image, likeness | 15:49 — “we shall also bear the image of the heavenly [man],” i.e., believers will be conformed to the resurrected Christ’s glorified humanity | ပုံသဏ္ဌာန် / ပုံရိပ် (NEW). Risk: Medium. |
| νίκη (nikē) victory | triumph, conquest victory | 15:54-57 — “death is swallowed up in victory… thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” | အောင်ပွဲ (NEW). Risk: Low. |
| κέντρον (kentron) sting, goad | the sharp point of a weapon or insect’s stinger sting | 15:55-56 — “where, O death, is your sting?” — death’s power to harm believers is decisively defeated by Christ’s resurrection | အဆိပ် (NEW). Risk: Low-Medium. Must convey death’s now-defeated, formerly-fatal power, consistent with the resurrection’s finality. |
Chapter 16 — Closing Instructions: The Collection, Final Greetings, and Benediction
| Terms | Variants | Contextual Theological Meaning | Burmese Rendering & Risk |
|---|---|---|---|
| λογία (logia) collection | a gathering/collecting of funds the collection, offering | 16:1-4 — the collection for the Jerusalem saints, an expression of the practical unity of Jew and Gentile churches (echoing the Romans baseline’s unity_of_jews_and_gentiles doctrine) | အလှူငွေ စုဆောင်းခြင်း (NEW). Risk: Low. |
| μαράνα θά (marana tha) “Our Lord, come!” | Aramaic imperative/invocation, preserved untranslated in the Greek text itself O Lord, come!; Come, Lord | 16:22 — an ancient, urgent liturgical cry of eschatological longing for Christ’s return, functioning much like “Abba” in Romans 8:15 as a preserved Aramaic expression of intimacy/urgency | မာရနာသာ (transliterated, retained per the pattern already established for “abba” in the baseline). Risk: Medium-High. Must be glossed with its meaning (“သခင်ဘုရား ကြွလာတော်မူပါ” / “Our Lord, come!”) and taught as an expression of eager eschatological hope for Christ’s bodily return, never as a magical invocation formula comparable to a mantra or spell-incantation. |
| ἀνάθεμα (anathema) accursed, devoted to destruction | set apart under a solemn curse, excluded from covenant blessing accursed, cursed, condemned | 16:22 — “if anyone has no love for the Lord, let him be accursed” — solemn covenant-curse language attached directly to the ἀγάπη (love) doctrine of ch.13, now applied to devotion to Christ himself | ကျိန်ခြင်းခံရသော (NEW). Risk: High. Must retain its full covenantal weight (exclusion from God’s covenant blessing) and must not be softened into a mild disapproval; equally, it must be clearly distinguished from folk-magical cursing (ကျိန်ဆဲမှု, a feared category in Burmese folk practice) — this is a solemn divine verdict pronounced on the object of one’s ultimate love/devotion, not an incantation invoked by human ritual power. |
| χάρις (charis) grace | see baseline “grace” grace | 16:23 — closing benediction, “the grace of the Lord Jesus be with you” | ကျေးဇူးတော် (TM reuse). Risk: Critical. |
| ἀγάπη (agapē) love | see ch.13 my love be with you all | 16:24 — Paul’s closing “my love be with you all in Christ Jesus” | မေတ္တာ (TM reuse from ch.13 analysis). Risk: Critical. |
Summary of Full-Book Coverage
All sixteen chapters of 1 Corinthians have been reviewed. Chapters 1–16 each contribute load-bearing theological vocabulary as documented above; none required a “no new terms” notation, as 1 Corinthians is unusually term-dense across its full length due to the breadth of pastoral and doctrinal topics addressed (unity, wisdom, discipline, marriage, liberty, worship, gifts, love, resurrection). Terms already present in the baseline Romans translation memory are reused exactly and marked “(TM reuse)” throughout; all newly identified terms are consolidated with proposed Burmese renderings and risk tiers in 08_core_glossary.md.