Comparative Theology
04 Comparative Theology — 1 Timothy
Cross-Tradition Doctrinal Comparison for Burmese Translation
Purpose and Method
This document compares how the eight curriculum doctrines of 1 Timothy are understood across eight theological/philosophical traditions: Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, Jewish, Islamic, Hindu, Buddhist (general), and Secular — with a dedicated column for the destination culture’s dominant tradition, Burmese Theravada Buddhism together with its pervasive folk-religious nat (spirit) practice, since this is the interpretive environment every Burmese reader and hearer brings to the text. For each doctrine this document identifies: (1) how each tradition understands the relevant category, (2) areas of agreement and divergence, (3) misunderstandings a translation must not invite, and (4) sensitive terminology requiring careful handling, consistent with and extending analysis/08_core_glossary.md and assets/doctrine_risk_registry.json.
This is a translation-requirements document, not a work of comparative religion for its own sake. Every comparison is oriented toward one question: what could a Burmese reader, shaped by this tradition, wrongly infer from a careless rendering?
1. Sound Doctrine versus False Teaching
| Tradition | Interpretation |
|---|---|
| Protestant | Scripture alone (sola scriptura) is the final test of doctrine; sound teaching is measured against the apostolic writings; concern for confessional and creedal fidelity. |
| Catholic | Scripture together with Sacred Tradition, authoritatively interpreted by the Magisterium, defines sound doctrine; false teaching is heresy — deviation from the Church’s teaching authority. |
| Orthodox | Holy Tradition, the Ecumenical Councils, and the Church Fathers preserve orthodoxia (right belief); heresy threatens the mystical unity of the Body of Christ. |
| Jewish | Structurally parallel concern in Torah’s warnings against false prophets (Deuteronomy 13); truth is measured by fidelity to Torah and halakha, not apostolic doctrine as such. |
| Islamic | Bid’ah (unwarranted innovation) and shirk are the nearest analogues; sound doctrine is fidelity to Qur’an and Sunnah as transmitted by reliable chains of authority. |
| Hindu | Generally pluralistic: multiple valid paths (marga) and lineages (sampradaya) coexist without a single cross-tradition doctrinal standard; “false teaching” is less a fixed category than a matter of lineage fidelity. |
| Buddhist (general) | Right view (sammā-diṭṭhi) opposes wrong view (micchā-diṭṭhi); the Kalama Sutta commends testing teachings against reasoned and experiential verification rather than submitting to external revealed authority. |
| Burmese Theravada & Folk Religion (dominant) | The Dhamma, preserved by the Sangha in the Tipitaka, is the standard of right teaching; wrong view is a moral-cognitive defect on the path, not rebellion against a personal God’s revealed word. Folk religious practice comfortably layers nat-propitiation alongside Buddhist observance without treating this as doctrinal contradiction — a syncretistic tolerance that could wrongly extend to treating Christian doctrine as a compatible “add-on” religion rather than an exclusive truth claim. |
| Secular | No transcendent authority; “sound doctrine” is reframed as internally consistent, evidence-based, non-harmful teaching; skepticism toward any claim of exclusive revealed truth. |
Agreement/Divergence: Nearly every tradition agrees teaching should be tested against some authoritative standard and that false teaching is genuinely harmful — a rare point of near-universal structural agreement. The traditions diverge sharply on the nature of that standard: external revealed word from a personal God (Protestant/Catholic/Orthodox/Jewish/Islamic) versus self-verified experiential insight (Buddhist) versus pluralistic lineage-fidelity (Hindu) versus no transcendent standard at all (secular).
Misunderstandings to avoid: The translation must not suggest sound apostolic doctrine is one dhamma among several equally legitimate teachings, nor that “testing” a teaching (1 Timothy’s repeated concern) is equivalent to the Kalama Sutta’s personal-experience verification method — Paul’s test is conformity to what has been apostolically received, not self-verified through the hearer’s own experience.
Sensitive terminology: သွန်သင်ချက် must never default to the everyday word တရား for teaching; wrong view/false teaching vocabulary must not echo micchā-diṭṭhi’s soteriological framework of self-attained right seeing.
2. Qualifications for Church Leadership (Elders and Deacons)
| Tradition | Interpretation |
|---|---|
| Protestant | Character-tested office, terminology varies by denomination (elder/bishop/pastor); most traditions reject linking leadership qualification to celibacy or monastic status; denominations divide (complementarian/egalitarian) over whether women may hold the overseer office. |
| Catholic | Threefold ordained ministry (bishop, priest, deacon) conferred through sacramental ordination in unbroken apostolic succession; celibacy required of priests in the Latin Rite; permanent deacons may be married. |
| Orthodox | Similar threefold hierarchy with apostolic succession; married clergy permitted for priests and deacons (not bishops, typically drawn from monastics); strong continuity between higher clerical office and monastic asceticism. |
| Jewish | No exact institutional analogue; rabbinic authority rests on Torah scholarship and communal appointment rather than an episkopos/diakonos office, though the emphasis on tested character and teaching competence is structurally similar. |
| Islamic | The imam leads prayer on the basis of Qur’anic knowledge and piety, not sacramental ordination; character and knowledge qualifications parallel 1 Timothy’s emphasis, but the institutional structure of clergy is absent. |
| Hindu | Priestly/guru roles are often hereditary (Brahmin caste) or attained through spiritual mastery, contrasting with 1 Timothy’s non-hereditary, character-tested lay office. |
| Buddhist (general) | Monastic hierarchy is organized chiefly by ordination seniority (vassa, years since ordination) and Vinaya observance rather than by household-management character tests. |
| Burmese Theravada & Folk Religion (dominant) | The sayadaw/monk’s authority and social honor is built on years in the robe, ritual purity, and monastic discipline set apart from ordinary household and family life. This creates a critical mistranslation risk: readers may instinctively map သင်းအုပ် (overseer) or အသင်းတော်လူကြီး (elder) onto this monastic-seniority template, rather than the biblical model of a tested, typically married, household-managing layman who remains fully embedded in ordinary domestic and working life. |
| Secular | Leadership qualification reframed as competency- and ethics-based (integrity, skill, track record); no transcendent significance attached to the office itself. |
Agreement/Divergence: Broad cross-tradition agreement that religious leadership requires demonstrated character. Sharp divergence over institutional structure — sacramental ordained clergy (Catholic/Orthodox) versus character-tested congregational office (Protestant) versus monastic seniority hierarchy (Buddhist) versus hereditary or attainment-based priesthood (Hindu) versus non-clerical, knowledge-based leadership (Islamic, Jewish).
Misunderstandings to avoid: Church office must not be presented as a spiritually elevated, quasi-monastic attainment above ordinary believers (colliding with baseline’s Sainthood doctrine caution against an ascetic elite). 1 Timothy 3:11’s genuine Greek ambiguity (deacons’ wives vs. women deacons) must not be resolved by translation choice alone.
Sensitive terminology: သင်းအုပ်, သင်းထောက် must be kept visually and conceptually distinct from ဆရာတော်/ဆရာကြီး (senior-monk honorifics, already rejected in the Romans baseline for “apostle”).
3. Christ as the One Mediator
| Tradition | Interpretation |
|---|---|
| Protestant | Christ alone mediates between God and humanity (solus Christus); human or saintly intercession as a mediating channel of redemption is rejected, though mutual intercessory prayer among believers is affirmed. |
| Catholic | Affirms Christ’s unique redemptive mediation while also holding that Mary and the saints exercise a subordinate, participatory intercessory role (sometimes termed “Mediatrix” in Marian devotion) — a historic point of Protestant-Catholic controversy requiring careful, non-conflating translation notes. |
| Orthodox | Venerates the Theotokos and saints as intercessors understood as participation in Christ’s mediation, not competing with it; maintains a careful theological distinction between veneration and worship. |
| Jewish | Classical rabbinic theology generally holds no mediator figure is required between the individual and God; prayer is offered directly. The very category of “mediator” can read as unfamiliar or theologically uncomfortable. |
| Islamic | Firmly rejects any mediator between God and humanity; prophets, including Jesus (Isa), are messengers, not saviors or divine-human mediators. This doctrine stands in direct, irreducible tension with core Islamic tawhid (God’s absolute oneness) and the finality of Muhammad’s prophethood. |
| Hindu | Multiple avatars, gurus, and deities function in mediating/intercessory roles across various bhakti traditions; risk that Christ is received as one more ishta-devata (a chosen personal deity) among many available mediators rather than the sole one. |
| Buddhist (general) | No creator God requiring mediation; the Buddha is a teacher/guide pointing toward self-attained liberation, not a mediator reconciling the practitioner to a personal deity. |
| Burmese Theravada & Folk Religion (dominant) | Severe, specific collision risk with nat-kadaw (spirit mediums), respected ritual specialists who channel communication between petitioners and nat spirits through trance, offerings, and repeated ritual consultation. Without careful handling, “mediator” language could be assimilated into this familiar transactional-ritual category rather than understood as Christ’s unique, historical, once-for-all accomplished reconciliation. |
| Secular | No transcendent mediator required; conflicts and estrangement are resolved through human agency, law, diplomacy, or therapy; “mediator” is retained only as a secular, interpersonal metaphor. |
Agreement/Divergence: Many traditions recognize some category of intermediary figure (saints, avatars, spirit mediums, prophets-as-messengers), which is itself the central risk: this doctrine’s greatest translation danger is not incomprehension but false, too-easy recognition. The distinctively Christian claim — one Mediator, sufficient and final — is shared in principle by Protestant theology, held in tension within Catholic/Orthodox devotional practice, categorically rejected by Islam, absent as a category in Buddhism, and at acute risk of syncretistic assimilation into nat-kadaw practice in Myanmar specifically.
Misunderstandings to avoid: Christ must never be presented as one intercessor or medium among many, accessible transactionally through trance, offering, or repeated ritual consultation; the “once-for-all” finality of 1 Timothy 2:5–6 must not be lost.
Sensitive terminology: ကြားဝင်စေ့စပ်သူ must avoid any vocabulary overlapping with the standard descriptive terms for a nat-kadaw’s ritual function.
4. Public Worship and Prayer
| Tradition | Interpretation |
|---|---|
| Protestant | Prayer addressed directly to God the Father through Christ, congregational and individual; liturgical formality varies widely; prayer for governing authorities affirmed as civic duty, not political endorsement. |
| Catholic | Liturgical worship (the Mass) is central; prayer includes petitions to saints and Mary as intercessors alongside direct address to God; structured liturgical calendar and vestments. |
| Orthodox | Richly liturgical worship with icons and incense; prayer addressed both directly to God and to saints; worship understood as participation in the heavenly liturgy. |
| Jewish | Structured communal prayer (the Amidah, synagogue liturgy) at fixed times; a long tradition of praying for the welfare of the ruling government (cf. Jeremiah 29:7). |
| Islamic | Salat (the five daily prayers) is highly structured and ritually prescribed; du’a (supplication) is more free-form; modesty in dress parallels 1 Timothy 2:9 but is rooted in a distinct theological rationale. |
| Hindu | Puja rituals, mantra recitation, and offerings to deity images in temple or home shrine; prayer is often transactional, seeking favor or blessing, rather than covenantal address to a personal God. |
| Buddhist (general) | Petitionary prayer to a creator God is absent; replaced by meditation, chanting of texts, and merit-dedication; some devotional traditions address Buddha images or bodhisattvas. |
| Burmese Theravada & Folk Religion (dominant) | Formal chanting (paritta), merit-dedication (ကုသိုလ်ရှေးရေး), and pagoda offerings constitute the primary “prayer-like” practice; alongside this, direct petitions to the 37 nats for protection and favor are common and socially unremarkable. Praying for civil authorities is additionally politically sensitive in contemporary Myanmar’s governance context. Modesty instructions (2:9–10) risk being read as pagoda-visiting dress etiquette rather than modesty of heart. |
| Secular | Prayer reinterpreted as mindfulness, reflection, or symbolic ritual with no efficacious transcendent addressee; petitions for civic leaders reframed as civic advocacy. |
Agreement/Divergence: Near-universal recognition of structured, communal address to the transcendent and of expected decorum in worship settings. Sharp divergence between petition to a personal, relational, covenant-keeping God (Protestant/Catholic/Orthodox/Jewish/Islamic) and transactional merit- or favor-seeking practice (Buddhist/Hindu folk religion) or purely psychological practice (secular, some Buddhist streams).
Misunderstandings to avoid: Prayer for authorities must not be read as political endorsement of any specific regime; intercession must not be confused with nat-propitiation; modesty must be taught as a matter of the heart, not primarily dress code or ritual purity.
Sensitive terminology: ဆုတောင်းခြင်း, အသနားခံခြင်း — kept distinct from ကုသိုလ်ရှေးရေး (merit-dedication) and နတ်ကိုးကွယ်ခြင်း (nat worship), per the existing baseline Prayer and Intercession doctrine caution.
5. The Church as Pillar of Truth
| Tradition | Interpretation |
|---|---|
| Protestant | The gathered body of believers under Scripture’s authority testifies to and upholds gospel truth; no single institution claims infallibility; fidelity to apostolic doctrine matters more than institutional continuity. |
| Catholic | The Church, especially through the Magisterium and the papacy, is the visible, institutionally continuous guardian of revealed truth, with a unique guarantee of doctrinal unity across time. |
| Orthodox | The Church as the Body of Christ, gathered in the Ecumenical Councils and Holy Tradition, safeguards orthodoxia through conciliar consensus rather than a single teaching office. |
| Jewish | The Torah-observant community of Israel functions analogously as bearer and guardian of revealed truth across generations, though outside the “church” category as such. |
| Islamic | The worldwide Ummah collectively preserves and transmits revealed truth (Qur’an, Sunnah, scholarly consensus) — a communal truth-bearing function structurally comparable. |
| Hindu | No single institution claims exclusive guardianship of truth (satya) in this sense; multiple lineages, gurus, and texts transmit varied and sometimes competing truths within a pluralistic epistemology. |
| Buddhist (general) | The Sangha preserves and transmits the Dhamma/Vinaya across generations and historic councils; “truth” (the Four Noble Truths, sacca) is realized personally through meditative insight, not institutionally declared and received by faith. |
| Burmese Theravada & Folk Religion (dominant) | The Sangha, sustained by lay merit-making, is the institution most naturally analogous to “pillar of truth” language in Myanmar religious imagination. Acute risk: သစ္စာ (truth) may collapse into the Four Noble Truths (အရိယာသစ္စာ), self-realized through personal meditative insight, displacing God’s historical, personally revealed truth received by faith through the church’s proclamation. A further risk is that the church is understood as merely one more truth-preserving religious institution operating alongside — not in exclusive contrast to — the Sasana’s own truth-claims. |
| Secular | No transcendent “truth” to be institutionally guarded; religious institutions are viewed as social/cultural organizations preserving tradition and communal identity, not absolute revealed truth. |
Agreement/Divergence: Many traditions recognize some communal body as bearer and guardian of sacred truth across generations — a genuine structural parallel. They diverge sharply over the nature of the truth guarded (revealed propositional truth from a personal God, versus self-realized insight, versus legal-communal tradition) and the guarding mechanism (single teaching office, conciliar consensus, congregational fidelity, or meditative sangha transmission).
Misunderstandings to avoid: The church must not be presented as one truth-preserving institution among several equally valid options in Myanmar’s religious landscape; “truth” must retain its historical, revealed, received-by-faith character rather than becoming a self-realized meditative attainment.
Sensitive terminology: သစ္စာတော် versus အရိယာသစ္စာ; “pillar” imagery should be checked against Buddhist architectural/monastic truth-markers (e.g., the stupa/zedi) to avoid unintended visual-conceptual overlap.
6. Godliness and Contentment
| Tradition | Interpretation |
|---|---|
| Protestant | Godliness flows from grace and gratitude, not merit-earning; contentment is trust in God’s providential care (cf. Puritan/Reformed “contentment” literature); explicitly anti-prosperity-gospel framing is common in evangelical teaching on this passage. |
| Catholic | Godliness is linked to virtue and grace-assisted growth in holiness (sanctifying grace, cooperating with grace in a nuanced sense); contentment resonates with monastic simplicity traditions (e.g., Franciscan) while retaining a relational frame toward a personal God. |
| Orthodox | Godliness (eusebeia) is closely tied to theosis (deification), the goal of Christian life; contentment is linked to ascetic disciplines of the Philokalia tradition, still framed relationally toward a personal Trinitarian God. |
| Jewish | Yirat shamayim (fear of Heaven) and wisdom-literature contentment (Proverbs, Ecclesiastes) parallel godliness/contentment closely, grounded in trust in a personal, providing God. |
| Islamic | Taqwa (God-consciousness/piety) and qana’ah (contentment, satisfaction with God’s provision) are close conceptual parallels, sharing 1 Timothy’s strong emphasis on avoiding greed and trusting divine provision. |
| Hindu | Santosha (contentment) is one of the classical yogic niyamas; broader philosophical detachment (vairagya) from material desire is pursued as a path toward moksha, generally self-cultivated rather than grounded in trust in a personal covenant God. |
| Buddhist (general) | Non-attachment and the reduction/extinguishing of craving (taṇhā) is the central diagnostic and goal of the entire Eightfold Path; superficially resembles “contentment” but the telos is self-effort escape from suffering, not grateful trust in a providing personal God. |
| Burmese Theravada & Folk Religion (dominant) | ရောင့်ရဲမှု (contentment) risks direct collapse into Buddhist non-attachment achieved by extinguishing craving through meditative discipline. ဘုရားဝတ်ကြည်ညိုမှု (godliness) risks collapse into the common collocation ဘုရားတရား (“religion” generally, defaulting to Buddhism) or into merit-based piety, where devotion is measured by kutho accumulated through dana (giving), sila (precepts), and bhavana (meditation). This is the letter’s single most-repeated positive term (2:2; 3:16; 4:7,8; 6:3,5,6,11); its consistent, correct rendering is load-bearing for the entire book. |
| Secular | Contentment reframed as psychological well-being, life-satisfaction, or Stoic-style equanimity; godliness has no direct secular equivalent beyond general ethical character. |
Agreement/Divergence: Nearly all traditions value contentment over greed and treat piety/godliness as a life-orienting virtue — another point of broad surface agreement masking deep divergence. The traditions diverge over whether contentment/godliness is grace-enabled trust in a personal, providing God (Christian/Jewish/Islamic) versus self-cultivated detachment toward liberation from suffering (Buddhist/Hindu) versus merit-accumulating piety (Burmese folk Buddhist) versus purely psychological equanimity (secular).
Misunderstandings to avoid: Godliness must not be read as accumulating kutho; contentment must not be read as extinguishing desire itself, but as grateful trust amid ongoing desire and genuine need.
Sensitive terminology: ဘုရားဝတ်ကြည်ညိုမှု (avoid ဘုရားတရား); ရောင့်ရဲမှု (distinguish from Buddhist detachment/non-attachment vocabulary).
7. Care for Widows and the Household of Faith
| Tradition | Interpretation |
|---|---|
| Protestant | The local church bears responsibility for genuinely needy widows, while families hold primary responsibility first (5:4, 5:8); an outworking of gospel love and practical discipleship, not a formal sacramental order. |
| Catholic | Historically developed into an early “Order of Widows” and later into consecrated women’s religious life; canon law and parish charitable structures (e.g., Caritas) continue institutionalized care for the vulnerable. |
| Orthodox | Similar early “order of widows” history; a strong theology of philanthropia (charitable love) expressed through parish and monastic charitable institutions. |
| Jewish | Extensive Torah and rabbinic tradition protecting widows and orphans (Deuteronomy 24:17–21; tzedakah obligations) — a foundational biblical justice theme shared directly with 1 Timothy’s exhortation. |
| Islamic | Zakat (obligatory almsgiving) and broader Islamic social ethics place strong emphasis on care for widows and orphans; family obligation toward elderly/widowed relatives is a strongly shared cultural-religious value. |
| Hindu | Widows have historically occupied a precarious and at times stigmatized social position in some South Asian traditions (restrictions on remarriage, historical practices in some regions); 1 Timothy’s affirming, dignity-restoring, materially supportive posture offers a contrast worth respectful, careful framing in comparative teaching, without generalizing across all Hindu communities or eras. |
| Buddhist (general) | Dana (generosity) toward the needy, including widows, is a core, merit-generating virtue; the Sangha itself is supported by lay dana but has no equivalent formal “widows’ register” institution. |
| Burmese Theravada & Folk Religion (dominant) | Strong cultural value on filial and extended-family duty to support elderly and widowed relatives resonates naturally with 1 Timothy 5:4, 5:8’s household-duty language. The risk is that church material support for widows could be misread through the lens of dana given to earn kutho for the giver, rather than as covenantal love-obligation within the household of faith. 5:8’s equation of neglect with “denying the faith” is a startlingly strong claim that must not be softened into mere social disapproval. |
| Secular | Care for widows reframed as social welfare policy or humanitarian ethics, disconnected from any covenantal “household of faith” framing. |
Agreement/Divergence: Virtually all traditions affirm a duty to care for widows — among the strongest cross-traditional convergences identified in this study. Divergence appears in the grounding of that duty: covenantal household-of-faith obligation (1 Timothy) versus general almsgiving/merit (Buddhist dana) versus state-administered welfare (secular) versus historically uneven social treatment in some Hindu contexts.
Misunderstandings to avoid: Church support of widows must not be reframed as a merit-transaction benefiting the giver; family neglect must retain the letter’s full “denial of the faith” weight, not be softened.
Sensitive terminology: မုဆိုးမ, အိမ်ထောင်စုဝင်; “honor widows” (5:3) support/honor language must avoid merit-payment overtones such as ကုသိုလ်ငွေ.
8. Guarding the Deposit of Faith
| Tradition | Interpretation |
|---|---|
| Protestant | The “deposit” (paratheke) is the fixed, complete apostolic gospel to be faithfully transmitted and defended; foundational to closed-canon doctrinal fidelity and vigilance against innovation. |
| Catholic | The depositum fidei is formal Catholic theological vocabulary: Scripture plus Sacred Tradition, authoritatively interpreted and guarded by the Magisterium, permitting organic doctrinal development under Church authority. |
| Orthodox | Holy Tradition is the living, guarded deposit transmitted through the Church’s continuous conciliar and liturgical life since the apostles; guarding truth is a communal, Spirit-guided task of the whole Church. |
| Jewish | Mesorah (chain of transmission) safeguards Torah teaching from Moses through the sages across generations — a strong shared value of faithful, unaltered transmission. |
| Islamic | Preservation of the Qur’anic text and the science of hadith authentication (isnad, chain of transmission) functions analogously to guard revealed truth from corruption or fabrication. |
| Hindu | Guru-parampara (teacher-lineage) transmits sacred teaching faithfully from teacher to disciple across generations — a structurally similar concern for unaltered transmission, though the content transmitted differs fundamentally. |
| Buddhist (general) | The Sangha’s transmission of the Tipitaka/Vinaya across the historic Buddhist Councils functions as a structural parallel to “guarding a deposit,” though the epistemological basis (realized insight versus revealed apostolic content) differs fundamentally. |
| Burmese Theravada & Folk Religion (dominant) | The image of a fixed entrusted treasury is at high risk of being read through the pervasive Burmese Buddhist lay-piety metaphor of a growing “merit account” (ကုသိုလ်) accumulated and banked over a lifetime through dana, sila, and bhavana. Translation must make unmistakably clear that the entrusted apostolic content (ပေးအပ်ထားသောအရာ) is fixed and complete, to be preserved unchanged — not a treasury that grows through accumulated deeds or varies with the devotion of the one guarding it. |
| Secular | ”Guarding the deposit” reframed as intellectual/institutional fidelity to a founding text or tradition, with no transcendent stakes attached to doctrinal fidelity. |
Agreement/Divergence: Widespread structural parallel across traditions with strong textual/oral transmission lineages (Jewish mesorah, Islamic isnad, Buddhist councils, Hindu guru-parampara) valuing faithful, unaltered transmission — a genuine point of cross-cultural intelligibility for the concept of “guarding” something received. Sharp divergence over whether the content transmitted is fixed and closed (Protestant) versus organically developing (Catholic) versus a living conciliar tradition (Orthodox) versus self-realized, experientially verified teaching (Buddhist); most acutely, the risk of the “deposit” collapsing into an accumulating merit-treasury metaphor specific to the Burmese Buddhist lay-piety context.
Misunderstandings to avoid: Never suggest the deposit grows, shrinks, or varies by the merit of its guardian; must not conflate apostolic doctrinal fidelity with a self-attained wisdom the guardian personally cultivates through practice.
Sensitive terminology: ပေးအပ်ထားသောအရာ, ထိန်းသိမ်းလော့ — avoid any phrasing suggesting a merit ledger (ကုသိုလ်စာရင်း).
Cross-Doctrine Summary: Highest-Risk Terminology Collisions for Burmese
| Burmese Term | Doctrine(s) | Collision Risk | Required Distinction |
|---|---|---|---|
| ကြားဝင်စေ့စပ်သူ | Christ as One Mediator | nat-kadaw spirit mediumship | Unique, historical, once-for-all — not a repeatable trance-channel |
| သစ္စာတော် | Church as Pillar of Truth | Four Noble Truths (အရိယာသစ္စာ) | Revealed, historical, received by faith — not self-realized insight |
| ဘုရားဝတ်ကြည်ညိုမှု / ရောင့်ရဲမှု | Godliness and Contentment | ဘုရားတရား (generic religion); Buddhist non-attachment | Grace-rooted relational piety and grateful trust — not merit-piety or craving-extinction |
| ကုသိုလ် (as false substitute) | Guarding the Deposit; Rich in Good Works; Care for Widows | Merit accumulation | Fixed apostolic content / grace-flowing deeds — never merit-earning |
| ဝိညာဉ် (unqualified) / နတ် (bare) | Spiritual Warfare against Satan and Demons | Nat-spirit veneration | Always qualify as deceiving/evil; never propitiated, always opposed |
| ဉာဏ် | Rejection of Falsely Named Knowledge | Buddhist liberating insight-wisdom (ñāṇa) | Rejects one specific proto-Gnostic teaching, not wisdom/insight generally — mandatory translator note |
| မသေနိုင်ခြင်း / “the deathless” | Immortality of God | Nibbana epithet (Pali amata) | Uncreated, inherent divine attribute — never an attainment |
| သင်းအုပ် / သင်းထောက် | Qualifications for Leadership | Monastic seniority (ဆရာတော်) | Tested character in ordinary household life — not ascetic rank |
This document extends analysis/08_core_glossary.md and must remain consistent with the risk tiers recorded in assets/doctrine_risk_registry.json. See analysis/11_doctrine_analysis.md for the full chapter-by-chapter doctrine matrix.