Semantic Analysis
07 Semantic Analysis — Galatians (Full Book) | English → Burmese
Method and Scope
This document analyzes Galatians in the original Koine Greek across all six chapters. The core passage, Galatians 2:15–21, receives verse-by-verse treatment of every load-bearing term: original word, transliteration, literal meaning, semantic range, English variants, contextual theological meaning in Romans-tradition alignment, and destination-language (Burmese) rendering risk. Every other chapter receives a chapter-level study of its load-bearing theological vocabulary using the same fields. Where a term is already established in the baseline Romans translation_memory.json, that exact Burmese rendering is reused without alteration, per the hard rule that the baseline is the language authority. New terms proposed here are candidates for addition to translation memory in Phase 1 Step 8/9 and must be risk-tiered using the same Critical/High/Medium/Low framework as the baseline doctrine_risk_registry.json.
Proper names follow the transliteration standards already fixed in 12_ai_translation_requirements.md (Jesus ယေရှု, Christ ခရစ်တော်, Paul ပေါလု, Abraham အာဗြဟံ, etc.) and are noted briefly rather than given full seven-field treatment unless they carry independent doctrinal risk.
CORE PASSAGE: Galatians 2:15–21 (Verse-by-Verse)
This passage is Paul’s theological center of gravity for the whole letter: the confrontation with Peter at Antioch becomes the definitive statement of justification by faith apart from works of the law, and of the believer’s identity as one crucified with Christ. Every term below interlocks directly with the Justification by Faith, Law and Grace, and Crucified with Christ doctrines named in the curriculum.
Verse 15 — “We ourselves are Jews by nature, and not sinners of the Gentiles.”
| Original | Transliteration | Literal Meaning | Semantic Range | English Variants | Contextual Theological Meaning | Burmese Rendering & Risk |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ἰουδαῖοι | Ioudaioi | Jews | Ethnic-religious identity marker; covenant people of the Torah | ”Jews” | Paul identifies himself and Peter as covenant insiders by birth — a status he is about to relativize | ယုဒလူမျိုး (Yuda-lumyo). Low risk; established proper-ethnonym, but must not be allowed to imply ongoing religious superiority once the argument’s conclusion (v.16) is reached. |
| φύσει | physei | by nature, by birth | Innate condition vs. acquired status | ”by nature,” “by birth,” “naturally” | Contrasts inherited ethnic-religious status with the acquired righteousness of v.16 | ဇာတိအားဖြင့် (zarti ar-hpyin) or “မွေးရာပါအားဖြင့်” (mwe-yar-par ar-hpyin). Low risk; must not be confused with ဇာတိ used elsewhere for sinful “flesh” — context disambiguates. |
| ἐξ ἐθνῶν | ex ethnōn | from/out of the nations | The non-Jewish peoples | ”of the Gentiles,” “from among the nations” | Reuses the Romans category of ἔθνη | တစ်ပါးအမျိုးသား (tabar-amyothar) — TM reuse from baseline gentiles. No deviation. |
| ἁμαρτωλοί | hamartōloi | sinners | Those characterized by transgression; here rhetorically ironic, echoing the Jewish stereotype of Gentiles | ”sinners,” “sinful ones” | Paul cites the common Jewish assumption (Gentiles = sinners by definition) as the premise he is about to overturn in v.16 | အပြစ်ရှိသူများ (a-pyit shi thu myar), built on TM sin = အပြစ်. Medium risk: must not be softened into “morally inferior people” — the term is forensic/relational status before God, consistent with baseline sin notes. |
Verse 16 — “…knowing that a man is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ…”
| Original | Transliteration | Literal Meaning | Semantic Range | English Variants | Contextual Theological Meaning | Burmese Rendering & Risk |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| δικαιοῦται / δικαιωθῶμεν / δικαιωθήσεται | dikaioutai / dikaiōthōmen / dikaiōthēsetai | is justified / we might be justified / will be justified | Forensic declaration of righteous status before a judge, not moral transformation | ”is justified,” “be justified,” “will be justified” | The thesis of the passage and of the whole letter: right standing with God is a legal declaration, not a performance metric | ဖြောင့်မတ်ရာသို့ ရောက်ခြင်း — TM reuse from baseline justification. CRITICAL: must never be rendered as “gaining merit” (ကုသိုလ်ရခြင်း); compound phrase required as in Romans. |
| ἄνθρωπος | anthrōpos | man, human being | Generic humanity, not gender-specific | ”a man,” “a person,” “anyone” | Universalizes the claim beyond Jew/Gentile distinction — no human is justified by law-works | လူသား (lu-thar). Low risk; ensure gender-generic reading in Burmese, consistent with baseline gender-language guidance (no grammatical gender marking issue in Burmese). |
| ἐξ ἔργων νόμου | ex ergōn nomou | out of works of law | Torah-observance performed as the ground of righteous standing | ”works of the law,” “law-keeping,” “legal observance” | The rejected basis for justification; central to the Law and Grace doctrine | ပညတ်တရား၏အကျင့်များ (pyinnat-tayar i akyint-myar). NEW TERM — High/CRITICAL risk. Must be sharply distinguished from ကုသိုလ်ကျင့်ခြင်း (performing merit-deeds), the exact functional analogue in Burmese Buddhist practice: both are “good works performed to secure a favorable standing.” This is the single highest-leverage syncretism risk in the letter and must carry a mandatory translator note at every occurrence. |
| διὰ πίστεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ | dia pisteōs Iēsou Christou | through faith of/in Jesus Christ | Genitive is debated (objective: faith directed at Christ; subjective: Christ’s own faithfulness) — Romans tradition and Myanmar Bible convention render it objectively | ”through faith in Jesus Christ,” “through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ” | The alternative, God-given basis of righteous standing | ယေရှုခရစ်ကို ယုံကြည်ခြင်းအားဖြင့် (Yayshu-Khayit ko yun-kyi-chin ar-hpyin), using TM faith = ယုံကြည်ခြင်း with object of faith explicit per baseline note. High risk if the object of faith (Christ) is dropped or left generic — must always name Christ explicitly, per baseline faith notes. |
| ἐπιστεύσαμεν | episteusamen | we believed, we put our trust | Ingressive aorist — a decisive act of trust | ”we believed,” “we placed our trust,” “we came to trust” | Paul and Peter’s own conversion experience, offered as proof of the thesis | ယုံကြည်ခဲ့ကြသည် (yun-kyi khe kya-thi). Medium risk; consistent with TM faith verb form. |
| πᾶσα σάρξ | pasa sarx | all flesh | Hebraic idiom for “every human being without exception" | "no one,” “no human being,” “any person” | Universal negative — no human is justified by law-works; echoes Romans 3:20 | ဇာတိရှိသူအားလုံး (zarti-shi-thu a-lone) / “လူတိုင်း” (lu-tai). Medium risk: σάρξ here is a Hebraism for “humanity,” not yet the moral-flesh sense that dominates chs. 3–6; translators must not import the later “sinful nature” connotation here or the parallel with Romans 3:20 is lost. |
Verse 17 — “But if, while seeking to be justified in Christ, we too were found sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin? Certainly not!”
| Original | Transliteration | Literal Meaning | Semantic Range | English Variants | Contextual Theological Meaning | Burmese Rendering & Risk |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ζητοῦντες δικαιωθῆναι | zētountes dikaiōthēnai | seeking to be justified | Present participle of ongoing pursuit + infinitive of the justification thesis | ”seeking to be justified,” “in seeking justification” | Describes the believer’s Christ-ward orientation, not a merit-search | ဖြောင့်မတ်ရာသို့ ရောက်ခြင်းကို ရှာနေစဉ် (pyaungmat-ya-tho-yauk-chin ko shar-nay-zin), built on TM justification. Medium risk. |
| ἐν Χριστῷ | en Christō | in Christ | Paul’s characteristic union-with-Christ locative phrase | ”in Christ,” “united to Christ” | Anchors justification-seeking in union with Christ, not in the law | ခရစ်တော်၌ (Khayitto hnaik). High risk of flattening if rendered merely “through Christ” (instrumental) rather than the fuller relational/incorporative sense; this phrase recurs across Galatians and should be flagged for the Christian Identity in Christ doctrine (cf. baseline). |
| ἁμαρτωλοί | hamartōloi | sinners | See v.15 | ”sinners” | Rhetorical question’s premise: does seeking Christ make one still a sinner? | အပြစ်ရှိသူများ — TM-pattern reuse; see v.15. |
| ἁμαρτίας διάκονος | hamartias diakonos | servant/minister of sin | Agent who serves or promotes sin | ”an agent of sin,” “a minister of sin,” “a promoter of sin” | The absurd conclusion Paul rejects — Christ cannot be sin’s servant | အပြစ်၏အစေခံ (a-pyit i a-say-khan). NEW TERM — Medium risk; must not be misread as implying Christ has any moral culpability. |
| μὴ γένοιτο | mē genoito | may it not become, let it not be | Strong negative optative — Paul’s characteristic vehement denial | ”Certainly not!” “God forbid!” “By no means!” | Emphatic rejection of a false inference from his own gospel | ထိုသို့မဖြစ်စေနှင့် (hto-thoh ma-hpyit-say-hnint) / “လျှင်လည်း ထိုသို့မဟုတ်” — established Myanmar Bible idiom for Paul’s μὴ γένοιτο (cf. Romans 3:4,6,31; 6:1-2,15; 7:7,13; 9:14; 11:1,11). Low risk; must remain consistent with however Romans renders this idiom, for cross-document consistency. |
Verse 18 — “For if I build again those things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor.”
| Original | Transliteration | Literal Meaning | Semantic Range | English Variants | Contextual Theological Meaning | Burmese Rendering & Risk |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| κατέλυσα | katelysa | I tore down, demolished | Architectural metaphor for abolishing a system | ”I destroyed,” “I tore down,” “I demolished” | Refers to Paul’s abandonment of law-righteousness as the ground of standing | ဖြိုဖျက်ခဲ့သည် (pyo-pyet-khe-thi). Low risk. |
| οἰκοδομῶ | oikodomō | I build, I build up | Same architectural metaphor, reversed | ”I build,” “I rebuild,” “I build again” | Returning to law-righteousness after abandoning it — Peter’s practical error at Antioch | ပြန်လည်တည်ဆောက်သည် (pyan-le-ti-hsauk-thi). Low risk. |
| παραβάτην | parabatēn | transgressor, one who steps across (a boundary) | One who violates a set standard | ”transgressor,” “law-breaker,” “one who breaks the boundary” | Paul argues that reverting to the law after Christ constitutes transgression, not fidelity | ပညတ်ကျူးလွန်သူ (pyinnat kyu-lwun thu). NEW TERM — Medium risk. Should be distinguished from generic အပြစ်ရှိသူ (sinner) — this is specifically one who has crossed back over a boundary already abolished in Christ. |
Verse 19 — “For I through the law died to the law, that I might live to God.”
| Original | Transliteration | Literal Meaning | Semantic Range | English Variants | Contextual Theological Meaning | Burmese Rendering & Risk |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| διὰ νόμου νόμῳ ἀπέθανον | dia nomou nomō apethanon | through law, to law I died | The law itself (rightly understood, e.g., its curse falling on Christ) brought Paul to the end of law as a way of life | ”through the law I died to the law,” “the law itself put me to death regarding the law” | Introduces the Law’s Purpose doctrine — the law’s function was never to be the final basis of standing before God, but to bring one to Christ (cf. ch.3) | ပညတ်တရားအားဖြင့် ပညတ်တရားနှင့်ပတ်သက်၍ သေခဲ့ပြီ (pyinnat-tayar ar-hpyin pyinnat-tayar nhint pat-thet-ywe thay-khe-pyi), using TM law = ပညတ်တရား throughout. High risk: the paradox (law kills me to the law) is easily flattened into “I broke the law” if not rendered with care; a translator note explaining the legal-death metaphor is recommended. |
| θεῷ ζήσω | theō zēsō | I might live to/for God | Purpose clause — new orientation of life | ”that I might live to God,” “so that I may live for God” | The positive goal that replaces law-righteousness: a life oriented wholly to God, anticipating v.20’s “Christ lives in me” | ဘုရားသခင်အတွက် အသက်ရှင်ရန် (Phayarthakhin a-twet a-thet-shin-yan), using TM god = ဘုရားသခင်. Low risk. |
Verse 20 — “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me…”
| Original | Transliteration | Literal Meaning | Semantic Range | English Variants | Contextual Theological Meaning | Burmese Rendering & Risk |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Χριστῷ συνεσταύρωμαι | Christō synestaurōmai | I have been co-crucified with Christ | Perfect passive — a completed past event with ongoing present effect; union with Christ’s death | ”I have been crucified with Christ,” “I was crucified together with Christ” | The doctrinal center of the “Crucified with Christ” curriculum theme: the believer’s old identity under the law has been put to death in union with Christ’s actual crucifixion — a historical, once-for-all event, not a repeatable ritual or meditative death of the self | ခရစ်တော်နှင့်အတူ လက်ဝါးကပ်တိုင်တင်ခံရပြီ (Khayitto nhint a-tu let-war-kap-tai tin-khan-ya-pyi). NEW TERM — CRITICAL risk. Must be built on an already-established rendering of “crucified”/“cross” (လက်ဝါးကပ်တိုင်) consistent with Myanmar Bible tradition. Must be explicitly taught as identification with a single historical execution-event, not a repeatable ascetic mortification practice or a metaphor for self-effort in overcoming desire (as in Buddhist renunciation of the self through discipline). This is the doctrinal anchor term of the whole core passage. |
| ζῶ δὲ οὐκέτι ἐγώ | zō de ouketi egō | but no longer I live | Radical statement of displaced selfhood | ”it is no longer I who live,” “I no longer live” | Must not be read through the lens of anatta (no-self) — this is not the extinguishing of a self that never truly existed, but the death of the old self’s rule, with a real self remaining to be indwelt by Christ | ငါဟူသော ငါမူ ယခုအသက်မရှင်တော့ပါ (nga hu thaw nga mu ya-khu a-thet ma-shin-taw-par). High risk: must be carefully distinguished in teaching notes from Buddhist anatta (no enduring self) — Paul affirms a continuing personal “I” that is transformed, not dissolved. |
| ζῇ ἐν ἐμοὶ Χριστός | zē en emoi Christos | Christ lives in me | Indwelling presence, not mere influence or memory | ”Christ lives in me,” “Christ dwells within me” | Positive counterpart — Christ’s own resurrection life now animates the believer, a personal indwelling, not an impersonal life-force | ခရစ်တော်သည် ငါ့အထဲ၌ကျိန်းဝပ်တော်မူ၏ (Khayitto thi nga a-htal hnaik kyein-wut-taw-mu-i). CRITICAL: must convey personal indwelling by a divine Person (consistent with holy_spirit/Trinity teaching), not an impersonal life-essence or “spark” as in some folk-animist frameworks. |
| ἐν σαρκί | en sarki | in the flesh | Ordinary bodily/physical existence during earthly life | ”in the flesh,” “in my body,” “in this earthly life” | Distinguishes the mode of Paul’s present bodily existence from the moral-flesh sense elsewhere in Galatians — here simply “in this mortal body” | ဇာတိ၌ / ဇာတိခန္ဓာ၌ (zarti-khanda hnaik). Medium risk: context must disambiguate from the negative “flesh” of ch.5. |
| ἐν πίστει ζῶ τῇ τοῦ υἱοῦ τοῦ θεοῦ | en pistei zō tē tou huiou tou theou | I live by the faith [that is] of the Son of God | Genitive again debated: “faith in the Son of God” vs. “the Son of God’s own faithfulness" | "I live by faith in the Son of God,” “by the faithfulness of the Son of God” | The abiding stance of the crucified-and-living believer, joined to the CRITICAL Sonship-of-Christ doctrine | ဘုရားသခင်၏သားတော်ကို ယုံကြည်ခြင်းအားဖြင့် အသက်ရှင်၏ — TM reuse of son_of_god = ဘုရားသခင်၏သားတော် and faith = ယုံကြည်ခြင်း. CRITICAL: full phrase for Son of God required; never abbreviate. |
| τοῦ ἀγαπήσαντός με καὶ παραδόντος ἑαυτὸν ὑπὲρ ἐμοῦ | tou agapēsantos me kai paradontos heauton hyper emou | who loved me and gave himself for me | Aorist participles describing a completed, decisive, substitutionary act | ”who loved me and gave himself for me,” “who loved me and handed himself over on my behalf” | Substitutionary self-giving love — grounds the believer’s new life in a specific historical act of love, not abstract compassion | ငါ့ကိုချစ်၍ ငါ့အတွက် မိမိကိုယ်ကို စွန့်တော်မူသော (nga ko chit ywe nga a-twet mi-mi ko-yu son-taw-mu-thaw). High risk: ချစ်ခြင်း here anticipates ἀγάπη (love) as a formal doctrinal term (see ch.5); must not be reduced to generic affection or to Buddhist မေတ္တာ (metta, detached universal loving-kindness) without the personal, substitutionary, once-for-all quality being taught explicitly. |
Verse 21 — “I do not set aside the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing.”
| Original | Transliteration | Literal Meaning | Semantic Range | English Variants | Contextual Theological Meaning | Burmese Rendering & Risk |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ἀθετῶ | athetō | I do not set aside, nullify, reject | To treat as invalid or of no effect | ”I do not set aside,” “I do not nullify,” “I do not reject” | Paul’s negative resolve: reverting to law-righteousness would nullify grace itself | ငါမပယ်ရှား (nga ma-pay-shar) / “ငါမပယ်ချ” (nga ma-pay-cha). NEW TERM — High risk; must clearly convey “render void/of no effect,” directly opposite of merely “misunderstand.” |
| τὴν χάριν τοῦ θεοῦ | tēn charin tou theou | the grace of God | God’s unmerited favor, personified as a possession that can be “set aside" | "the grace of God” | Central to the Law and Grace doctrine: grace and law-righteousness are structurally incompatible as bases of standing before God | ဘုရားသခင်၏ကျေးဇူးတော် — TM reuse of grace = ကျေးဇူးတော်. CRITICAL: never ကုသိုလ် or ကံကောင်းခြင်း. This verse is a flagship “grace vs. works” passage per baseline escalation rules. |
| διὰ νόμου δικαιοσύνη | dia nomou dikaiosynē | righteousness through the law | The rejected hypothesis Paul is testing to absurdity | ”righteousness through the law,” “righteousness by the law” | If law could produce righteousness, Christ’s death would be pointless — the logical proof of Law and Grace’s mutual exclusivity | ပညတ်တရားအားဖြင့် ဖြောင့်မတ်ခြင်း — TM reuse of righteousness/law. CRITICAL. |
| δωρεὰν | dōrean | for nothing, in vain, without cause/purpose | Adverbial — freely given / to no purpose (double sense present in Greek, but contextual sense here is “in vain, needlessly”) | “in vain,” “for nothing,” “needlessly,” “to no purpose” | The rhetorical climax: if law-righteousness were possible, the cross would be an unnecessary, wasted death | အချည်းနှီး (a-chi-hnee) — “in vain, without effect.” NEW TERM — High risk: must not be confused with the other sense of δωρεά (“as a free gift”) found elsewhere in Paul (e.g., Romans 5:15); here context requires “in vain / needlessly,” and a translator note should flag this dual sense to avoid an accidental contradiction with grace-as-gift theology. |
| ἀπέθανεν | apethanen | he died | Christ’s historical death | ”he died,” “Christ died” | The historical, substitutionary death that grace-through-faith presupposes | သေတော်မူပြီ (thay-taw-mu-pyi). Low risk. |
CHAPTER-BY-CHAPTER STUDY (Whole Book)
Chapter 1 — Paul’s Apostleship and the True Gospel
Chapter 1 establishes Paul’s apostolic authority as directly commissioned by God (not by human appointment) and introduces the letter’s central polemical concern: there is one true gospel, and any distortion of it is anathema.
| Term (Original) | Transliteration | Literal Meaning | Semantic Range | English Variants | Contextual Theological Meaning | Burmese Rendering & Risk |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ἀπόστολος (1:1) | apostolos | one sent out | Delegated authoritative messenger | ”apostle” | Paul’s apostleship is “not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father” — direct divine commissioning | တမန်တော် — TM reuse of apostle. Medium risk per baseline; reinforce direct divine commissioning against any ဆရာတော်/ဆရာကြီး (senior-monk) framing, central to the “Paul’s Apostleship” doctrine. |
| χάρις καὶ εἰρήνη (1:3) | charis kai eirēnē | grace and peace | Paired epistolary greeting formula | ”grace and peace” | Standard Pauline greeting, theologically loaded (grace = unmerited favor, peace = reconciled standing) | ကျေးဇူးတော်နှင့် ငြိမ်သက်ခြင်း — TM reuse of grace + peace. No deviation. |
| εὐαγγέλιον (1:6-11) | euangelion | good news | The singular, authoritative announcement of salvation in Christ | ”gospel,” “good news” | Introduces the “True Gospel versus False Gospels” doctrine — there is only one gospel; anything else is “not another” (οὐκ ἄλλο) but a distortion | သတင်းကောင်း — TM reuse of gospel. HIGH risk per baseline; here specifically must be taught as singular and exclusive — “a different gospel” (ἕτερον εὐαγγέλιον) is not really good news at all. |
| μεταστρέψαι (1:7) | metastrepsai | to turn/twist/distort | Perverting something from its true form | ”distort,” “pervert,” “twist” | Describes what the false teachers are doing to the gospel — not offering an alternative but corrupting the one true message | ဖျက်ဆီးလှည့်ဖြားသည် / “လွဲမှားအောင်ပြောင်းလဲသည်” (lwe-mhar-aung pyaung-lay-thi). NEW TERM — High risk; must convey active corruption of a fixed message, not innocent variation. |
| ἀνάθεμα (1:8-9) | anathema | accursed, given over to destruction/judgment | A solemn curse of exclusion pronounced on false teaching | ”let him be accursed,” “let him be condemned,” “cursed” | Paul’s most severe possible judgment — reserved uniquely for corrupters of the gospel, showing the doctrine’s non-negotiability | ကျိန်ဆဲအပ်သည် (kyein-hzair a-pat-thi). NEW TERM — High risk. Must be distinguished in teaching notes from folk-curse beliefs (see ch.3 κατάρα below); this is a solemn apostolic pronouncement of covenantal exclusion, not a magical incantation. |
| ἀποκάλυψις Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ (1:12) | apokalypsis Iēsou Christou | revelation of Jesus Christ | Direct divine disclosure, not human tradition or inference | ”revelation,” “I received it by revelation” | Grounds Paul’s gospel and authority in direct divine disclosure, reinforcing the Inspiration of Scripture doctrine framework from baseline Romans | ဗျာဒိတ်တော် (bya-deit-taw) — established Myanmar Christian term (cf. “Book of Revelation” = ဗျာဒိတ်ကျမ်း). Medium risk; ensure it is not confused with dreams/omens in Burmese folk-astrological practice. |
| Ἰουδαϊσμός (1:14) | Ioudaismos | Judaism, the Jewish way of life | Paul’s former religious system of practice | ”Judaism,” “the Jewish religion” | Names the system Paul zealously advanced before his conversion; sets up the Law-and-Grace contrast | ယုဒဘာသာ (Yuda-bartha). Low risk; proper-noun-adjacent religious system name. |
| παράδοσις (1:14) | paradosis | tradition, that which is handed down | Ancestral religious custom and teaching | ”traditions,” “customs” | Paul’s former zeal “for the traditions of my fathers” — the inherited religious system he is now relativized in relation to the gospel | ဓလေ့ထုံးတမ်း (da-lei htone-dan). NEW TERM — Medium risk. Burmese Buddhist culture places very high value on ancestral/religious ဓလေ့ထုံးတမ်း; must be taught that the gospel is not opposed to all tradition per se, but that no inherited religious tradition — including Paul’s own former one — can be the ground of salvation. |
| ζηλωτής (1:14) | zēlōtēs | zealous one | Passionate devotion to a religious cause, potentially to the point of violence | ”zealous,” “extremely zealous” | Describes Paul’s pre-conversion religious intensity, later redirected toward the gospel | စိတ်အားထက်သန်သော (seik-ar-htet-than-thaw). NEW TERM — Low risk. |
| ἐδίωκον (1:13, 23) | ediōkon | I was persecuting | Active hostile pursuit to harm | ”I persecuted,” “I was persecuting” | Paul’s former violent opposition to “the church of God,” heightening the wonder of his call | နှိပ်စက်ညှဉ်းဆဲသည် (hnate-sat-nyin-hzair-thi). NEW TERM — Low/Medium risk. |
| ἐκκλησία τοῦ θεοῦ (1:13) | ekklēsia tou theou | church of God | The gathered covenant community, object of Paul’s former persecution | ”church of God” | Reuses the Romans category — the church, not a building or institution | အသင်းတော် — TM reuse of church. Medium risk per baseline; not ဘုရားကျောင်း. |
| ὁ ἀφορίσας με ἐκ κοιλίας μητρός μου (1:15) | ho aphorisas me ek koilias mētros mou | the one who set me apart from my mother’s womb | Sovereign, pre-natal divine selection for a specific calling | ”who set me apart before I was born,” “who separated me from my mother’s womb” | Ties Paul’s apostleship to divine election/calling active before his own choice or merit — echoes the “Divine Calling”/“Effectual Calling” doctrines in baseline Romans | ငါ့မိခင်ဝမ်းထဲကပင် ငါ့ကိုခွဲထားတော်မူသော (nga mi-khin wun-htel-ka-pin nga ko khwe-htar-taw-mu-thaw). NEW TERM (set apart, ἀφορίζω) — High risk; reuse doctrine name from baseline separation_unto_gods_service. Must not be confused with becoming a monk (ရဟန်းပြု) or entering a monastery; this is a sovereign calling to gospel ministry within ordinary life. |
| καλέσας (1:15) | kalesas | having called | Effective divine summons | ”who called me” | Same calling vocabulary as Romans 1:1, 1:6-7 | ခေါ်တော်မူသော — TM reuse of called. High risk per baseline; distinguish from ကံဇာတာ. |
| Ἱεροσόλυμα / Ἀραβία / Δαμασκός / Κιλικία (1:17-21) | Hierosolyma / Arabia / Damaskos / Kilikia | Jerusalem / Arabia / Damascus / Cilicia | Geographic proper names | place names | Establishes the historical, verifiable itinerary of Paul’s early ministry, grounding the gospel’s historicity | ယေရုရှလင်မြို့ / အာရေဗျ / ဒမာသက်မြို့ / ကိလိကိ. Low risk; established/standard Myanmar Bible geographic forms. |
| Κηφᾶς / Πέτρος (1:18) | Kēphas / Petros | Cephas / Peter | Proper name (Aramaic and Greek forms of the same apostle) | “Cephas,” “Peter” | Introduces the apostle central to the ch.2 Antioch confrontation | ကေဖ / ပေတရု. Low risk; established Myanmar Bible forms. |
| δόξα (1:24) | doxa | glory | God’s honor and praise | ”glory" | "They glorified God because of me” — Paul’s transformed life redounds to God’s glory, not his own | ဘုန်းတော် — TM reuse of glory. High risk per baseline; God’s inherent honor, never merit-power (ဘုန်းကံ). |
Chapter 2 — Jerusalem Council, the Antioch Incident, and Justification (see Core Passage above for vv.15-21)
Chapter 2 narrates the Jerusalem apostles’ recognition of Paul’s Gentile-mission gospel (vv.1-10), the Antioch confrontation with Peter over table fellowship (vv.11-14), and then delivers the core-passage argument (vv.15-21, treated above). Only terms outside the core passage are tabled here.
| Term (Original) | Transliteration | Literal Meaning | Semantic Range | English Variants | Contextual Theological Meaning | Burmese Rendering & Risk |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ψευδάδελφος (2:4) | pseudadelphos | false brother | One posing as a fellow believer while undermining the gospel | ”false brothers,” “false believers” | Names those who sought to compel circumcision — an early instance of a false gospel within the church itself | မိစ္ဆာညီအစ်ကို (mikkha-nyi-a-ko). NEW TERM — Medium risk. |
| περιτομή (2:3, 7-9, 12) | peritomē | circumcision | The Jewish covenant-sign rite; here also shorthand for “the circumcision party/mission to the Jews" | "circumcision,” “the circumcised” | Central to the “Circumcision and the New Creation” doctrine — the letter’s presenting controversy: must Gentile believers be circumcised to belong fully to God’s people? | အရေဖျားလှီးခြင်း (a-yei-phyar-hli-chin). NEW TERM — HIGH risk. Must be taught strictly as the old-covenant sign now fulfilled and rendered non-obligatory in Christ (cf. ch.5-6), not as a general symbol of religious devotion transferable to other traditions’ initiation rites. |
| στῦλοι (2:9) | styloi | pillars | Metaphor for foundational, load-bearing leaders | ”pillars,” “those esteemed as pillars” | James, Cephas, and John as recognized foundational leaders of the Jerusalem church, whose endorsement validates Paul’s Gentile gospel | ကျောရင်းတိုင်များ (kyaw-yin-tai myar). NEW TERM — Low risk. |
| κοινωνία (2:9) | koinōnia | fellowship, shared participation | The right-hand-of-fellowship gesture, formalizing shared gospel partnership | ”fellowship,” “partnership” | Reuses the Romans category of shared participation in the gospel mission | မိတ်သဟာယ — TM reuse of fellowship. Low risk. |
| ἔθνη (2:2, 8, 9, 12, 14, 15) | ethnē | Gentiles, nations | Non-Jewish peoples, the primary audience of Paul’s apostleship | ”Gentiles,” “nations” | Central to the “Unity of Jews and Gentiles” doctrine already flagged High risk in baseline Romans; here it is the concrete pastoral crisis (table fellowship) rather than an abstract theological claim | တစ်ပါးအမျိုးသား — TM reuse of gentiles. Medium risk per baseline. |
| ὑπόκρισις (2:13) | hypokrisis | hypocrisy, play-acting | Behaving inconsistently with one’s stated convictions under social pressure | ”hypocrisy,” “insincerity” | Peter’s withdrawal from Gentile table-fellowship under pressure from the circumcision party — a failure to live consistently with the truth of the gospel | ဟန်ဆောင်မှု (han-hsaung-hmu). NEW TERM — Medium risk. |
| ἀλήθεια τοῦ εὐαγγελίου (2:5, 14) | alētheia tou euangeliou | truth of the gospel | The gospel’s unchanging, non-negotiable content and implications | ”the truth of the gospel” | What Paul refuses to compromise, at Jerusalem and at Antioch alike | သတင်းကောင်း၏သစ္စာတရား (thadin-kaung i thitsa-tayar), built on TM gospel. High risk; must convey the gospel has fixed, defensible content, not merely sincere personal conviction. |
| ἔργα νόμου (2:16) | erga nomou | works of law | See Core Passage v.16 | ”works of the law” | See above | ပညတ်တရား၏အကျင့်များ — see Core Passage. CRITICAL. |
Chapter 3 — The Abrahamic Covenant, the Law’s Purpose, and Faith
Chapter 3 grounds justification by faith in the Abraham narrative (quoting Genesis 15:6, already established in the baseline as imputed_righteousness), explains the law’s temporary, subordinate purpose, and climaxes in the declaration of unity and inheritance in Christ.
| Term (Original) | Transliteration | Literal Meaning | Semantic Range | English Variants | Contextual Theological Meaning | Burmese Rendering & Risk |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ἐβάσκανεν (3:1) | ebaskanen | bewitched, cast an evil eye upon | Idiom for malicious deception exerting an almost magical hold over someone | ”who has bewitched you,” “who has deceived you” | Rhetorical rebuke of the Galatians’ susceptibility to the false teachers — NOT an assertion that literal magic occurred | ပြုစားခြင်းခံခဲ့သနည်း (poi-sar-chin khan-khe-tha-nay). NEW TERM — HIGH risk. Burmese culture has vivid, literal belief in ပြုစား/မှော် (sorcery, casting spells). This idiom must be rendered/taught as rhetorical, not as an endorsement of the reality of magical bewitchment; a translator note is required to prevent readers from concluding that literal sorcery was at work rather than persuasive false teaching. |
| ἀκοὴ πίστεως (3:2, 5) | akoē pisteōs | hearing of faith | Receiving the Spirit through believing response to the gospel message, not through law-performance | ”hearing with faith,” “believing what you heard” | Contrasts “works of the law” with simple believing reception of the gospel as the means of receiving the Spirit | ယုံကြည်ခြင်းနှင့်ကြားနာခြင်း (yun-kyi-chin nhint kyar-nar-chin). NEW TERM — Medium risk. |
| Ἀβραάμ ἐπίστευσεν τῷ θεῷ, καὶ ἐλογίσθη αὐτῷ εἰς δικαιοσύνην (3:6) | Abraam episteusen tō theō, kai elogisthē autō eis dikaiosynēn | Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness | Direct quotation of Genesis 15:6, LXX | ”Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness” | Identical citation to Romans 4:3 — righteousness credited by God, not earned; must be rendered identically to the Romans-tradition translation for cross-document consistency | ဖြောင့်မတ်ခြင်းအဖြစ် မှတ်တော်မူခြင်း — TM reuse of imputed_righteousness verbatim. CRITICAL: must match the Romans rendering exactly, per the “Theological Consistency Rules Across Documents” in baseline 12_ai_translation_requirements.md. |
| κατάρα (3:10, 13) | katara | curse | The covenant curse pronounced on lawbreakers (Deut 27-28); also the curse Christ bears on the sinner’s behalf | ”curse,” “curse of the law” | Central to Law’s Purpose and to the substitutionary atonement implicit in 3:13 — Christ “became a curse for us” | ကျိန်ခြင်း (kyein-chin). NEW TERM — HIGH risk. Burmese folk-Buddhist and animist culture holds strong, literal beliefs about curses invoked by spirits, astrologers, or wronged parties, remedied by ritual counter-measures. Must be taught as the covenant-legal consequence of violating God’s law, not a mystical affliction removable by ritual, and Christ’s bearing of it as a unique, historical, substitutionary act — not a counter-spell. |
| ἐξηγόρασεν (3:13) | exēgorasen | redeemed, bought out/back | Commercial-legal metaphor of purchasing someone out of bondage or liability | ”redeemed,” “bought us back” | Christ’s redemptive death frees believers from the law’s curse — ties directly to salvation and grace doctrines in baseline | ရွေးနှင်းတော်မူခြင်း (ywe-hnin-taw-mu-chin). NEW TERM — HIGH risk. Should be taught alongside baseline salvation (ကယ်တင်ခြင်း): redemption is a rescue by another at a cost paid by another, sharpening (not replacing) the salvation concept, and must never be conflated with self-purchased merit or self-liberation (as in some renderings of nirvana-attainment). |
| εὐλογία τοῦ Ἀβραάμ (3:14) | eulogia tou Abraam | blessing of Abraham | The Abrahamic covenant promise, now extended to Gentile believers through Christ | ”the blessing of Abraham” | Central to Abrahamic Covenant and Promise doctrine | အာဗြဟံ၏ကောင်းကြီးမင်္ဂလာ (Abraham i kaung-gyi-min-gala). NEW TERM — Medium risk. |
| ἐπαγγελία (3:14, 16-22, 29) | epangelia | promise | God’s covenantal pledge given to Abraham and fulfilled in Christ, prior to and distinct from the law | ”promise,” “the promise” | Central term of the Abrahamic Covenant and Promise doctrine — the promise precedes the law by 430 years and cannot be annulled by it | ကတိတော် (kati-taw). NEW TERM — HIGH risk. Must be taught as God’s own unilateral, binding pledge (reinforcing TM covenant = ပဋိညာဉ်), not a conditional negotiation nor a karmic expectation of reward for merit accumulated over many lifetimes. |
| σπέρμα (3:16, 19, 29) | sperma | seed, offspring | Singular collective noun; Paul argues the singular form points to a singular seed (Christ) and, through him, a singular new humanity (all who believe) | “seed,” “offspring,” “descendants” | Christologically loaded argument central to Abrahamic Covenant and Promise; parallel to baseline’s seed_of_david pattern | အနွယ်ဝင် (anwe-win), following the TM pattern already used for seed_of_david (ဒါဝိဒ်၏အနွယ်ဝင်). Here: အာဗြဟံ၏အနွယ်ဝင် / ခရစ်တော်ဟူသောအနွယ်ဝင်. High risk; the singular/collective wordplay may not survive translation and should carry a translator note. |
| διαθήκη (3:15, 17) | diathēkē | covenant | A binding, relational divine pledge, not a mere contract | ”covenant” | Reuses the Romans category — here specifically the Abrahamic covenant, which the later Mosaic law cannot annul | ပဋိညာဉ် — TM reuse of covenant. High risk per baseline. |
| παιδαγωγός (3:24-25) | paidagōgos | guardian, child-supervisor (not “schoolmaster” in the modern sense; a household slave charged with a child’s discipline and safekeeping until maturity) | Temporary custodial guardianship, ending at maturity | ”guardian,” “tutor,” “supervisor” | Central to the Law’s Purpose doctrine: the law’s role was temporary custodial protection until the coming of Christ, not a permanent means of righteousness | အထိန်း (a-htein). NEW TERM — Medium/High risk. Must avoid any term implying a moral teacher whose instruction itself confers merit; the paidagōgos’s authority is temporary and custodial, ending once the child (believer) reaches the maturity of faith in Christ. |
| μεσίτης (3:19-20) | mesitēs | mediator | One who stands between two parties, here Moses in the giving of the law | ”mediator,” “go-between” | Distinguishes the law’s mediated giving from the Abrahamic promise given directly by God | ကြားဝင်စေ့စပ်သူ (kyar-win say-sat thu). NEW TERM — Medium risk. |
| πνεῦμα (3:2-3, 5, 14) | pneuma | Spirit | The Holy Spirit, received by faith rather than by law-works | ”the Spirit” | Reuses the Romans category of the Holy Spirit as the mark of authentic gospel reception | သန့်ရှင်းသောဝိညာဉ်တော် — TM reuse of holy_spirit. CRITICAL per baseline; never ဝိညာဉ် alone. |
| βαπτίζω (3:27) | baptizō | to baptize, immerse | Sacramental identification with Christ | ”baptized,” “baptized into Christ" | "As many as were baptized into Christ” — union with Christ symbolized in baptism | နှစ်ခြင်းခံခြင်း (hnit-chin khan-chin). NEW TERM — Low/Medium risk; standard Myanmar Christian term for baptism, low ambiguity. |
| οὐκ ἔνι Ἰουδαῖος οὐδὲ Ἕλλην, δοῦλος οὐδὲ ἐλεύθερος, ἄρσεν καὶ θῆλυ (3:28) | ouk eni Ioudaios oude Hellēn, doulos oude eleutheros, arsen kai thēly | there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male and female | Declaration of a new unity transcending all prior social/ethnic/status categories “in Christ" | "there is neither… nor…” | Direct extension of the Unity of Jews and Gentiles doctrine into a comprehensive statement of equal standing in Christ — theologically load-bearing given Burma’s ethnic-majority/minority tensions | ယုဒလူမျိုးမှဟူ၍မရှိ၊ ဟေလသမှဟူ၍မရှိ၊ ကျွန်မှဟူ၍မရှိ၊ လွတ်လပ်သူမှဟူ၍မရှိ၊ ယောက်ျားမှဟူ၍၊ မိန်းမမှဟူ၍မရှိ (built on TM gentiles/israel patterns). HIGH risk: must retain full, unqualified equality-in-Christ language; do not allow this to be softened given ethnic-Buddhist-Burman social hierarchies that this verse directly confronts. |
| κληρονόμος (3:29) | klēronomos | heir | One who inherits, with full legal rights of inheritance | ”heir,” “heirs” | Ties Abrahamic promise to Adoption and Sonship doctrine — believers, Jew and Gentile alike, inherit the promise as Abraham’s true offspring | အမွေခံ (a-mway-khan). NEW TERM — Medium risk. |
Chapter 4 — Adoption, Sonship, and the Peril of Returning to Bondage
Chapter 4 develops the Adoption and Sonship doctrine through the “fullness of time” sending of the Son, the Abba-cry of the Spirit, and the Hagar-Sarah allegory warning against returning to a law-based, slave identity.
| Term (Original) | Transliteration | Literal Meaning | Semantic Range | English Variants | Contextual Theological Meaning | Burmese Rendering & Risk |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| στοιχεῖα τοῦ κόσμου (4:3, 9) | stoicheia tou kosmou | elemental things/spirits of the world | Debated: basic elemental substances, elementary religious principles, or (most likely in context) elemental spiritual powers held to govern the cosmos and its calendar | ”elemental spirits,” “elemental forces,” “basic principles of the world” | Paul equates pre-Christian bondage (whether under law or paganism) with slavery to these “elements” — central to Freedom in Christ and Law’s Purpose doctrines | လောကီအခြေခံအားစုများ (lawki a-che-khan a-si-su myar). NEW TERM — CRITICAL risk. Burmese cosmology includes the “four elements” (ဓာတ်လေးပါး: earth, water, fire, wind) as well as a populated spirit-world of nats governing fortune, calendar days, and life-passages. This term risks direct syncretistic collision with both frameworks and requires an explicit translator note: Paul is not affirming the reality/relevance of animistic elemental powers but declaring believers’ freedom from any and all such enslaving cosmic-religious systems, whether Jewish law-observance or pagan spirit-observance. |
| πλήρωμα τοῦ χρόνου (4:4) | plērōma tou chronou | fullness of time | The precisely appointed, sovereignly determined moment | ”the fullness of time,” “when the set time had fully come” | God’s sovereign timing for sending the Son — reinforces divine providence over history, distinct from impersonal astrological timing | ကာလပြည့်စုံချိန် (kala pyi-sohn-chein). NEW TERM — Medium risk; should be distinguished from Burmese astrological “auspicious time” (နံနက်ကောင်း/နေ့ရက်ကောင်း) calculations, which this is not. |
| ἐξαπέστειλεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν υἱὸν αὐτοῦ (4:4) | exapesteilen ho theos ton huion autou | God sent forth his Son | Divine commissioning of the pre-existent Son into human history | ”God sent his Son,” “God sent forth his Son” | Presupposes the Incarnation and Sonship of Christ doctrines already CRITICAL in baseline Romans | ဘုရားသခင်သည် မိမိသားတော်ကို စေလွှတ်တော်မူ၏ — built on TM god + son_of_god. CRITICAL; full phrase for Son of God required. |
| γενόμενον ἐκ γυναικός, γενόμενον ὑπὸ νόμον (4:4) | genomenon ek gynaikos, genomenon hypo nomon | born of a woman, born under the law | Full, real human birth into the covenant community, under its obligations | ”born of a woman, born under the law” | Reinforces the Incarnation doctrine’s requirement of a real, singular, historical human birth (never a Jataka-style repeated-birth pattern) and the Humanity of Christ doctrine already flagged in baseline | အမျိုးသမီးထံမှ ဖွားမြင်တော်မူ၍ ပညတ်တရားအောက်၌ဖွားမြင်တော်မူ၏ — built on TM incarnation pattern (လူ့ဇာတိခံယူခြင်း) and law. CRITICAL. |
| υἱοθεσία (4:5) | huiothesia | adoption, placement as a son | Full legal son-status with inheritance rights | ”adoption,” “sonship” | Reuses the Romans category directly | သားအဖြစ်လက်ခံခြင်း — TM reuse of adoption. Medium risk per baseline. |
| Ἀββά ὁ πατήρ (4:6) | Abba ho patēr | Abba, Father | Aramaic term of filial intimacy plus its Greek translation, both retained together | ”Abba, Father” | Identical to Romans 8:15 — the Spirit’s cry of intimate sonship in the believer’s heart | အဗ္ဘ၊ အဖ — TM reuse of abba + father, verbatim, per the “Theological Consistency Rules Across Documents” (same rendering as Romans 8:15 required). CRITICAL/High per baseline. |
| δοῦλος (4:1, 7) | doulos | slave, bondservant | Legal status of ownership by another, without inheritance rights | ”slave,” “bondservant” | Contrasted with son-status; the believer is no longer a slave but a son and heir | ကျွန် (kyun). NEW TERM — Medium risk. |
| στοιχεῖα / δουλεύειν (4:8-9) | stoicheia / douleuein | elemental things / to serve as a slave | Return to bondage under the elemental powers, here explicitly identified with the Galatians’ former paganism | ”to be enslaved again,” “to serve” | Warns against reverting to any slave-identity, whether pagan spirit-observance or legalistic law-observance | ကျွန်ခံပြန်ခြင်း (kyun-khan-pyan-chin). See στοιχεῖα above for the associated Critical risk. |
| ἀλληγορούμενα (4:24) | allēgoroumena | being spoken allegorically | Paul’s explicit signal that the Hagar-Sarah narrative is being read typologically | ”this is an allegory,” “these things may be interpreted allegorically” | Introduces the Hagar/Sarah typology contrasting slavery under law with freedom under promise | ပုံဥပမာအားဖြင့်ဆိုသော အနက်ရှိသည် (pon-u-pama ar-hpyin sho-thaw a-net shi-thi). NEW TERM — Medium risk; ensure it is understood as Paul’s own inspired interpretive method, not an invitation to arbitrary allegorization of all Scripture. |
| Ἁγάρ / Σάρρα / Ἰσαάκ / Ἰσμαήλ (4:22-31) | Hagar / Sarra / Isaak / Ismaēl | Hagar / Sarah / Isaac / Ishmael | Proper names from the Genesis narrative | proper names | Typological figures for slavery-under-law vs. freedom-under-promise | ဟာဂရ / စာရာ / ဣဇက် / ဣရှမေလ. Low risk; established Myanmar Bible forms; requires OT narrative background teaching for readers with low OT literacy, per baseline audience notes. |
| Ἰερουσαλὴμ ἡ ἄνω (4:26) | Ierousalēm hē anō | the Jerusalem above | The heavenly, free, eschatological Jerusalem, “our mother" | "the Jerusalem above,” “the heavenly Jerusalem” | Contrasted with earthly Jerusalem under law; anticipates the New Creation and eschatological freedom themes of chs.5-6 | အထက်ကျဆင်းသော ယေရုရှလင်မြို့ (a-htet-ka-hsin-thaw Yayrusha-lin-myo). Medium risk. |
Chapter 5 — Freedom in Christ, Flesh versus Spirit, and the Fruit of the Spirit
Chapter 5 is the letter’s ethical hinge: freedom secured in Christ must not be surrendered back to circumcision-observance, nor abused as license for the flesh, but is instead to be lived out through Spirit-produced fruit and love-motivated obedience.
| Term (Original) | Transliteration | Literal Meaning | Semantic Range | English Variants | Contextual Theological Meaning | Burmese Rendering & Risk |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ἐλευθερία (5:1, 13) | eleutheria | freedom, liberty | Liberation from the law’s condemning power and from slavery to the “elements,” secured by Christ | ”freedom,” “liberty” | Central term of the Freedom in Christ doctrine — freedom is a status Christ has secured, not a human achievement, and must not be surrendered back to legal bondage nor abused as license | လွတ်လပ်ခြင်း (lutlait-chin). NEW TERM — HIGH risk. Must be distinguished from both (a) Buddhist လွတ်မြောက်ခြင်း/nirvana-adjacent liberation-through-self-effort (already flagged in baseline salvation notes) and (b) libertine license; this is a relational freedom secured by another, to be exercised in love (5:13), not self-attained release from craving. |
| ζυγὸς δουλείας (5:1) | zygos douleias | yoke of slavery | A burdensome, controlling harness — reverting to law-observance as the ground of standing | ”yoke of bondage,” “yoke of slavery” | The concrete danger the Galatians face: exchanging Christ’s freedom for renewed legal bondage | ကျွန်ခံခြင်း၏ထမ်းပိုး (kyun-khan-chin i htan-po). NEW TERM — Medium/High risk. |
| περιτομή / ἀκροβυστία (5:2-6, 11) | peritomē / akrobystia | circumcision / uncircumcision | The covenant sign at the center of the Galatian controversy | ”circumcision,” “uncircumcision” | Paul’s climactic statement: “neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but faith working through love” | အရေဖျားလှီးခြင်း — TM reuse from ch.2 above. HIGH risk; consistent rendering required. |
| πίστις διʼ ἀγάπης ἐνεργουμένη (5:6) | pistis di’ agapēs energoumenē | faith working through love | Faith that is active, expressed and made effective through love | ”faith working through love,” “faith expressing itself through love,” “faith energized by love” | The letter’s positive ethical thesis and a named curriculum doctrine — faith is never inert; its authentic activity is love, not law-observance | ချစ်ခြင်းမေတ္တာအားဖြင့် လုပ်ဆောင်သောယုံကြည်ခြင်း (chit-chin-metta ar-hpyin lote-hsaung-thaw yun-kyi-chin). NEW TERM — HIGH risk. Built on TM faith and the new love term below; must be taught so that “faith working through love” is not misheard as “faith plus loving deeds as a supplementary merit path,” reintroducing exactly the works-righteousness the letter refutes. Love here is faith’s fruit and expression, not an additional ground of justification. |
| ἀγάπη (5:6, 13-14, 22; also 2:20) | agapē | love | Self-giving, covenantal love, modeled on Christ’s own self-giving (2:20) | “love” | Root term for both Faith Working through Love and Fruit of the Spirit doctrines | ချစ်ခြင်းမေတ္တာ (chit-chin-metta). NEW TERM — HIGH risk. “မေတ္တာ” (metta) is itself a major Buddhist virtue term (boundless loving-kindness cultivated through meditation, directed impartially at all beings). Biblical ἀγάπη must be taught as personal, covenantal, sacrificial love grounded in Christ’s own self-giving act (cf. 2:20), not a detached meditative benevolence cultivated as a spiritual technique; a translator note distinguishing the two is required at first occurrence. |
| σάρξ (5:13, 16-17, 19, 24; also chs.3-4, 6) | sarx | flesh | Fallen human nature in active rebellion against God, distinct from the neutral “body/flesh” sense in 2:20 | ”the flesh,” “sinful nature,” “the flesh’s desires” | Central to the Flesh versus Spirit doctrine — the flesh and Spirit are locked in active opposition, and freedom is not license for the flesh | ဇာတိ (zarti). Reused morpheme from baseline incarnation (လူ့ဇာတိခံယူခြင်း), but here the moral sense (fallen nature) dominates. HIGH risk: must be sharply distinguished from the neutral “human body/nature” sense; a translator note at first ch.5 occurrence should flag this shift in nuance from earlier chapters and from Romans’ own established ဇာတိ usage in similar flesh/Spirit passages (e.g., Romans 8:1-13), for full-corpus consistency. |
| πνεῦμα (5:16-18, 22, 25) | pneuma | Spirit | The Holy Spirit, in active moral opposition to the flesh | ”the Spirit” | Reuses the Romans Holy Spirit category | သန့်ရှင်းသောဝိညာဉ်တော် — TM reuse of holy_spirit. CRITICAL. |
| τὰ ἔργα τῆς σαρκός (5:19-21) | ta erga tēs sarkos | the works of the flesh | The itemized vice-list evidencing life dominated by the flesh: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, discord, jealousy, rage, rivalries, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and the like | ”the works/deeds of the flesh,” “sins of the flesh” | Contrasted structurally with the “fruit” (singular, organic) of the Spirit — the flesh produces discrete deeds, the Spirit bears integrated fruit | ဇာတိ၏အကျင့်များ (zarti i akyint-myar). NEW TERM — High risk overall; see φαρμακεία below for the single highest-risk item in the list. |
| φαρμακεία (5:20) | pharmakeia | sorcery, the use of drugs/potions for magical purposes | Occult practice involving spells, potions, or magical manipulation of spiritual forces | ”sorcery,” “witchcraft” | One item in the works-of-the-flesh list, singled out here for its acute cultural relevance | မှော်ဆွယ်မှု (mhaw-swe-hmu). NEW TERM — CRITICAL risk. Burmese religious life includes widespread, non-marginal engagement with weizza (esoteric adept) practice, astrology, amulets, and spirit-mediation for protection or advantage. This term must be unambiguously named as flesh-dominated sin requiring repentance, not folk custom, and must be clearly distinguished from legitimate traditional medicine. |
| καρπὸς τοῦ πνεύματος (5:22-23) | karpos tou pneumatos | fruit of the Spirit | The singular, organic, integrated moral produce of the Spirit’s indwelling: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control | ”fruit of the Spirit” | Central named curriculum doctrine — contrasted with the “works” (plural, manufactured) of the flesh; these qualities are Spirit-grown, not self-produced through discipline or merit-effort | သန့်ရှင်းသောဝိညာဉ်တော်၏အသီးအနှံ (thangyinthaw weinnyin-taw i athi-anhan). NEW TERM — HIGH risk. Must be taught as organically produced by the indwelling Holy Spirit (singular “fruit,” reflecting unified Spirit-produced character), not as nine separate virtues each independently cultivated through personal discipline (paralleling, and to be distinguished from, the Buddhist brahmavihara/paramita virtue-cultivation framework, where practitioners deliberately train specific qualities such as metta, karuna, and equanimity through their own sustained effort). |
| ἀγάπη, χαρά, εἰρήνη, μακροθυμία, χρηστότης, ἀγαθωσύνη, πίστις, πραΰτης, ἐγκράτεια (5:22-23) | agapē, chara, eirēnē, makrothymia, chrēstotēs, agathōsynē, pistis, prautēs, egkrateia | love, joy, peace, patience/longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control | The nine-item list constituting the singular “fruit” | as listed | Each item reinforces that Spirit-produced character, not law-observance, is the true evidence of life in the Spirit | ချစ်ခြင်းမေတ္တာ၊ ဝမ်းမြောက်ခြင်း၊ ငြိမ်သက်ခြင်း၊ ကြာရှည်သည်းခံခြင်း၊ ကျေးဇူးပြုတတ်ခြင်း၊ ကောင်းမြတ်ခြင်း၊ သစ္စာရှိခြင်း၊ နူးညံ့ခြင်း၊ ဣန္ဒြေစောင့်စည်းခြင်း. Individually mostly Low/Medium risk (peace and faith-cognate terms reuse TM); “love” (ချစ်ခြင်းမေတ္တာ) carries the High risk noted above and should govern the whole list’s teaching emphasis. |
| βασιλεία θεοῦ (5:21) | basileia theou | kingdom of God | God’s reign, which those characterized by works of the flesh will not inherit | ”kingdom of God” | Reuses the Romans category | ဘုရားသခင်၏နိုင်ငံတော် — TM reuse of kingdom_of_god. Medium risk per baseline. |
| ἐσταύρωσαν (5:24) | estaurōsan | they crucified | Believers “have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” — decisive, past, once-for-all act, echoing 2:20 | ”have crucified,” “crucified the flesh” | Extends the Crucified with Christ doctrine into ongoing sanctified living: the decisive death of 2:20 has ongoing ethical implications | လက်ဝါးကပ်တိုင်တင်ခဲ့ပြီ, built on the Core Passage’s crucified_with_christ rendering. CRITICAL for consistency with 2:20. |
Chapter 6 — Bearing One Another’s Burdens, Sowing and Reaping, and the New Creation
Chapter 6 closes the letter with practical community ethics (bearing burdens, restoring the erring, mutual generosity) and a final restatement of the letter’s core claim: neither circumcision nor uncircumcision matters, but new creation.
| Term (Original) | Transliteration | Literal Meaning | Semantic Range | English Variants | Contextual Theological Meaning | Burmese Rendering & Risk |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ἀλλήλων τὰ βάρη βαστάζετε (6:2) | allēlōn ta barē bastazete | bear one another’s burdens | Mutual, Spirit-enabled sharing of one another’s moral and practical struggles | ”bear one another’s burdens,” “carry each other’s burdens” | Named curriculum doctrine — communal outworking of the fruit of the Spirit (esp. love and gentleness from ch.5) in restoring a fallen believer (6:1) | အချင်းချင်း၏ဝန်ထုပ်ဝန်ပိုးများကို ထမ်းယူခြင်း (a-chin-chin i wun-htote-wun-po myar ko htan-yu-chin). NEW TERM — Medium risk. Should be distinguished from the individualist “each will bear his own load” of 6:5, and from a Buddhist framework where each person’s kamma/burden is fundamentally one’s own to resolve alone; here mutual bearing is a positive communal obligation flowing from Spirit-given love. |
| νόμος τοῦ Χριστοῦ (6:2) | nomos tou Christou | law of Christ | The pattern of Christ’s own self-giving love (cf. 2:20; John 13:34), now the governing “law” for believer conduct | ”the law of Christ” | Deliberately echoes and transforms νόμος (law) — not a return to Mosaic works-righteousness, but Christ’s own self-giving love as the believer’s normative pattern | ခရစ်တော်၏ပညတ်တရား (Khayitto i pyinnat-tayar), built on TM law. NEW TERM — Medium/High risk; must be clearly distinguished from ἔργα νόμου (works of the [Mosaic] law) rejected throughout the letter — this is fulfillment through Spirit-given love, not renewed legal observance. |
| σπείρῃ / θερίσει (6:7-8) | speirē / therisei | sows / will reap | Agricultural metaphor for the fixed, moral connection between conduct and consequence | ”sows… will reap,” “whatever a man sows, that shall he also reap” | Warns against self-deception: sowing to the flesh brings corruption; sowing to the Spirit brings eternal life — must not be read as karmic law but as covenant faithfulness bearing appropriate consequence within grace | စိုက်ပျိုးခြင်း / ရိတ်သိမ်းခြင်း (saik-pyo-chin / yate-thein-chin). NEW TERM — HIGH risk. This proverb-like statement is acutely vulnerable to being heard as a restatement of ကံ (karma, the impersonal law of moral cause-and-effect already flagged Critical/High in baseline providence/sin notes). A translator note is required clarifying that this consequence operates within the framework of grace already established in the letter (cf. 2:21; 3:1-14), not as a return to a merit-and-consequence economy that Paul has just spent five chapters refuting. |
| καινὴ κτίσις (6:15) | kainē ktisis | new creation | A fundamentally new order of existence inaugurated by God in Christ, replacing the old circumcision/uncircumcision categories entirely | ”new creation,” “a new creation” | Central named curriculum doctrine — the letter’s climactic answer to the circumcision controversy: identity is now determined by new creation, not by the old covenant sign | ဖန်ဆင်းခြင်းအသစ် (phan-hsin-chin a-thit). NEW TERM — CRITICAL risk. Must be sharply distinguished from ပြန်လည်မွေးဖွားခြင်း/ပဋိသန္ဓေတည်ခြင်း (rebirth into a new existence within samsara, already forbidden for resurrection in baseline) — this is God’s own decisive, once-for-all inaugurating act creating a genuinely new order of being in Christ, not a soul’s transmigration into a new life-cycle iteration. This term should be flagged for mandatory theologian review at every occurrence, on the model of the baseline’s resurrection escalation rule. |
| Ἰσραὴλ τοῦ θεοῦ (6:16) | Israēl tou theou | Israel of God | The people of God constituted by the new-creation principle, not merely ethnic descent | ”the Israel of God” | Extends the Unity of Jews and Gentiles doctrine to its furthest point | ဘုရားသခင်၏ဣသရေလ — TM reuse of israel = ဣသရေလ. High risk per the Unity of Jews and Gentiles doctrine notes in baseline; must not be read as excluding Gentile believers from this identity. |
| στίγματα τοῦ Ἰησοῦ (6:17) | stigmata tou Iēsou | marks/brands of Jesus | Physical scars from persecution suffered for the gospel, likened to a slave’s ownership brand | ”the marks of Jesus,” “scars of Jesus” | Paul’s suffering authenticates his apostleship (cf. ch.1) and models the cross-shaped life of ch.5-6 | ယေရှု၏အမှတ်တံဆိပ်များ (Yayshu i a-hmat-ta-hzate myar). NEW TERM — Low risk; note possible unhelpful association with Buddhist tattoo-amulet marks (in) used for protective power — a brief clarifying note that these are scars of suffering, not protective magical marks, is prudent though not urgent. |
| καυχᾶσθαι (6:13-14) | kauchasthai | to boast, glory | Negative sense (6:13, boasting in others’ circumcision/flesh) vs. positive sense (6:14, glorying only in the cross) | “boast,” “glory” | Contrasts illegitimate self-promoting boasting with Paul’s sole legitimate ground of glorying — the cross | ကြွားဝါခြင်း (negative, 6:13) / ဂုဏ်ယူခြင်း (positive, 6:14). NEW TERM — Medium risk; ensure the two senses are not collapsed into a single rendering, since the chapter’s rhetorical point depends on the contrast. |
| χάρις (6:18) | charis | grace | Closing benediction | ”grace” | Standard Pauline closing | ကျေးဇူးတော် — TM reuse of grace. Critical per baseline; consistent closing benediction rendering across all Pauline letters. |
Summary Note on Full-Book Coverage
All six chapters of Galatians have been reviewed. No chapter was found to introduce zero new theological vocabulary — even the most narrative-heavy sections (1:11-24; 2:1-14; 4:12-20) carry load-bearing terms tied directly to the curriculum’s fourteen named doctrines. Chapters 2 (core passage) and 3 concentrate the highest density of Critical-risk terms (works of the law, curse, redemption, imputed righteousness); chapters 4-6 concentrate the highest density of syncretism-risk terms tied to Burmese folk-religious and Buddhist categories (elemental spirits, sorcery, new creation, sowing-and-reaping/karma). This distribution should directly inform Phase 2 review routing priorities.