Core Glossary
08 Core Glossary — Hebrews
This glossary lists every load-bearing theological term identified in 07_semantic_analysis.md, drawn from every chapter of Hebrews (1-13), with the core passage (9:11-28) contributing the highest term density. Terms marked [REUSED] carry forward the exact Burmese rendering already fixed in the baseline Romans translation_memory.json and must not be altered. Terms marked [NEW] are Hebrews-specific and require addition to translation memory during Phase 2, Step per the baseline’s “new theological term” protocol, with risk level assigned using the same Critical/High/Medium/Low framework as bible_term_registry.json.
Table 1 — Reused Terms from Romans Translation Memory (Apply Exactly, No Change)
| Term (English) | Greek | Burmese Rendering | Risk (Baseline) | Doctrine Link (Hebrews) | Key Chapters |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| God | θεός | ဘုရားသခင် | Critical | All doctrines | 1-13 |
| Jesus | Ἰησοῦς | ယေရှု | Critical | Christ as Great High Priest | 1-13 |
| Christ | Χριστός | ခရစ်တော် | Critical | Messianic fulfillment | 1-13 |
| Lord | κύριος | သခင် | Critical | Superiority of Christ | 1, 2, 7 |
| Son of God | υἱὸς θεοῦ | ဘုရားသခင်၏သားတော် | Critical | Superiority over Angels; Deity/Sonship of Christ | 1, 4, 5, 7 |
| Holy Spirit | πνεῦμα ἅγιον | သန့်ရှင်းသောဝိညာဉ်တော် | Critical | Once-for-All Sacrifice (9:14); warning passages (6:4; 10:29) | 2, 3, 6, 9, 10 |
| Father | πατήρ | အဖ | Critical | Sonship/discipline | 1, 12 |
| Resurrection | ἀνάστασις | ထမြောက်ခြင်း | Critical | Faith of OT Saints; Assurance | 6, 11 |
| Grace | χάρις | ကျေးဇူးတော် | Critical | Access to God; Perseverance | 2, 4, 10, 12, 13 |
| Salvation | σωτηρία | ကယ်တင်ခြင်း | Critical | Once-for-All Sacrifice; Assurance | 1, 2, 5, 6, 9 |
| Faith | πίστις | ယုံကြည်ခြင်း | Medium | Faith of OT Saints | 3, 4, 6, 10, 11, 13 |
| Righteousness | δικαιοσύνη | ဖြောင့်မတ်ခြင်း | Critical | Melchizedek typology; assurance | 1, 5, 7, 11, 12 |
| Sin | ἁμαρτία | အပြစ် | High | Once-for-All Sacrifice; Warning Passages | 2, 3, 4, 6, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 |
| Holy | ἅγιος | သန့်ရှင်းသော | High | High Priesthood; sanctuary | 2, 3, 7, 9, 10, 13 |
| Sanctification | ἁγιασμός / ἁγιάζω | သန့်ရှင်းခြင်း | High | Once-for-All Sacrifice | 2, 9, 10, 13 |
| Covenant | διαθήκη | ပဋိညာဉ် | High | New Covenant vs Old | 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13 |
| Law | νόμος | ပညတ်တရား | High | Superiority over Moses; Old Covenant | 7, 8, 9, 10 |
| Church / assembly | ἐκκλησία | အသင်းတော် | Medium | Access to God; Mount Zion assembly | 2, 12 |
| Called / calling | καλέω / κλῆσις | ခေါ်တော်မူသော / ခေါ်တော်မူခြင်း | High | New Covenant inheritance | 3, 9, 11 |
| Fellowship | κοινωνία | မိတ်သဟာယ | Low | Mutual love | 10, 13 |
| Apostle | ἀπόστολος | တမန်တော် | Medium | Christ as sent one and high priest | 3 |
| Intercession | ἐντυγχάνω | အသနားခံခြင်း | Medium | Great High Priest | 7 |
| Kingdom of God | βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ | ဘုရားသခင်၏နိုင်ငံတော် | Medium | Unshakeable kingdom | 12 |
| Messiah | Χριστός / Μεσσίας | မေရှိယ | Critical | Messianic Promise / anointing | 1 |
| Incarnation | (λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο concept) | လူ့ဇာတိခံယူခြင်း | Critical | Humanity of Christ; single body offered | 2, 10 |
| Adoption / sonship inheritance | υἱοθεσία (concept) | သားအဖြစ်လက်ခံခြင်း | Medium/High | Discipline; heirship; eternal inheritance | 1, 9, 12 |
| David | Δαυίδ | ဒါဝိဒ် | Low/Medium | Melchizedek/kingship background | 7 (background) |
| Peace | εἰρήνη | ငြိမ်သက်ခြင်း | Medium | Melchizedek (“king of Salem/peace”) | 7 |
Table 2 — New Hebrews-Specific Terms (To Be Added to Translation Memory)
| Term (English) | Greek (Transliteration) | Burmese Rendering | Risk | Doctrine Link | Key Chapters | Rejected Alternatives / Collision Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| High priest | ἀρχιερεύς (archiereus) | ယဇ်ပုရောဟိတ်မင်း | Critical | Christ as Great High Priest | 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 | Never ဆရာတော်ကြီး/ရဟန်းချုပ် (senior-monk/monastic-chief framing) |
| Priest / priesthood | ἱερεύς / ἱερωσύνη | ယဇ်ပုရောဟိတ် / ယဇ်ပုရောဟိတ်ရာထူး | High | Superiority over Levitical Priesthood | 5, 7, 8 | Distinguish from ရဟန်း (Buddhist monk) |
| Sacrifice / offer | θυσία / προσφέρω (thysia/prospherō) | ယဇ်ပူဇော်ခြင်း / ပူဇော်သည် | Critical | Once-for-All Atoning Sacrifice | 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 13 | Never allow drift toward ဗုဒ္ဓပူဇော်ခြင်း merit-offering sense |
| Once for all | ἐφάπαξ / ἅπαξ (ephapax/hapax) | တစ်ကြိမ်တည်း | High | Once-for-All Atoning Sacrifice | 7, 9, 10 | Contrast crisply against ကြိမ်ဖန်များစွာ (“many times”) |
| Blood | αἷμα (haima) | သွေး | High | Access to God through Christ’s Blood | 9, 10, 12, 13 | No direct forbidden alternative; requires explanatory teaching |
| Redemption | ἀπολύτρωσις / λύτρωσις (apolytrōsis/lytrōsis) | ရွေးနှင်းခြင်း | High | Once-for-All Sacrifice | 9 | Never ကုသိုလ်စုဆောင်းခြင်း (merit accumulation) |
| Mediator | μεσίτης (mesitēs) | ကြားဝင်စေ့စပ်သူ | High | New Covenant vs Old; Access to God | 8, 9, 12 | Never conflated with နတ်ကတော် (spirit-medium) |
| New covenant | διαθήκη καινή (diathēkē kainē) | ပဋိညာဉ်သစ် | High | New Covenant vs Old | 8, 9, 12, 13 | Base term REUSED; qualifier သစ် added |
| Old / first covenant | πρώτη διαθήκη (prōtē diathēkē) | ပဋိညာဉ်ဟောင်း | High | New Covenant vs Old | 8, 9 | Must not imply the old covenant was false or worthless |
| Perfect / perfection / perfecter | τέλειος / τελειόω / τελείωσις / τελειωτής | ပြီးပြည့်စုံခြင်း / စေ့စုံစွာပြီးမြောက်စေခြင်း | Critical | Christ as Great High Priest; Once-for-All Sacrifice; Perseverance | 2, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12 | NEVER ပါရမီ (Bodhisatta’s ten self-cultivated perfections) — highest-priority forbidden substitution in this curriculum |
| Rest | κατάπαυσις / σαββατισμός (katapausis/sabbatismos) | ငြိမ်ဝပ်ခြင်း | High | Perseverance and Assurance | 3, 4 | Never conflated with နိဗ္ဗာန် (nirvana/cessation) |
| Enlightened | φωτίζω (phōtizō) | အလင်းရရှိသူများ | Critical | Danger of Apostasy | 6, 10 | Never ဗောဓိဉာဏ်ရရှိခြင်း / ဗုဒ္ဓဇာတိရခြင်း (Buddhist self-attained enlightenment) |
| Fall away / apostasy | παραπίπτω / ἀφίστημι (parapiptō) | ယုံကြည်ခြင်းမှ ဖေါက်ပြန်ကျရာက်ခြင်း | High | Danger of Apostasy and Warning Passages | 3, 6, 10 | Preserve warning’s force; do not resolve the eternal-security debate in translation |
| Repentance | μετάνοια (metanoia) | နောင်တရခြင်း | Medium | Danger of Apostasy | 6 | Distinguish from karma-reducing regret |
| Conscience | συνείδησις (syneidēsis) | သိစိတ် / အသိတရား | Medium | Once-for-All Sacrifice; Access to God | 9, 10 | Distinguish from Buddhist psychological vinnana/consciousness-stream |
| Dead works | νεκρὰ ἔργα (nekra erga) | အသက်ကင်းသော အကျင့်များ | High | Once-for-All Sacrifice | 6, 9 | Extends beyond insincere religion to ALL law/merit works apart from Christ |
| Forgiveness / remission | ἄφεσις (aphesis) | အပြစ်လွှတ်ခြင်း | High | Once-for-All Atoning Sacrifice | 9, 10 | Never a reduction of အကုသိုလ် (demerit) balance |
| Judgment | κρίσις (krisis) | တရားစီရင်ခြင်း | High | Danger of Apostasy; Assurance | 9, 10, 12 | Not a karmic-accounting process across rebirths |
| Angels | ἄγγελος (angelos) | ကောင်းကင်တမန် | High | Superiority of Christ over Angels | 1, 2, 12, 13 | NEVER နတ် (nat spirit); distinguish from deva-realm cosmology |
| Devil / Satan | διάβολος (diabolos) | မာရ်နတ် | High | Christ’s victory over death | 2 | Retain established form but flag: distinguish from Buddhist Mara-as-mind-personification |
| Confession | ὁμολογία (homologia) | ဝန်ခံချက် | Medium | High Priest doctrine; Perseverance | 3, 4, 10 | Render consistently across 3:1, 4:14, 10:23 |
| Boldness / confidence | παρρησία (parrhēsia) | ရဲရင့်သောစိတ် | High | Access to God through Christ’s Blood | 4, 10 | Not politeness/optimism; direct unmediated access via blood alone |
| Draw near | προσέρχομαι (proserchomai) | ချဉ်းကပ်ခြင်း | High | Access to God through Christ’s Blood | 4, 7, 10, 11, 12 | Pair consistently with boldness/blood terms |
| Eternal | αἰώνιος (aiōnios) | ထာဝရ | High | Once-for-All Sacrifice; Perseverance | 5, 6, 7, 9, 13 | Collides with အနိစ္စ (impermanence) doctrine; affirm literal permanence |
| Indestructible life | ζωὴ ἀκατάλυτος (zōē akatalytos) | ပျက်စီးမရသောအသက်ရှင်ခြင်း | High | Great High Priest; Assurance | 7 | Same impermanence-collision category as “eternal” |
| Melchizedek | Μελχισέδεκ (Melchisedek) | မေလခိဇေဒက် | Medium | Great High Priest typology | 5, 6, 7 | Requires OT narrative background teaching |
| Mercy seat / atonement cover | ἱλαστήριον (hilastērion) | ကရုဏာထိုင်ခုံ / အပြစ်ဖြေရာဌာန | High | Once-for-All Sacrifice; Access to God | 9 | Specific locus of propitiation, not generic furniture |
| Shedding of blood | αἱματεκχυσία (haimatekchysia) | သွေးကျခြင်း | High | Once-for-All Atoning Sacrifice | 9 | Render directly; do not soften |
| Shadow / copy / pattern | σκιά / ὑπόδειγμα / ἀντίτυπος | အရိပ် / ပုံစံ / ပုံရိပ်ဆင်တူ | Medium | New Covenant vs Old; typology | 8, 9, 10 | No native typology category; needs explanatory teaching notes |
| Transgression | παράβασις (parabasis) | လွန်ကျူးမှု | Medium | Once-for-All Sacrifice | 9 | Distinguish from broader “sin” (အပြစ်) |
| Promise | ἐπαγγελία (epangelia) | ကတိတော် | Medium | New Covenant; Faith of OT Saints | 6, 9, 11 | Personal divine pledge, not karmic expectation |
| Inheritance / heir | κληρονομία / κληρονόμος | အမွေ / အမွေခံ | Medium | New Covenant; Sonship | 1, 6, 9, 11, 12 | Aligns with REUSED adoption doctrine (full, not partial, rights) |
| Oath | ὅρκος (horkos) | ကျိန်ဆိုချက် | Low | Faith of OT Saints (Abrahamic promise) | 6, 7 | Low collision; cultural oath-practice already familiar |
| Founder / pioneer / perfecter | ἀρχηγός (archēgos) | အစပြု ဦးဆောင်သူ | Medium-High | Christ as Great High Priest | 2, 12 | Goes first and secures the way, not merely a guide |
| Assurance / substance of faith | ὑπόστασις (hypostasis) / πληροφορία (plērophoria) | ခိုင်မာသောယုံကြည်ချက် | High | Perseverance and Assurance; Faith of OT Saints | 10, 11 | Objective ground in God’s promise, not accumulated verified experience |
| Endurance / perseverance | ὑπομονή (hypomonē) | ကြံ့ခိုင်စွာနေထိုင်ခြင်း | Medium | Perseverance and Assurance | 10, 12 | Active faith-fueled steadfastness, not passive resignation |
| Reward | μισθαποδοσία (misthapodosia) | အကျိုးဆုလာဘ် | Medium | Perseverance and Assurance | 10, 11 | Gracious, promise-based reward, not merit-transaction |
| Discipline | παιδεία (paideia) | ဆုံးမခြင်း | Medium | Sonship (Ch. 12) | 12 | Evidence of secured sonship, not probationary status |
| Willful sin | ἑκουσίως ἁμαρτάνω (hekousiōs hamartanō) | တမင်တကာအပြစ်ကျူးလွန်ခြင်း | High | Danger of Apostasy and Warning Passages | 10 | Preserve full seriousness without resolving true/false-believer debate |
| Cloud of witnesses | νέφος μαρτύρων (nephos martyrōn) | သက်သေအုံ့ထူထပ်စု | Low | Faith of OT Saints | 12 | — |
| Mount Zion / heavenly Jerusalem | Σιὼν / Ἱερουσαλὴμ ἐπουράνιος | ဇိအုန်တောင် / ကောင်းကင်ယေရုရှလင်မြို့ | Medium | Access to God; New Covenant assembly | 12 | Requires sustained OT background teaching |
| Shepherd (great) | ποιμὴν ὁ μέγας (poimēn ho megas) | ကြီးမြတ်သောသိုးထိန်း | Low | Perseverance and Assurance | 13 | Established pastoral image |
| Sacrifice of praise | θυσία αἰνέσεως (thysia aineseōs) | ချီးမွမ်းခြင်းယဇ် | Medium | Worship response (post-atonement) | 13 | Distinguish clearly from Christ’s unique atoning ယဇ် |
| Tabernacle / tent | σκηνή (skēnē) | တဲတော် | Low | Levitical system background | 8, 9, 13 | OT background item |
| Holy places / Most Holy Place | ἅγια / ἅγια ἁγίων | သန့်ရှင်းရာဌာန / အလွန်သန့်ရှင်းရာဌာန | Medium | Access to God through Christ’s Blood | 9, 10, 13 | Base adjective REUSED; compound is new |
| Veil / curtain | καταπέτασμα (katapetasma) | ကန့်လန့်ကာ | Medium | Access to God through Christ’s Blood | 9, 10 | Needs temple-veil background to carry force |
| Word of God (living/active) | λόγος τοῦ θεοῦ (logos tou theou) | ဘုရားသခင်၏ နှုတ်ကပတ်တော် | High | Inspiration (background doctrine) | 4 | Personal divine speech, not Tipitaka-style enlightened insight |
| Moses | Μωϋσῆς (Mōusēs) | မောရှေ | Medium | Superiority of Christ over Moses | 3, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12 | Honor as genuine covenant-mediator, not discredited figure |
| Better (comparative) | κρείττων (kreittōn) | သာလွန်ကောင်းမြတ်သော | Low-Medium | All “superiority” doctrines | 1, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 | Render consistently across every occurrence |
| Judgment-day vocabulary: κρίσις wordplay with διαθήκη (will/testament) | διαθήκη (dual sense) | ပဋိညာဉ် (no lexical dual-sense available) | High (mechanics) | New Covenant vs Old | 9 | Flag for mandatory translator’s note explaining Greek wordplay loss |
Table 3 — Chapters Producing No New Theological Vocabulary Beyond Tables 1-2
All thirteen chapters of Hebrews contribute new load-bearing vocabulary beyond the Romans-established terms; no chapter of Hebrews is theologically inert. However, the following chapters are noted as primarily reinforcing rather than introducing major new risk categories, and their terms are fully captured above:
- Chapter 13 functions mainly as a pastoral/ethical closing application chapter; its distinctive terms (φιλαδελφία, φιλοξενία, φιλαργυρία, ἡγούμενοι) are Low risk and largely reuse the sacrificial/blood/covenant vocabulary already fixed in Chapters 7-10.
No chapter is marked as contributing zero new vocabulary; every chapter’s terms are itemized in 07_semantic_analysis.md Part B.
Cross-Reference Notes for Phase 2
- Highest-priority new Critical term for this curriculum: τελειόω/τέλειος family (ပြီးပြည့်စုံခြင်း). Never render with ပါရမီ. Applies to Hebrews 2:10; 5:9; 6:1; 7:11,19,28; 9:9; 10:1,14; 11:40; 12:2,23.
- Second-priority new Critical term: φωτίζω “enlightened” (6:4). Never render with any Buddhist self-attained-enlightenment vocabulary.
- High priest (ယဇ်ပုရောဟိတ်မင်း) and sacrifice/offer (ယဇ်ပူဇော်ခြင်း) require translator notes at every occurrence distinguishing Levitical/Christic sacrifice from Buddhist merit-offering (ပူဇော်ခြင်း to Buddha images/monks).
- All occurrences of rest (ငြိမ်ဝပ်ခြင်း, Ch. 3-4) require the same forbidden-substitution discipline already established for “salvation” regarding နိဗ္ဗာန်.
- Covenant wordplay (διαθήκη as both “covenant” and “will/testament,” 9:16-17) cannot be reproduced lexically in Burmese; mandatory translator’s note required at this passage.
- All Table 1 terms must load from the existing
translation_memory.json; Table 2 terms must be added to translation memory as new entries (with Critical/High entries flagged for theologian review) before Phase 2 segment translation of Hebrews begins.
Critical Risk Terms
Christ Title
Approved rendering: ခရစ်တော်
Transliteration: Khayitto-taw
Doctrine: Messianic Promise and Anointing
Original: Χριστός (name/title usage, distinct from the doctrinal Messiah-promise argument)
Category: Christology
NEW for Hebrews. The standard Myanmar Bible name/title used throughout Hebrews in phrases such as ‘the blood of Christ’ (9:14) and ‘Christ Jesus.’ Reserve မေရှိယ (see messiah) for passages arguing the specific OT Messianic-promise-fulfillment sense (e.g., 1:5-13); ခရစ်တော် and မေရှိယ name the same person but serve different rhetorical registers — this is a distinction of context, not two different beings.
Enlightened
Approved rendering: အလင်းရရှိသူများ
Transliteration: a-lin ya-yashi thu myar
Doctrine: Enlightenment and the Risk of Apostasy
Rejected alternatives: ဗောဓိဉာဏ်ရရှိခြင်း, ဗုဒ္ဓဇာတိရခြင်း
Original: φωτίζω (φωτισθέντας)
Category: Apostasy
NEW for Hebrews. Second-highest-priority collision term in the curriculum. Describes those who received illuminating gospel understanding and then decisively and subsequently fell away (6:4; 10:32). Burmese Buddhist vocabulary uses ‘enlightenment’ for the self-achieved awakening ending rebirth, Theravada’s central religious goal; NEVER render with any achievement-verb morphology suggesting self-attained awakening. This is received illumination graciously given, not self-attained insight. Mandatory theologian review at every occurrence.
Father
Approved rendering: အဖ
Transliteration: a-pha
Doctrine: Adoption into God’s Family
Rejected alternatives: ဗြဟ္မာ
Original: πατήρ
Category: God
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS TM, EXACT] Personal, relational Father, never impersonal Brahma. Hebrews context: 12:5-9’s discipline (paideia) passage depends on God being genuinely relational, whose correction proves sonship rather than an impersonal karmic principle.
God
Approved rendering: ဘုရားသခင်
Transliteration: Phayarthakhin
Doctrine: Deity of Christ
Rejected alternatives: ဘုရား, နတ်သခင်
Original: θεός
Category: God
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS TM, EXACT] Established Christian compound since Judson; the one personal Creator, never a Buddha-image, pagoda, or nat-spirit lord. Hebrews context: repeated designation ‘the living God’ (3:12; 9:14; 10:31; 12:22) intensifies the requirement that God’s aliveness and personal address through Christ (1:1-2) be unmistakably distinct from an impersonal cosmic order.
Grace
Approved rendering: ကျေးဇူးတော်
Transliteration: kyayzu-taw
Doctrine: Grace
Rejected alternatives: ကုသိုလ်, ကံကောင်းခြင်း, ဝါသနာတော်
Original: χάρις
Category: Salvation
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS TM, EXACT] Never merit or good karma. Hebrews context: 4:16’s ‘throne of grace’ is a uniquely load-bearing image — believers approach boldly to receive unearned favor, not weighed or dispensed merit, the opposite of approaching a shrine to accumulate kutho; also closes the letter at 13:9,25.
High Priest
Approved rendering: ယဇ်ပုရောဟိတ်မင်း
Transliteration: yaz-poyawheiktu-min
Doctrine: Christ as the Great High Priest
Rejected alternatives: ဆရာတော်ကြီး, ရဟန်းချုပ်
Original: ἀρχιερεύς
Category: Priesthood
NEW for Hebrews. The single OT office of chief mediating priest, fulfilled and surpassed perfectly and permanently in Christ (2:17; 3:1; 4:14-15; 5:1-10; 6:20; 7:26-28; 8:1; 9:11). NEVER render with senior-abbot/monastic-chief framing, which would import teaching-authority or personal-merit-cultivation instead of substitutionary blood-mediation before a personal God. Anchor term for the book’s single most load-bearing doctrine; mandatory theologian review at every occurrence.
Holy Spirit
Approved rendering: သန့်ရှင်းသောဝိညာဉ်တော်
Transliteration: thangyinthaw weinnyin-taw
Doctrine: Sanctification
Rejected alternatives: နတ်ဝိညာဉ်, ဝိညာဉ်
Original: πνεῦμα ἅγιον / πνεῦμα αἰώνιον
Category: God
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS TM, EXACT] Never a spirit/ghost or nat-spirit; the third divine Person, permanent, not an impermanent consciousness-stream. Hebrews context: 9:14’s ‘eternal Spirit’ and 10:29’s ‘Spirit of grace’ double the collision risk against anatta (no permanent self); 6:4 and 10:29 tie this term to the apostasy warning passages.
Incarnation
Approved rendering: လူ့ဇာတိခံယူခြင်း
Transliteration: lu-zarti khan-yu-chin
Doctrine: Incarnation
Rejected alternatives: ဘုရားလောင်းအဖြစ်မွေးဖွားခြင်း, နတ်ဆင်းသက်ခြင်း
Original: σῶμα κατηρτίσω μοι (Heb 10:5, citing Ps. 40:6; cf. σάρξ, 2:14)
Category: Christology
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS TM, EXACT] The eternal Son permanently taking a single human nature once, never a Jataka-style prior-lives cycle or nat-spirit descent. Hebrews context: 2:14 and 10:5 (‘a body you have prepared for me’) ground the entire sacrificial argument in a real, singular physical incarnation, never illusory or spirit-manifested.
Jesus
Approved rendering: ယေရှု
Transliteration: Yayshu
Doctrine: Lordship of Christ
Rejected alternatives: ရှင်ယေရှု
Original: Ἰησοῦς
Category: Christology
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS TM, EXACT] Standard Myanmar Bible form since Judson. Hebrews context: keep consistent at every high-density Christological verse (2:9; 12:2,24; 13:8,20), the subject of Hebrews’ Great High Priest argument.
Messiah
Approved rendering: မေရှိယ
Transliteration: Mei-shi-ya
Doctrine: Messianic Promise
Rejected alternatives: အရေးတော်ပုံလာမည့်သူ, မိတ္တေယျ
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS TM, EXACT] Never Metteyya, the future Buddha. Hebrews context: reserved for the specific OT-promise-fulfillment sense (1:5-13’s dense catena of OT quotations applied to Christ); distinct in register from the name/title usage christ_title, though both refer to the same person.
Perfect Perfection
Approved rendering: ပြီးပြည့်စုံခြင်း / စေ့စုံစွာပြီးမြောက်စေခြင်း
Transliteration: pyi-pyi-son say-chin / say-son-swa pyi-myauk say-chin
Doctrine: Perfection through Christ
Rejected alternatives: ပါရမီ
Original: τέλειος / τελειόω / τελείωσις / τελειωτής
Category: Perfection
NEW for Hebrews. THE SINGLE HIGHEST-PRIORITY FORBIDDEN SUBSTITUTION IN THIS CURRICULUM. NEVER render with ပါရမီ, the ten self-cultivated perfections a Bodhisatta accumulates across countless lifetimes to attain Buddhahood. Hebrews’ perfecting is accomplished FOR Christ by the Father through one historical act of suffering (2:10; 5:9), and FOR believers by Christ’s completed work (10:14) — never self-cultivated across lifetimes or by personal moral effort. Recurs at 6:1; 7:11,19,28; 9:9; 10:1,14; 11:40; 12:2,23. Mandatory theologian review at every occurrence.
Resurrection
Approved rendering: ထမြောက်ခြင်း
Transliteration: hta-myauk-chin
Doctrine: Resurrection of Christ
Rejected alternatives: ပဋိသန္ဓေတည်ခြင်း, ပြန်လည်မွေးဖွားခြင်း
Original: ἀνάστασις
Category: Eschatology
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS TM, EXACT] Bodily, historical, once-for-all resurrection, never rebirth into samsara. Hebrews context: 11:35’s ‘better resurrection’ (martyrs who refused an earthly reprieve specifically because they hoped for something other than another turn of a cycle) sharpens this collision; also anchors 13:20’s ‘brought back from the dead’ shepherd title.
Righteousness
Approved rendering: ဖြောင့်မတ်ခြင်း
Transliteration: pyaungmat-chin
Doctrine: Salvation
Rejected alternatives: ကုသိုလ်ကံ, သီလ
Original: δικαιοσύνη
Category: Salvation
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS TM, EXACT] Right standing before God received by faith, never a moral score accumulated through practice. Hebrews context: 7:2 names Melchizedek ‘king of righteousness’; 11:7 (Noah) and 12:11 must both retain forensic/relational standing, not merit built by precept-keeping.
Sacrifice Offer
Approved rendering: ယဇ်ပူဇော်ခြင်း / ပူဇော်သည်
Transliteration: yaz-pu-zaw-chin / pu-zaw-thi
Doctrine: The Once-for-All Atoning Sacrifice
Rejected alternatives: ကုသိုလ်ရယူရန် ပူဇော်ခြင်း (merit-generating offering sense)
Original: θυσία / προσφέρω / ἀναφέρω
Category: Atonement
NEW for Hebrews. This is the single highest-density collision category in the entire curriculum. ပူဇော်ခြင်း is the everyday Burmese verb for offerings presented to a Buddha image, pagoda, or monks, performed repeatedly to accumulate merit (ကုသိုလ်). Every occurrence in Ch.5, 7-10, 13 must carry explicit teaching (co-located with ‘once for all’ vocabulary) that Christ’s ယဇ် is a substitutionary death satisfying God’s justice once for all, never a merit-generating gift. Do not coin a new word to escape the collision — fence this term with mandatory teaching notes rather than evade it, since it is the only Burmese lexical slot for cultic offering already established in Myanmar Bible tradition.
Salvation
Approved rendering: ကယ်တင်ခြင်း
Transliteration: kaetin-chin
Doctrine: Salvation
Rejected alternatives: နိဗ္ဗာန်ရောက်ခြင်း, လွတ်မြောက်ခြင်း
Original: σωτηρία
Category: Salvation
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS TM, EXACT] Never attaining nirvana; deliverance BY God THROUGH Christ, not self-attained. Hebrews context: 2:3’s ‘so great a salvation’ opens the book’s first warning passage; 9:28 ties salvation to Christ’s future, visible, bodily Second Coming.
Son Of God
Approved rendering: ဘုရားသခင်၏သားတော်
Transliteration: Phayarthakhin i tharadaw
Doctrine: Sonship of Christ
Rejected alternatives: ဗြဟ္မာ့သား, နတ်သား
Original: υἱὸς θεοῦ / ὁ υἱός
Category: Christology
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS TM, EXACT] Full phrase required; conveys eternal, unique Sonship, never a lesser celestial being. Hebrews context: grounds the entire opening argument of Ch.1 (1:2,5,8; 4:14; 5:5; 7:3) establishing Christ’s superiority over prophets and angels.
High Risk Terms
Angels
Approved rendering: ကောင်းကင်တမန်
Transliteration: kaungkin taman
Doctrine: Superiority of Christ over Angels
Rejected alternatives: နတ်
Original: ἄγγελος
Category: Angelology
NEW for Hebrews. Created heavenly messenger-servants shown to be far inferior to the Son (1:4-14; 2:2,5,16; 12:22; 13:2). NEVER render with နတ် (the worshipped/placated 37-nat pantheon), nor assimilate to Buddhist deva-realm cosmology. Angels worship the Son and serve believers; they are never objects of worship or beings to be placated.
Assurance Substance Of Faith
Approved rendering: ခိုင်မာသောယုံကြည်ချက်
Transliteration: khaing-ma-thaw yunkyichet
Doctrine: Faith of the Old Testament Saints
Rejected alternatives: သဒ္ဓါ-style experiential-verification confidence
Original: ὑπόστασις / πληροφορία
Category: Faith
NEW for Hebrews. The objective ground/reality faith gives to things hoped for (11:1), and the ‘full assurance’ with which believers may draw near (10:22). Must be conveyed as objective confidence grounded in God’s character and promise, not subjective wishing nor the accumulation of confirming religious experience over time — the same risk the baseline already flags for faith generally.
Blood
Approved rendering: သွေး
Transliteration: thway
Doctrine: Access to God through Christ’s Blood
Original: αἷμα
Category: Atonement
NEW for Hebrews. The physical lifeblood effecting atonement (9:12-14,22; 10:19; 12:24; 13:12,20). No direct forbidden alternative exists, but Burmese folk religion and Buddhism have no comparable category of blood-atonement before a personal deity; without explicit teaching, risks being read as gruesome ritual detail rather than substitutionary payment. Linguistic anchor of ‘Access to God through Christ’s Blood.‘
Boldness Confidence
Approved rendering: ရဲရင့်သောစိတ်
Transliteration: yay-yin-thaw seik
Doctrine: Access to God through Christ’s Blood
Original: παρρησία
Category: Access to God
NEW for Hebrews. The unhindered, open confidence of one with full standing to approach God directly, grounded entirely in Christ’s blood (4:16; 10:19,35). Linguistic anchor of ‘Access to God through Christ’s Blood.’ Must not be diluted into mere politeness or general optimism; require co-occurrence with သွေး or ကြားဝင်စေ့စပ်သူ within the same teaching unit.
Called
Approved rendering: ခေါ်တော်မူသော
Transliteration: khaw-taw-mu-thaw
Doctrine: Divine Calling
Rejected alternatives: ဖိတ်ခေါ်ခြင်း
Original: κεκλημένοι (perfect participle of καλέω)
Category: Salvation
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS TM, EXACT] Distinguished from a revocable invitation. Hebrews context: 9:15, those effectually summoned to receive the promised eternal inheritance secured by the New Covenant.
Calling
Approved rendering: ခေါ်တော်မူခြင်း
Transliteration: khaw-taw-mu-chin
Doctrine: Divine Calling
Rejected alternatives: ကံဇာတာ
Original: κλῆσις
Category: Salvation
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS TM, EXACT] Never fixed karmic destiny. Hebrews context: 3:1, believers described as ‘partakers of a heavenly calling’ — a sovereign summons originating from heaven, not human-initiated seeking.
Covenant
Approved rendering: ပဋိညာဉ်
Transliteration: padi-nyin
Doctrine: Davidic Covenant
Rejected alternatives: သဘောတူညီချက်
Original: διαθήκη
Category: Covenant
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS TM, EXACT] A relational, God-initiated bond, more than a negotiated contract. Hebrews context: Hebrews 9:16-17 exploits a Greek wordplay (diathēkē = both ‘covenant’ and ‘will/testament’) that ပဋိညာဉ် cannot reproduce lexically; mandatory translator’s note required at every occurrence of that passage. Central structural category of the New-Covenant-versus-Old doctrine.
Dead Works
Approved rendering: အသက်ကင်းသော အကျင့်များ
Transliteration: a-thet-kin-thaw akyint myar
Doctrine: Dead Works and Law-Works
Original: νεκρὰ ἔργα
Category: Atonement
NEW for Hebrews. Religious/ritual acts, however sincerely performed, incapable of producing life or genuine standing with God apart from Christ (6:1; 9:14). In a merit-generating culture, risks being misheard as a critique only of insincere religion; must be taught as Hebrews’ actual claim — ALL law-works and ritual-works, sincerely performed, are powerless apart from Christ’s blood.
Devil Satan
Approved rendering: မာရ်နတ်
Transliteration: Mayanat
Doctrine: Christ’s Victory over Death
Original: διάβολος
Category: Christology
NEW for Hebrews. The personal, fallen spiritual adversary who holds ‘the power of death,’ decisively defeated by Christ’s own death (2:14). Retains the established Myanmar Christian rendering (borrowing Mara, the tempter-deity who assailed the Buddha, plus နတ်); must be explicitly clarified in teaching as a real, personal, created being decisively defeated by Christ, not a mythological personification of craving within an individual’s own mind.
Draw Near
Approved rendering: ချဉ်းကပ်ခြင်း
Transliteration: chin-kat-chin
Doctrine: Access to God through Christ’s Blood
Original: προσέρχομαι
Category: Access to God
NEW for Hebrews. To approach God directly and confidently through Christ (4:16; 7:25; 10:1,22; 11:6; 12:18,22). Must be paired consistently with boldness/blood vocabulary; conveys unmediated approach, not a ritual approach requiring priestly or spirit-medium intercession.
Eternal
Approved rendering: ထာဝရ
Transliteration: htawara
Doctrine: Perseverance and Assurance
Original: αἰώνιος
Category: Perseverance
NEW for Hebrews. A recurring modifier (redemption, covenant, salvation, judgment, inheritance, Spirit) describing what is permanent and unending. Collides with the Buddhist doctrine of universal impermanence (အနိစ္စ, anicca), under which nothing conditioned endures. Must be taught as literal, personal permanence secured by God, never merely a very long but still ultimately dissolving duration. Flag at every doctrinally load-bearing occurrence.
Fall Away Apostasy
Approved rendering: ယုံကြည်ခြင်းမှ ဖေါက်ပြန်ကျရာက်ခြင်း
Transliteration: yunkyichin-hma phauk-pyan kya-yauk-chin
Doctrine: The Danger of Apostasy and Warning Passages
Original: παραπίπτω / ἀφίστημι
Category: Apostasy
NEW for Hebrews. To lapse or decisively defect from a previously held position of faith (3:12; 6:6; 10:26-31). Anchors the named doctrine ‘Danger of Apostasy’; must preserve the warning’s full force without the Burmese translation itself resolving the debate over whether a true believer can lose salvation. Mandatory theologian review at every occurrence, per the same escalation discipline already fixed for election/predestination language.
Forgiveness Remission
Approved rendering: အပြစ်လွှတ်ခြင်း
Transliteration: a-pyit hlwat-chin
Doctrine: Blood Atonement and Propitiation
Rejected alternatives: အကုသိုလ်လျော့ခြင်း (demerit-reduction sense)
Original: ἄφεσις
Category: Atonement
NEW for Hebrews. The judicial cancelling/releasing of sin’s penalty, available only through blood-shedding (9:22; 10:18). Must be conveyed as a judicial release granted by a personal God on the basis of a substitute’s blood, never as a reduction of one’s negative karmic balance achieved by merit, ritual, or the passage of time.
Founder Pioneer
Approved rendering: အစပြု ဦးဆောင်သူ
Transliteration: a-cha-pyu u-hsaung-thu
Doctrine: Christ as the Great High Priest
Original: ἀρχηγός
Category: Christology
NEW for Hebrews. One who both originates and personally leads the way by going first; Christ is ‘the pioneer of their salvation’ (2:10) and ‘the founder and perfecter of faith’ (12:2). Must be distinguished from a mere teacher or guide. Compounds with the Critical-tier perfection vocabulary at 12:2 (ἀρχηγὸς καὶ τελειωτής); flag that verse for theologian review regardless of this term’s own tier.
Glory
Approved rendering: ဘုန်းတော်
Transliteration: phon-taw
Doctrine: Deity of Christ
Rejected alternatives: ဘုန်းကံ
Original: δόξα
Category: Christology
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS TM, EXACT] God’s own inherent radiant honor, never merit-power earned. Hebrews context: 1:3’s ‘radiance of the glory of God’ must convey the Son’s own uncreated radiance sharing God’s nature, not a lesser being illuminated by reflected merit-glow; 2:9-10 speaks of Christ crowned with glory through suffering.
Gospel
Approved rendering: သတင်းကောင်း
Transliteration: thadin kaung
Doctrine: Gospel
Rejected alternatives: ဓမ္မသတင်း, ကောင်းသောအကြောင်းအရာ
Original: εὐαγγελίζω
Category: Salvation
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS TM, EXACT] The unique proclamation of salvation through Christ, not generic good news. Hebrews context: 4:2,6 uniquely applies gospel-proclamation language backward to the wilderness generation, who heard the promised rest proclaimed but did not respond in faith.
Holy
Approved rendering: သန့်ရှင်းသော
Transliteration: thangyin-thaw
Doctrine: Sanctification
Rejected alternatives: စင်ကြယ်သော
Original: ἅγιος
Category: Sanctification
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS TM, EXACT] Moral/relational set-apartness, not ritual purity alone. Hebrews context: used of the sanctuary (9:2-3,24-25) and of believers’ called-for holiness (12:14, ‘without holiness no one will see the Lord’) — must not read as a monastic ideal for a spiritual elite.
Indestructible Life
Approved rendering: ပျက်စီးမရသောအသက်ရှင်ခြင်း
Transliteration: pyet-si-ma-ya-thaw a-thet-shin-chin
Doctrine: Christ as the Great High Priest
Original: ζωὴ ἀκατάλυτος
Category: Priesthood
NEW for Hebrews. The unending life by which Christ holds his priesthood permanently, unlike mortal Levitical priests (7:16,24). Same impermanence-collision category as ‘eternal’; must be taught as a real, personal, unending life, not a very long-lasting phenomenon still theoretically subject to eventual dissolution.
Judgment
Approved rendering: တရားစီရင်ခြင်း
Transliteration: tayar si-yin-chin
Doctrine: Judgment and Final Accountability
Rejected alternatives: ကံ, ကံဇာတာ
Original: κρίσις
Category: Eschatology
NEW for Hebrews. The single, personal, final verdict appointed for every person after death (9:27), and the fearful prospect awaiting willful apostates (10:27,30) and the disobedient (12:23,29). Must be taught as one personal verdict from a personal God after death, never a karmic-accounting process determining the next of countless rebirths.
Law
Approved rendering: ပညတ်တရား
Transliteration: pyinnat tayar
Doctrine: Fulfillment of Prophecy
Rejected alternatives: ဝိနည်း
Original: νόμος
Category: Covenant
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS TM, EXACT] The Mosaic Law, never the Buddhist monastic Vinaya code. Hebrews context: shown throughout to provide only a ‘shadow’ (10:1) of the good things realized in Christ’s priesthood (7:12,19; 8:4); critique targets limitedness in achieving final cleansing, not illegitimacy at its giving.
Lord
Approved rendering: သခင်
Transliteration: thakhin
Doctrine: Lordship of Christ
Rejected alternatives: ဘုရင်, ဆရာသခင်
Original: κύριος
Category: Christology
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS TM, EXACT] Exclusive supreme authority, not a merely respected teacher or earthly king. Hebrews context: OT YHWH-texts are applied directly to Christ (1:10 quoting Ps. 102; 2:3; 7:14; 13:20), so this rendering must be read as full deity.
Mediator
Approved rendering: ကြားဝင်စေ့စပ်သူ
Transliteration: kyar-win say-zat thu
Doctrine: Mediator of the New Covenant
Rejected alternatives: နတ်ကတော်
Original: μεσίτης
Category: Covenant
NEW for Hebrews. One who stands between two parties to establish and guarantee a covenant relationship; Christ alone is mediator of the New Covenant (8:6; 9:15; 12:24). Must be sharply distinguished from Burmese folk religion’s spirit-mediums (နတ်ကတော်), who mediate through trance/possession; Christ’s mediatorship is unique, once-for-all, blood-based, not a repeatable spirit-channeling service.
Mercy Seat
Approved rendering: ကရုဏာထိုင်ခုံ / အပြစ်ဖြေရာဌာန
Transliteration: karuna htain-khun / a-pyit-hpye-ya htana
Doctrine: Blood Atonement and Propitiation
Original: ἱλαστήριον
Category: Atonement
NEW for Hebrews. The gold cover of the ark where the high priest sprinkled blood on the Day of Atonement, the OT physical locus of propitiation (9:5). Must not be flattened into generic temple furniture; taught as the specific place where God’s wrath against sin and his mercy toward sinners met through blood, fulfilled once for all in Christ.
New Covenant
Approved rendering: ပဋိညာဉ်သစ်
Transliteration: padi-nyin thit
Doctrine: The New Covenant versus the Old
Original: διαθήκη καινή
Category: Covenant
NEW for Hebrews (base term ပဋိညာဉ် is REUSED; qualifier သစ် added). The covenant secured by Christ’s blood, foretold in Jeremiah 31 and quoted in full in Ch.8 (8:8-13; 9:15; 12:24). Must be taught as God’s own better, permanently effective covenant fulfilling his prior promise, not a renegotiated contract or an unrelated replacement religion.
Old First Covenant
Approved rendering: ပဋိညာဉ်ဟောင်း
Transliteration: padi-nyin haung
Doctrine: The New Covenant versus the Old
Original: πρώτη διαθήκη
Category: Covenant
NEW for Hebrews. The Mosaic covenant, genuine but provisional, made obsolete by the New Covenant’s arrival (8:7,13; 9:1,15,18). Must not imply the old covenant was false or worthless; 8:13’s ‘becoming obsolete’ describes fulfillment and supersession, not divine error — an overly blunt rendering risks implying the entire Old Testament was a mistake.
Once For All
Approved rendering: တစ်ကြိမ်တည်း
Transliteration: ta-kyein-tè
Doctrine: The Once-for-All Atoning Sacrifice
Rejected alternatives: ကြိမ်ဖန်များစွာ (many times — must remain crisply distinct, never a substitute)
Original: ἐφάπαξ / ἅπαξ
Category: Atonement
NEW for Hebrews. A single, non-repeatable, permanently sufficient act (7:27; 9:12,26-28; 10:2,10). Must never be softened toward ‘regularly’ or ‘the first time.’ Stands in direct tension with a cyclical worldview of repeated merit-making and repeated rebirth; must be kept crisply distinct from ကြိမ်ဖန်များစွာ used of the repeated Levitical rites.
Priest Priesthood
Approved rendering: ယဇ်ပုရောဟိတ် / ယဇ်ပုရောဟိတ်ရာထူး
Transliteration: yaz-poyawheiktu / yaz-poyawheiktu yartu
Doctrine: Superiority of Christ over the Levitical Priesthood
Rejected alternatives: ရဟန်း
Original: ἱερεύς / ἱερωσύνη
Category: Priesthood
NEW for Hebrews. The general priestly office, Levitical (7:11-14; 8:4) and Melchizedekian/Christic (5:6; 7:11-17). Distinguish clearly from ရဟန်း (Buddhist monk), whose role is self-cultivation and teaching, not blood-based mediation on others’ behalf. The Levitical office must be presented as genuinely God-ordained yet structurally limited (mortal, repeatable, hereditary), never illegitimate.
Redemption
Approved rendering: ရွေးနှင်းခြင်း
Transliteration: ywayhnin-chin
Doctrine: The Once-for-All Atoning Sacrifice
Rejected alternatives: ကုသိုလ်စုဆောင်းခြင်း
Original: λύτρωσις / ἀπολύτρωσις
Category: Salvation
NEW for Hebrews. Deliverance secured by a ransom-payment; Christ obtains ‘eternal redemption’ through his own blood (9:12,15). Must be taught as payment made once by another on the believer’s behalf, never a state gradually purchased through accumulating merit — the same forbidden direction already rejected for imputed_righteousness in the Romans baseline.
Rest
Approved rendering: ငြိမ်ဝပ်ခြင်း
Transliteration: nyein-wat-chin
Doctrine: Divine Rest
Rejected alternatives: နိဗ္ဗာန်, နိဗ္ဗာန်ရောက်ခြင်း
Original: κατάπαυσις / σαββατισμός
Category: Perseverance
NEW for Hebrews. God’s promised rest, typified by Sabbath and Promised Land, still available and forfeitable through unbelief (3:11,18; 4:1-11). Sits dangerously close to နိဗ္ဗာန် (nirvana), the Buddhist goal of final release from craving/rebirth, likewise described as ultimate rest/peace. Must be taught as continued relational fellowship with a personal God (echoing 4:4), a positive personal communion, never a negative cessation of craving, consciousness, or existence. Same forbidden-substitution discipline as ‘salvation’ applies.
Sanctification
Approved rendering: သန့်ရှင်းခြင်း
Transliteration: thangyin-chin
Doctrine: Sanctification
Rejected alternatives: ရေချိုးသန့်စင်ခြင်း
Original: ἁγιασμός / ἁγιάζω
Category: Sanctification
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS TM, EXACT] The Spirit’s ongoing work of making believers holy, distinct from ritual bathing/purification. Hebrews context: 10:14 pairs this term directly with the Critical-tier perfection vocabulary (‘by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified’); recurs 2:11; 13:12.
Shedding Of Blood
Approved rendering: သွေးကျခြင်း / သွေးသွန်ခြင်း
Transliteration: thway-kya-chin / thway-thun-chin
Doctrine: Blood Atonement and Propitiation
Original: αἱματεκχυσία
Category: Atonement
NEW for Hebrews. The rare compound term for blood poured out in sacrifice; ‘without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness’ (9:22). One of Hebrews’ most doctrinally load-bearing single clauses; must be rendered with unmistakable directness, never softened into a general statement about sacrifice or ritual observance.
Sin
Approved rendering: အပြစ်
Transliteration: a-pyit
Doctrine: Universal Human Accountability
Rejected alternatives: အကုသိုလ်
Original: ἁμαρτία
Category: Sin
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS TM, EXACT] Moral transgression against a personal God, not karmic demerit. Hebrews context: 9:26,28 and 10:2-4,17-18 contrast sins animal blood could never remove with sins Christ definitively put away; 10:26 introduces willful sin.
Willful Sin
Approved rendering: တမင်တကာအပြစ်ကျူးလွန်ခြင်း
Transliteration: ta-min-taka a-pyit kyu-lun-chin
Doctrine: The Danger of Apostasy and Warning Passages
Original: ἑκουσίως ἁμαρτάνω
Category: Apostasy
NEW for Hebrews. Deliberate, knowing sin committed after receiving knowledge of the truth, described in Hebrews’ sharpest warning (10:26-31). Anchors the most severe warning passage in the book; must retain full seriousness without the translation itself pronouncing a verdict on whether the person in view is a true or false believer.
Word Of God
Approved rendering: ဘုရားသခင်၏ နှုတ်ကပတ်တော်
Transliteration: Phayarthakhin-i hnat-kapat-taw
Doctrine: Word of God and Inspiration of Scripture
Rejected alternatives: Tipitaka-style enlightened-insight framing
Original: λόγος τοῦ θεοῦ
Category: Scripture
NEW for Hebrews. God’s living, active, personal speech, described as piercing to divide soul and spirit and discern the heart’s thoughts (4:12; cf. 1:1-2; 3:7). Must be presented as the personal, living speech of a personal God who has spoken finally through his Son, distinct from the Tipitaka’s authority resting on the Buddha’s own enlightened insight.
Medium Risk Terms
Adoption
Approved rendering: သားအဖြစ်လက်ခံခြင်း
Transliteration: thar-a-phyit let-khan-chin
Doctrine: Adoption into God’s Family
Rejected alternatives: ဝမ်းစုတင်ခြင်း
Original: υἱοθεσία (concept; Heb uses υἱός/τέκνον language directly)
Category: Salvation
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS TM, EXACT] Full, complete son-status, never partial or probationary. Hebrews context: 12:5-9’s discipline passage depends on this sonship already being secure and complete; 9:15 ties adoption’s full-inheritance-rights emphasis to the ‘eternal inheritance’ secured by the New Covenant.
Apostle
Approved rendering: တမန်တော်
Transliteration: tamantaw
Doctrine: Apostleship
Rejected alternatives: ဆရာတော်, ဆရာကြီး
Original: ἀπόστολος
Category: Church
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS TM, EXACT] Sent one with delegated authority, never a senior-monk teaching role. Hebrews context: 3:1 uniquely applies this title to Jesus himself — ‘the apostle and high priest of our confession’ — requiring a translator’s note that he is both the one sent by the Father and the one confessed by believers.
Better Comparative
Approved rendering: သာလွန်ကောင်းမြတ်သော
Transliteration: thalun kaung-myat-thaw
Doctrine: Superiority Doctrines (general)
Original: κρείττων
Category: Superiority
NEW for Hebrews. The key comparative word running through Hebrews’ entire superiority argument (better covenant, promises, sacrifices, country, resurrection): 1:4; 6:9; 7:7,19,22; 8:6; 9:23; 10:34; 11:16,35,40; 12:24. Mainly rhetorical/structural; ensure consistent rendering across every ‘better ___’ occurrence so the cumulative force of the superiority argument is not lost through varied vocabulary choices.
Church
Approved rendering: အသင်းတော်
Transliteration: athin-taw
Doctrine: Church as God’s People
Rejected alternatives: ဘုရားကျောင်း, ဘုရားရိပ်သာ
Original: ἐκκλησία
Category: Church
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS TM, EXACT] The gathered people of God, never a pagoda/monastic compound. Hebrews context: 12:23’s ‘assembly of the firstborn’ enrolled in heaven is the new-covenant community with heavenly citizenship, not a monastery-centered institution; 10:25 warns against neglecting the local gathering.
Confession
Approved rendering: ဝန်ခံချက်
Transliteration: wan-khan-chet
Doctrine: Christ as the Great High Priest
Original: ὁμολογία
Category: Faith
NEW for Hebrews. A formal, public profession of faith; Jesus is named ‘the apostle and high priest of our confession’ (3:1; 4:14; 10:23). Render consistently across all three occurrences; connects to the apostle term since Jesus is uniquely called both apostle and high priest of that confession.
Conscience
Approved rendering: သိစိတ် / အသိတရား
Transliteration: thi-seik / a-thi-tayar
Doctrine: Conscience and Cleansing
Rejected alternatives: ဝိညာဏ် (impersonal consciousness-stream sense)
Original: συνείδησις
Category: Atonement
NEW for Hebrews. The inner faculty of moral self-awareness and guilt, unreachable by animal sacrifice but cleansed by Christ’s blood (9:9,14; 10:2,22; 13:18). Distinguish from ဝိညာဏ်, the Buddhist psychological term for a moment-by-moment impersonal consciousness-stream; Hebrews’ conscience is specifically moral and accountable to a personal God.
David
Approved rendering: ဒါဝိဒ်
Transliteration: Dawid
Doctrine: Davidic Covenant
Original: Δαυίδ
Category: Covenant
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS TM, EXACT] Established Myanmar Bible proper-name form. Hebrews context: 4:7 quotes Psalm 95 (‘through David’); background to the Melchizedek priest-king typology in Ch.7.
Discipline
Approved rendering: ဆုံးမခြင်း
Transliteration: hson-hma-chin
Doctrine: Discipline and Sonship
Original: παιδεία
Category: Sanctification
NEW for Hebrews. The Father’s formative, corrective training of his sons, aimed at maturity and holiness (12:5-11). Fits naturally with existing Burmese family/parental-correction vocabulary, but must be taught as evidence of genuine fatherly love and already-secured sonship, not provisional or probationary standing that could be lost through failure.
Endurance Perseverance
Approved rendering: ကြံ့ခိုင်စွာနေထိုင်ခြင်း
Transliteration: kyan-khaing-swa nay-htaing-chin
Doctrine: Perseverance and Assurance
Original: ὑπομονή
Category: Perseverance
NEW for Hebrews. Active, faith-fueled steadfastness under trial, needed to receive what is promised (10:36; 12:1). Must convey active endurance sustained by faith in God’s promise, not passive resignation or fatalistic acceptance.
Faith
Approved rendering: ယုံကြည်ခြင်း
Transliteration: yun-kyi-chin
Doctrine: Faith
Rejected alternatives: သဒ္ဓါတရား
Original: πίστις
Category: Faith
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS TM, EXACT] Object of faith must be Christ/God, not left generic; distinguished from သဒ္ဓါ’s experientially-verified confidence. Hebrews context: 11:1 supplies the letter’s own definitional statement, repeatedly quoted throughout Chapter 11’s catalogue of OT saints.
Holy Places
Approved rendering: သန့်ရှင်းရာဌာန / အလွန်သန့်ရှင်းရာဌာန
Transliteration: thangyin-ya htana / a-lun thangyin-ya htana
Doctrine: Access to God through Christ’s Blood
Original: ἅγια / ἅγια ἁγίων
Category: Priesthood
NEW for Hebrews (base adjective ဆွန့်ရှင်းသော is REUSED). The sanctuary and Most Holy Place, entered by the high priest alone once yearly, now entered by believers through Christ’s blood (9:2-3,8,12,24-25; 10:19; 13:11). Risks blending with pagoda/shrine sanctity categories and must be taught as the place of God’s own presence, entered only by Christ’s blood.
Inheritance Heir
Approved rendering: အမွေ / အမွေခံ
Transliteration: amway / amway-khan
Doctrine: New Covenant Inheritance / Sonship
Original: κληρονομία / κληρονόμος
Category: Salvation
NEW for Hebrews. The property/status passed to an heir; Christ is ‘heir of all things’ (1:2), and believers receive an ‘eternal inheritance’ (9:15) as fellow heirs (6:12,17; 11:7-8). Aligns with the REUSED adoption doctrine’s full-inheritance-rights emphasis; ‘eternal’ must be stressed against any sense of a temporary or merit-conditioned inheritance.
Intercession
Approved rendering: အသနားခံခြင်း
Transliteration: a-thanar-khan-chin
Doctrine: Prayer and Intercession
Rejected alternatives: နတ်ကိုးကွယ်ခြင်း
Original: ἐντυγχάνω
Category: Priesthood
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS TM, EXACT] Prayer addressed to God directly, never petitioning the 37 nats. Hebrews context: 7:25, Christ ‘always lives to make intercession’ for his people — continuous, grounded in his permanent priesthood, not a repeatable ritual service.
Israel
Approved rendering: ဣသရေလ
Transliteration: Israen
Doctrine: Unity of Jews and Gentiles
Original: Ἰσραήλ
Category: Covenant
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS TM, EXACT] Proper name, established Myanmar Bible form. Hebrews context: 8:8,10, the covenant recipient named in the Jeremiah 31 quotation central to the New Covenant doctrine.
Kingdom Of God
Approved rendering: ဘုရားသခင်၏နိုင်ငံတော်
Transliteration: Phayarthakhin i nainggan-taw
Doctrine: Kingdom Mission
Rejected alternatives: ဘုန်းတော်နိုင်ငံ
Original: βασιλεία (ἀσάλευτος)
Category: Kingdom
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS TM, EXACT] God’s sovereign reign, distinct from an earthly nainggan. Hebrews context: 12:28’s ‘kingdom that cannot be shaken,’ contrasted with the cosmic shaking imagery of 12:26-27 — the one reality that endures when every created and earthly order is removed.
Melchizedek
Approved rendering: မေလခိဇေဒက်
Transliteration: Melkhizedet
Doctrine: Melchizedekian Priesthood
Original: Μελχισέδεκ
Category: Priesthood
NEW for Hebrews. The mysterious priest-king of Salem (Gen. 14; Ps. 110) whose non-hereditary, non-Levitical priesthood prefigures Christ’s unique, permanent priesthood (5:6-10; 6:20; 7:1-17). Requires sustained OT narrative background teaching, paralleling the baseline’s treatment of ‘seed of David’; low direct lexical-collision risk but high unfamiliarity risk without context.
Moses
Approved rendering: မောရှေ
Transliteration: Mawshay
Doctrine: Superiority of Christ over Moses
Original: Μωϋσῆς
Category: Covenant
NEW for Hebrews. The faithful, genuinely commissioned OT servant/mediator of the first covenant, over whose household Christ is shown to be builder and Son (3:1-6; 8:5; 9:19; 11:23-28; 12:21). Established Myanmar Bible form; requires care to honor Moses as a genuinely faithful servant, not a discredited or lesser figure.
Mount Zion Heavenly Jerusalem
Approved rendering: ဇိအုန်တောင် / ကောင်းကင်ယေရုရှလင်မြို့
Transliteration: Zi-on-taung / kaungkin Yayrushalin myo
Doctrine: Access to God through Christ’s Blood
Original: Σιὼν ὄρος / Ἱερουσαλὴμ ἐπουράνιος
Category: Eschatology
NEW for Hebrews. The heavenly assembly-place believers have already come to, contrasted with the terrifying Mount Sinai of the old covenant (12:18-24). Requires sustained OT background teaching, paralleling the Davidic covenant treatment, since no comparable typological city-symbolism exists in Burmese religious tradition.
Peace
Approved rendering: ငြိမ်သက်ခြင်း
Transliteration: nyein-thet-chin
Doctrine: Peace with God
Rejected alternatives: ကိလေသာငြိမ်းခြင်း
Original: εἰρήνη (cf. Σαλήμ, ‘Salem’ = peace, Heb 7:2)
Category: Priesthood
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS TM, EXACT] Relational peace with God, not the meditative stilling of mental defilements. Hebrews context: 7:2 embeds this typologically in Melchizedek’s title ‘king of Salem/peace’; 12:11 names it as the fruit of the Father’s discipline.
Promise
Approved rendering: ကတိတော်
Transliteration: kadi-taw
Doctrine: The New Covenant versus the Old
Rejected alternatives: ကံအလိုအလျောက်မျှော်လင့်ချက် (karmic-momentum expectation sense)
Original: ἐπαγγελία
Category: Covenant
NEW for Hebrews. God’s formal, binding pledge, given to Abraham and confirmed by oath, inherited by New Covenant believers (6:12-17; 9:15; 11:9,13,33,39). Must be conveyed as a personal pledge from a faithful, promise-keeping God, not an impersonal expectation arising from accumulated karmic momentum.
Repentance
Approved rendering: နောင်တရခြင်း
Transliteration: naung-ta-ya-chin
Doctrine: Repentance
Rejected alternatives: ကံလျော့ချရန် နောင်တရခြင်း (karma-reducing regret sense)
Original: μετάνοια
Category: Apostasy
NEW for Hebrews. A decisive change of mind/heart turning toward God, described as impossible to renew in those who fell away (6:1,6) and rejected outright by Esau (12:17). Distinguished from generic regret or Buddhist frameworks aimed at reducing negative karmic consequence.
Reward
Approved rendering: အကျိုးဆုလာဘ်
Transliteration: akyo-su-labha
Doctrine: Perseverance and Assurance
Rejected alternatives: ကုသိုလ်အကျိုးအမြတ် (merit-transaction sense)
Original: μισθαποδοσία
Category: Perseverance
NEW for Hebrews. The gracious recompense promised to those who persevere in faith and confident boldness (10:35; 11:6,26). Must be taught as a gracious reward flowing from God’s own promise, not a merit-payment earned in a transactional sense that would undercut grace.
Sacrifice Of Praise
Approved rendering: ချီးမွမ်းခြင်းယဇ်
Transliteration: chi-mun-chin yaz
Doctrine: Worship Response and Thanksgiving
Original: θυσία αἰνέσεως
Category: Atonement
NEW for Hebrews. The continual verbal offering of praise and thanksgiving believers now render to God (13:15-16). A positive, non-atoning repurposing of sacrificial vocabulary that must be clearly distinguished from Christ’s unique atoning ယဇ်, so believers do not conclude they must offer atoning sacrifices of their own.
Shadow Copy Pattern
Approved rendering: အရိပ် / ပုံစံ / ပုံရိပ်ဆင်တူ
Transliteration: a-yeik / poun-zan / poun-yeik-sin-tu
Doctrine: Typology: Shadow, Copy, and Heavenly Reality
Original: σκιά / ὑπόδειγμα / ἀντίτυπος
Category: Covenant
NEW for Hebrews. The earthly sanctuary, its furnishings, and the Law described as a shadow/copy of heavenly, true realities (8:5; 9:23-24; 10:1). No native typology category exists in Burmese religious thought whereby an earthly copy points to and is fulfilled by a heavenly reality; requires explanatory teaching notes rather than a risky substitute term.
Transgression
Approved rendering: လွန်ကျူးမှု
Transliteration: lun-kyu-hmu
Doctrine: The Once-for-All Atoning Sacrifice
Original: παράβασις
Category: Sin
NEW for Hebrews. A specific violation of a known legal boundary under the first covenant, redeemed by Christ’s death (9:15; 2:2). Must be distinguished from the broader term ‘sin’ (အပြစ်, REUSED) as a specific breach of the Mosaic law’s known boundaries rather than moral failure in general.
Veil Curtain
Approved rendering: ကန့်လန့်ကာ
Transliteration: kan-lan-ka
Doctrine: Access to God through Christ’s Blood
Original: καταπέτασμα
Category: Access to God
NEW for Hebrews. The temple curtain separating the Most Holy Place, torn at Christ’s death and now understood typologically as Christ’s own flesh opening a ‘new and living way’ (10:20; 9:3). Requires the OT temple-veil background to land with force.
Low Risk Terms
Cloud Of Witnesses
Approved rendering: သက်သေအုံ့ထူထပ်စု
Transliteration: thet-thay ohn-htu-htat-su
Doctrine: Faith of the Old Testament Saints
Original: νέφος μαρτύρων
Category: Faith
NEW for Hebrews. The great company of OT faith-heroes described in Chapter 11, whose example spurs the readers to persevere (12:1). Natural metaphor with minimal doctrinal risk.
Exhort
Approved rendering: တိုက်တွန်းနှိုးဆော်ခြင်း
Transliteration: taik-tun hnoso-chin
Doctrine: Mutual Edification
Original: παρακαλέω
Category: Church
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS TM, EXACT] Context-sensitive encouragement/entreaty. Hebrews context: 3:13; 10:25, mutual encouragement tied directly to the perseverance doctrine (‘encourage one another daily… let us not neglect meeting together’).
Fellowship
Approved rendering: မိတ်သဟာယ
Transliteration: meikthahaya
Doctrine: Christian Fellowship
Rejected alternatives: သူငယ်ချင်းဖွဲ့ခြင်း
Original: κοινωνία
Category: Church
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS TM, EXACT] Shared participation in Christ, deeper than ordinary friendship. Hebrews context: 13:16 extends this to sharing possessions and doing good, ‘sacrifices’ pleasing to God.
Great Shepherd
Approved rendering: သိုးများ၏ ကြီးမြတ်သောသိုးထိန်း
Transliteration: thomyar-i kyi-myat-thaw thothein
Doctrine: Church as God’s Assembly
Original: ποιμὴν τῶν προβάτων ὁ μέγας
Category: Church
NEW for Hebrews. A pastoral title for Christ, ‘brought back from the dead’ as the great shepherd of the sheep (13:20). A well-established, culturally accessible pastoral image already used throughout Myanmar Christian tradition (cf. Ps. 23; John 10).
Oath
Approved rendering: ကျိန်ဆိုချက်
Transliteration: kyein-so-chet
Doctrine: Faith of the Old Testament Saints
Original: ὅρκος
Category: Covenant
NEW for Hebrews. A solemn guarantee; God swears by himself to guarantee his promise to Abraham (6:13-17) and the eternal priesthood (7:20-21). The cultural practice of oath-swearing exists in Burmese custom, so the concept transfers with minimal risk; theological weight lies in God swearing by himself as the ultimate guarantee.
Prophet
Approved rendering: ပရောဖက်
Transliteration: parawpeq
Doctrine: Inspiration of Scripture
Rejected alternatives: ဗေဒင်ဆရာ
Original: προφήτης
Category: Scripture
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS TM, EXACT] God’s spokesperson, not an astrologer/fortune-teller. Hebrews context: 1:1-2 sets up the whole book’s opening argument as partial revelation through prophets contrasted with God’s final, complete revelation through the Son.
Tabernacle Tent
Approved rendering: တဲတော်
Transliteration: tè-taw
Doctrine: Superiority of Christ over the Levitical Priesthood
Original: σκηνή
Category: Priesthood
NEW for Hebrews. The OT portable sanctuary and its furnishings, the earthly pattern of the heavenly reality Christ entered (8:2,5; 9:1-8,21; 13:10). Background/informational OT term; carries low direct lexical-collision risk but sets up the atonement vocabulary that follows.
Referenced passages