Core Glossary
08 Core Glossary — James 1–5
Purpose
This glossary consolidates every load-bearing theological term identified in 07_semantic_analysis.md across the entire book of James (Chapters 1–5), citing chapter of occurrence, risk tier, and status relative to the baseline Romans Language Package. Terms marked [REUSED] are already fixed in the baseline translation_memory.json/bible_term_registry.json and MUST be used exactly as recorded there — no deviation is permitted for this curriculum. Terms marked [NEW] are proposed additions for theologian/native-speaker review before being written into an updated translation memory in Phase 1 Step 8 / Phase 2 preflight.
Risk tiers follow the baseline doctrine_risk_registry.json definitions:
- Critical — mistranslation destroys essential doctrine; mandatory human theologian review every occurrence.
- High — significant syncretism/confusion risk; mandatory human theologian review.
- Medium — reduces clarity but preserves core meaning; native speaker review recommended.
- Low — minor imprecision risk; automated review sufficient.
A. Terms Reused Exactly from the Romans Baseline (Translation Memory)
| English Term | Greek | Burmese Rendering | Transliteration | Risk | Doctrine Link | Occurrences in James | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| faith | πίστις | ယုံကြည်ခြင်း | yun-kyi-chin | Medium | Faith and Works | 1:3,6; 2:1,5,14–26 (13x); 5:15 | Object must remain Christ/God; James interrogates the genuineness, not the object, of faith. |
| grace | χάρις | ကျေးဇူးတော် | kyayzu-taw | Critical | Faith and Works; Wisdom from Above | 4:6 | Never ကုသိုလ်/ကံကောင်းခြင်း. |
| righteousness | δικαιοσύνη | ဖြောင့်မတ်ခြင်း | pyaungmat-chin | Critical | Faith and Works | 1:20; 2:23; 3:18; 5:6 (δίκαιος) | Never ကုသိုလ်ကံ/သီလ. |
| justification | δικαιόω | ဖြောင့်မတ်ရာသို့ ရောက်ခြင်း | pyaungmat-ya-tho-yauk-chin | Critical | Faith and Works | 2:21, 24, 25 | REQUIRES mandatory harmonization note distinguishing James’s evidential/demonstrative sense from Romans’ forensic sense at every occurrence. |
| imputed righteousness | ἐλογίσθη…εἰς δικαιοσύνην | ဖြောင့်မတ်ခြင်းအဖြစ် မှတ်တော်မူခြင်း | pyaungmat-chin a-phyit hmat-taw-mu-chin | Critical | Faith and Works | 2:23 | Exact clause-match to baseline entry; verbatim reuse required. |
| salvation | σῴζω (soteriological sense) | ကယ်တင်ခြင်း | kaetin-chin | Critical | Faith and Works | 2:14 | Never နိဗ္ဗာန်ရောက်ခြင်း. NOT to be reused for the physical-healing sense of σῴζω in 5:15 (see Part B). |
| law | νόμος | ပညတ်တရား | pyinnat tayar | High | Faith and Works; Taming the Tongue | 1:25; 2:8–12; 4:11 | Base for two James-specific compounds (νόμος ἐλευθερίας, νόμος βασιλικός) — see Part B. |
| sin | ἁμαρτία | အပြစ် | a-pyit | High | Confession and Restoration | 1:15; 2:9; 4:17; 5:15,16,20 | Never အကုသိုလ်. |
| lord | κύριος | သခင် | thakhin | Critical | Patience and the Lord’s Return | 1:1; 4:10,15; 5:4,7,8,10,11,14,15 | Exclusive supreme authority; ties to parousia (Critical, new). |
| father | πατήρ | အဖ | a-pha | Critical | Wisdom from Above | 1:17,27; 3:9 | ”Father of lights” (1:17) qualified form; never ဗြဟ္မာ. |
| church | ἐκκλησία | အသင်းတော် | athin-taw | Medium | Prayer and Healing | 5:14 | Never ဘုရားကျောင်း/ဘုရားရိပ်သာ. |
| glory | δόξα | ဘုန်းတော် | phon-taw | High | Faith and Works | 2:1 | Never ဘုန်းကံ. |
| prophet | προφήτης | ပရောဖက် | parawpeq | Low | Patience and the Lord’s Return | 5:10 | Elijah as prophetic exemplar. |
| kingdom of God | βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ | ဘုရားသခင်၏နိုင်ငံတော် | Phayarthakhin i nainggan-taw | Medium | Favoritism and the Poor | 2:5 | ”Heirs of the kingdom he promised.” |
| peace | εἰρήνη | ငြိမ်သက်ခြင်း | nyein-thet-chin | Medium | — | 2:16; 3:18 | 2:16 is an ironic/empty usage requiring a translator note; 3:18 is the positive “fruit of righteousness…in peace” sense. |
| providence (conceptual reuse) | τὸ θέλημα τοῦ κυρίου | ဘုရားသခင်၏ကြည့်ရှုစောင့်ရှောက်မှု (conceptual apparatus) | Phayarthakhin i kyi-shu-saung-shauk-hmu | High | Patience and the Lord’s Return | 4:15 | Never ကံ. |
| holy spirit (ambiguity cross-check only) | πνεῦμα | သန့်ရှင်းသောဝိညာဉ်တော် (only if referent confirmed) | thangyinthaw weinnyin-taw | Critical | — | 4:5 (disputed) | See Part B for the two disputed-referent candidates; DO NOT default to this rendering without theologian resolution. |
| apostle (absence noted) | — (James uses δοῦλος, not ἀπόστολος, of himself) | တမန်တော် (not applicable here) | — | — | — | 1:1 | Explicitly noted: James does not claim the apostolic title used in Romans 1:1; see servant in Part B. |
B. New Terms Proposed for the James Curriculum
| English Term | Greek | Transliteration | Literal Meaning | Proposed Burmese Rendering | Burmese Transliteration | Risk | Doctrine | Primary Passages | Rationale / Rejected Alternatives |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| works | ἔργα | erga | deeds, actions | အကျင့် | a-kyin | Critical | Faith and Works | 2:14–26 (12x) | REJECTED: ကုသိုလ် (merit accumulation). Must always be taught as the necessary evidence of a faith already given by grace, never the meritorious cause of justification. Highest-priority term in the curriculum. |
| justified (James’s demonstrative sense) | δικαιόω | dikaioō | shown/declared righteous | ဖြောင့်မတ်ရာသို့ ရောက်ခြင်း (reused) + mandatory harmonization note | pyaungmat-ya-tho-yauk-chin | Critical | Faith and Works | 2:21,24,25 | Requires theologian-authored note distinguishing evidential vindication before people from Romans’ forensic declaration before God. |
| perfect / complete / mature | τέλειος, τελειότης, ἐτελειώθη, ὁλόκληρος | teleios / teleiotēs / eteleiōthē | brought to intended completion/goal | ပြည့်စုံခြင်း / စုံလင်ခြင်း | pyi-sohn-chin | Critical | Faith and Works; Trials | 1:4,17,25; 2:22; 3:2 | REJECTED: ပါရမီ (parami, the Bodhisatta’s ten self-cultivated perfections across countless rebirths). Grace-enabled, single-life maturity, not multi-life self-cultivation. |
| wisdom | σοφία | sophia | practical, God-given skill for righteous living | ပညာ (heavily qualified: ဘုရားထံမှလာသောပညာ) | pyinnya | Critical | Wisdom from Above | 1:5; 3:13–17 | ပညာ = paññā, the third and highest Buddhist training (liberating insight self-attained through meditation). Must always be taught as a relational GIFT requested from a personal God, not self-attained insight. |
| earthly / unspiritual / demonic wisdom | ἐπίγειος, ψυχική, δαιμονιώδης σοφία | epigeios / psychikē / daimoniōdēs sophia | earthly, soul-level/natural, demon-originated | လောကီပညာ / ဇာတိပကတိပညာ / နတ်ဆိုးတို့၏ပညာ | — | Critical | Wisdom from Above | 3:15 | New negative category for Burmese hearers accustomed to ပညာ as unqualifiedly positive; requires explicit theological framing. |
| trial / testing | πειρασμός, δοκίμιον | peirasmos / dokimion | testing circumstance (external, positive) vs. enticement to sin (internal, negative) | စုံစမ်းခြင်း (external) / အလိုဆွဲငင်ခြင်း (internal) | soun-san-chin | High | Trials and the Testing of Faith | 1:2–4,12–14 | REJECTED: ကံ (impersonal karma). Trials are personally permitted by a purposive God, distinct senses must be tracked by context. |
| endurance / patience (under trial) | ὑπομονή | hypomonē | steadfast perseverance through hardship | သည်းခံခြင်း | thi-khan-chin | Medium | Trials; Patience and the Lord’s Return | 1:3,4,12; 5:11 | Distinguished from μακροθυμία below. |
| patience (awaiting the Lord) | μακροθυμία | makrothymia | long-suffering, patient waiting | စိတ်ရှည်ခြင်း | seit-shay-chin | Medium | Patience and the Lord’s Return | 5:7,8,10 | Distinguished from ὑπομονή above; two Burmese terms preserve James’s two-word distinction. |
| double-minded | δίψυχος | dipsychos | divided in mind/loyalty | စိတ်နှစ်ခွရှိသော | seit hna-khwa shi thaw | Low-Medium | Trials; Worldliness | 1:8; 4:8 | Straightforward metaphor; low collision. |
| poor | πτωχός | ptōchos | economically poor | ဆင်းရဲသား | hsin-yay-thar | High | Favoritism and the Poor | 1:9; 2:2–6 | Real socioeconomic/ethnic-tension sensitivity; must not soften James’s unqualified favor toward the poor. |
| rich | πλούσιος | plousios | economically wealthy | ချမ်းသာသူ | chan-thar-thu | High | Favoritism and the Poor | 1:10–11; 2:2–6; 5:1–6 | Must not soften James’s unqualified condemnation of exploitative wealth. |
| favoritism / partiality | προσωπολημψία | prosōpolēmpsia | ”face-receiving,” judging by status | မျက်နှာလိုက်ခြင်း | myet-hna-laik-chin | High | Favoritism and the Poor | 2:1,9 | Existing natural Myanmar idiom; must retain full prohibitive force against status-based deference. |
| royal law | νόμος βασιλικός | nomos basilikos | the supreme commandment (love of neighbor) | အမြတ်ဆုံးသောပညတ်တော် | a-myat-sone-thaw pyinnat-taw | Medium | Favoritism and the Poor | 2:8 | Built on baseline ပညတ်တရား. |
| law of liberty | νόμος ἐλευθερίας | nomos eleutherias | the law fulfilled, obeyed freely | လွတ်လပ်ခြင်း၏ ပညတ်တရား | lwutlutchin i pyinnat-tayar | High | Faith and Works | 1:25; 2:12 | REJECTED reading: antinomian license; REJECTED conflation: Buddhist liberation (vimutti) vocabulary. |
| mercy | ἔλεος | eleos | covenantal compassion in action | ကရုဏာ (qualified) | karuna | High | Favoritism and the Poor | 2:13 | COLLISION: one of the Four Brahmavihāra, a self-cultivated meditative virtue in Buddhism; must be taught as God’s covenantal compassion commanded toward others, not a cultivated inner state for personal merit. |
| tongue | γλῶσσα | glōssa | speech organ; metonym for speech | လျှာ | hla | Medium | Taming the Tongue | 3:1–12 | Low collision on the word itself; risk lies in surrounding ethical metaphor translation. |
| hell / Gehenna | γέεννα | geenna | place of final divine judgment | ငရဲ (qualified with mandatory note) | nga-yei | Critical | Taming the Tongue | 3:6 | COLLISION: same word as the Buddhist temporary karmic hell-realms within samsara. Mandatory distinguishing note every occurrence. |
| wheel/course of life | τροχὸς τῆς γενέσεως | trochos tēs geneseōs | ”the wheel of birth/becoming,” idiom for “the whole course of life” | လူ့ဘဝတစ်လျှောက်လုံး (non-literal rendering required) | — | Critical | Taming the Tongue | 3:6 | FORBIDDEN literal rendering: any phrase evoking သံသရာ (samsara) or a “wheel of rebirth.” New forbidden-substitution item for this curriculum. |
| perfect/mature (in speech) | τέλειος | teleios | mature, complete (of a person’s speech-control) | ပြည့်စုံခြင်း (same as Part B “perfect” entry) | pyi-sohn-chin | Critical | Taming the Tongue | 3:2 | Cross-reference to the τέλειος entry above; same forbidden substitution (ပါရမီ) applies. |
| desire / craving | ἐπιθυμία | epithymia | disordered internal desire | တပ်မက်မှု | tat-mat-hmu | Medium | Worldliness versus Friendship with God | 1:14; 4:1–3 | Structural echo with Buddhist တဏှာ (tanha); useful common ground if the grace-enabled remedy is clearly presented. |
| world / friendship with the world | κόσμος, φιλία τοῦ κόσμου | kosmos, philia tou kosmou | God-opposing value-system, not physical creation or cosmological realm | လောကီရေးရာနှင့်မိတ်ဆွေဖြစ်ခြင်း | lawki-yayyar hnin meik-swei phyit-chin | High | Worldliness versus Friendship with God | 1:27; 4:4 | COLLISION: လောက (loka) is the Buddhist cosmological term for the 31 planes of samsaric existence; κόσμος here is ethical-relational, not cosmological. |
| devil | διάβολος | diabolos | the personal adversary | မာရ်နတ် | Mara-nat | High | Worldliness versus Friendship with God | 4:7 | ESTABLISHED-BUT-LOADED: borrows the name of the Buddhist tempter-deity Mara who assailed the Buddha; established Christian usage retained but requires explanatory teaching, as with baseline mission (သာသနာ). |
| religion | θρησκεία | thrēskeia | ritual/religious observance, redefined ethically | ဝတ်ပြုကိုးကွယ်မှု | wut-pyu ko-kwe-hmu | High | Trials and the Testing of Faith (practical religion) | 1:26–27 | REJECTED: ဘာသာ (institutional world-religion category), which would frame this as comparative-religions language rather than James’s ethical redefinition of devotion. |
| Lord of Hosts | κύριος σαβαώθ | kyrios sabaōth | God as commander of heavenly armies | ကောင်းကင်ဗိုလ်ခြေအရှင် ထာဝရဘုရား | — | Medium | Favoritism and the Poor | 5:4 | Must not be assimilated to the 37-nat spirit-legion hierarchy; unique sovereign Creator commanding his own angelic hosts. |
| the Lord’s coming (parousia) | παρουσία τοῦ κυρίου | parousia tou kyriou | Christ’s personal, bodily, visible return | ကြွလာတော်မူခြင်း | kya-la-taw-mu-chin | Critical | Patience and the Lord’s Return | 5:7,8 | DIRECT PARALLEL to baseline Messiah/Metteyya caution: never conflated with future-Buddha (Metteyya) expectation. |
| anointing with oil | ἀλείφω ἐλαίῳ | aleiphō elaiō | ritual act accompanying prayer for the sick | ဆီလူးခြင်း | si-lu-chin | High | Prayer and Healing | 5:14 | COLLISION: folk-Buddhist/animist oil-based healing ritual (nat-kadaw practice, blessed oil/charms); must be taught as simple faith-expression, not channeled magical potency. |
| prayer (general) | προσευχή | proseuchē | prayer, general term | ဆုတောင်းခြင်း | hsu-taung-chin | Medium | Prayer and Healing | 5:13–18 | Distinguished from baseline’s narrower intercession (အသနားခံခြင်း). |
| save/heal (physical) | σῴζω | sōzō | physical healing/restoration | ကျန်းမာစေလိမ့်မည် | kyan-ma-say-lain-mei | High | Prayer and Healing | 5:15 | MUST NOT reuse baseline ကယ်တင်ခြင်း (reserved for soteriological salvation) in this verse. |
| raise up (physical) | ἐγείρω | egeirō | raising from a sickbed | ထတော်မူစေလိမ့်မည် | — | High | Prayer and Healing | 5:15 | MUST NOT reuse baseline ထမြောက်ခြင်း (reserved for bodily resurrection). |
| confess (sins) | ἐξομολογέομαι | exomologeomai | mutual confession among believers | ဝန်ခံခြင်း | wan-khan-chin | High | Confession and Restoration | 5:16 | COLLISION: same term used for monastic Vinaya confession (āpatti-desanā) to a senior monk for merit/status restoration; James’s sense is mutual, relational, healing-oriented. |
| cover a multitude of sins | καλύπτω πλῆθος ἁμαρτιῶν | kalyptō plēthos hamartiōn | God’s forgiveness through loving restoration | အပြစ်အများအပြားကို ဖုံးအုပ်ပေးလိမ့်မည် | — | High | Confession and Restoration | 5:20 | Risk of being heard as merit offsetting demerit; must reinforce grace framework already fixed for grace/imputed_righteousness. |
| turn back / restore | ἐπιστρέφω | epistrephō | bringing back a straying believer | ပြန်လှည့်လာခြင်း | — | Medium | Confession and Restoration | 5:19–20 | Standard restoration/repentance vocabulary; no major collision. |
| truth | ἀλήθεια | alētheia | objective, revealed truth | အမှန်တရား | a-hman-tayar | Low-Medium | Confession and Restoration | 5:19 | Standard vocabulary. |
| servant/bondservant | δοῦλος | doulos | one wholly devoted/owned | ကျွန် | kyun | Medium | (Introductory; contrasts with apostle) | 1:1 | Care for literal-slavery associations; teach as willing, honored belonging, not degrading bondage. |
| friend of God | φίλος θεοῦ | philos theou | covenantal intimacy and access with God | ဘုရားသခင်၏မိတ်ဆွေ | Phayarthakhin i meik-swei | Medium | Faith and Works | 2:23 | Uniquely biblical relational category, positively taught (no forbidden substitution required). |
| dead (of faith) | νεκρά | nekra | lifeless, inert; binary, not gradient | သေနေသော | thei-nei-thaw | High | Faith and Works | 2:17,26 | Preserve binary force (no saving faith at all), not a “weak faith” gradient reading. |
| favoritism cluster: orphans/widows | ὀρφανός / χήρα | orphanos / chēra | socially vulnerable persons | မိဘမဲ့ကလေး / မုဆိုးမ | — | Low-Medium | Favoritism and the Poor | 1:27 | Standard vocabulary; ties practical religion to social ethics. |
| implanted word | λόγος ἔμφυτος | logos emphytos | the gospel word taking root within | စိုက်ပျိုးထားသောနှုတ်ကပတ်တော် | — | High | Trials; Wisdom from Above | 1:21 | Must be taught as God’s gift taking root by grace, not self-generated/memorized teaching mastered by effort. |
| Father of lights | πατὴρ τῶν φώτων | patēr tōn phōtōn | God as unchanging source of all good gifts | အလင်းတို့၏အဖ | — | Medium | Wisdom from Above | 1:17 | Guards against astrological (ဗေဒင်) reading of “lights” as fate-governing celestial bodies. |
| ambiguous spirit (4:5) | πνεῦμα | pneuma | disputed: Holy Spirit or human spirit | [PENDING theologian resolution — do not default] | — | Critical | Worldliness versus Friendship with God | 4:5 | Two candidate renderings recorded in 07_semantic_analysis.md Ch. 4 table; requires mandatory theologian resolution before entry into translation memory. |
| breath of life (2:26) | πνεῦμα | pneuma | breath/life-force animating the body | အသက်ရှူသက် / အသက် | a-thet-shu-thet | High | Faith and Works | 2:26 | MUST NOT be rendered with baseline Holy Spirit term or bare ဝိညာဉ် in a way suggesting the Holy Spirit; distinct from 4:5 occurrence — track separately in segment cache. |
C. Risk Summary for the James Curriculum
| Risk Tier | Count (new terms) | Count (reused baseline terms) | Review Routing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Critical | 9 | 6 | Human theologian (mandatory, every occurrence) |
| High | 15 | 4 | Human theologian (mandatory) |
| Medium | 12 | 3 | Native speaker review |
| Low / Low-Medium | 5 | 1 | Automated / native speaker spot-check |
Total distinct new theological terms proposed for James: 41 Total baseline terms reused unchanged: 14
D. Chapter Coverage Confirmation
| Chapter | New Theological Vocabulary Introduced |
|---|---|
| 1 | Yes — δοῦλος, πειρασμός/δοκίμιον, ὑπομονή, τέλειος/τελειότης, σοφία, δίψυχος, πτωχός/πλούσιος, πατὴρ τῶν φώτων, λόγος ἔμφυτος, ποιητὴς λόγου, θρησκεία, ὀρφανός/χήρα |
| 2 | Yes — ἔργα, δικαιόω (evidential sense), προσωπολημψία, κληρονόμος, νόμος βασιλικός, νόμος ἐλευθερίας, ἔλεος, φίλος θεοῦ, νεκρά (of faith); reuses ch.1 πτωχός/πλούσιος |
| 3 | Yes — διδάσκαλος, γλῶσσα, γέεννα, τροχὸς τῆς γενέσεως, σοφία ἄνωθεν/ἐπίγειος/ψυχική/δαιμονιώδης, ζῆλος/ἐριθεία; reuses ch.1 τέλειος, σοφία, and ch.2/baseline δικαιοσύνη/εἰρήνη |
| 4 | Yes — ἐπιθυμία (reused sense from 1:14, intensified), μοιχαλίδες, κόσμος/φιλία τοῦ κόσμου, πνεῦμα (disputed, 4:5), χάρις (reused baseline term reinforced), ταπεινός/ὑπερήφανος, διάβολος, τὸ θέλημα τοῦ κυρίου; reuses ch.1 δίψυχος |
| 5 | Yes — μισθός, κύριος σαβαώθ, δίκαιος, μακροθυμία, παρουσία, κριτής, ὀμνύω, προσευχή, ἀλείφω ἐλαίῳ, σῴζω (healing sense), ἐγείρω (healing sense), ἐξομολογέομαι, καλύπτω πλῆθος ἁμαρτιῶν, ἐπιστρέφω, ἀλήθεια; reuses ch.1 ὑπομονή (Job) |
No chapter of James lacks new theological vocabulary; every chapter is confirmed reviewed and contributes load-bearing terms to this glossary.
Critical Risk Terms
Father
Approved rendering: အဖ
Transliteration: a-pha
Doctrine: Divine Fatherhood and Good Gifts
Rejected alternatives: ဗြဟ္မာ
Original: πατήρ
Category: God
Inherited from Romans package. Qualified as ‘Father of lights’ at James 1:17 (see father_of_lights below) and invoked again at 3:9 (the one Father from whom both blessing and cursing should not flow in speech). Never ဗြဟ္မာ (Brahma).
God
Approved rendering: ဘုရားသခင်
Transliteration: Phayarthakhin
Doctrine: Wisdom from Above
Rejected alternatives: ဘုရား, နတ်သခင်
Original: θεός
Category: God
Inherited from Romans package. James 2:19’s monotheistic creed (‘one God’) and the demons’ correct-but-unsaving belief is a strong teaching opportunity against Burmese folk-religious plurality of spirit-lords. Also the source of every good gift and of wisdom (1:5, 1:17). Never ဘုရား alone or နတ်သခင်.
Grace
Approved rendering: ကျေးဇူးတော်
Transliteration: kyayzu-taw
Doctrine: Faith and Works; Wisdom from Above
Rejected alternatives: ကုသိုလ်, ကံကောင်းခြင်း, ဝါသနာတော်
Original: χάρις
Category: Salvation
Inherited from Romans package. Reinforced at James 4:6, quoting Proverbs 3:34: ‘God gives grace to the humble’ — this occurrence reinforces, not contradicts, the grace-apart-from-merit doctrine anchored in Romans. Never ကုသိုလ်/ကံကောင်းခြင်း.
Hell Gehenna
Approved rendering: ငရဲ
Transliteration: nga-yei
Doctrine: Hell and Final Judgment
Original: γέεννα
Category: Eschatology
Standard existing Myanmar Bible rendering, retained. Renders γέεννα at James 3:6. SEVERE COLLISION: ငρέ is the identical word for the Buddhist Naraka hell-realms, a temporary karmic destination within the cycle of rebirth from which a being is eventually reborn elsewhere once its negative karma is exhausted. Biblical γέεννα denotes final, unending judgment for the unrepentant. Mandatory distinguishing translator note required at every occurrence, parallel to the baseline’s resurrection/rebirth caution.
Holy Spirit
Approved rendering: သန့်ရှင်းသောဝိညာဉ်တော်
Transliteration: thangyinthaw weinnyin-taw
Doctrine: The Spirit that God Caused to Dwell in Us (James 4:5)
Rejected alternatives: နတ်ဝိညာဉ်, ဝိညာဉ်
Original: πνεῦμα ἅγιον
Category: God
Inherited from Romans package. DO NOT default to this rendering for the disputed πνεῦμα of James 4:5 without mandatory theologian resolution of the referent (see spirit_disputed below). DO NOT use for the breath-of-life sense of πνεῦμα at James 2:26 (see breath_of_life below). Never ဝိညာဉ် alone or နတ်ဝိညာဉ်.
Imputed Righteousness
Approved rendering: ဖြောင့်မတ်ခြင်းအဖြစ် မှတ်တော်မူခြင်း
Transliteration: pyaungmat-chin a-phyit hmat-taw-mu-chin
Doctrine: Justification: James and Romans Harmonized
Rejected alternatives: ကုသိုလ်စုဆောင်းခြင်း
Original: ἐλογίσθη αὐτῷ εἰς δικαιοσύνην
Category: Salvation
Inherited from Romans package. James 2:23 quotes Genesis 15:6 with the identical Greek clause behind the baseline entry; reuse verbatim. Establishes that Abraham’s righteous standing was credited by faith BEFORE the offering of Isaac (Genesis 22, cited James 2:21) — proof that James’s ‘justified by works’ cannot mean the initial crediting of righteousness. Never ကုသိုလ်စုဆောင်းခြင်း.
Jesus
Approved rendering: ယေရှု
Transliteration: Yayshu
Doctrine: Patience and the Lord’s Return
Rejected alternatives: ရှင်ယေရှု
Inherited from Romans package. James 1:1, 2:1: ‘our glorious Lord Jesus Christ.’ Keep consistent with established Myanmar Bible form.
Justification
Approved rendering: ဖြောင့်မတ်ရာသို့ ရောက်ခြင်း
Transliteration: pyaungmat-ya-tho-yauk-chin
Doctrine: Justification: James and Romans Harmonized
Rejected alternatives: ကုသိုလ်ရခြင်း, အပြစ်ပြေခြင်း
Original: δικαιόω / δικαίωσις
Category: Salvation
Inherited from Romans package; Burmese phrase does not change for James. However, every occurrence in James 2:21, 2:24, 2:25 REQUIRES a mandatory translator note distinguishing James’s evidential/demonstrative sense (faith shown genuine before people, by the works it produces) from Romans’ forensic sense (a sinner declared righteous before God, by faith alone). Without this note James 2:24 (‘justified by works and not by faith alone’) reads as a direct contradiction of Romans 3:28/4:5. Flag for mandatory human theologian review at every occurrence.
Lord
Approved rendering: သခင်
Transliteration: thakhin
Doctrine: Patience and the Lord’s Return
Rejected alternatives: ဘုရင်, ဆရာသခင်
Original: κύριος
Category: Christology
Inherited from Romans package. Applied to Christ throughout James (1:1; 2:1; 4:10,15; 5:4,7,8,10,11,14,15) and tied directly to the parousia doctrine of chapter 5. Must convey exclusive, supreme authority, never one respected teacher among many venerated in Burmese religious life.
Parousia
Approved rendering: ကြွလာတော်မူခြင်း
Transliteration: kya-la-taw-mu-chin
Doctrine: Patience and the Lord’s Return
Rejected alternatives: a phonetic ‘parousia’ transliteration
Original: παρουσία τοῦ κυρίου
Category: Eschatology
Established Myanmar Christian term, retained (paraphrase, not transliteration). Renders παρουσία τοῦ κυρίου at James 5:7-8. DIRECT PARALLEL to the baseline’s Messiah/Metteyya caution: must be explicitly taught as Christ’s OWN personal, singular, bodily return as reigning Lord and Judge — never conflated with Theravada expectation of မিtteyya, the next Buddha yet to appear. Flag for mandatory theologian review at every occurrence (5:7, 8; cf. 5:9’s imminence language).
Perfect Complete
Approved rendering: ပြည့်စုံခြင်း
Transliteration: pyi-sohn-chin
Doctrine: Perfection and Spiritual Maturity
Rejected alternatives: ပါရမီ, စုံလင်ခြင်း (retained as a secondary acceptable variant, not a rejection)
Original: τέλειος / τελειότης / ἐτελειώθη / ὁλόκληρος
Category: Faith and Works
NEW TERM. Renders τέλειος/τελειότης/ἐτελειώθη/ὁλόκληρος at James 1:4, 1:17, 1:25, 2:22, 3:2. FORBIDDEN SUBSTITUTION: never ပါရမီ, the ten Bodhisatta perfections self-cultivated across countless rebirths toward Buddhahood. James’s maturity is Spirit-produced completeness reached within one redeemed life through grace and trials, not multi-life self-cultivation. Flag every occurrence for mandatory theologian review.
Righteousness
Approved rendering: ဖြောင့်မတ်ခြင်း
Transliteration: pyaungmat-chin
Doctrine: Faith and Works
Rejected alternatives: ကုသိုလ်ကံ, သီလ
Original: δικαιοσύνη
Category: Salvation
Inherited from Romans package. Also occurs at James 2:23 (Abraham’s credited righteousness), 3:18 (‘fruit of righteousness…in peace’), and as the root of ဖြောင့်မတ်သူ (‘the righteous one,’ 5:6). Never ကုသိုလ်ကံ or သီလ.
Salvation
Approved rendering: ကယ်တင်ခြင်း
Transliteration: kaetin-chin
Doctrine: Faith and Works
Rejected alternatives: နိဗ္ဗာန်ရောက်ခြင်း, လွတ်မြောက်ခြင်း
Original: σῴζω (soteriological sense)
Category: Salvation
Inherited from Romans package. Governs the soteriological sense of σῴζω at James 2:14 (‘can that faith save him?’). NEVER reuse this term for the physical-healing sense of σῴζω at James 5:15 — see save_heal_physical below. Never နိဗ္ဗာန်ရောက်ခြင်း.
Spirit Disputed
Approved rendering: [PENDING — mandatory theologian resolution required before entry]
Transliteration: pneuma (James 4:5, disputed referent)
Doctrine: The Spirit that God Caused to Dwell in Us (James 4:5)
Original: πνεῦμα (James 4:5, disputed referent)
Category: God
PENDING. Renders the disputed πνεῦμα of James 4:5 — either the Holy Spirit’s jealous desire for believers, or the human spirit’s inherent tendency toward envy. Two candidate renderings recorded for review: ဝိညာဉ်တော် ငြူစူသောစိတ်ရှိတော်မူ၏ (if Holy Spirit) vs. လူ့စိတ်၏မနာလိုမှုသဘောသဘာဝ (if human spirit). DO NOT default to either without mandatory human theologian resolution, given the baseline’s Critical-risk treatment of the Holy Spirit term elsewhere. Do not write a final value into this field until that review is complete.
Wheel Of Life
Approved rendering: လူ့ဘဝတစ်လျှောက်လုံး
Transliteration: lu-ba-wa ta-shauk-lone
Doctrine: Hell and Final Judgment
Rejected alternatives: သံသရာ, ဘဝသံသရာစက်ဝန်း, any literal ‘wheel of birth’ rendering
Original: τροχὸς τῆς γενέσεως
Category: Eschatology
NEW forbidden-substitution item for this curriculum, parallel in severity to the baseline’s resurrection/rebirth caution. Renders τροχὸς τῆς γενέσεως at James 3:6, an idiom meaning ‘the whole course of life.’ A literal rendering would produce vocabulary strikingly close to သံσρα (samsara) or the wheel of rebirth. MUST be rendered non-literally and descriptively. FORBIDDEN: any wheel/cycle imagery.
Wisdom Earthly Demonic
Approved rendering: လောကီပညာ / ဇာတိပကတိပညာ / နတ်ဆိုးတို့၏ပညာ
Transliteration: lawki-pyinnya / zar-ti-pa-ka-ti-pyinnya / natsoe-tou i pyinnya
Doctrine: Wisdom from Above
Rejected alternatives: ပညာ (unqualified, positive-only reading)
Original: σοφία ἐπίγειος / ψυχική / δαιμονιώδης
Category: Wisdom
NEW negative category. Renders σοφία ἐπίγειος/ψυχική/δαιμονιώδης at James 3:15. Genuinely new theological category for Burmese hearers accustomed to treating ပညာ as unqualifiedly positive attainment; marked by jealousy, selfish ambition, and disorder (3:14, 16). Flag for mandatory theologian review at every occurrence.
Wisdom
Approved rendering: ပညာ (ဘုရားထံမှလာသောပညာ)
Transliteration: pyinnya (Phayarthakhin htan hma la-thaw pyinnya)
Doctrine: Wisdom from Above
Rejected alternatives: ပညာ (unqualified/bare)
Original: σοφία
Category: Wisdom
NEW TERM. Renders σοφία at James 1:5 and 3:13-17. MASSIVE COLLISION: ပညာ (paññā) is the third and highest of the Three Trainings in Theravada Buddhism, liberating insight self-attained through one’s own meditative effort as the direct cause of enlightenment. Biblical σοφία is a relational GIFT requested from and freely given by a personal God (1:5), never self-attained. The qualifying phrase ဘုရားထံမှလာသောပညာ is MANDATORY at every occurrence, not optional stylistic variation. Flag for mandatory theologian review at every occurrence.
Works
Approved rendering: အကျင့်
Transliteration: a-kyin
Doctrine: Faith and Works
Rejected alternatives: ကုသိုလ်
Original: ἔργα
Category: Faith and Works
NEW TERM. Renders ἔργα throughout James 2:14-26 (12x). Never ကုသိုလ် (merit accumulated through ritual/moral performance to raise one’s karmic standing or next rebirth). Must be taught as the Spirit-produced, observable fruit of a faith already given by grace, never the meritorious cause of justification. Highest-stakes term in the entire James curriculum: a careless rendering could make James 2 sound like it teaches salvation by kutho, directly undoing the grace doctrine anchored in Romans.
High Risk Terms
Anointing With Oil
Approved rendering: ဆီလူးခြင်း
Transliteration: si-lu-chin
Doctrine: Prayer and Healing
Original: ἀλείψαντες ἐλαίῳ
Category: Prayer and Healing
NEW TERM, plain descriptive Burmese (deliberately not a specialized/ritual-sounding coinage). Renders ἀλείψαντες ἐλαίῳ at James 5:14. COLLISION RISK: Burmese folk-Buddhist and animist healing practice (nat-kadaw spirit-medium ritual, blessed oil/water/charms) commonly treats oil application as channeling supernatural potency. Must be taught as a simple faith-expression accompanying prayer ‘in the name of the Lord,’ never a vehicle of impersonal magical power.
Breath Of Life
Approved rendering: အသက်ရှူသက် / အသက်
Transliteration: a-thet-shu-thet / a-thet
Doctrine: Faith and Works
Rejected alternatives: ဝိညာဉ် (bare), သန့်ရှင်းသောဝိညာဉ်တော်
Original: πνεῦμα (James 2:26)
Category: Faith and Works
NEW TERM. Renders πνεῦμα at James 2:26 (‘the body without the/a spirit is dead’) — the animating breath/life-force, NOT the Holy Spirit. MUST NOT be rendered with the baseline Critical term သန့်ρyintaw or even bare ဝိညာಜ် in a way that could be misread as the Holy Spirit. Track separately in the segment cache from the distinct, disputed James 4:5 occurrence (spirit_disputed above).
Confess Sins
Approved rendering: ဝန်ခံခြင်း
Transliteration: wan-khan-chin
Doctrine: Confession and Restoration
Original: ἐξομολογέομαι τὰς ἁμαρτίας
Category: Confession and Restoration
NEW TERM, retained existing vocabulary (no viable substitute). Renders ἐξομολογέομαι τὰς ἁμαρτίας at James 5:16, mutual, relational confession among believers ‘to one another’ for healing/restoration. COLLISION RISK: the identical term names the Theravada monastic practice of āpatti-desanā, formal confession of Vinaya infractions to a senior monk for restoration of monastic standing. James’s confession is mutual, non-hierarchical, and among ordinary believers — never hierarchical confession to a religious authority for merit/status restoration. Teaching notes must state this distinction explicitly.
Cover Sins
Approved rendering: အပြစ်အများအပြားကို ဖုံးအုပ်ပေးလိမ့်မည်
Transliteration: a-pyit a-myar-a-pyar ko hpon-oat pei-lain-mei
Doctrine: Covering a Multitude of Sins
Original: πλῆθος ἁμαρτιῶν / καλύπτω
Category: Confession and Restoration
NEW TERM. Renders πλῆθος ἁμαρτιῶν/καλύπτω at James 5:20, God’s forgiveness extended through loving restoration of a straying brother. Risk of being heard as merit compensating for demerit in a running karmic ledger. Must be taught as God’s gracious forgiveness flowing from loving restoration, not a merit-offset transaction, reinforcing the grace framework already fixed for grace/imputed_righteousness.
Dead Faith
Approved rendering: သေနေသော (ယုံကြည်ခြင်း)
Transliteration: thei-nei-thaw (yun-kyi-chin)
Doctrine: Dead Faith (Faith without Works)
Rejected alternatives: အားနည်းသောယုံကြည်ခြင်း (a graded ‘weak faith’ reading)
Original: νεκρά
Category: Faith and Works
NEW TERM. Renders νεκρά at James 2:17, 2:26 — ‘faith, if it does not have works, is dead in itself.’ Must preserve James’s BINARY claim (a corpse has no life at all, not diminished life), never a graded merit-quality reading (weak faith vs. strong faith) that Burmese hearers accustomed to graded merit scales may default to.
Devil
Approved rendering: မာရ်နတ်
Transliteration: Mara-nat
Doctrine: Spiritual Conflict and the Devil
Original: διάβολος
Category: Spiritual Warfare
Established Myanmar Christian term, retained. Renders διάβολος at James 4:7. NOTABLE COLLISION: ‘Mara’ is the specific named tempter-deity who assailed Gautama Buddha to prevent his enlightenment. Established-but-loaded term, same category as the baseline’s treatment of mission (သaσνα); requires explanatory teaching, not replacement.
Favoritism
Approved rendering: မျက်နှာလိုက်ခြင်း
Transliteration: myet-hna-laik-chin
Doctrine: Favoritism and the Poor
Original: προσωπολημψία / προσωπολήπτης
Category: Favoritism and the Poor
NEW TERM (existing natural Myanmar idiom). Renders προσωπολημψία/προσωπολήπτης at James 2:1, 9. High risk because Myanmar society carries real status-based deference patterns (ethnic-majority privilege, wealth, monastic rank) that this term must confront at full prohibitive force, with no pastoral softening.
Glory
Approved rendering: ဘုန်းတော်
Transliteration: phon-taw
Doctrine: Favoritism and the Poor
Rejected alternatives: ဘုန်းကံ
Original: δόξα
Category: God
Inherited from Romans package. James 2:1: ‘our glorious Lord Jesus Christ’ — δόξα modifies Christ’s inherent glory, the ground and object of the faith James is about to test. Never ဘုန်းကံ.
Implanted Word
Approved rendering: စိုက်ပျိုးထားသောနှုတ်ကပတ်တော်
Transliteration: saik-pyu-hta-thaw nhoutkapataw
Doctrine: Trials and the Testing of Faith
Original: λόγος ἔμφυτος
Category: Word of God
NEW TERM. Renders λόγος ἔμφυτος at James 1:21, the gospel word taking root within, able to save the soul. Must be taught as God’s gift taking root by grace, distinct from a practitioner’s own memorized/recited teaching (dhamma) mastered through self-effort — parallel to the faith-vs-saddhā distinction already established in the baseline.
Law Of Liberty
Approved rendering: လွတ်လပ်ခြင်း၏ ပညတ်တရား
Transliteration: lwutlutchin i pyinnat-tayar
Doctrine: The Royal Law and the Law of Liberty
Rejected alternatives: လွတ်လပ်ခြင်း (bare, antinomian-readable)
Original: νόμος ἐλευθερίας
Category: Covenant
NEW compound built on ပညတ်တရား. Renders νόμος ἐλευθερίας at James 1:25, 2:12. Two guarded risks: (1) antinomian misreading (freedom FROM law), which James explicitly rejects; (2) assimilation into Buddhist vimutti/liberation-from-suffering vocabulary. Teach as the law fulfilled in Christ, obeyed from a free, Spirit-enabled heart.
Law
Approved rendering: ပညတ်တရား
Transliteration: pyinnat tayar
Doctrine: The Royal Law and the Law of Liberty
Rejected alternatives: ဝိနည်း
Original: νόμος
Category: Covenant
Inherited from Romans package. James calls it ‘the perfect law’ (1:25) and ‘the royal law’ summarized in love of neighbor (2:8-12); base compound for law_of_liberty and royal_law below. Never ဝိနည်း (the Buddhist monastic Vinaya disciplinary code).
Mercy
Approved rendering: ကရုဏာ
Transliteration: karuna
Doctrine: Mercy and Judgment
Original: ἔλεος
Category: Favoritism and the Poor
NEW TERM, heavily qualified. Renders ἔλεος at James 2:13. COLLISION: ကρuန္ hnhi is one of the Four Brahmavihāra, a meditative virtue self-cultivated for the practitioner’s own spiritual advancement. Biblical ἔλεος is God’s covenantal compassion COMMANDED and shown IN ACTION toward others, not a cultivated inner meditative state pursued for personal merit. Must always be qualified as compassion shown concretely toward others, not an interior state.
Poor
Approved rendering: ဆင်းရဲသား
Transliteration: hsin-yay-thar
Doctrine: Favoritism and the Poor
Original: πτωχός
Category: Favoritism and the Poor
NEW TERM. Renders πτωχός at James 1:9-11, 2:2-6. Standard vocabulary, but doctrinally High risk: must not be softened by the folk-Buddhist association of poverty with karmic deficiency, and must retain James’s unqualified exaltation of the poor as heirs of the kingdom (2:5) despite real socioeconomic and ethnic-majority/minority tensions in Myanmar.
Providence
Approved rendering: ဘုရားသခင်၏ကြည့်ရှုစောင့်ရှောက်မှု
Transliteration: Phayarthakhin i kyi-shu-saung-shauk-hmu
Doctrine: Providence and the Will of the Lord
Rejected alternatives: ကံ
Inherited from Romans package (conceptual apparatus). Underlies James 4:13-16’s ‘if the Lord wills’ teaching (see will_of_the_lord below). Never ကံ (impersonal karmic cause-and-effect).
Raise Up Physical
Approved rendering: ထတော်မူစေလိမ့်မည်
Transliteration: hta-taw-mu-say-lain-mei
Doctrine: Physical Healing Distinguished from Soteriological Salvation
Rejected alternatives: ထမြောက်ခြင်း (reserved for bodily resurrection)
Original: ἐγερεῖ αὐτὸν ὁ κύριος
Category: Prayer and Healing
NEW TERM. Renders ἐγερεῖ αὐτὸν ὁ κύριος (‘the Lord will raise him up’) at James 5:15, physical raising from a sickbed. MUST NOT use the baseline’s ထမြောက်ခြင်း, reserved exclusively for Christ’s bodily resurrection/the final resurrection. Flag for theologian review as a new required extension of the baseline’s resurrection caution into this healing context.
Religion
Approved rendering: ဝတ်ပြုကိုးကွယ်မှု
Transliteration: wut-pyu ko-kwe-hmu
Doctrine: Pure and Undefiled Religion
Rejected alternatives: ဘာသာ
Original: θρησκεία
Category: Practical Devotion
NEW TERM. Renders θρησκεία at James 1:26-27, redefined ethically as caring for orphans and widows and remaining unstained by the world. Never ဘာσα, the institutional world-religion category naming Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam as competing systems in Burmese public discourse, which would wrongly frame this verse as comparative-religions language.
Rich
Approved rendering: ချမ်းသာသူ
Transliteration: chan-thar-thu
Doctrine: Favoritism and the Poor
Original: πλούσιος
Category: Favoritism and the Poor
NEW TERM. Renders πλούσιος at James 1:10-11, 2:2-6, 5:1-6. Must not be softened into a generalized ‘blessed are the content’ message; James’s condemnation of exploitative wealth must retain full force.
Save Heal Physical
Approved rendering: ကျန်းမာစေလိမ့်မည်
Transliteration: kyan-ma-say-lain-mei
Doctrine: Physical Healing Distinguished from Soteriological Salvation
Rejected alternatives: ကယ်တင်ခြင်း (reserved for soteriological salvation)
Original: σῴζω (physical-healing sense, 5:15)
Category: Prayer and Healing
NEW TERM. Renders σῴζω in its physical-healing sense at James 5:15. MUST NOT reuse the baseline’s ကယ်တင်ခြင်း here. Mandatory translator note explaining that although the same Greek root σῴζω underlies both this verse and the Critical soteriological term, the Burmese rendering deliberately differs to prevent readers from confusing physical healing with eternal salvation.
Sin
Approved rendering: အပြစ်
Transliteration: a-pyit
Doctrine: Confession and Restoration
Rejected alternatives: အကုသိုလ်
Original: ἁμαρτία
Category: Sin
Inherited from Romans package. Occurs at James 1:15 (conceived and born from desire), 2:9, 4:17, 5:15, 5:16, 5:20. Never အကုသိုလ် (karmic demerit).
Trial Temptation
Approved rendering: စုံစမ်းခြင်း / အလိုဆွဲငင်ခြင်း
Transliteration: soun-san-chin / a-lo-swe-ngin-chin
Doctrine: Trials and the Testing of Faith
Rejected alternatives: ကံ
Original: πειρασμός (also δοκίμιον, the proving process)
Category: Trials
NEW TERM. Renders πειρασμός/δοκίμιον in its dual sense: external, God-permitted testing that produces endurance (James 1:2-4, 12) = စုံစမ်းခြင်း; internal enticement to sin, explicitly NOT from God (James 1:13-14) = အလိုဆွဲငင်ခြင်း. MUST NOT be rendered with ကံ (impersonal karmic cause-and-effect); trials are personally permitted by a purposive God, not karmic consequence for past-life demerit.
Wages
Approved rendering: လုပ်ခ
Transliteration: louk-kha
Doctrine: Wealth and Exploitation of Laborers
Original: μισθός
Category: Favoritism and the Poor
NEW TERM. Renders μισθός at James 5:1-4, wages withheld from laborers by exploitative rich landowners whose cries reach the Lord of Hosts. Low collision on the word itself, but doctrinally load-bearing for the social-justice teaching within Favoritism and the Poor.
Will Of The Lord
Approved rendering: ဘုရားသခင်အလိုတော်ရှိလျှင်
Transliteration: Phayarthakhin a-lo-taw shi-lyin
Doctrine: Providence and the Will of the Lord
Rejected alternatives: ကံ
Original: τὸ θέλημα τοῦ κυρίου
Category: God
NEW phrase, built on the baseline providence apparatus. Renders τὸ θέλημα τοῦ κυρίου at James 4:13-16, God’s sovereign disposal of human plans, contrasted with presumptuous self-confident planning. Never ကံ (impersonal karma/fate).
World Friendship
Approved rendering: လောကီရေးရာနှင့်မိတ်ဆွေဖြစ်ခြင်း
Transliteration: lawki-yayyar hnin meik-swei phyit-chin
Doctrine: Worldliness versus Friendship with God
Rejected alternatives: လောက (bare, cosmological)
Original: κόσμος / φιλία τοῦ κόσμου
Category: Worldliness
NEW periphrastic compound. Renders κόσμος/φιλία τοῦ κόσμου at James 1:27, 4:4. COLLISION: လോက (loka) is the standard Buddhist cosmological term for the conditioned realms of samsaric existence (31 planes). James’s κόσμος is an ethical-relational value-system opposed to God, not a cosmological plane; must not be heard as teaching escape from physical existence.
Medium Risk Terms
Adulteresses
Approved rendering: မျောက်မထားသူများ (ဘုရားသခင်ကိုသစ္စာမဲ့သူများ)
Transliteration: myauk-ma-htar-thu-myar (Phayarthakhin ko thit-sa-me-thu-myar)
Doctrine: Worldliness versus Friendship with God
Original: μοιχαλίδες
Category: Worldliness
NEW periphrastic figurative rendering. Renders μοιχαλίδες at James 4:4, figurative/spiritual unfaithfulness echoing OT prophetic marriage imagery. Translator note required: this is a figurative covenant-relationship charge, not a literal accusation of the sin of adultery.
Apostle
Approved rendering: တမန်တော်
Transliteration: tamantaw
Doctrine: Servanthood versus Apostolic Office
Rejected alternatives: ဆရာတော်, ဆရာကြီး
Inherited from Romans package, retained here as a CONTRAST term. James 1:1 identifies himself as ကျွန် (bondservant, see servant below), NOT as တမန်တော်; James does not claim the apostolic authority-title Paul claims in Romans 1:1. Retain this entry so translators recognize the deliberate absence and do not supply the term where the Greek does not.
Church
Approved rendering: အသင်းတော်
Transliteration: athin-taw
Doctrine: Prayer and Healing
Rejected alternatives: ဘုရားကျောင်း, ဘုရားရိပ်သာ
Original: ἐκκλησία
Category: Church
Inherited from Romans package. James 5:14: the sick person calls for the elders of the church. Never ဘုရားကျောင်း/ဘုရားရိပ်သာ.
Demons
Approved rendering: နတ်ဆိုးများ
Transliteration: nat-soe-myar
Doctrine: Spiritual Conflict and the Devil
Original: δαιμόνια
Category: Spiritual Warfare
NEW TERM. Renders δαιμόνια at James 2:19: even demons hold correct monotheistic belief and respond with terror, proving bare correct belief is not saving faith. Burmese traditional religion readily accepts the existence of malevolent spirits, so this is a doctrinal risk (conflating correct belief with saving faith), not a comprehension barrier.
Desire Craving
Approved rendering: တပ်မက်မှု
Transliteration: tat-mat-hmu
Doctrine: Worldliness versus Friendship with God
Original: ἐπιθυμία
Category: Worldliness
NEW TERM. Renders ἐπιθυμία at James 1:14 and 4:1-3. Structural echo with Buddhist တဏှာ (tanha) as the root of suffering — genuine common ground pastorally, provided James’s remedy (submission to God, resisting the devil, drawing near to God, 4:7-8) is presented as relational and grace-enabled, not self-directed meditative extinguishing.
Doer Hearer Of Word
Approved rendering: နှုတ်ကပတ်တော်ကိုကျင့်သောသူ / နာကြားရုံသာသူ
Transliteration: nhoutkapataw ko kyin thaw thu / na-kya-yon-thar thu
Doctrine: Faith and Works
Original: ποιητὴς λόγου / ἀκροατής
Category: Faith and Works
NEW TERMS. Renders ποιητὴς λόγου / ἀκροατής at James 1:22-25. Direct forerunner of the faith-and-works argument of chapter 2; a mere hearer deceives himself.
Double Minded
Approved rendering: စိတ်နှစ်ခွရှိသော
Transliteration: seit hna-khwa shi thaw
Doctrine: Double-Mindedness and Undivided Faith
Original: δίψυχος / διακρίνομαι
Category: Trials
NEW TERM. Renders δίψυχος/διακρίνομαι at James 1:6-8 and 4:8. Names divided loyalty between God and the world, not generic indecision; no major doctrinal collision, but native-speaker review recommended to confirm the idiom retains this relational sense.
Endurance
Approved rendering: သည်းခံခြင်း
Transliteration: thi-khan-chin
Doctrine: Trials and the Testing of Faith
Original: ὑπομονή
Category: Trials
NEW TERM. Renders ὑπομονή, the intended fruit of trials (James 1:3-4, 12), and exemplified by Job (5:11). Distinguish from μακροθυμία (patience_awaiting below), used for waiting for the Lord’s return.
Faith
Approved rendering: ယုံကြည်ခြင်း
Transliteration: yun-kyi-chin
Doctrine: Faith and Works
Rejected alternatives: သဒ္ဓါတရား
Original: πίστις
Category: Faith
Inherited from Romans package. James 2:14-26 interrogates whether a professed faith is genuine, not the object of faith itself; teaching notes must clarify that James is exposing a counterfeit, inert profession, not devaluing ယုံကြည်ခြင်း itself. Object of faith remains Christ/God throughout James (1:3,6; 2:1,5,14-26; 5:15).
Father Of Lights
Approved rendering: အလင်းတို့၏အဖ
Transliteration: a-lin-tou i a-pha
Doctrine: Divine Fatherhood and Good Gifts
Original: πατὴρ τῶν φώτων
Category: God
NEW compound built on baseline အဖ. Renders πατὴρ τῶν φώτων at James 1:17: God as the unchanging source and giver of every good gift, sovereign OVER the celestial lights. Guards against assimilation into Burmese astrological (ဗေဒင်) reading of ‘lights’ as fate-determining celestial bodies.
Friend Of God
Approved rendering: ဘုရားသခင်၏မိတ်ဆွေ
Transliteration: Phayarthakhin i meik-swei
Doctrine: Friendship with God
Original: φίλος θεοῦ
Category: Salvation
NEW TERM. Renders φίλος θεοῦ at James 2:23, applied to Abraham. Uniquely biblical relational category of covenantal intimacy and access with God; distinct from the merit-based devotee relationship to a Buddha image, though no forbidden substitution is required — positively taught.
Heir
Approved rendering: အမွေခံ
Transliteration: a-mwei-khan
Doctrine: Favoritism and the Poor
Original: κληρονόμος
Category: Favoritism and the Poor
NEW TERM. Renders κληρονόμος at James 2:5 (‘heirs of the kingdom he promised’). Low-collision; resonant with the baseline’s adoption doctrine of full inheritance rights.
Humble Proud
Approved rendering: နှိမ့်ချသူ / ကိုယ်ကိုယ်ချီးမြှောက်သူ
Transliteration: hnin-cha-thu / ko-ko-chi-myauk-thu
Doctrine: Worldliness versus Friendship with God
Original: ταπεινός / ὑπερήφανος
Category: Worldliness
NEW TERMS. Renders ταπεινός/ὑπερήφανος at James 4:6, the posture of dependence on God versus self-exaltation. Connects thematically to the favoritism doctrine’s concern with status.
Judge
Approved rendering: တရားစီရင်တော်မူသူ
Transliteration: ta-yar si-yin-taw-mu-thu
Doctrine: Mercy and Judgment
Original: κριτής
Category: Eschatology
NEW TERM. Renders κριτής at James 5:9 (Christ ‘standing at the door’) and 4:12 (God as the only true lawgiver-and-judge). No collision; standard vocabulary.
Kingdom Of God
Approved rendering: ဘုရားသခင်၏နိုင်ငံတော်
Transliteration: Phayarthakhin i nainggan-taw
Doctrine: Favoritism and the Poor
Rejected alternatives: ဘုန်းတော်နိုင်ငံ
Original: βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ
Category: Kingdom
Inherited from Romans package. James 2:5: the poor are named ‘heirs of the kingdom he promised.’ Distinguish from an earthly, political nainggan.
Lord Of Hosts
Approved rendering: ကောင်းကင်ဗိုလ်ခြေအရှင် ထာဝရဘုရား
Transliteration: kaung-gin-bo-hkye a-shin htawaya-phayar
Doctrine: Wealth and Exploitation of Laborers
Original: κύριος σαβαώθ
Category: God
NEW compound. Renders κύριος σαβαώθ at James 5:4, invoked as the One who hears the cries of exploited laborers. Must not be assimilated to Myanmar’s folk-religious hierarchy of the 37 nats or contending spirit-legions; the unique, sovereign Creator commanding his own angelic hosts.
Patience Awaiting
Approved rendering: စိတ်ရှည်ခြင်း
Transliteration: seit-shay-chin
Doctrine: Patience and the Lord’s Return
Original: μακροθυμία
Category: Eschatology
NEW TERM. Renders μακροθυμία at James 5:7-8, 10, patient waiting toward another’s timing, illustrated by the farmer awaiting the harvest. Distinguished from ch.1’s သည်းခံခြင်း (endurance under trial, endurance above) to preserve James’s two distinct patience-vocabulary items.
Peace
Approved rendering: ငြိမ်သက်ခြင်း
Transliteration: nyein-thet-chin
Doctrine: Faith and Works
Rejected alternatives: ကိလေသာငြိမ်းခြင်း
Original: εἰρήνη
Category: Faith
Inherited from Romans package. James 2:16 uses this word in an IRONIC, empty conventional farewell sense (‘go in peace,’ spoken instead of concrete help) — a translator note is required distinguishing this from the positive sense at James 3:18 (‘the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace’).
Prayer
Approved rendering: ဆုတောင်းခြင်း
Transliteration: hsu-taung-chin
Doctrine: Prayer and Healing
Original: προσευχή / εὔχομαι
Category: Prayer and Healing
NEW/reused general term. Renders προσευχή/εὔχομαι at James 5:13-18: prayer in suffering, in cheerfulness, and specifically for healing, illustrated by Elijah. Distinguish from the baseline’s narrower intercession (အသနားခံခြင်း, prayer specifically on behalf of others); James 5 uses the broader general-prayer term.
Righteous One
Approved rendering: ဖြောင့်မတ်သူ
Transliteration: pyaungmat-thu
Doctrine: Mercy and Judgment
Original: δίκαιος
Category: Favoritism and the Poor
Built on baseline root ဖြောင့်မတ်. Renders δίκαιος at James 5:6 (‘you have murdered the righteous person’), the innocent, oppressed righteous. No new coinage needed.
Royal Law
Approved rendering: အမြတ်ဆုံးသောပညတ်တော်
Transliteration: a-myat-sone-thaw pyinnat-taw
Doctrine: The Royal Law and the Law of Liberty
Original: νόμος βασιλικός
Category: Covenant
NEW compound built on ပညတ်တရား. Renders νόμος βασιλικός at James 2:8, naming the supreme command to love one’s neighbor (Leviticus 19:18), the standard against which favoritism is judged.
Scripture
Approved rendering: ကျမ်းစာတော်မြတ်
Transliteration: kyamsa-taw-myat
Doctrine: Scriptural Authority and Citation
Original: γραφή
Category: Word of God
NEW TERM. Renders γραφή throughout James’s citations (Genesis 15:6 at 2:23; Leviticus 19:18 at 2:8; Proverbs 3:34 at 4:6). Must be presented as continuous with the single God-breathed canon already established in the Romans curriculum’s inspiration-of-Scripture doctrine, not a separate authoritative source alongside the Tipitaka.
Selfish Ambition
Approved rendering: မနာလိုမှု / မိမိအကျိုးရှာမှု
Transliteration: ma-na-lo-hmu / mi-mi-a-kyo-shar-hmu
Doctrine: Wisdom from Above
Original: ζῆλος / ἐριθεία
Category: Wisdom
NEW TERMS. Renders ζῆλος/ἐριθεία at James 3:14, 16, named as the root of disorder and every evil practice, the fruit of earthly wisdom. No major collision.
Servant
Approved rendering: ကျွန်
Transliteration: kyun
Doctrine: Servanthood versus Apostolic Office
Original: δοῦλος
Category: Church
NEW TERM. Renders δοῦλος at James 1:1, James’s self-designation of total, willing devotion to God and the Lord Jesus Christ — not an apostolic office-title (contrast apostle above). Care needed given literal-slavery associations in Burmese social history; teach as willing, honored belonging, not degrading bondage.
Teacher
Approved rendering: ဆရာ
Transliteration: hsaya
Doctrine: Taming the Tongue
Rejected alternatives: ဆရာတော်, ဆရာကြီး
Original: διδάσκαλος
Category: Church
NEW TERM. Renders διδάσκαλος at James 3:1, teachers held to stricter judgment. Distinct from baseline’s caution against ဆρytaw/ဆρကrி for apostle; here a plain, non-monastic teacher role is intended.
Tongue
Approved rendering: လျှာ
Transliteration: hla
Doctrine: Taming the Tongue
Original: γλῶσσα
Category: Speech Ethics
NEW TERM. Renders γλῶσσα at James 3:1-12, a small member with disproportionate destructive or life-giving power. Low collision as a plain body-part word; risk lies entirely in the surrounding ethical metaphors (bridle, rudder, fire), which must preserve self-mastery under God, not Stoic or Buddhist self-mastery pursued for its own sake.
Truth
Approved rendering: အမှန်တရား
Transliteration: a-hman-tayar
Doctrine: Confession and Restoration
Original: ἀλήθεια
Category: Confession and Restoration
NEW TERM. Renders ἀλήθεια at James 5:19, the objective, revealed standard against which straying is measured. Standard vocabulary; no collision.
Turn Back Restore
Approved rendering: ပြန်လှည့်လာခြင်း
Transliteration: pyan-hlaint-la-chin
Doctrine: Confession and Restoration
Original: ἐπιστρέφω
Category: Confession and Restoration
NEW TERM. Renders ἐπιστρέφω at James 5:19-20, bringing back a brother who has ‘wandered from the truth.’ Standard restoration/repentance vocabulary; no major collision.
Low Risk Terms
Brother Sister
Approved rendering: ညီအစ်ကို / ညီအစ်မ
Transliteration: nyi-a-hkoh / nyi-a-ma
Doctrine: Church as God’s People
Original: ἀδελφός / ἀδελφή
Category: Church
Standard, established rendering. Renders ἀδελφός/ἀδελφή, James’s dominant address (‘my brothers’) throughout the letter, and the explicit ‘brother or sister’ at James 2:15. No collision; consistent with existing Myanmar Christian usage for fellow believers.
Elijah
Approved rendering: ဧလိယ
Transliteration: Eliya
Doctrine: Prayer and Healing
Original: Ἠλίας
Category: Covenant
Proper name; established Myanmar Bible OT spelling, consistent with baseline transliteration standards for OT proper names (cf. David/Dawid, Isaiah/Heshaya). Given as the pattern of powerful, effective prayer (James 5:17-18).
Oath
Approved rendering: ကျိန်ဆိုခြင်း
Transliteration: kyein-so-chin
Doctrine: Truthful Speech and Oaths
Original: ὀμνύω
Category: Speech Ethics
NEW TERM. Renders ὀμνύω at James 5:12, James’s prohibition on oath-taking, stressing plain truthfulness (‘let your yes be yes’). No collision; connects to Taming the Tongue.
Orphans Widows
Approved rendering: မိဘမဲ့ကလေး / မုဆိုးမ
Transliteration: mi-ba-me-khaley / mu-so-ma
Doctrine: Pure and Undefiled Religion
Original: ὀρφανός / χήρα
Category: Favoritism and the Poor
NEW TERMS. Renders ὀρφανός/χήρα at James 1:27, the concrete content of ‘pure religion.’ Standard vocabulary; ties directly into Favoritism and the Poor.
Prophet
Approved rendering: ပရောဖက်
Transliteration: parawpeq
Doctrine: Patience and the Lord’s Return
Rejected alternatives: ဗေဒင်ဆရာ
Original: προφήτης
Category: Covenant
Inherited from Romans package. James 5:10 names the prophets as examples of patience under suffering; 5:17-18 names Elijah specifically (see elijah below). Do not confuse with ဗေဒင်ဆရာ.
Referenced passages