Semantic Analysis

07 Semantic Analysis — Gospel of John (Koine Greek) → Burmese

Methodology and Scope

This analysis covers the entire Gospel of John, chapters 1–21, in the original Koine Greek. Two levels of treatment are applied:

Core passage (John 3:1–21) — the theological anchor of this curriculum unit — receives full verse-by-verse treatment. Every load-bearing term is documented with: original Greek word, transliteration, literal meaning, semantic range, English translation variants, contextual theological meaning within John 3, and the destination-language (Burmese) rendering risk.
Every other chapter of John (1–2, remainder of 3, 4–21) receives chapter-level treatment of its load-bearing theological terms using the same seven fields, presented in table form for efficiency. Chapter 3’s verses 22–36 (outside the core pericope) are treated in the Chapter 3 section below, since the core-passage treatment stops at verse 21.

Baseline compliance: Any term already fixed in the Romans translation_memory.json (burmese) is reused exactly as recorded there — the established rendering, transliteration, and risk tier are carried forward without modification. Such terms are marked [BASELINE REUSE]. New terms introduced by John’s vocabulary and not present in the Romans baseline are marked [NEW — JOHN] and a reasoned Burmese rendering is proposed, following the same theological-precision and culture-collision methodology the baseline models (e.g., avoiding Theravada Buddhist cognates that would smuggle in a rebirth, merit, or impersonal-fate framework).

PART A — CORE PASSAGE: John 3:1–21 (Verse-by-Verse)

John 3:1

Greek: Ἦν δὲ ἄνθρωπος ἐκ τῶν Φαρισαίων, Νικόδημος ὄνομα αὐτῷ, ἄρχων τῶν Ἰουδαίων.

Φαρισαῖος (Pharisaios) — “Pharisee”
- Literal meaning: “separated one” (from Hebrew parash, to separate)
- Semantic range: member of a Jewish party marked by strict Torah observance and oral tradition
- English variants: Pharisee
- Contextual meaning: Establishes Nicodemus as a religious authority figure steeped in law-keeping — the narrative sets up a collision between meritorious law-observance and unearned new birth.
- Burmese rendering & risk: ဖာရိရှဲ (transliteration, established Myanmar Bible convention). [NEW — JOHN] Risk: Low. No indigenous Burmese religious category maps onto this; transliteration is safe, but a brief note that Pharisees were respected religious teachers (not monks) helps the reader grasp Nicodemus’s social standing without importing ဆရာတော်/monastic categories (cf. baseline “apostle” note).
ἄρχων (archōn) — “ruler”
- Literal meaning: one who begins/leads; a ruler, magistrate
- Semantic range: member of the ruling council (Sanhedrin); civic or religious authority
- English variants: ruler, leader, member of the council
- Contextual meaning: Nicodemus holds recognized religious-civic authority, yet still lacks spiritual understanding — heightening the force of Jesus’s rebuke in v.10.
- Burmese rendering & risk: အုပ်စိုးသူ / လွှတ်တော်အဖွဲ့ဝင် (council member). [NEW — JOHN] Risk: Low.

John 3:2

Greek: οὗτος ἦλθεν πρὸς αὐτὸν νυκτὸς καὶ εἶπεν αὐτῷ· Ῥαββί, οἴδαμεν ὅτι ἀπὸ θεοῦ ἐλήλυθας διδάσκαλος· οὐδεὶς γὰρ δύναται ταῦτα τὰ σημεῖα ποιεῖν ἃ σὺ ποιεῖς, ἐὰν μὴ ᾖ ὁ θεὸς μετ᾽ αὐτοῦ.

νυκτός (nyktos) — “by night”
- Literal meaning: night, nighttime
- Semantic range: literal darkness of night; throughout John, also a symbolic marker of spiritual concealment/fear (cf. 13:30, Judas departs “and it was night”)
- English variants: by night, at night, under cover of darkness
- Contextual meaning: Foreshadows the light/darkness motif that climaxes in vv.19–21; Nicodemus comes secretly, still “in the dark” morally and spiritually even as he approaches the Light.
- Burmese rendering & risk: ညအခါ (nya-a-kha). [NEW — JOHN] Risk: Medium. The symbolic weight (darkness = concealment/unbelief) must be carried forward into vv.19–21’s φῶς/σκότος pairing so the motif is not flattened into a mere time-marker; recommend a translator note linking 3:2 to 3:19–21.
Ῥαββί (Rabbi) — “Rabbi, my teacher”
- Literal meaning: “my great one/my master” (Hebrew/Aramaic honorific for a teacher)
- Semantic range: honorific address for a recognized teacher of the Law
- English variants: Rabbi, Teacher, Master
- Contextual meaning: Nicodemus’s polite, respectful — but theologically inadequate — category for Jesus; the passage will move him from “teacher” toward the far greater truth of who Jesus is.
- Burmese rendering & risk: ရဗ္ဗိ (transliteration) with gloss ဆရာ (teacher). [NEW — JOHN] Risk: Medium. Plain ဆရာ is acceptable, but must avoid the elevated monastic-honorific register of ဆရာတော်/ဆရာကြီး, which the baseline already flags for “apostle” as carrying senior-monk connotations; Jesus is far more than Nicodemus’s category, and the Burmese term must not accidentally upgrade Nicodemus’s own inadequate assessment into a religiously “correct enough” title.
σημεῖα (sēmeia) — “signs”
- Literal meaning: a sign, mark, or token
- Semantic range: miraculous works pointing beyond themselves to a deeper truth about Jesus’s identity — John’s characteristic vocabulary for miracles (distinct from mere δύναμις/“power display”)
- English variants: signs, miracles, miraculous signs
- Contextual meaning: Nicodemus reasons from signs to a “God is with him” conclusion but stops short of new birth and confession; John consistently uses σημεῖα to point toward faith (20:30–31), not merely to prove ability.
- Burmese rendering & risk: နိမိတ်လက္ခဏာ (nate-lakhkhana). [NEW — JOHN] Risk: Medium. နိမိတ် carries strong associations in Burmese folk religion with omens read by astrologers/fortune-tellers (ဗေဒင်ဆရာ, already flagged as a risk category in the baseline’s “prophet” entry). Every occurrence needs the surrounding context to make clear these are God-given, meaning-bearing acts pointing to Christ’s identity, not divinatory omens to be interpreted for fortune.

John 3:3

Greek: ἀπεκρίθη Ἰησοῦς καὶ εἶπεν αὐτῷ· Ἀμὴν ἀμὴν λέγω σοι, ἐὰν μή τις γεννηθῇ ἄνωθεν, οὐ δύναται ἰδεῖν τὴν βασιλείαν τοῦ θεοῦ.

Ἀμὴν ἀμὴν λέγω σοι (Amēn amēn legō soi) — “Truly, truly, I say to you”
- Literal meaning: “amen amen I say to you” — a doubled solemn affirmation unique to Jesus’s speech in John (25 occurrences)
- Semantic range: formula of highest certainty and authority, self-attesting rather than appealing to an external authority
- English variants: Truly truly / Verily verily / I tell you the truth / I assure you
- Contextual meaning: Marks this statement as a foundational, non-negotiable revelation — the necessity of new birth is not one opinion among many but Jesus’s own authoritative pronouncement.
- Burmese rendering & risk: ငါအမှန်အကန်ဆိုသည်ကား (nga a-hman a-kan hso thi-kar). [NEW — JOHN] Risk: Low, but consistency-critical: this exact formula recurs 25 times in John and must be rendered identically throughout the whole Gospel per the baseline’s cross-document consistency principle.
γεννηθῇ ἄνωθεν (gennēthē anōthen) — “be born again / be born from above”
- Literal meaning: γεννάω = to beget, give birth to; ἄνωθεν = from above, from the top, or (temporally) again/anew — the word carries BOTH senses simultaneously in Greek, and John exploits the ambiguity deliberately
- Semantic range: (1) spatial: from above, from heaven, of heavenly origin; (2) temporal: again, a second time, anew. Nicodemus hears only the temporal sense (v.4); Jesus intends both — a birth that is both “again” and “from above.”
- English variants: born again, born from above, born anew
- Contextual meaning: This is THE defining term of the doctrine of the New Birth and Regeneration by the Spirit — a birth that originates with God’s own Spirit (v.5–8), not a repeatable natural process and emphatically not a cycle of successive existences.
- Burmese rendering & risk: CRITICAL. Recommended rendering: တစ်ဖန်မွေးခြင်း (ta-bhan mway-chin, “born once more/anew”) — NOT ပြန်လည်မွေးဖွားခြင်း, which the Romans baseline already forbids for “resurrection” precisely because it denotes rebirth into a new existence within the cycle of samsara. The identical forbidden-substitution risk applies here with equal or greater force, because John 3:3 is talking about birth language directly, making the reincarnation collision more intuitive to a Burmese Buddhist reader than it is for “resurrection.” A translator note must state explicitly: this is a single, permanent spiritual transformation by the Holy Spirit within this life, not a transition to a new incarnation, and not an accumulation of merit toward better rebirth. Additionally, the ἄνωθεν “from above” sense should be preserved (e.g., with an added qualifier အထက်မှ, “from above”) so the double meaning driving Nicodemus’s confusion in v.4 remains visible to the reader, and so the term is not read as human self-effort (“trying again”) but as an act originating with God.
βασιλείαν τοῦ θεοῦ (basileian tou theou) — “kingdom of God”
- Burmese rendering & risk: [BASELINE REUSE] ဘုရားသခင်၏နိုင်ငံတော် (Phayarthakhin i nainggan-taw). Risk: Medium (per baseline doctrine_risk_registry “kingdom_mission”/“kingdom_of_god”). Distinguish God’s sovereign reign from an earthly political nainggan; here specifically the reign one enters only through new birth, not by lineage, law-keeping, or merit.

John 3:4

Greek: λέγει πρὸς αὐτὸν ὁ Νικόδημος· Πῶς δύναται ἄνθρωπος γεννηθῆναι γέρων ὤν; μὴ δύναται εἰς τὴν κοιλίαν τῆς μητρὸς αὐτοῦ δεύτερον εἰσελθεῖν καὶ γεννηθῆναι;

γεννηθῆναι (gennēthēnai) — “to be born” (literal, physical sense)
- Semantic range: ordinary biological birth
- Contextual meaning: Nicodemus’s literalism dramatizes the very confusion the Burmese rendering must avoid — a reader who hears only “born again” as repeated physical birth will make Nicodemus’s mistake, not Jesus’s point.
- Burmese rendering & risk: မွေးခြင်း (mway-chin), plain physical birth. [NEW — JOHN] Risk: Medium — the translator must ensure the same root word used for Nicodemus’s misunderstanding (physical birth) is distinguishable in the Burmese text from the spiritual birth of v.3/v.5, ideally through the added qualifier “of the Spirit” (ဝိညာဉ်တော်အားဖြင့်) at the theological occurrences.
κοιλίαν (koilian) — “womb”
- Burmese rendering & risk: ဝမ်း/မိခင်ဝမ်း. Risk: Low.

John 3:5

Greek: ἀπεκρίθη Ἰησοῦς· Ἀμὴν ἀμὴν λέγω σοι, ἐὰν μή τις γεννηθῇ ἐξ ὕδατος καὶ πνεύματος, οὐ δύναται εἰσελθεῖν εἰς τὴν βασιλείαν τοῦ θεοῦ.

ὕδατος (hydatos) — “water”
- Semantic range: baptismal/cleansing water; possibly echoing Ezekiel 36:25–27’s promise of cleansing plus new spirit
- Contextual meaning: Paired with Spirit, signifies cleansing that accompanies the Spirit’s regenerating work — not a merit-earning ritual bath.
- Burmese rendering & risk: ရေ (yay). [NEW — JOHN] Risk: Medium. Must not be taught as parallel to ritual purification bathing at pagodas (cf. baseline “sanctification” note rejecting ရေချိုးသန့်စင်ခြင်း for the same reason).
πνεύματος (pneumatos) — “Spirit”
- Burmese rendering & risk: [BASELINE REUSE — extended] The Holy Spirit’s regenerating agency here should draw on ဝိညာဉ်တော် (with the honorific -တော်, marking the divine Spirit), consistent with the baseline’s Critical warning against bare ဝိညာဉ် (which reads as an impermanent consciousness-stream or ghost under Theravada anatta doctrine) or နတ်ဝိညာဉ် (a nat-spirit). Risk: Critical.

John 3:6

Greek: τὸ γεγεννημένον ἐκ τῆς σαρκὸς σάρξ ἐστιν, καὶ τὸ γεγεννημένον ἐκ τοῦ πνεύματος πνεῦμά ἐστιν.

σάρξ (sarx) — “flesh”
- Literal meaning: physical body-tissue, muscle
- Semantic range: (1) the physical body; (2) human nature in its fallen, mortal, self-generating capacity, incapable of producing spiritual life on its own
- English variants: flesh, human nature, physical descent
- Contextual meaning: Flesh can only reproduce flesh — natural human effort, lineage, or discipline cannot generate the new birth; only the Spirit can beget spirit-life. This is a direct challenge to any self-effort path to transformation.
- Burmese rendering & risk: ဇာတိ (zarti). [NEW — JOHN] Risk: High. ဇာတိ already carries the sense of “nature/birth-condition” in Burmese Christian usage (cf. baseline’s လူ့ဇာတိခံယူခြင်း for “incarnation”); the risk here is the opposite direction — this verse must be taught as a limitation of merely human/fleshly effort, not confused with the Incarnation’s positive taking-on of true humanity. A translator note distinguishing these two very different theological uses of ဇာတိ-related vocabulary in the same Gospel is recommended.

John 3:7

Greek: μὴ θαυμάσῃς ὅτι εἶπόν σοι· δεῖ ὑμᾶς γεννηθῆναι ἄνωθεν.

δεῖ (dei) — “it is necessary, must”
- Semantic range: impersonal verb of divine or logical necessity
- Contextual meaning: New birth is not optional or one option among religious paths; it is a categorical necessity for entering God’s kingdom.
- Burmese rendering & risk: ရမည်/လိုအပ်၏ (must/is necessary). Risk: Low, but doctrinally load-bearing — must not be softened into a mere recommendation.

John 3:8

Greek: τὸ πνεῦμα ὅπου θέλει πνεῖ, καὶ τὴν φωνὴν αὐτοῦ ἀκούεις, ἀλλ᾽ οὐκ οἶδας πόθεν ἔρχεται καὶ ποῦ ὑπάγει· οὕτως ἐστὶν πᾶς ὁ γεγεννημένος ἐκ τοῦ πνεύματος.

πνεῦμα…πνεῖ (pneuma…pnei) — “the wind blows” / “the Spirit blows/moves” — deliberate wordplay
- Literal meaning: πνεῦμα is the single Greek word for both “wind” and “Spirit” (also “breath”); πνέω is “to blow.”
- Semantic range: natural wind; the invisible, sovereign, untraceable movement of the Holy Spirit
- English variants: “the wind blows where it wishes” / “the Spirit blows where he wills”
- Contextual meaning: John exploits the single Greek word to argue analogically: just as wind’s movement is perceptible in effect but untraceable in origin/destination, so is the Spirit’s regenerating work — sovereign, invisible, undeniable in its results.
- Burmese rendering & risk: High. Burmese uses two distinct words — လေ (lay, “wind”) and ဝိညာဉ်တော် (Spirit) — so the single-word pun is lost in translation; the analogy must be reconstructed explicitly rather than assumed from shared vocabulary (e.g., “လေသည် အလိုရှိရာသို့ တိုက်တတ်သကဲ့သို့… ဝိညာဉ်တော်အားဖြင့် မွေးသောသူသည်လည်း ထိုနည်းတူ ဖြစ်၏”). A translator note flagging the lost Greek wordplay is required so back-translation reviewers do not mistake the two-word rendering for an error.

John 3:9

Greek: ἀπεκρίθη Νικόδημος καὶ εἶπεν αὐτῷ· Πῶς δύναται ταῦτα γενέσθαι; No new load-bearing theological term; transitional question restating Nicodemus’s persistent incomprehension. Reuses γίνομαι in ordinary sense.

John 3:10

Greek: ἀπεκρίθη Ἰησοῦς καὶ εἶπεν αὐτῷ· Σὺ εἶ ὁ διδάσκαλος τοῦ Ἰσραὴλ καὶ ταῦτα οὐ γινώσκεις;

διδάσκαλος τοῦ Ἰσραὴλ (didaskalos tou Israēl) — “the teacher of Israel”
- Contextual meaning: Emphatic, likely with the definite article implying Nicodemus’s recognized prominence — heightening the rebuke that Israel’s own teacher fails to grasp what its own Scriptures anticipated (cf. Ezekiel 36).
- Burmese rendering & risk: ဣသရေလအမျိုး၏ ဆရာ, using [BASELINE REUSE] ဣသရေလ (Israen) for Israel exactly as recorded in the Romans TM. Risk: Low–Medium.
γινώσκεις (ginōskeis) — “you know/understand”
- Semantic range: relational, experiential knowing, not mere information
- Burmese rendering & risk: သိခြင်း/နားလည်ခြင်း. Risk: Low.

John 3:11

Greek: ἀμὴν ἀμὴν λέγω σοι ὅτι ὃ οἴδαμεν λαλοῦμεν καὶ ὃ ἑωράκαμεν μαρτυροῦμεν, καὶ τὴν μαρτυρίαν ἡμῶν οὐ λαμβάνετε.

μαρτυροῦμεν / μαρτυρίαν (martyroumen / martyrian) — “we testify / our testimony”
- Literal meaning: to bear witness; a witness’s testimony (juridical background)
- Semantic range: first-hand eyewitness testimony given with authority, a dominant Johannine legal-forensic motif (cf. John the Baptist, the Father, the works, the Scriptures, the Spirit — all “testify”)
- English variants: testify, bear witness, witness
- Contextual meaning: Jesus’s revelation rests on his own direct, personal knowledge (“what we have seen”) — not inference, tradition, or speculative teaching.
- Burmese rendering & risk: သက်သေခံခြင်း (thet-thay-khan-chin). [NEW — JOHN] Risk: Medium. Should be used consistently across all of John’s testimony passages (1:7–8, 32–34; 5:31–39; 8:14–18; 15:26–27; 19:35; 21:24) for cross-document terminological consistency.

John 3:12

Greek: εἰ τὰ ἐπίγεια εἶπον ὑμῖν καὶ οὐ πιστεύετε, πῶς ἐὰν εἴπω ὑμῖν τὰ ἐπουράνια πιστεύσετε;

ἐπίγεια / ἐπουράνια (epigeia / epourania) — “earthly things / heavenly things”
- Contextual meaning: Contrasts the accessible analogy (birth, wind) with the deeper heavenly realities (the Son’s origin, the cross, the Spirit’s work) still to come in vv.13–16.
- Burmese rendering & risk: လောကီအရာများ / ကောင်းကင်ဆိုင်ရာအရာများ. Risk: Low.
πιστεύετε / πιστεύσετε (pisteuete / pisteusete) — “you believe / you will believe”
- Burmese rendering & risk: [BASELINE REUSE] ယုံကြည်ခြင်း (yun-kyi-chin). Risk: Medium per baseline “faith” doctrine entry — the object of faith (Jesus’s own testimony/person) must remain explicit, not softened into generic religious credence.

John 3:13

Greek: καὶ οὐδεὶς ἀναβέβηκεν εἰς τὸν οὐρανὸν εἰ μὴ ὁ ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ καταβάς, ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου.

ἀναβέβηκεν / καταβάς (anabebēken / katabas) — “has ascended / who descended”
- Contextual meaning: Asserts Christ’s unique heavenly origin and pre-existence — he alone has both come from heaven and (in John’s theology) will ascend back to it, unlike any other human figure or prophetic ascent narrative.
- Burmese rendering & risk: တက်တော်မူခြင်း / ဆင်းသက်တော်မူခြင်း. [NEW — JOHN] Risk: High. Directly touches the doctrine of Christ’s Pre-existence; must be kept distinct from Burmese folk/Buddhist “descent” language (cf. baseline’s rejection of နတ်ဆင်းသက်ခြင်း, “nat descending,” for incarnation) — this is the eternal Son’s unique movement between heaven and earth, not a spirit’s temporary manifestation or possession.
υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου (huios tou anthrōpou) — “Son of Man”
- Literal meaning: “son of a man/mankind”
- Semantic range: self-designation drawing on Daniel 7:13’s exalted, authoritative heavenly figure who receives an everlasting kingdom, while simultaneously affirming full humanity
- English variants: Son of Man
- Contextual meaning: Combines humility (genuine humanity) and exaltation (Daniel’s authoritative figure); in John, closely tied to the “lifted up” sayings (3:14; 8:28; 12:34) that link this title directly to the cross.
- Burmese rendering & risk: လူသား (lu-thar). [NEW — JOHN] Risk: High. Plain လူသား could be misread as merely “a human being,” collapsing the title’s Danielic exalted-authority sense into ordinary humanity; must be distinguished in teaching notes from [BASELINE REUSE] ဘုရားသခင်၏သားတော် (“Son of God”) — the two titles are complementary (full humanity + divine authority), not synonyms, and neither should absorb the other.

John 3:14

Greek: καὶ καθὼς Μωϋσῆς ὕψωσεν τὸν ὄφιν ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ, οὕτως ὑψωθῆναι δεῖ τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου,

ὕψωσεν / ὑψωθῆναι (hypsōsen / hypsōthēnai) — “lifted up / must be lifted up”
- Literal meaning: to raise high, elevate
- Semantic range: (1) physical elevation (the bronze serpent on a pole, Numbers 21:9; Jesus lifted up on the cross); (2) exaltation/glorification — John exploits this same double meaning at 8:28 and 12:32–34, where “lifted up” = both crucified and glorified
- English variants: lifted up, raised up, exalted
- Contextual meaning: The typology of the bronze serpent (looking = life from death for the snake-bitten) prefigures the cross: looking to the crucified/exalted Son in faith brings life. This directly connects to Christ’s Substitutionary Death.
- Burmese rendering & risk: မြှောက်တင်ခြင်း (myauk-tin-chin). [NEW — JOHN] Risk: High. The double sense (physically raised on a cross / gloriously exalted) must be preserved across all three Johannine “lifted up” sayings (3:14; 8:28; 12:32–34) for theological and cross-document consistency; a single-sense rendering (only “crucified” or only “honored”) would flatten this deliberate Johannine wordplay.
ὄφιν (ophin) — “serpent”
- Burmese rendering & risk: မြွေ. Risk: Low (typological, not symbolic of evil in this one context — requires a brief note that here the serpent-image is a healing sign, not a symbol of Satan, to avoid confusion with the serpent of Genesis 3/Revelation 12).

John 3:15

Greek: ἵνα πᾶς ὁ πιστεύων ἐν αὐτῷ ἔχῃ ζωὴν αἰώνιον.

ζωὴν αἰώνιον (zōēn aiōnion) — “eternal life”
- Literal meaning: ζωή = life (vital, living existence, as opposed to βίος, mere biological/social existence); αἰώνιος = age-long, eternal, belonging to the age to come
- Semantic range: the quality and duration of the resurrection-age life of God himself, received now by faith and consummated at the resurrection; in John 17:3 explicitly defined relationally (“this is eternal life, that they know you…”)
- English variants: eternal life, everlasting life, life of the age to come
- Contextual meaning: The central positive content of salvation offered in this passage — not merely escape from judgment (v.17–18) but present possession of God’s own quality of life, received the moment one believes (“has,” present tense, not merely “will have”).
- Burmese rendering & risk: CRITICAL. ထာဝရအသက် (htawara a-thet). This is a [NEW — JOHN] term that functions as a doctrinal companion to the baseline’s [BASELINE REUSE] ကယ်တင်ခြင်း (“salvation”): salvation names the rescue, eternal life names the resurrection-quality life received. The Critical risk is identical in kind to the baseline’s “salvation” warning: NEVER allow ထာဝရအသက် to be read or taught as an equivalent to နိဗ္ဗာန်ရောက်ခြင်း (attaining nirvana, the self-attained extinguishing of craving and escape from the cycle of rebirth). Eternal life in John is a relational gift — knowing the Father and the Son (17:3) — received by faith in a person, not achieved by the eightfold path or by extinguishing desire.

John 3:16

Greek: οὕτως γὰρ ἠγάπησεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν κόσμον, ὥστε τὸν υἱὸν τὸν μονογενῆ ἔδωκεν, ἵνα πᾶς ὁ πιστεύων εἰς αὐτὸν μὴ ἀπόληται ἀλλ᾽ ἔχῃ ζωὴν αἰώνιον.

ἠγάπησεν (ēgapēsen) — “loved” (aorist of ἀγαπάω)
- Literal meaning: to love with deliberate, valuing, self-giving commitment (as distinct from φιλέω’s warmer affection/friendship — see John 21 below)
- Semantic range: God’s sovereign, self-originating, self-giving love, directed toward an undeserving object
- English variants: loved, so loved
- Contextual meaning: This is the doctrinal foundation of God’s Love for the World — love that is causative (it results in the giving of the Son), not a response earned by the world’s merit or devotion.
- Burmese rendering & risk: ချစ်တော်မူ၏ (chit-taw-mu-i). [NEW — JOHN] Risk: High. The rendering must communicate a personal, deliberate, sacrificial love from a relational God, not affection contingent on merit accrued by “the world,” and not the impersonal loving-kindness (mettā) cultivated as a Buddhist meditative virtue directed at all beings without a personal object relationship — God’s love here is personally directed and results in a costly, historical, unrepeatable act (giving the Son), not a diffuse mental cultivation of goodwill.
κόσμον (kosmon) — “the world”
- Literal meaning: order, arrangement; the created order; the inhabited world; humanity in its fallen, God-opposing condition (John’s most frequent and theologically loaded meaning)
- Semantic range: (1) the physical universe (1:10a); (2) humanity generally (3:16, the object of God’s love); (3) the God-opposing system organized against Christ (7:7; 15:18–19; 17:14) — all three senses appear across John, and 3:16 itself is the positive object of love even while ch.15/17 speak of “the world” hating Christ
- English variants: world, the world, humanity, mankind
- Contextual meaning: κόσμος’s remarkable double use — object of God’s saving love AND the system in rebellion against him — must both be retained; this is the Universal Scope of the Gospel doctrine (cf. baseline).
- Burmese rendering & risk: လောက (lawka). [NEW — JOHN] Risk: High. လောက is the standard Buddhist cosmological term for “the world/realm(s) of existence” within samsara; risk is that Burmese readers default to a cosmological-realm reading (one of the 31 planes of existence) rather than John’s meaning of humanity as the object of God’s redeeming love and, elsewhere, humanity organized in opposition to God. Requires consistent teaching notes distinguishing κόσμος (a moral-relational category: loved by God, or in rebellion against him) from Buddhist cosmological လောကဓာတ်/ဘုံ (realms of rebirth).
μονογενῆ (monogenē) — “only begotten / one and only”
- Literal meaning: μόνος (only) + γένος (kind/offspring) — one of a kind, unique, one-and-only
- Semantic range: unique, without peer or duplicate; used of an only child (Luke 7:12; 9:38) and, in John, exclusively of Christ’s unique divine Sonship (1:14, 18; 3:16, 18; 1 John 4:9)
- English variants: only begotten, one and only, only, unique
- Contextual meaning: Asserts Christ’s absolutely unique, uncreated, eternal Sonship — not one son among many, not a title shared or transferable, directly grounding the doctrine of the Deity and Pre-existence of Christ.
- Burmese rendering & risk: CRITICAL. တစ်ပါးတည်းသောသားတော် (tabar-tal-thaw thartaw, “the only/unique Son”), combined where the text so states with [BASELINE REUSE] ဘုရားသခင်၏သားတော်. Must never be diluted to suggest Jesus is merely the most excellent among several divine sons or an elevated being who attained sonship (e.g., through accumulated merit reaching a Brahma-realm status, a risk the baseline already flags for “son_of_god”). The uniqueness (μόνος) must be unambiguous in the Burmese phrase.
ἀπόληται (apolētai) — “should perish”
- Literal meaning: to be destroyed, lost, ruined; to perish
- Semantic range: ultimate destruction/loss, the negative counterpart to eternal life — not annihilation of being but ruinous separation from God
- English variants: perish, be lost, be destroyed
- Contextual meaning: The stated alternative to eternal life; establishes the two-only-outcomes structure (perish or have eternal life) that underlies the doctrine of Judgment and Belief/Unbelief.
- Burmese rendering & risk: ဆုံးရှုံးခြင်း (sohn-shohn-chin). [NEW — JOHN] Risk: Medium. Must be distinguished from a graded karmic decline (a “worse rebirth”) — this is decisive, final ruin versus decisive, final life, not one point lower on a continuous merit scale.

John 3:17

Greek: οὐ γὰρ ἀπέστειλεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν υἱὸν εἰς τὸν κόσμον ἵνα κρίνῃ τὸν κόσμον, ἀλλ᾽ ἵνα σωθῇ ὁ κόσμος διὰ αὐτοῦ.

ἀπέστειλεν (apesteilen) — “sent”
- Semantic range: to send with a commission/mission (root of ἀπόστολος, “apostle,” [BASELINE REUSE] တမန်တော်)
- Contextual meaning: The Son’s mission originates from and is authorized by the Father — establishing sent-ness as a key Christological and missional category throughout John (5:36–38; 6:29, 57; 17:3, 18, 21, 23, 25; 20:21).
- Burmese rendering & risk: စေလွှတ်တော်မူ၏ (say-hlwat-taw-mu-i). [NEW — JOHN] Risk: Medium.
κρίνῃ / σωθῇ (krinē / sōthē) — “should judge / should be saved”
- Burmese rendering & risk: κρίνω = [NEW — JOHN] တရားစီရင်ခြင်း (tayar-si-yin-chin, “to judge/render verdict”), Risk: High. σωθῇ = [BASELINE REUSE] ကယ်တင်ခြင်း, Risk: Critical. The verse’s logic — the Son’s first purpose is rescue, not condemnation — must be preserved precisely; do not let the Burmese syntax imply judgment is the primary or equal purpose.

John 3:18

Greek: ὁ πιστεύων εἰς αὐτὸν οὐ κρίνεται· ὁ δὲ μὴ πιστεύων ἤδη κέκριται, ὅτι μὴ πεπίστευκεν εἰς τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ μονογενοῦς υἱοῦ τοῦ θεοῦ.

κρίνεται / κέκριται (krinetai / kekritai) — “is judged / has already been judged”
- Semantic range: κέκριται is perfect tense — a completed, standing verdict, not a future possibility
- Contextual meaning: Unbelief’s condemnation is not a future threat but a present, standing reality — the doctrine of Judgment is inseparably tied to present unbelief, not merely a future courtroom scene. This grounds Assurance of Salvation from the opposite direction: the believer’s non-judgment is likewise a present, settled reality.
- Burmese rendering & risk: တရားစီရင်ခံရသည် / စီရင်ပြီးဖြစ်၏ (already judged). Risk: High — the perfect-tense finality must not be softened into a merely provisional or probationary status (paralleling the baseline’s caution on “adoption” against provisional sonship).
ὄνομα (onoma) — “name”
- Semantic range: name as the locus of a person’s revealed identity and authority; “believing in the name” = trusting the person and identity revealed, not a verbal formula
- Burmese rendering & risk: အမည်တော်. Risk: Low.

John 3:19

Greek: αὕτη δέ ἐστιν ἡ κρίσις, ὅτι τὸ φῶς ἐλήλυθεν εἰς τὸν κόσμον καὶ ἠγάπησαν οἱ ἄνθρωποι μᾶλλον τὸ σκότος ἢ τὸ φῶς· ἦν γὰρ αὐτῶν πονηρὰ τὰ ἔργα.

κρίσις (krisis) — “judgment” (noun)
- Semantic range: the act/basis of judgment; here defined as a criterion — the coming of light and humanity’s preference for darkness IS the judgment
- Burmese rendering & risk: တရားစီရင်ချက် (verdict/basis of judgment). [NEW — JOHN] Risk: High.
φῶς (phōs) — “light”
- Literal meaning: light, illumination
- Semantic range: John’s central Christological and moral-epistemic symbol: Christ himself as the light of the world (1:4–9; 8:12; 9:5; 12:46), and moral/spiritual illumination that exposes deeds
- English variants: light
- Contextual meaning: Christ’s coming is itself the arrival of moral light that forces a decisive response — love or hatred of the light reveals one’s fundamental orientation.
- Burmese rendering & risk: အလင်းတော် (a-lin-taw, when referring to Christ) / အလင်း (generic). [NEW — JOHN] Risk: High. Must avoid conflation with meditative “inner light” attainment concepts in Burmese contemplative vocabulary; this Light is a Person who has objectively “come into the world” (historical incarnation), not an inward psychological state cultivated through practice.
σκότος (skotos) — “darkness”
- Semantic range: moral and spiritual darkness — culpable rejection of revealed light, not mere ignorance
- Burmese rendering & risk: မှောင်မိုက် (mhaung-maik). [NEW — JOHN] Risk: Medium. Note the contrast with κιλεσα/defilements-language in Burmese Buddhist vocabulary (already flagged in baseline’s “peace” entry against ကိလေသာ) — this darkness is a moral choice against a revealed Person, not an impersonal defilement to be dissolved through one’s own meditative discipline.
πονηρὰ τὰ ἔργα (ponēra ta erga) — “evil deeds/works”
- Burmese rendering & risk: ဆိုးညစ်သောအမှုများ. Risk: Low.

John 3:20

Greek: πᾶς γὰρ ὁ φαῦλα πράσσων μισεῖ τὸ φῶς καὶ οὐκ ἔρχεται πρὸς τὸ φῶς, ἵνα μὴ ἐλεγχθῇ τὰ ἔργα αὐτοῦ.

φαῦλα (phaula) — “evil, worthless, base”
- Burmese rendering & risk: ယုတ်မာသော/အကျိုးမရှိသော. Risk: Low.
μισεῖ (misei) — “hates”
- Contextual meaning: Active hostility toward the light, not passive neutrality — a strong verb matching John’s dualistic love/hate structuring (cf. 15:18–25).
- Burmese rendering & risk: မုန်းတီးခြင်း. Risk: Low.
ἐλεγχθῇ (elegchthē) — “should be exposed/convicted”
- Literal meaning: to expose, bring to light, convict (often in a legal or moral-shame sense)
- Semantic range: to be shown for what one truly is; the same verb family the Spirit uses in his convicting work (16:8)
- Burmese rendering & risk: ထင်ရှားစေခြင်း/ပြစ်တင်ဆုံးမခြင်း (exposed/convicted). [NEW — JOHN] Risk: Medium. Should be kept consistent with the rendering chosen for the Spirit’s convicting work in 16:8 for cross-document consistency, since both describe exposure of sin, though one is by the light of Christ’s presence and the other by the Spirit’s ministry.

John 3:21

Greek: ὁ δὲ ποιῶν τὴν ἀλήθειαν ἔρχεται πρὸς τὸ φῶς, ἵνα φανερωθῇ αὐτοῦ τὰ ἔργα ὅτι ἐν θεῷ ἐστιν εἰργασμένα.

ποιῶν τὴν ἀλήθειαν (poiōn tēn alētheian) — “doing the truth” / “practicing the truth”
- Semantic range: a Hebraic idiom (cf. 1 John 1:6) meaning to live in a manner consistent with revealed truth, not merely to hold correct doctrine
- Burmese rendering & risk: သမ္မာတရားကို ကျင့်သောသူ (thanmartayar practicing). [NEW — JOHN] Risk: High. See ἀλήθεια entry below — the practical, lived sense here must not be reduced to mere intellectual assent.
ἀλήθεια (alētheia) — “truth”
- Literal meaning: that which is not hidden, that which really is; unconcealed reality
- Semantic range: one of John’s central theological terms — truth as ultimately identified with Christ himself (14:6), the Spirit (14:17; 16:13), and God’s own faithful, revealed reality, over against falsehood, illusion, or “the ruler of this world’s” deception
- English variants: truth, reality
- Contextual meaning: “Doing the truth” here anticipates the entire Johannine identification of truth with a Person, not an abstract philosophical or moral category.
- Burmese rendering & risk: သမ္မာတရား (thanmartayar). [NEW — JOHN] Risk: High. သမ္မာ is a Pali-derived root shared with the Noble Eightfold Path’s samma-terms (Right View/sammā-diṭṭhi, Right Speech/sammā-vācā, etc.); this is the established Myanmar Bible rendering and should be retained (per the requirement to prefer already-established Myanmar Christian usage over inventing new coinages), but every occurrence carries the collision risk that a Buddhist-background reader hears an ethical-correctness category (right/correct as opposed to wrong) rather than John’s ontological and personal category — truth as a divine Person to be known, trusted, and lived in union with, not a code of right conduct achieved by one’s own diligence. A standing translator note on this collision is recommended wherever ἀλήθεια/alethes vocabulary appears (esp. 1:14, 17; 4:23–24; 8:32; 14:6; 16:13; 17:17; 18:37–38).
φανερωθῇ (phanerōthē) — “should be made manifest/revealed”
- Burmese rendering & risk: ထင်ရှားစေခြင်း. Risk: Low.
ἐν θεῷ…εἰργασμένα (en theō…eirgasmena) — “wrought/done in God”
- Contextual meaning: Good works that please God are done “in” him — in dependence on and union with God — not accumulated independently as one’s own achievement, subtly anticipating the grace-versus-merit contrast that runs through the whole Gospel (esp. 1:16–17; 6:28–29).
- Burmese rendering & risk: ဘုရားသခင်၌ပြုသောအမှု. [NEW — JOHN] Risk: High. Must not be allowed to slide into ကုသိုလ်ပြုခြင်း-style merit-accumulation language (already Critically forbidden in the baseline for “grace” and “righteousness”); works “in God” are relationally sourced, not self-generated merit deposits.

PART B — CHAPTER-BY-CHAPTER STUDY OF THE WHOLE BOOK

(Chapter 3 is treated in two parts: vv.1–21 above in Part A; vv.22–36 below.)

Chapter 1 — Prologue, John the Baptist, First Disciples

Term	Greek (translit.)	Literal meaning	Semantic range	EN variants	Contextual theological meaning	Burmese rendering & risk
Word	λόγος (logos)	word, speech, reason, account	The self-expression/reason of God; in John 1:1–18 a divine Person, co-eternal with God, agent of creation	Word, the Word, Logos	Foundational term for the Deity and Pre-existence of Christ: the Word was (imperfect, continuous existence) in the beginning, was with God (distinct person), and was God (full deity)	[NEW — JOHN] နှုတ်ကပတ်တော် (nhotkapattaw), the established Myanmar Bible term. Risk: Critical. Must be taught with 1:1–3 kept intact as a unit: distinct personhood + full deity + agency in creation. Never reducible to an abstract principle, “reason,” or an emanated lesser being (a risk analogous to the baseline’s warning against reading “Son of God” as a lesser celestial being).
Life	ζωή (zōē)	life, vitality	Life as God himself possesses it, source of all creaturely life	life	”In him was life” (1:4) — Christ as the very source of existence, foundation for later “eternal life” teaching	[NEW — JOHN] အသက် (a-thet). Risk: High; see 3:15/3:16 entries above for “eternal life.”
Light	φῶς (phōs)	light	Christ as revealing, life-giving light contrasted with darkness that cannot overcome/comprehend it	light	Establishes the light/darkness dualism used throughout the Gospel, esp. ch.3, 8, 9, 12	[NEW — JOHN] အလင်းတော်/အလင်း. Risk: High (see 3:19 entry).
Darkness	σκοτία / σκότος (skotia/skotos)	darkness	Moral-spiritual opposition to and rejection of the light	darkness	”The darkness has not overcome/comprehended it” (1:5) — sets up the entire Gospel’s dualistic conflict structure	[NEW — JOHN] မှောင်မိုက်. Risk: Medium.
Grace and truth	χάρις καὶ ἀλήθεια (charis kai alētheia)	favor and truth	Echoes OT covenant language (Exodus 34:6, God’s ḥesed we’emet) now embodied fully in Christ	grace and truth	1:14, 16–17: “grace upon grace,” and “the law was given through Moses, [but] grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” — a direct grace-versus-law contrast paralleling Romans’s grace-versus-merit theme	χάρις: [BASELINE REUSE] ကျေးဇူးတော် (kyayzu-taw), Critical. ἀλήθεια: [NEW — JOHN] သမ္မာတရား, High (see 3:21). Together: Critical — John 1:17 is a foundational verse establishing the same “grace, not merit” contrast the Romans baseline treats as its single highest-stakes doctrine; must be taught with equal force here.
Only begotten / one and only	μονογενής (monogenēs)	one of a kind, unique	Christ’s unique divine Sonship (1:14, 18)	only begotten, one and only, only	”We have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father” (1:14); “the only God/only Son, who is at the Father’s side” (1:18)	[NEW — JOHN] တစ်ပါးတည်းသောသားတော်. Risk: Critical (see 3:16 entry).
Lamb of God	ὁ ἀμνὸς τοῦ θεοῦ (ho amnos tou theou)	God’s lamb	Sacrificial, substitutionary imagery drawing on Passover lamb and Isaiah 53’s suffering servant	Lamb of God	”Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (1:29, 36) — foundational text for Christ’s Substitutionary Death	[NEW — JOHN] ဘုရားသခင်၏ သိုးသငယ်တော်. Risk: Critical. Must be taught with the OT Passover/sacrificial background explicitly supplied, since Burmese culture has no indigenous substitutionary-sacrifice-for-sin category; risk of the phrase being heard as merely a term of endearment (“gentle lamb”) rather than a specific atoning-sacrifice claim.
Rabbi / Teacher	ῥαββί / διδάσκαλος (rabbi/didaskalos)	my master/teacher	Respectful address	Rabbi, Teacher, Master	Early, inadequate christological category later transcended by fuller confessions (1:41, 49)	[NEW — JOHN] ရဗ္ဗိ/ဆရာ. Risk: Medium (see 3:2 entry).
Messiah / Christ	Μεσσίας / Χριστός (Messias/Christos)	Anointed One	The promised Davidic/prophetic Anointed One	Messiah, Christ, the Anointed One	1:41 explicitly glosses “we have found the Messiah (which means Christ)” — John himself equates the two terms for his Greek-speaking audience	Μεσσίας: [BASELINE REUSE] မေရှိယ, Critical. Χριστός (as title/name component, “Jesus Christ”): [NEW — JOHN, drawing on baseline pattern] ခရစ်တော် (Khayitto), the AI instruction set’s already-fixed transliteration for “Christ.” Risk: Critical for both — never conflated with မိတ္တေယျ (Metteyya, the future Buddha of Theravada expectation), per baseline’s existing forbidden-substitution rule.
Son of God	υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ (huios tou theou)	Son of God	Christ’s unique, eternal, divine Sonship	Son of God	1:34, 49 — climactic confessional titles bracketing the chapter	[BASELINE REUSE] ဘုရားသခင်၏သားတော်. Risk: Critical.
Believe	πιστεύω (pisteuō)	to believe, trust	Trust placed in Christ’s person and testimony	believe	1:7, 12, 50 — introduces the Gospel’s central response-category, culminating in the purpose statement of 20:31	[BASELINE REUSE] ယုံကြည်ခြင်း. Risk: Medium.
Glory	δόξα (doxa)	glory, honor, radiance	God’s own radiant, revealed honor, now visibly manifest in the incarnate Word	glory	1:14 “we have seen his glory” — the Incarnation makes God’s glory visible	[BASELINE REUSE] ဘုန်းတော်. Risk: High.
Sign(s)	σημεῖον (sēmeion)	sign, token	Miraculous act pointing to Christ’s identity (introduced narratively at 2:11, foreshadowed in ch.1’s testimony structure)	sign, miracle	See ch.2 below	See ch.2 entry.
Israel	Ἰσραήλ (Israēl)	Israel	Covenant people	Israel	1:31, 49 — “King of Israel”	[BASELINE REUSE] ဣသရေလ. Risk: Medium.

Chapter 2 — Wedding at Cana; Temple Cleansing

Term	Greek (translit.)	Literal / semantic range	EN variants	Contextual meaning	Burmese rendering & risk
Sign	σημεῖον (sēmeion)	a miraculous act functioning as a meaning-bearing token, not mere power-display	sign, miraculous sign	”This, the first of his signs…manifested his glory, and his disciples believed in him” (2:11) — establishes John’s programmatic use of “signs” to move readers toward faith (cf. 20:30–31)	[NEW — JOHN] နိမိတ်လက္ခဏာ. Risk: Medium (see 3:2 entry above — must avoid the divinatory-omen collision).
Hour	ὥρα (hōra)	a set, appointed time	hour, time	”My hour has not yet come” (2:4) — introduces the recurring motif of Christ’s divinely appointed hour of glorification/death, resolved in 12:23; 13:1; 17:1	[NEW — JOHN] အချိန်တော် (a-chein-taw, “the appointed time/hour”). Risk: Medium. Must convey a sovereignly fixed, divinely governed timetable — not an impersonal astrologically-determined auspicious moment (cf. baseline’s “providence” caution against ကံ, impersonal fate).
Zeal	ζῆλος (zēlos)	zeal, jealous devotion	zeal, ardor	”Zeal for your house will consume me” (2:17, quoting Psalm 69:9) — devotion to God’s honor, applied to the Temple cleansing	[NEW — JOHN] စိတ်အားထက်သန်မှု. Risk: Low.
Temple	ἱερόν / ναός (hieron/naos)	the Temple precincts / the Temple sanctuary building	temple	2:14–21; ναός in 2:19–21 shifts meaning to Christ’s own body — “destroy this temple [his body]…I will raise it up”	[NEW — JOHN] ဗိမာန်တော် (beiman-taw). Risk: Medium. Distinguish from ဘုရားကျောင်း/ဘုရားရိပ်သာ (pagoda/monastic compound), which the baseline already rejects for “church” for the same reason — ဗိမာန်တော် names the OT/NT sacred sanctuary, not a Buddhist sacred site. Note also that 2:19–21’s shift to Christ’s body as the true temple anticipates the doctrine of the Resurrection.
Raise up (of the temple/body)	ἐγερῶ (egerō)	to raise, awaken	raise up	2:19–22 — Christ’s own prediction of his bodily resurrection, confirmed retrospectively by the disciples after the event (2:22)	Related to [BASELINE REUSE] ထမြောက်ခြင်း (resurrection). Risk: Critical — same forbidden-substitution rule applies (never ပဋိသန္ဓေတည်ခြင်း, rebirth).

Chapter 3, verses 22–36 — John the Baptist’s Final Testimony

Term	Greek (translit.)	Literal / semantic range	EN variants	Contextual meaning	Burmese rendering & risk
Bridegroom	νυμφίος (nymphios)	bridegroom	bridegroom	3:29 — John the Baptist casts himself as the “friend of the bridegroom,” Christ as the Bridegroom; a joy-filled subordination motif	[NEW — JOHN] မင်္ဂလာဆောင်လင်ယောက်ျား. Risk: Low.
From above / above all	ἄνωθεν (anōthen), ἐπάνω πάντων (epanō pantōn)	from above; above all	from above	3:31 — “He who comes from above is above all,” reiterating the pre-existence/heavenly-origin theme of 3:13	See ἄνωθεν entry at 3:3 above. Risk: Critical.
Testimony	μαρτυρία (martyria)	witness/testimony	testimony, witness	3:32–33 continues the forensic testimony motif from 3:11	[NEW — JOHN] သက်သေခံခြင်း. Risk: Medium.
Without measure	οὐ μέτρῳ (ou metrō)	not by measure	without measure/limit	3:34 — “For he whom God has sent utters the words of God, for he gives the Spirit without measure” — a striking statement of the Spirit’s unlimited presence in Christ, foundational to the doctrine of the Holy Spirit as Counselor developed later	[NEW — JOHN] အတိုင်းအဆမရှိ. Risk: Medium.
Believe / obey the Son	πιστεύων / ἀπειθῶν (pisteuōn/apeithōn)	believing / disobeying	believing / not obeying, disbelieving	3:36 pairs believing with eternal life and “not obeying” (ἀπειθέω, stronger than mere non-belief — active refusal) with wrath	πιστεύων: [BASELINE REUSE] ယုံကြည်ခြင်း. ἀπειθῶν: [NEW — JOHN] မနာခံသော/မယုံကြည်သော. Risk: High.
Wrath of God	ὀργὴ τοῦ θεοῦ (orgē tou theou)	God’s anger/wrath	wrath, God’s anger	3:36 — “the wrath of God remains on him [who does not obey the Son]” — the sober counterpart to 3:16’s love, closing the chapter’s judgment/belief dialectic	[NEW — JOHN] ဘုရားသခင်၏ အမျက်တော်. Risk: High. Must convey God’s holy, personal, judicial displeasure at sin and unbelief — not the placatable anger of a nat-spirit requiring an offering to appease, nor an impersonal karmic reaction.

Chapter 4 — The Samaritan Woman; the Royal Official’s Son

Term	Greek (translit.)	Literal / semantic range	EN variants	Contextual meaning	Burmese rendering & risk
Samaritans	Σαμαρῖται (Samaritai)	Samaritans	Samaritans	An ethnically and religiously mixed, mutually despised people-group vis-à-vis Jews (4:9) — functionally parallel to the baseline’s Jew/Gentile unity theme; the gospel crossing this barrier anticipates Unity of Jews and Gentiles applied to a comparable social division	[NEW — JOHN] ရှမာရိလူမျိုး. Risk: Medium. In teaching notes, the ethnic-tension parallel to Burma’s own majority-Burman/minority-ethnic dynamics (already flagged in the baseline’s “universal_scope_of_gospel” doctrine note) should be drawn explicitly.
Living water	ὕδωρ ζῶν (hydōr zōn)	living/flowing water	living water	4:10–14 — water that permanently satisfies, springing up to eternal life; echoes and anticipates 7:37–39’s Spirit-identification	[NEW — JOHN] အသက်ရေ (a-thet-yay). Risk: High. Must be linked conceptually with ζωὴ αἰώνιος (eternal life) and, at 7:37–39, explicitly with the Holy Spirit — not confused with any ritually efficacious “holy water” concept.
Worship in spirit and truth	προσκυνέω ἐν πνεύματι καὶ ἀληθεί�ᾳ (proskyneō en pneumati kai alētheia)	to worship/bow down in spirit and truth	worship in spirit and truth	4:23–24 — true worship is no longer tied to a geographic sanctuary (Jerusalem or Gerizim) but is a Spirit-enabled, truth-grounded reality; God himself “is spirit”	προσκυνέω: [NEW — JOHN] ဝတ်ပြုကိုးကွယ်ခြင်း. Risk: High — must denote worship directed exclusively to the one true God, not the veneration (ရှိခိုးခြင်း/ပူဇော်ခြင်း) practiced toward Buddha images, pagodas, or nat shrines. πνεῦμα/ἀλήθεια here reuse the Spirit and Truth entries above.
Harvest	θερισμός (therismos)	harvest	harvest	4:35–38 — missionary metaphor, “the fields are white for harvest,” feeding into Mission to the Nations	[NEW — JOHN] ရိတ်သိမ်းချိန်. Risk: Low.
Salvation	σωτηρία (sōtēria)	salvation	salvation	4:22, “salvation is from the Jews”	[BASELINE REUSE] ကယ်တင်ခြင်း. Risk: Critical.

Chapter 5 — Healing at Bethesda; Christ’s Equality with the Father

Term	Greek (translit.)	Literal / semantic range	EN variants	Contextual meaning	Burmese rendering & risk
Sabbath	σάββατον (sabbaton)	Sabbath	Sabbath	5:9–18 — healing on the Sabbath provokes accusation; Jesus’s defense (“My Father is working, so I am working too,” 5:17) becomes a direct claim to divine prerogative	[NEW — JOHN] ဥပုသ်နေ့ (u-bot-nay). Risk: High. ဥပုသ်နေ့ is the established Myanmar word for a holy rest/observance day, but it is simultaneously the specific Burmese Buddhist term for Uposatha, the lunar-calendar precept-observance and fasting day. Every occurrence risks importing a merit-observance framework (keeping the eight precepts to gain merit) onto the biblical Sabbath, which is a creation-and-covenant rest, not a merit-earning discipline. A standing translator note distinguishing covenantal Sabbath rest from Uposatha observance is required, paralleling the baseline’s existing law/Vinaya distinction.
Honor	τιμή/τιμάω (timē/timaō)	honor, value	honor	5:23 — “that all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father” — equal honor due to the Son as to the Father, a direct claim to Unity of the Father and the Son and Deity of Christ	[NEW — JOHN] ဂုဏ်ပြုခြင်း. Risk: Critical. Must convey worship-level honor equal to the Father’s, not the respect given to a venerated teacher or ancestor.
Resurrection of life / resurrection of judgment	ἀνάστασις ζωῆς / ἀνάστασις κρίσεως (anastasis zōēs / anastasis kriseōs)	resurrection unto life / resurrection unto judgment	resurrection to life / resurrection of condemnation	5:28–29 — a future, bodily, universal resurrection with two possible destinies, tying resurrection directly to final judgment	ἀνάστασις: [BASELINE REUSE] ထမြောက်ခြင်း, Critical — never ပဋိသန္ဓေတည်ခြင်း. κρίσις: [NEW — JOHN] တရားစီရင်ခြင်း (see 3:19). Risk: Critical for the combined phrase — this is a single bodily resurrection event with two outcomes, not two separate rebirths into better/worse states within an ongoing cycle.
Testimony (fourfold)	μαρτυρία / μαρτυρέω (martyria/martyreō)	witness/testify	testimony, witness	5:31–39 — John the Baptist, the Father, Jesus’s works, and the Scriptures all “testify” to Christ; grounds Inspiration of Scripture and Fulfillment of Prophecy	[NEW — JOHN] သက်သေခံခြင်း. Risk: Medium.

Chapter 6 — Feeding the 5,000; Bread of Life Discourse

Term	Greek (translit.)	Literal / semantic range	EN variants	Contextual meaning	Burmese rendering & risk
I am the bread of life	ἐγώ εἰμι ὁ ἄρτος τῆς ζωῆς (egō eimi ho artos tēs zōēs)	I am the bread of life	I am the bread of life	6:35, 48, 51 — the first of the Seven “I Am” Statements; Christ as the sole, sufficient, permanently satisfying sustenance for eternal life, contrasted with manna that only sustained physical life temporarily	[NEW — JOHN] ငါသည် အသက်မုန့်ဖြစ်၏ (nga-thi athet-mont hpyit-i). Risk: Critical. The ἐγώ εἰμι formula (see below) combined with a divine self-predication requires the Burmese phrase to carry the same weight as the baseline’s treatment of “Lord” (10:9) — an exclusive, unrepeatable self-identification, not one spiritual food option among others (cf. offerings of food to Buddha images or spirits, or the merit gained by feeding monks, dāna — this bread cannot be earned or offered, only received by faith).
I AM	ἐγώ εἰμι (egō eimi)	I am	Absolute self-declaration echoing YHWH’s self-naming in Exodus 3:14 (LXX ἐγώ εἰμι ὁ ὤν) and Isaiah’s “I am He” declarations (Isa 41:4; 43:10–13)	I am; I am he	Foundational formula behind all Seven “I Am” Statements (6:35; 8:12; 10:7,9; 10:11,14; 11:25; 14:6; 15:1,5) and the absolute, unqualified uses at 8:24, 28, 58; 13:19; 18:5–6,8
Flesh and blood (eucharistic)	σάρξ καὶ αἷμα (sarx kai haima)	flesh and blood	flesh and blood	6:51–58 — “unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood…” — sacrificial, substitutionary, participatory language anticipating the cross and (in later church practice) the Lord’s Supper	σάρξ: [NEW — JOHN] ဇာတိ/အသား (see 3:6, distinct sense here as sacrificial body). αἷμα: [NEW — JOHN] သွေး. Risk: Critical — must not be read literally (cannibalism accusation already surfaces in the narrative, 6:52, 60), but as participatory faith in Christ’s substitutionary death; also must avoid any accidental echo of Buddhist relic-veneration practices around a teacher’s bodily remains.
Drawing	ἑλκύω (helkyō)	to draw, drag	to draw	6:44 — “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him” — grounds effectual, sovereign calling; functionally parallel to the baseline’s “election”/“calling” doctrine	[NEW — JOHN] ဆွဲငင်ခြင်း. Risk: High. Must convey a sovereign, personal, effectual divine initiative — not ကံဇာတာ (karma-fixed destiny), the same forbidden-substitution logic the baseline already applies to “election” and “calling.”
Holy One of God	ὁ ἅγιος τοῦ θεοῦ (ho hagios tou theou)	the Holy One of God	the Holy One of God	6:69 — Peter’s confession	ἅγιος: [BASELINE REUSE] သန့်ရှင်းသော. Risk: High.

Chapter 7 — Feast of Tabernacles; Rivers of Living Water

Term	Greek (translit.)	Literal / semantic range	EN variants	Contextual meaning	Burmese rendering & risk
Rivers of living water	ποταμοὶ ὕδατος ζῶντος (potamoi hydatos zōntos)	rivers of living water	rivers of living water	7:38–39 — explicitly identified by the narrator as the Holy Spirit, “whom those who believed in him were to receive,” given only after Christ’s glorification	Reuses [NEW — JOHN] အသက်ရေ (see ch.4) plus [BASELINE REUSE] သန့်ရှင်းသောဝိညာဉ်တော်. Risk: Critical — this verse is the interpretive key linking the “living water” image directly and explicitly to the Person of the Holy Spirit; the Burmese rendering must preserve this direct identification, not leave it as a vague spiritual metaphor.
Spirit not yet given	οὔπω γὰρ ἦν πνεῦμα (oupō gar ēn pneuma)	for the Spirit was not yet [given]	the Spirit had not yet been given	7:39 — situates the fullness of the Spirit’s ministry (Holy Spirit as Counselor, developed in ch.14–16) as inaugurated only after Christ’s glorification/resurrection/ascension	[BASELINE REUSE] သန့်ရှင်းသောဝိညာဉ်တော်. Risk: Critical.

Chapter 8 — Light of the World; Truth and Freedom; Before Abraham

Term	Greek (translit.)	Literal / semantic range	EN variants	Contextual meaning	Burmese rendering & risk
I am the light of the world	ἐγώ εἰμι τὸ φῶς τοῦ κόσμου (egō eimi to phōs tou kosmou)	I am the light of the world	I am the light of the world	8:12 — second “I Am” statement; universal (τοῦ κόσμου), not confined to one people	Reuses [NEW — JOHN] အလင်းတော် + ငါဖြစ်၏ formula. Risk: Critical.
Truth will set you free	ἡ ἀλήθεια ἐλευθερώσει ὑμᾶς (hē alētheia eleutherōsei hymas)	the truth will free you	the truth will set you free	8:32 — freedom from slavery to sin (8:34), through continuing in Christ’s word and knowing the truth (=Christ himself, cf.14:6)	ἀλήθεια: [NEW — JOHN] သမ္မာတရား (see 3:21). ἐλευθερόω: [NEW — JOHN] လွတ်လပ်စေခြင်း. Risk: High. Must not be confused with, nor substituted for, [BASELINE REUSE] ကယ်တင်ခြင်း (salvation) — “freedom” here names a specific effect (release from sin’s bondage) achieved through the same saving work, but the two Burmese terms must remain distinct so that “freedom” doesn’t drift toward a generic, secular liberation reading disconnected from Christ.
Slave to sin	δοῦλος τῆς ἁμαρτίας (doulos tēs hamartias)	slave/servant of sin	slave of sin	8:34	δοῦλος: ကျွန်. ἁμαρτία: [BASELINE REUSE] အပြစ်. Risk: High.
Before Abraham was, I am	πρὶν Ἀβραὰμ γενέσθαι ἐγὼ εἰμί (prin Abraam genesthai egō eimi)	before Abraham came to be, I am	before Abraham was, I am	8:58 — the most explicit absolute “I Am” claim in the Gospel prior to the Passion; directly asserts eternal pre-existence and provokes a stoning attempt for blasphemy (8:59) — the single strongest textual anchor for the Deity and Pre-existence of Christ doctrine outside the Prologue	Reuses [NEW — JOHN] ငါဖြစ်၏/ငါသည်ပင်ဖြစ်၏. Risk: Critical. This occurrence in particular requires the Exodus 3:14 translator note; the tense contrast (Abraham γενέσθαι, “came into being” — a created, temporal verb — versus Christ’s ἐγὼ εἰμί, timeless “I am”) should be explained in the note even if it cannot be fully replicated grammatically in Burmese.
Devil / father of lies	ὁ διάβολος (ho diabolos)	the slanderer, the devil	devil, the evil one	8:44 — “you are of your father the devil” — a personal, malevolent spiritual being opposed to God, the source of the first lie and of murder	[NEW — JOHN] မာရ်နတ် (mar-nat). Risk: High. နတ် is the general Burmese word for spirit-beings (including the 37 guardian nats venerated in folk religion, already flagged as a collision risk in the baseline’s “intercession” entry). မာရ်နတ် is the established Myanmar Buddhist-and-Christian term for the tempter/Satan (paralleling Buddhist Mara traditions), and while widely used in Myanmar Bibles, every occurrence should be taught with the clarification that this is a personal, historically fallen angelic enemy of God engaged in a real moral-spiritual conflict against Christ (esp. relevant in 12:31; 14:30; 16:11’s “ruler of this world”), not one nat spirit among the pantheon to be placated or negotiated with, nor Mara as a psychologized personification of craving/temptation within one’s own mind as in some Buddhist framings.

Term	Greek (translit.)	Literal / semantic range	EN variants	Contextual meaning	Burmese rendering & risk
Blindness (physical and spiritual)	τυφλός (typhlos)	blind	blind, blindness	9:1–41 — the healing becomes an extended sign contrasting literal blindness that is healed with willful spiritual blindness that persists (9:39–41)	[NEW — JOHN] မျက်စိကန်းခြင်း. Risk: Medium. The double physical/spiritual sense must be carried into the Burmese narrative arc, and the passage’s rejection of the disciples’ assumption that sin directly and proportionally causes affliction (9:2–3, contra a strict retributive-karma reading of suffering) should be flagged as a High-risk doctrinal point requiring a translator/teaching note, since this directly counters the intuitive folk-Buddhist inference that visible affliction is a transparent indicator of past-life demerit.
Cast out of synagogue	ἀποσυνάγωγος (aposynagōgos) / ἐξέβαλον (exebalon)	put out of the synagogue	cast out, excommunicated	9:22, 34–35 — the social cost of confessing Christ, resonant with the real social/family cost of leaving Buddhism in the contemporary Burmese context (already flagged in the baseline’s “evangelism” doctrine entry)	[NEW — JOHN] အသင်းတော်မှ ပယ်ထုတ်ခြင်း (using [BASELINE REUSE] အသင်းတော် root, applied by extension to the synagogue community here). Risk: Medium — a native-speaker review should confirm the social-cost resonance is communicated without overstatement.
Worship	προσκυνέω (proskyneō)	worship	worship	9:38 — the healed man worships Jesus, a decisive faith-response reusing the ch.4 term	[NEW — JOHN] ဝတ်ပြုကိုးကွယ်ခြင်း (see ch.4). Risk: High.

Chapter 10 — The Good Shepherd; “I and the Father Are One”

Term	Greek (translit.)	Literal / semantic range	EN variants	Contextual meaning	Burmese rendering & risk
I am the door	ἐγώ εἰμι ἡ θύρα (egō eimi hē thyra)	I am the door/gate	I am the door/gate	10:7, 9 — third “I Am” statement; exclusive access to salvation and pasture	[NEW — JOHN] ငါသည် တံခါးဖြစ်၏. Risk: Critical.
I am the good shepherd	ἐγώ εἰμι ὁ ποιμὴν ὁ καλός (egō eimi ho poimēn ho kalos)	I am the good/noble shepherd	I am the good shepherd	10:11, 14 — fourth “I Am” statement; the shepherd who “lays down his life for the sheep” (τίθημι τὴν ψυχήν) — direct substitutionary-death language	[NEW — JOHN] ငါသည် ကောင်းမွန်သောသိုးထိန်းဖြစ်၏. Risk: Critical.
Lay down his life	τίθημι τὴν ψυχήν (tithēmi tēn psychēn)	to lay down [one’s] life/soul	lay down one’s life	10:11, 15, 17–18 — voluntary, substitutionary self-giving, repeated at 15:13; grounds Christ’s Substitutionary Death doctrine together with 1:29’s Lamb of God	[NEW — JOHN] အသက်ကို စွန့်တော်မူခြင်း. Risk: Critical. Must communicate a voluntary, sovereign, purposeful self-offering (“I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again,” 10:18) — not a tragic or merely heroic death, and not something that happens to Christ passively.
One flock, one shepherd	μία ποίμνη, εἷς ποιμήν (mia poimnē, heis poimēn)	one flock, one shepherd	one flock, one shepherd	10:16 — anticipates Gentile inclusion, a Johannine parallel to Unity of Jews and Gentiles	[NEW — JOHN] သိုးအုပ်တစ်စု၊ သိုးထိန်းတစ်ပါး. Risk: Medium.
I and the Father are one	ἐγὼ καὶ ὁ πατὴρ ἕν ἐσμεν (egō kai ho patēr hen esmen)	I and the Father are one	I and the Father are one	10:30 — the single most concentrated statement of Unity of the Father and the Son in the Gospel, provoking an immediate stoning attempt for blasphemy (10:31–33)	ἕν ἐσμεν: [NEW — JOHN] တစ်လုံးတစ်ဝတည်း ဖြစ်တော်မူ၏ (talon-tawa hpyit-taw-mu-i). Risk: Critical. The neuter ἕν (“one thing,” not “one person”) signals unity of essence/will while the plural verb ἐσμεν preserves distinct persons — this Trinitarian nuance (one being, two distinct persons in this immediate context) must be protected from two opposite errors in Burmese: (1) collapsing into modalism (Father and Son as merely the same person under different names) or (2) reducing to “one in agreement/purpose only” (mere moral unity, denying shared divine essence). Requires an explicit theologian-reviewed translator note.
”You are gods” (Psalm 82 citation)	θεοί (theoi)	gods	gods	10:34–36 — a difficult a fortiori argument from Psalm 82; must not be handled loosely as though it diminishes Christ’s unique deity claim, but as strengthening it by comparison	θεός: [BASELINE REUSE] ဘုရားသခင် (only for the one true God elsewhere; here a quoted OT usage for human judges requires careful footnoting so as not to imply Burmese ဘုရား is being extended to human judges in ordinary usage). Risk: Critical — requires theologian review given citation complexity.

Chapter 11 — The Raising of Lazarus

Term	Greek (translit.)	Literal / semantic range	EN variants	Contextual meaning	Burmese rendering & risk
I am the resurrection and the life	ἐγώ εἰμι ἡ ἀνάστασις καὶ ἡ ζωή (egō eimi hē anastasis kai hē zōē)	I am the resurrection and the life	I am the resurrection and the life	11:25 — fifth “I Am” statement; Christ does not merely perform or predict resurrection but personally embodies it	ἀνάστασις: [BASELINE REUSE] ထမြောက်ခြင်း, Critical, never ပဋိသန္ဓေတည်ခြင်း. ζωή: [NEW — JOHN] အသက် (see ch.1). Combined risk: Critical.
Lazarus raised (distinct from Christ’s resurrection)	ἐξῆλθεν ὁ τεθνηκώς (exēlthen ho tethnēkōs)	the dead man came out	Lazarus came out	11:43–44 — Lazarus is restored to ordinary mortal life and will die again; this is narratively and theologically distinct from Christ’s own resurrection to permanent, glorified, death-defeating life (cf. Rom 6:9 pattern, though outside John)	Must NOT use [BASELINE REUSE] ထမြောက်ခြင်း for Lazarus’s revival, to avoid implying his restoration is identical in kind to Christ’s resurrection. Recommend a distinct verb, e.g., ပြန်လည်ရှင်စေခြင်း (“caused to live again,” a temporary restoration to mortal life). Risk: High — a critical distinction for theologian review, since collapsing the two into the same Burmese term would blur the uniqueness of Christ’s resurrection as the “firstfruits” pattern.
Glory of God	δόξα τοῦ θεοῦ (doxa tou theou)	glory of God	glory of God	11:4, 40 — the purpose of the sign; ties Lazarus’s raising to the larger pattern of signs revealing glory (cf. 2:11)	[BASELINE REUSE] ဘုန်းတော်. Risk: High.
Jesus wept	ἐδάκρυσεν (edakrysen)	he shed tears	Jesus wept	11:35 — genuine human grief, affirming the Humanity of Christ alongside his imminent display of divine power	[NEW — JOHN] မျက်ရည်ကျခြင်း. Risk: Medium — worth noting theologically (full deity and full genuine humanity coexisting) though the lexical risk is low.

Chapter 12 — Triumphal Entry; the Hour Has Come; the Grain of Wheat

Term	Greek (translit.)	Literal / semantic range	EN variants	Contextual meaning	Burmese rendering & risk
The hour has come	ἐλήλυθεν ἡ ὥρα (elēlythen hē hōra)	the hour has come	the hour has come	12:23 — resolves the “my hour has not yet come” motif from 2:4; the hour of the Son of Man’s glorification through death has arrived	Reuses [NEW — JOHN] အချိန်တော် (see ch.2). Risk: Medium.
Unless a grain of wheat dies	ἐὰν μὴ ὁ κόκκος τοῦ σίτου… ἀποθάνῃ (ean mē ho kokkos tou sitou apothanē)	unless the grain of wheat dies	unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies	12:24 — agricultural metaphor for Christ’s substitutionary death producing much fruit (many redeemed)	[NEW — JOHN] မျိုးစေ့သေခြင်း. Risk: Medium.
Ruler of this world	ὁ ἄρχων τοῦ κόσμου τούτου (ho archōn tou kosmou toutou)	the ruler of this world	ruler/prince of this world	12:31 — “now the ruler of this world will be cast out” — identifies Satan as a real, personal cosmic antagonist defeated through the cross, recurring at 14:30; 16:11	[NEW — JOHN] ဤလောက၏ အုပ်စိုးသူ. Risk: High. Reinforces the μαρτ/διάβολος entry (ch.8) — a personal defeated enemy, not an impersonal cosmic principle of disorder.
Lifted up, draw all people	ὑψωθῶ…ἑλκύσω (hypsōthō…helkysō)	I am lifted up…I will draw	if I am lifted up, I will draw all people to myself	12:32–34 — the third and climactic “lifted up” saying, explicitly interpreted by the narrator as referring to the mode of Christ’s death (12:33)	Reuses [NEW — JOHN] မြှောက်တင်ခြင်း (see 3:14) and ဆွဲငင်ခြင်း (see ch.6). Risk: High.
Walk in the light	περιπατεῖτε ἐν τῷ φωτί (peripateite en tō phōti)	walk in the light	walk in the light	12:35–36 — closing exhortation of Jesus’s public ministry, reprising the ch.1/3/8/9 light theme	Reuses [NEW — JOHN] အလင်းတော်. Risk: High.

Chapter 13 — Foot Washing; the New Commandment; Betrayal Predicted

Term	Greek (translit.)	Literal / semantic range	EN variants	Contextual meaning	Burmese rendering & risk
Washing feet	νίπτω (niptō)	to wash	wash (feet)	13:1–17 — a servant’s task performed by the Master, modeling humble, self-giving love; grounds practical ethics in Christology	[NEW — JOHN] ခြေဆေးခြင်း. Risk: Low, though the doctrinal point (the incarnate Lord voluntarily taking the lowest servant role) is High and should be flagged for translator notes emphasizing voluntary humility, distinct from the merit accrued by acts of service toward a monk or teacher in Burmese custom.
New commandment	ἐντολὴ καινή (entolē kainē)	a new commandment	new commandment	13:34 — “love one another, as I have loved you” — the distinguishing mark of discipleship	[NEW — JOHN] ပညတ်တော်အသစ်, built on [BASELINE REUSE] root ပညတ်တရား (law/commandment). Risk: Medium. Must be distinguished from the Mosaic ပညတ်တရား referred to elsewhere (e.g., John 1:17) as a body of law now fulfilled — this is a specific relational command modeled on Christ’s own self-giving love, not a new legal code replacing the old one.
Love one another	ἀγαπᾶτε ἀλλήλους (agapate allēlous)	love one another	love one another	13:34–35	ἀγαπάω: [NEW — JOHN] ချစ်ခြင်း. Risk: High (see ch.21 entry on ἀγαπάω/φιλέω distinction).
Betray / hand over	παραδίδωμι (paradidōmi)	to hand over, deliver up, betray	betray, hand over	13:2, 21, 27 — Judas’s betrayal, part of the larger Passion narrative	[NEW — JOHN] အပ်နှံခြင်း/သစ္စာဖောက်ခြင်း. Risk: Medium.

Chapter 14 — The Way, the Truth, and the Life; the Promised Counselor

Term	Greek (translit.)	Literal / semantic range	EN variants	Contextual meaning	Burmese rendering & risk
I am the way, the truth, and the life	ἐγώ εἰμι ἡ ὁδὸς καὶ ἡ ἀλήθεια καὶ ἡ ζωή (egō eimi hē hodos kai hē alētheia kai hē zōē)	I am the way and the truth and the life	I am the way, the truth, and the life	14:6 — sixth “I Am” statement; the exclusive means, content, and goal of access to the Father (“no one comes to the Father except through me”)	ὁδός: [NEW — JOHN] လမ်း. ἀλήθεια: [NEW — JOHN] သမ္မာတရား. ζωή: [NEW — JOHN] အသက်. Combined risk: Critical. This is the Gospel’s most explicit exclusivity claim and must be rendered with zero softening — no Burmese phrasing implying “a way among several ways” is acceptable; requires theologian review given both the doctrinal weight and the sensitive religious-plurality context of Myanmar.
Father’s house	ἡ οἰκία τοῦ πατρός (hē oikia tou patros)	the Father’s house	my Father’s house	14:2 — “In my Father’s house are many rooms [μοναί]“	[BASELINE REUSE] root အဖ (Father) + [NEW — JOHN] အိမ်တော် (house). Risk: Medium.
Counselor / Paraclete	παράκλητος (paraklētos)	one called alongside; advocate, helper, comforter	Counselor, Helper, Comforter, Advocate	14:16, 26; 15:26; 16:7 — the Holy Spirit as a distinct divine Person sent to indwell, teach, and advocate for believers after Christ’s departure; a term with legal-advocate and pastoral-comforter senses simultaneously	[NEW — JOHN] Proposed: ကူညီသူ (ku-nyi-thu, “helper/advocate”), always modified by or paired with [BASELINE REUSE] သန့်ရှင်းသောဝိညာဉ်တော် to make the divine-personhood unmistakable. Risk: Critical. Every occurrence must reinforce that this Helper is the same divine Holy Spirit already defined in the Romans baseline as a permanent, personal, divine Third Person of the Trinity — never one of the 37 nats invoked as a personal guardian-helper, and never an impersonal source of psychological comfort or “peace of mind” attainable through one’s own meditative effort. Requires theologian review at every occurrence (14:16, 26; 15:26; 16:7).
Spirit of truth	τὸ πνεῦμα τῆς ἀληθείας (to pneuma tēs alētheias)	the Spirit of truth	Spirit of truth	14:17; 15:26; 16:13 — a title combining the Holy Spirit and Truth entries above	[BASELINE REUSE] သန့်ရှင်းသောဝိညာဉ်တော် + [NEW — JOHN] သမ္မာတရား, combined as သမ္မာတရား၏ ဝိညာဉ်တော်. Risk: High.
Peace	εἰρήνη (eirēnē)	peace	peace	14:27; 16:33; 20:19, 21, 26 — “Peace I leave with you…not as the world gives” — Christ’s peace explicitly contrasted with worldly peace	[BASELINE REUSE] ငြိမ်သက်ခြင်း. Risk: Medium.

Chapter 15 — The True Vine; Abiding; the World’s Hatred

Term	Greek (translit.)	Literal / semantic range	EN variants	Contextual meaning	Burmese rendering & risk
I am the true vine	ἐγώ εἰμι ἡ ἄμπελος ἡ ἀληθινή (egō eimi hē ampelos hē alēthinē)	I am the true vine	I am the true vine	15:1, 5 — seventh and final “I Am” statement; Christ as the sole life-source for fruitful discipleship, echoing Israel-as-vine OT imagery (Ps 80; Isa 5) now fulfilled in Christ himself	[NEW — JOHN] ငါသည် စစ်မှန်သောနွယ်ပင်ဖြစ်၏. Risk: Critical.
Abide	μένω (menō)	to remain, dwell, stay	abide, remain, dwell	15:4–10 — repeated key term for ongoing, vital union with Christ, without which “you can do nothing” (15:5)	[NEW — JOHN] တည်နေခြင်း (ti-nay-chin). Risk: Medium. Must communicate an ongoing relational dependence, not a one-time initiatory event nor a disciplinary practice of sustained meditative attainment.
Greater love has no one	μείζονα ταύτης ἀγάπην οὐδεὶς ἔχει (meizona tautēs agapēn oudeis echei)	no one has greater love than this	greater love has no one than this	15:13 — “that someone lay down his life for his friends” — restates the substitutionary self-giving of 10:11 as the paradigm of love	Reuses [NEW — JOHN] အသက်ကို စွန့်တော်မူခြင်း, ချစ်ခြင်း. Risk: High.
World hates you	ὁ κόσμος ὑμᾶς μισεῖ (ho kosmos hymas misei)	the world hates you	the world hates you	15:18–19 — κόσμος in its third, hostile sense (see 3:16 entry)	Reuses [NEW — JOHN] လောက, မုန်းတီးခြင်း. Risk: High.

Chapter 16 — The Spirit’s Ministry; Sorrow Turned to Joy

Term	Greek (translit.)	Literal / semantic range	EN variants	Contextual meaning	Burmese rendering & risk
Convict (of sin, righteousness, judgment)	ἐλέγχω (elegchō)	to expose, convict, reprove	convict, expose, convince	16:8 — the Spirit’s specific convicting ministry regarding sin, righteousness, and judgment, a core function of the Holy Spirit as Counselor	[NEW — JOHN] အပြစ်ကို ထင်ရှားစေခြင်း/ပြစ်တင်ခြင်း (see 3:20). Risk: High. Should be rendered consistently with 3:20’s ἐλεγχθῇ for cross-passage coherence.
Sorrow into joy	λύπη…χαρά (lypē…chara)	grief…joy	sorrow…joy	16:20–22 — the labor-pains (ὠδίν, birth-pang) metaphor for the disciples’ temporary grief giving way to resurrection joy	[NEW — JOHN] ဝမ်းနည်းခြင်း/ဝမ်းမြောက်ခြင်း. Risk: Low.
Ask in my name	αἰτήσητε ἐν τῷ ὀνόματί μου (aitēsēte en tō onomati mou)	ask in my name	ask in my name	16:23–24, 26 — prayer grounded in Christ’s mediating authority, functionally an extension of the baseline’s “intercession” doctrine now framed around access through Christ’s name specifically	[NEW — JOHN] ငါ့နာမဖြင့် တောင်းလျှောက်ခြင်း. Risk: Medium.
I have overcome the world	ἐγὼ νενίκηκα τὸν κόσμον (egō nenikēka ton kosmon)	I have conquered/overcome the world	I have overcome the world	16:33 — closing declaration of victory prior to the Passion, anticipating the resurrection’s vindication	νικάω: [NEW — JOHN] အောင်နိုင်ခြင်း. κόσμος: [NEW — JOHN] လောက. Risk: High.

Chapter 17 — The High Priestly Prayer

Term	Greek (translit.)	Literal / semantic range	EN variants	Contextual meaning	Burmese rendering & risk
Glorify	δοξάζω (doxazō)	to glorify, honor	glorify	17:1, 5, 10, 22, 24 — the prayer’s dominant verb, expressing mutual glorification between Father and Son, rooted in their pre-creation shared glory (17:5, 24)	[NEW — JOHN] ဘုန်းတော်ထင်ရှားစေခြင်း, built on [BASELINE REUSE] ဘုန်းတော် root. Risk: High.
Eternal life (defined)	ζωὴ αἰώνιος…γινώσκωσιν (zōē aiōnios…ginōskōsin)	eternal life…that they may know	this is eternal life, that they know you	17:3 — the Gospel’s explicit definition of eternal life as relational knowledge of the Father and the Son, the theological capstone of the ζωὴ αἰώνιος term-family introduced at 3:15–16	Reuses [NEW — JOHN] ထာဝရအသက်. Risk: Critical (see 3:15 entry).
Sanctify	ἁγιάζω (hagiazō)	to make holy, set apart, consecrate	sanctify, consecrate	17:17, 19 — “Sanctify them in the truth…for their sake I consecrate myself”	[BASELINE REUSE] root သန့်ရှင်းခြင်း, verb form သန့်ရှင်းစေခြင်း (thangyin-say-chin). Risk: High per baseline “sanctification” doctrine entry.
That they may be one	ἵνα ὦσιν ἕν (hina ōsin hen)	that they may be one	that they may be one, even as we are one	17:11, 21–23 — the prayer’s climactic petition, extending the Father-Son unity of 10:30 to encompass believers’ unity, patterned on (not identical to) the divine unity	[NEW — JOHN] တစ်လုံးတစ်ဝတည်း ဖြစ်ကြပါစေ (see 10:30). Risk: Critical. Requires careful theological framing: believers’ unity is relational and Spirit-given, modeled on but not ontologically identical to the Father-Son unity of essence; the Burmese phrasing must avoid suggesting either (a) mere social harmony (undercutting the depth of the prayer) or (b) literal ontological merger of believers into one being (which would edge toward an impersonal-absorption/non-dual reading foreign to biblical personalism).
Not of the world	οὐκ ἐκ τοῦ κόσμου (ouk ek tou kosmou)	not of the world	not of the world	17:14, 16	Reuses [NEW — JOHN] လောက. Risk: High.

Chapter 18 — Arrest, Trial before Pilate

Term	Greek (translit.)	Literal / semantic range	EN variants	Contextual meaning	Burmese rendering & risk
I am he	ἐγώ εἰμι (egō eimi)	I am	18:5–6, 8 — Jesus’s self-identification to the arresting party; the soldiers’ falling backward at the words in v.6 is widely read as a deliberate narrative echo of the theophanic ἐγώ εἰμι force carried since ch.6–8	Reuses [NEW — JOHN] ငါဖြစ်၏ (see ch.6, 8). Risk: Critical — same theophanic weight as 8:58; translator note required linking this occurrence to the earlier absolute “I am” sayings so the narrative detail (soldiers recoiling) is not read as incidental.
My kingdom is not of this world	ἡ βασιλεία ἡ ἐμὴ οὐκ ἔστιν ἐκ τοῦ κόσμου τούτου (hē basileia hē emē ouk estin ek tou kosmou toutou)	my kingdom is not of this world	my kingdom is not of this world	18:36 — before Pilate, Jesus clarifies the nature of his kingship as non-political, avoiding both a false political-messiah reading and a denial of real kingship	βασιλεία: reuses [BASELINE REUSE] root from ဘုရားသခင်၏နိုင်ငံတော် (here, Christ’s own kingdom rather than “kingdom of God” per se, though theologically continuous). Risk: High — must avoid both extremes: presenting Christ’s kingship as merely spiritual/unreal, or as a rival political nainggan.
Testify to the truth	μαρτυρήσω τῇ ἀληθείᾳ (martyrēsō tē alētheia)	to testify to the truth	to bear witness to the truth	18:37 — “for this purpose I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth”	Reuses [NEW — JOHN] သက်သေခံခြင်း, သမ္မာတရား. Risk: High.
What is truth?	τί ἐστιν ἀλήθεια; (ti estin alētheia?)	what is truth?	what is truth?	18:38 — Pilate’s dismissive/skeptical question, dramatically ironic given that Truth himself (14:6) stands before him	Reuses [NEW — JOHN] သမ္မာတရား. Risk: Medium (dramatic-irony point for teaching notes, not primarily a lexical risk).

Chapter 19 — Crucifixion

Term	Greek (translit.)	Literal / semantic range	EN variants	Contextual meaning	Burmese rendering & risk
King of the Jews	ὁ βασιλεὺς τῶν Ἰουδαίων (ho basileus tōn Ioudaiōn)	the King of the Jews	King of the Jews	19:3, 14, 19, 21 — the inscription on the cross; ironic proclamation of a truth Pilate does not grasp	βασιλεύς: [NEW — JOHN] ရှင်ဘုရင် (shin-bayin) — distinct from [BASELINE REUSE] သခင် (kyrios/Lord); here specifically the political title “king,” used ironically of Christ’s true, if unrecognized, kingship. Risk: High.
It is finished	τετέλεσται (tetelestai)	it has been completed/accomplished	it is finished	19:30 — Christ’s final word from the cross; perfect tense signaling a completed, once-for-all accomplishment of the redemptive work, the climactic fulfillment of Christ’s Substitutionary Death	[NEW — JOHN] ပြီးပြီ (pyi-pyi). Risk: Critical. Despite its lexically simple form, the theological weight is maximal: this must be taught as the completed accomplishment of atonement for sin, requiring no supplementary human merit or ongoing ritual repetition to finish what Christ finished — a direct and important contrast with any framework (including Burmese Buddhist merit-accumulation) in which one’s own account is never simply “finished” but must be continually replenished through further meritorious acts across this life and future rebirths.
Blood and water	αἷμα καὶ ὕδωρ (haima kai hydōr)	blood and water	blood and water	19:34 — flowing from Christ’s pierced side, confirmed by eyewitness testimony (19:35); traditionally read as confirming the reality of his physical death (Humanity of Christ) and/or as sacramental typology	[NEW — JOHN] သွေးနှင့်ရေ. Risk: Medium.
Fulfilled the Scripture	πληρωθῇ ἡ γραφή (plērōthē hē graphē)	that the Scripture might be fulfilled	that the Scripture would be fulfilled	19:24, 28, 36–37 — repeated fulfillment-formula, grounding Fulfillment of Prophecy	[NEW — JOHN, aligns with baseline “fulfillment_of_prophecy” doctrine] ကျမ်းစာပြည့်စုံစေခြင်း. Risk: High.

Chapter 20 — Resurrection Appearances

Term	Greek (translit.)	Literal / semantic range	EN variants	Contextual meaning	Burmese rendering & risk
Saw and believed	εἶδεν καὶ ἐπίστευσεν (eiden kai episteusen)	he saw and believed	he saw and believed	20:8 — the beloved disciple’s response to the empty tomb, establishing eyewitness-grounded faith	Reuses [BASELINE REUSE] ယုံကြည်ခြင်း. Risk: Medium.
Peace be with you	εἰρήνη ὑμῖν (eirēnē hymin)	peace to you	peace be with you	20:19, 21, 26 — the risen Christ’s greeting, resuming the ch.14 peace theme now grounded in accomplished resurrection	[BASELINE REUSE] ငြိမ်သက်ခြင်း. Risk: Medium.
Receive the Holy Spirit	λάβετε πνεῦμα ἅγιον (labete pneuma hagion)	receive [the] Holy Spirit	receive the Holy Spirit	20:22 — Christ’s breathing on the disciples, John’s compressed presentation of the Spirit’s giving (paralleling but distinct from Acts 2’s Pentecost)	[BASELINE REUSE] သန့်ရှင်းသောဝိညာဉ်တော်. Risk: Critical.
As the Father sent me, I send you	καθὼς ἀπέσταλκέν με ὁ πατήρ, κἀγὼ πέμπω ὑμᾶς (kathōs apestalken me ho patēr, kagō pempō hymas)	as the Father has sent me, I also send you	as the Father has sent me, so I am sending you	20:21 — commissioning language rooted in the same ἀποστέλλω/πέμπω word-family as [BASELINE REUSE] “apostle” (တမန်တော်) and “mission” (သာသနာပြုလုပ်ငန်း)	Reuses [BASELINE REUSE] terms. Risk: High.
Authority to forgive sins	ἄφησε τὰς ἁμαρτίας (aphēse tas hamartias)	to forgive sins	if you forgive the sins of anyone	20:23	ἀφίημι: [NEW — JOHN] လွှတ်ငြိမ်းချမ်းသာခွင့်ပေးခြင်း/ချမ်းသာခွင့်ပေးခြင်း (forgive). ἁμαρτία: [BASELINE REUSE] အပြစ်. Risk: High.
My Lord and my God	ὁ κύριος μου καὶ ὁ θεός μου (ho kyrios mou kai ho theos mou)	my Lord and my God	My Lord and my God!	20:28 — Thomas’s confession, the Gospel’s climactic, most explicit two-word deity confession, directly answering the Prologue’s opening claim (1:1, “the Word was God”)	κύριος: [BASELINE REUSE] သခင်, Critical. θεός: [BASELINE REUSE] ဘုရားသခင်, Critical. Combined phrase: ကျွန်တော်၏ သခင်၊ ကျွန်တော်၏ ဘုရားသခင်။ Risk: Critical — this confession, together with Romans 10:9’s “Jesus is Lord,” forms the Gospel’s doctrinal peak for both the Lordship of Christ and Deity of Christ doctrines; the exact phrasing must remain fixed across every occurrence in derivative curriculum materials.
Blessed are those who have not seen	μακάριοι οἱ μὴ ἰδόντες (makarioi hoi mē idontes)	blessed [are] those not having seen	blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe	20:29	μακάριος: ကောင်းကြီးမင်္ဂလာရှိသော. πιστεύω: [BASELINE REUSE] ယုံကြည်ခြင်း. Risk: Medium.
That you may believe…and have life	ἵνα πιστεύσητε…καὶ…ζωὴν ἔχητε (hina pisteusēte…kai…zōēn echēte)	that you may believe…and have life	that you may believe…and that by believing you may have life in his name	20:31 — the Gospel’s own stated purpose statement, tying together believe/faith, Son of God, and life/eternal life as the curriculum’s central doctrinal thread	Reuses [BASELINE REUSE] ယုံကြည်ခြင်း, ဘုရားသခင်၏သားတော်; [NEW — JOHN] အသက်/ထာဝရအသက်. Risk: Critical — this verse functions for John as Romans 1:16–17 functions for Romans; per the baseline’s cross-document consistency principle, its rendering must be fixed and identical across every derivative lesson.

Chapter 21 — Epilogue: Restoration of Peter

Term	Greek (translit.)	Literal / semantic range	EN variants	Contextual meaning	Burmese rendering & risk
Do you love me? (ἀγαπάω vs. φιλέω)	ἀγαπᾷς με / φιλῶ σε (agapas me / philō se)	do you love [agapē-love] me? / I love [philos-love] you	do you love me? (twice with ἀγαπάω) / you know that I love [philéō] you (Peter’s replies, and Jesus’s own third question shifts to φιλεῖς)	21:15–17 — a much-discussed exchange exploiting Greek’s two distinct love-verbs; whatever the precise force of the shift, the passage restores Peter after his denial and commissions him to pastoral care	ἀγαπάω: [NEW — JOHN] ချစ်ခြင်း. φιλέω: also naturally rendered ချစ်ခြင်း in ordinary Burmese, since Burmese (like most modern languages) lacks a lexicalized two-term love distinction matching Greek’s ἀγαπάω/φιλέω. Risk: High. The rhetorical distinction Jesus is drawing with Peter is very likely to collapse invisibly into a single repeated Burmese word; a mandatory translator/footnote is required explaining the underlying Greek wordplay, comparable to the πνεῦμα wind/Spirit pun flagged at 3:8.
Feed / tend my sheep	βόσκε / ποίμαινε τὰ πρόβατά μου (boske/poimaine ta probata mou)	feed / shepherd my sheep	feed my lambs / tend my sheep / feed my sheep	21:15–17 — pastoral commissioning, extending the Good Shepherd imagery of ch.10 to Peter’s own ministry	βόσκω: [NEW — JOHN] ကျွေးမွေးခြင်း. ποιμαίνω: [NEW — JOHN] ထိန်းကျောင်းခြင်း, built on [NEW — JOHN] သိုးထိန်း root (see ch.10). Risk: Medium.
Glorify God (by his death)	δοξάσει τὸν θεόν (doxasei ton theon)	he would glorify God	by what kind of death he would glorify God	21:19 — Peter’s future martyrdom is framed, remarkably, as an act of glorifying God, paralleling Christ’s own death as glorification (12:23; 13:31–32; 17:1)	[BASELINE REUSE] root ဘုန်းတော် (verb form as in ch.17). Risk: High.
Follow me	ἀκολούθει μοι (akolouthei moi)	follow me	follow me	21:19, 22 — closing discipleship summons, bracketing the entire Gospel (cf. 1:43)	[NEW — JOHN] ငါ့နောက်လိုက်လော့. Risk: Low.
His testimony is true	ἀληθὴς αὐτοῦ ἡ μαρτυρία ἐστίν (alēthēs autou hē martyria estin)	his testimony is true	his testimony is true	21:24 — closing authentication of the Gospel’s eyewitness basis, bookending the testimony motif introduced at 1:7	Reuses [NEW — JOHN] သက်သေခံခြင်း, သမ္မာတရား-root အမှန်. Risk: Medium.

Summary Observations for Phase 2 Preparation

The ἐγώ εἰμι (“I am”) formula is the single most theologically concentrated and translation-sensitive thread running through the entire Gospel (6:35; 8:12, 24, 28, 58; 10:7, 9, 11, 14; 11:25; 13:19; 14:6; 15:1, 5; 18:5–6, 8). Every occurrence should be flagged for theologian review and cross-checked against the fixed Burmese formula established here (ငါဖြစ်၏/ငါသည်ပင်ဖြစ်၏), with a standing translator note on the Exodus 3:14 background attached to every absolute occurrence.
γεννηθῇ ἄνωθεν (“born again/from above,” 3:3, 7) and the resurrection term family must be kept lexically distinct from one another and both kept distinct from ပြန်လည်မွေးဖွားခြင်း (rebirth/reincarnation) — this is a doctrinal fault-line running through the New Birth, Resurrection of Christ, and Eternal Life doctrines simultaneously, and is arguably the single highest cumulative risk surface in translating John into Burmese.
κόσμος (“world”) and σάββατον (“Sabbath”) each carry substantial Burmese Buddhist lexical collision risk (cosmological realms; Uposatha observance, respectively) not previously encountered in the Romans baseline and requiring new standing translator notes.
ἀλήθεια (“truth”), rendered သမ္မာတရား, carries a Pali/Noble-Eightfold-Path resonance parallel in kind to the baseline’s existing သဒ္ဓါ (faith) and သာသနာ (mission) collision notes, and should be added to the doctrine risk registry with the same treatment.
The Paraclete/Counselor term is newly introduced in this curriculum (absent from Romans) and requires a Critical-tier proposed rendering and theologian sign-off before Phase 2 begins.

This document is the Step 1 deliverable for Phase 1 of the John curriculum. See analysis/08_core_glossary.md for the consolidated per-term glossary table extending the Romans baseline translation_memory.json and bible_term_registry.json.

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