Core Glossary
Core Glossary: Genesis
This glossary covers every load-bearing theological term identified in 07_semantic_analysis.md, spanning the core passage (Genesis 1:1–2:3) and every chapter of Genesis 1–50. Per the hard rule governing this Language Package, any term already recorded in the baseline Romans translation_memory.json reuses that exact rendering and risk tier; these rows are marked “Baseline reuse” in the Source column and must not be altered. Newly identified terms specific to Genesis are marked “New” and are proposed here for addition to this curriculum’s own translation memory, following the same three-category risk framework as the baseline (false-friend drift, denominational contest, obsolescence/cultural erosion).
A. Baseline-Reused Terms (render exactly as recorded in the Romans Language Package)
| Term | Hebrew | Transliteration | English Rendering | Doctrine (Genesis) | Risk | Key Genesis Refs | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| God | אֱלֹהִים | Elohim | God | Creation Ex Nihilo; all doctrines | Medium/Critical | 1:1 and throughout | Reuse baseline god; not “a higher power”/“the universe.” |
| grace / favor | חֵן | chen | grace | Sin’s Consequences and Common Grace; Providence | Critical | 6:8; 39:21 | Reuse baseline grace; Noah’s/Joseph’s “favor” is the same unmerited-favor concept the baseline documents for Romans; distinguish from “elegance” and “grace period.” |
| sin | חַטָּאת | chattat | sin | The Fall and the Origin of Sin | High | 3:1-19 (event); 4:7 (first named) | Reuse baseline sin; resist trivializing (“sinfully delicious”) and resist therapeutic guilt-aversion; this is real moral guilt before a personal God. |
| righteousness | צֶדֶק / צְדָקָה | tsedeq / tsedaqah | righteousness | Abrahamic Covenant and Promise; general ethics | Critical | 15:6; 18:25; 38:26 | Reuse baseline righteousness; note the term’s range spans forensic/faith-credited (ch.15) and ordinary relational-ethical (ch.38) senses — do not force every occurrence into the forensic sense alone. |
| imputed righteousness | וַיַּחְשְׂבֶהָ לּוֹ צְדָקָה | vaya’chshaveha lo tsedaqah | imputed righteousness | Abrahamic Covenant and Promise | Critical | 15:6 | Reuse baseline imputed_righteousness exactly; this IS the Old Testament source text Paul cites in Romans 4:3/Galatians 3:6 — credited by faith, not earned by works. |
| covenant | בְּרִית | berit | covenant | Abrahamic Covenant and Promise; Covenant Faithfulness across Generations | High | 6:18; 9:9-17; 15:18; 17:2-21 | Reuse baseline covenant; distinguish from a real-estate “restrictive covenant” or business non-compete clause — this is a relational, promissory bond. |
| election | (the older shall serve the younger) | — | election | Providence and the Sovereignty of God | Critical | 25:23 | Reuse baseline election exactly; direct source text for Romans 9:10-13; must not be read through a political-voting frame. |
| providence | (all things reckoned by God) | — | providence | Providence and the Sovereignty of God; Joseph and God’s Providence in Suffering | Critical | 39:2-23; 45:5-8; 50:20 | Reuse baseline providence exactly; distinguish sharply from “everything happens for a reason” — Genesis 50:20 explicitly affirms real human evil intent alongside God’s good sovereign intent, which the folk-spiritual idiom collapses. |
| Israel | יִשְׂרָאֵל | Yisra’el | Israel | Covenant Faithfulness across Generations | Medium | 32:28; 35:10 | Reuse baseline israel; clarify the patriarch/covenant-people referent, distinct from the modern geopolitical nation-state. |
| intercession | — (Abraham’s plea for Sodom) | — | intercession | Providence and the Sovereignty of God | Medium | 18:22-33 | Reuse baseline intercession; here a human interceding with God, complementing the baseline’s primary sense of Christ’s/the Spirit’s intercession. |
| peace | שָׁלוֹם | shalom | peace | Covenant Faithfulness across Generations (relational) | Medium | 33:1-11 | Reuse baseline peace; interpersonal reconciliation here, distinct from but conceptually related to the specifically Godward peace of Romans 5:1. |
| messiah | (scepter/ruler promise) | — | Messiah | Abrahamic Covenant and Promise | Medium | 49:10 | Reuse baseline messiah; note the title itself is not used in Genesis — this is later Christian canonical/typological reading, not an explicit self-identifying term in the text. |
| holy | קָדוֹשׁ / קִדֵּשׁ | qadosh / qiddesh | holy | Creation Ex Nihilo (Sabbath) | Medium | 2:3 | Reuse baseline holy; “set apart,” not merely “special.” |
| Holy Spirit | רוּחַ אֱלֹהִים | ruach Elohim | Spirit of God | Creation Ex Nihilo | Medium | 1:2 | Reuse baseline holy_spirit trajectory; note the wind/breath/Spirit ambiguity honestly while affirming the historic Trinitarian reading. |
| gentiles / nations | גּוֹיִם | goyim | nations | (background to unity themes) | Medium | 10:1-32 | Conceptually related to baseline gentiles; render “nations,” not “Gentiles,” pre-Abrahamic/pre-Israel — avoid anachronistic retrojection of the later Jew/Gentile distinction. |
B. New Terms Specific to This Curriculum (proposed additions)
| Term | Hebrew | Transliteration | Literal Meaning | English Rendering | Doctrine | Risk | Risk Category | Genesis Refs | Rationale / Rendering Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| create (ex nihilo) | בָּרָא | bara | to bring into existence from nothing | create | Creation Ex Nihilo | Critical | False-friend drift | 1:1, 1:21, 1:27 (×3) | “Create” in ordinary English covers any human act of making (documents, art, “creative industries”); the unique, material-free divine sense must be stated explicitly every time, not assumed retained. |
| image of God | צֶלֶם / דְּמוּת | tselem / demut | image/statue; likeness/resemblance | image of God | The Image of God | High | False-friend drift + denominational contest | 1:26-27; 9:6 | Secular “image” = reputation/PR (“self-image,” “brand image”); separately, English-speaking Christian traditions genuinely disagree on what constitutes the image (structural/relational/functional) — state this curriculum’s own reading transparently. |
| mankind / man (generic) | אָדָם | adam | humankind; (later) the individual Adam | mankind / humankind | The Image of God | High | Cultural/gender-inclusivity drift | 1:26-27; 2:7 onward | Contemporary gender-inclusive English usage makes generic “man” for “humanity” a live rendering choice; render inclusively while noting the Hebrew’s own generic sense at 1:26-27. |
| dominion / subdue | רָדָה / כָּבַשׁ | radah / kabash | to rule/tread down; to bring into subjection | dominion / subdue | The Image of God | High | Post-Christian cultural erosion (environmental-ethics collision) | 1:26-28; 9:1-2 | Contemporary environmental discourse often reads “dominion” as license for ecological exploitation; state explicitly this is accountable stewardship under God’s ultimate ownership, not autonomous exploitation. |
| the Fall | (narrative title, not a single Hebrew word) | — | — | the Fall | The Fall and the Origin of Sin | High | False-friend drift + obsolescence | Genesis 3 (whole chapter) | CRITICAL NOTE FOR AMERICAN ENGLISH READERS: “fall” is the dominant everyday word for the autumn season in American English, a near-total unrelated homograph; the capitalized theological proper noun “the Fall” must be clearly distinguished from the season on first use. |
| curse | אָרַר / קְלָלָה | arar / qelalah | to bind under judicial sentence | curse | The Fall and the Origin of Sin; Sin’s Consequences | High | Post-Christian cultural erosion (superstition/fantasy association) | 3:14-19; 4:11; 9:25 | Dominant contemporary association is superstition/folklore/profanity (“a witch’s curse,” swearing); restore the judicial, covenant-lawsuit sense: God’s real, comprehensive, but not immediately fatal sentence. |
| seed / offspring | זֶרַע | zera | seed (plant); offspring/lineage | seed / offspring | Abrahamic Covenant and Promise; The Fall and Origin of Sin (3:15) | Medium | Obsolescence + false-friend | 3:15; 12:7; 15:5; 22:17-18 | Same profile as baseline seed_of_david; modern “seed” defaults to plant seed or “seed money”; retain the traditional phrase alongside a plain “offspring/descendants” gloss. |
| blessing | בְּרָכָה / בָּרַךְ | berakah / barak | performative bestowal of favor and fruitfulness | blessing | Abrahamic Covenant and Promise; Covenant Faithfulness across Generations | Medium | Post-Christian cultural erosion | 1:22, 1:28; 12:2-3; 27:1-40; 48:1-20 | Secular idiom (“count your blessings,” “a blessing in disguise”) generalizes the word into vague good fortune; restore its specific, spoken, covenantal, God-sourced sense. |
| Sabbath rest | שָׁבַת | shabat | to cease/stop | Sabbath rest | Creation Ex Nihilo | High | Denominational contest | 2:2-3 | Live, unresolved disagreement among English-speaking Christian traditions on the ongoing binding force of Sabbath observance (Sabbatarian vs. fulfilled-in-Christ readings); state this curriculum’s own reading transparently, per the baseline’s pattern for grace and salvation. |
| covenant loyalty / steadfast love | חֶסֶד | chesed | committed, covenant-loyal kindness | steadfast love / covenant faithfulness | Covenant Faithfulness across Generations | High | Obsolescence + translation-tradition flattening | 24:12, 24:14, 24:27; 32:10 | One of the most frequently flattened Hebrew terms in English Bible translation (rendered variously “mercy,” “kindness,” “lovingkindness,” “steadfast love” across different translation traditions); none fully captures the covenant-loyalty dimension. State explicitly that this is committed relational faithfulness, not mere emotion or occasional kindness. |
| helper corresponding to him | עֵזֶר כְּנֶגְדּוֹ | ezer kenegdo | a helper corresponding to/opposite him; a counterpart | a helper fit for him / a counterpart | The Image of God (relational dimension) | High | Denominational contest + false-friend | 2:18, 2:20 | Live contemporary gender-role debate among English-speaking Christian traditions (egalitarian vs. complementarian readings); “helper” in ordinary English wrongly suggests subordinate/lesser status the Hebrew kenegdo (“corresponding to,” used of face-to-face equals) resists. State the term’s meaning carefully without silently favoring one side of the wider debate. |
| circumcision (covenant sign) | בְּרִית מִילָה | brit milah | covenant of circumcision | circumcision | Abrahamic Covenant and Promise; Covenant Faithfulness across Generations | High | Denominational contest + false-friend (medicalization) | 17:9-14 | Covenant-theology traditions link this typologically to baptism as covenant sign; other traditions see it as belonging strictly to the Abrahamic/Mosaic economy, superseded in Christ. Secular/medical framing (routine health procedure) can strip out covenantal meaning entirely. |
| kind (creation category) | מִין | min | a reproductive category | kind | Creation Ex Nihilo | Medium | False-friend drift (scientific taxonomy) | 1:11-12, 1:21, 1:24-25 | Risk of import from the modern scientific-taxonomic term “species,” which carries evolutionary-biology connotations the Hebrew term does not itself address; avoid letting the term silently settle contested origins-science questions. |
| day (creation) | יוֹם | yom | a 24-hour day; daylight portion; an indefinite era (context-dependent) | day | Creation Ex Nihilo | High | Denominational contest | 1:5, 1:8, 1:13, 1:19, 1:23, 1:31 | Genuine, live disagreement among English-speaking Christian traditions (24-hour young-earth; day-age old-earth; literary-framework views); state this curriculum’s own reading explicitly rather than assume consensus, per the baseline’s pattern for other contested terms. |
| very good | טוֹב מְאֹד | tov me’od | exceedingly/completely good | very good | Creation Ex Nihilo | Low | Minor (relativized “good”) | 1:31 | Secular relativizing of “good” as subjective preference risks flattening the objective, God-declared evaluation of the whole created order; otherwise stable. |
| dreams (as revelation) | חֲלוֹם | chalom | a dream | dreams | Joseph and God’s Providence in Suffering | Medium | Cultural/secular-psychological competing framework | 37:5-11; 40:1-23; 41:1-36 | Contemporary secular psychoanalytic framing treats dreams as products of the subconscious rather than vehicles of divine communication; note the distinction without needing to adjudicate dream psychology generally. |
| meant/reckoned for good | חָשַׁב לְטֹבָה | chashab letovah | to intend/credit/reckon toward good | God meant it for good | Joseph and God’s Providence in Suffering; Providence and the Sovereignty of God | Critical | Denominational-adjacent + false-friend (folk spirituality) | 50:20 | Shares its Hebrew verb root with 15:6’s “counted/credited… as righteousness,” a meaningful semantic bridge; must be sharply distinguished from the vague secular substitute “everything happens for a reason,” since the text affirms real human evil intent alongside God’s good sovereign intent — the folk idiom collapses this distinction. |
| fear of God | יִרְאַת אֱלֹהִים | yirat Elohim | reverent awe, not terror | fear of God | Sin’s Consequences and Common Grace | Medium | False-friend drift | 20:11; 42:18 | Ordinary English “fear” defaults to terror/anxiety; the term denotes reverent moral awe, and its attribution to non-covenant figures (e.g., Abimelech, 20:11) is itself a Common Grace text. |
| garden of Eden | גַּן־עֵדֶן | gan-Eden | garden of Eden/delight | garden of Eden | The Fall and the Origin of Sin | Medium | Post-Christian cultural erosion | 2:8-3:24 | Secular/commercial usage (“the Garden of Eden” for any idyllic resort or paradise, often ironic) flattens the text’s specific covenantal, probationary meaning into generic lost-innocence nostalgia. |
C. Doctrine-to-Term Cross-Reference Summary
| Doctrine | Primary Terms (Baseline reuse in italics) | Overall Risk |
|---|---|---|
| Creation Ex Nihilo | create, God, day, kind, very good, Sabbath rest, holy, Holy Spirit | Critical (driven by “create” and “day”) |
| The Image of God | image of God, mankind/man, dominion/subdue, helper corresponding to him | High/Critical (driven by “image of God” and gender-role terms) |
| The Fall and the Origin of Sin | the Fall, sin, curse, seed/offspring, garden of Eden | High/Critical (driven by “the Fall” homograph risk and sin) |
| The Abrahamic Covenant and Promise | covenant, blessing, seed/offspring, imputed righteousness, circumcision, messiah | Critical (driven by imputed righteousness and covenant) |
| Providence and the Sovereignty of God | providence, election, intercession, fear of God | Critical (driven by providence and election) |
| Sin’s Consequences and Common Grace | sin, curse, grace/favor, fear of God | High (driven by sin and grace) |
| Covenant Faithfulness across Generations | covenant, blessing, covenant loyalty/steadfast love, Israel, circumcision | High (driven by chesed and circumcision) |
| Joseph and God’s Providence in Suffering | providence, meant/reckoned for good, dreams, grace/favor | Critical (driven by providence and 50:20) |
All rows marked with an asterisked doctrine cross-reference or “Baseline reuse” in Part A must render identically to the baseline Romans translation_memory.json. New terms in Part B are proposed for formal addition to this curriculum’s own translation memory file in Phase 1 Step 2 and are subject to the same escalation rules (Critical/High → human theologian review) defined in the baseline 12_ai_translation_requirements.md.
Critical Risk Terms
Grace
Approved rendering: grace
Transliteration: chen (Hebrew, Genesis instances); charis (Greek, baseline)
Doctrine: Grace
Rejected alternatives: elegance/poise (the dominant secular sense), a grace period (the dominant legal/financial sense)
INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE — fields copied exactly. Genesis-specific note: Genesis 6:8 (Noah ‘found favor/grace in the eyes of the LORD’) and Genesis 39:21 (Joseph’s favor in prison) are directly relevant Old Testament instances of unmerited favor preceding, not following, any stated righteous act — reinforcing rather than complicating the baseline’s ‘apart from works’ framing (cf. Romans 4:4-5, 11:5-6). Apply the identical secular-drift correction (not elegance, not a billing extension) at every Genesis occurrence.
Righteousness
Approved rendering: righteousness
Transliteration: tsedeq / tsedaqah
Doctrine: Salvation
Rejected alternatives: self-righteous / holier-than-thou (dominant negative connotation)
Original: צֶדֶק / צְדָקָה
Category: Salvation
INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE — fields copied exactly. Genesis-specific note: the term’s Genesis usage spans BOTH the forensic, faith-credited sense (15:6, the direct source text behind Romans 4:3) and an ordinary relational-ethical sense (38:26, Judah’s own verdict on Tamar: ‘she is more righteous than I’). Do not force every Genesis occurrence into the specifically forensic sense the baseline documents primarily for Romans; state which sense is active at each occurrence.
Imputed Righteousness
Approved rendering: imputed righteousness
Transliteration: vaya’chshaveha lo tsedaqah
Doctrine: Justification by Faith
Rejected alternatives: earned righteousness / good-person status
Original: וַיַּחְשְׂבֶהָ לּוֹ צְדָקָה
Category: Salvation
INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE — fields copied exactly. Genesis-specific note: Genesis 15:6 (‘and he believed the LORD, and he counted/credited it to him as righteousness’) IS the Old Testament source text Paul cites directly in Romans 4:3 and Galatians 3:6. This is the single most load-bearing anchor text shared between the two curricula. Must not be rendered as earned righteousness; Abram’s trust in an as-yet-unfulfilled promise, not a completed moral achievement, is credited. Note also the shared Hebrew verb root (chashab, ‘reckon/credit’) with Genesis 50:20’s ‘God meant it for good’ — a meaningful semantic bridge this curriculum should note explicitly.
Election
Approved rendering: election
Transliteration: verav ya’avod tsa’ir (the older shall serve the younger)
Doctrine: Effectual Calling
Rejected alternatives: an election (the near-total dominant contemporary sense: a political vote)
Original: וְרַב יַעֲבֹד צָעִיר (the older shall serve the younger)
Category: Salvation
INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE — fields copied exactly. Genesis-specific note: Genesis 25:23 is the direct Old Testament source text Paul cites in Romans 9:10-13 for unconditional election, spoken before either twin’s birth or deeds. In essentially all contemporary English usage, ‘election’ means a political vote; this near-total lexical takeover must be corrected explicitly every time this passage is taught, exactly as the baseline requires for Romans 9, since a wrong frame set here will propagate directly into the New Testament teaching downstream.
Providence
Approved rendering: providence
Transliteration: chashab letovah (God meant it for good, Genesis 50:20); pronoia (baseline)
Doctrine: Providence
Rejected alternatives: everything happens for a reason (a common contemporary secular folk-spiritual idiom expressing impersonal fate), Providence (the proper noun — the capital city of Rhode Island, USA)
Original: (various — ‘the LORD was with him,’ ‘God sent me,’ ‘God meant it for good’)
Category: God
INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE — fields copied exactly. Genesis-specific note: this doctrine’s clearest, most extended narrative demonstration in all of Scripture is the Joseph cycle (37-50; ‘the LORD was with him,’ 39:2-23; ‘God sent me,’ 45:5-8; climactically ‘God meant it for good,’ 50:20). Genesis 50:20 explicitly affirms REAL human evil intent (‘you meant evil against me’) alongside God’s REAL good sovereign intent — a both/and the popular secular substitute ‘everything happens for a reason’ collapses into a single flattened, impersonal cause. This distinction must be stated with the same explicitness the baseline requires for Romans 8:28.
Create
Approved rendering: create
Transliteration: bara
Doctrine: Creation Ex Nihilo
Rejected alternatives: make / form / fashion (correctly used elsewhere in Genesis 1-2 for asah/yatsar, but must NOT be used interchangeably with ‘create’ when bara is the underlying verb)
Original: בָּרָא
Category: Creation
NEW TERM. CRITICAL FALSE-FRIEND DRIFT: contemporary English uses ‘create’ for any human act of making (‘create a document,’ ‘the creative industries’), a manufacture-from-materials frame that silently displaces bara’s unique, material-free divine sense. State explicitly on first substantive use per document (Genesis 1:1, 1:21, 1:27) that this is origination from nothing, distinct even from the Bible’s own ‘made/formed’ vocabulary elsewhere in the same chapter. This is the curriculum’s opening word and its single highest-ranked ambiguity.
Meant For Good
Approved rendering: God meant it for good
Transliteration: veElohim chashavah letovah
Doctrine: Joseph and God’s Providence in Suffering
Rejected alternatives: everything happens for a reason (the popular secular substitute, which implies an impersonal cosmic balancing mechanism)
Original: וְאֱלֹהִים חֲשָׁבָהּ לְטֹבָה
Category: God
NEW TERM. The book’s climactic providence statement (Genesis 50:20), sharing its Hebrew verb root (chashab, ‘reckon/credit/intend’) with 15:6’s ‘counted to him as righteousness’ — a meaningful semantic bridge between the Abrahamic Covenant and Providence doctrines. The strongest possible caution applies against ‘everything happens for a reason’: the text explicitly affirms real human evil intent (‘you meant evil against me’) alongside God’s good sovereign intent, a both/and the folk idiom collapses but this text does not.
Spirit Of God
Approved rendering: Spirit of God
Transliteration: ruach Elohim
Doctrine: Creation Ex Nihilo
Rejected alternatives: good vibes / positive energy / spiritual energy (vague contemporary wellness-culture substitutes)
Original: רוּחַ אֱלֹהִים
Category: God
NEW TERM, distinct rendering from but doctrinally continuous with the inherited baseline term ‘holy_spirit.’ Genesis 1:2’s ruach Elohim is genuinely ambiguous in the Hebrew itself between ‘wind,’ ‘breath,’ and ‘Spirit.’ Rated Critical specifically because it appears in the curriculum’s opening, foundational passage: state the ambiguity honestly while affirming the historic Trinitarian reading of a personal divine agent, actively active and caring (‘hovering’) over the unformed creation, not a vague impersonal force.
High Risk Terms
Sin
Approved rendering: sin
Transliteration: chattat / hamartia (baseline)
Doctrine: Universal Human Accountability
Rejected alternatives: sinfully delicious / my one sin (trivialized marketing and joking usage)
Original: חַטָּאת
Category: Sin
INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE — fields copied exactly. Genesis-specific note: Genesis 3 narrates sin’s historical entrance; Genesis 4:7 is the first explicit named use in Scripture, personifying sin as a crouching predator (‘sin is crouching at the door… you must master it’). This is the doctrine’s narrative point of origin, not merely its later exposition — resist both trivialization and therapeutic guilt-aversion with the same force the baseline requires for Romans 1:18-3:20.
Covenant
Approved rendering: covenant
Transliteration: berit / diatheke (baseline)
Doctrine: Davidic Covenant
Rejected alternatives: a restrictive covenant (the dominant contemporary legal sense: a binding clause in a property deed, employment contract, or loan agreement)
Original: בְּרִית
Category: Covenant
INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE — fields copied exactly. Genesis-specific note: Genesis 6:18 is the first explicit biblical use of this term; it is formalized with Abraham (chs. 15, 17) and extended to all creation (ch. 9, the broadest-scope covenant in Scripture). Genesis is the covenant’s own narrative point of origin for the entire Bible — the real-estate/contract-law false-friend risk the baseline documents applies with even greater force here, since readers will meet this term for the first time in a book with no prior New Testament covenant teaching to anchor it.
Day Yom
Approved rendering: day
Transliteration: yom
Doctrine: Creation Ex Nihilo
Rejected alternatives: era / epoch (a defensible but not uncontested day-age gloss)
Original: יוֹם
Category: Creation
NEW TERM. DENOMINATIONAL CONTEST: English-speaking Christian traditions disagree sharply on whether ‘day’ in Genesis 1 is a literal 24-hour day (young-earth), a long era (day-age/old-earth), or a literary framework device (framework/analogical-day views). State this curriculum’s own reading explicitly, following the baseline’s established transparency pattern for ‘grace’ and ‘salvation,’ rather than assume reader consensus.
Sabbath Rest
Approved rendering: rested
Transliteration: shabat
Doctrine: Creation Ex Nihilo
Rejected alternatives: Sabbath (the noun institution is not yet named in Genesis 2 itself; shabat here is the verb ‘ceased/stopped’)
Original: שָׁבַת
Category: Creation
NEW TERM. DENOMINATIONAL CONTEST: English-speaking Christian traditions disagree substantially on whether this creation rest establishes an ongoing binding Sabbath obligation (Sabbatarian/Reformed, Seventh-day traditions), is fulfilled and released in Christ (many Reformed/dispensational readings of Colossians 2:16-17), or is relocated to Sunday worship. Also note ‘rested’ risks wrongly suggesting divine fatigue (contrast Isaiah 40:28); this is cessation of activity, not fatigue-recovery. State this curriculum’s own reading transparently, per the baseline’s pattern for ‘grace’ and ‘salvation.‘
Image Of God
Approved rendering: image of God
Transliteration: tselem / demut
Doctrine: The Image of God
Rejected alternatives: self-image / brand image / image consultant (dominant contemporary reputation-management sense)
Original: צֶלֶם / דְּמוּת
Category: Anthropology
NEW TERM. Dual risk: (1) false-friend drift — ordinary English ‘image’ means public perception/reputation, with no bearing on ontological status before God; (2) DENOMINATIONAL CONTEST — English-speaking Christian traditions genuinely disagree on what constitutes the image (structural/relational/functional readings). State this curriculum’s own reading transparently rather than assume consensus. Reaffirmed at Genesis 9:6 as the ground for the sanctity of human life.
Mankind Adam
Approved rendering: mankind
Transliteration: adam
Doctrine: The Image of God
Rejected alternatives: man (risks being heard as male-exclusive by some contemporary readers)
Original: אָדָם
Category: Anthropology
NEW TERM. Contemporary English gender-inclusivity conventions make generic ‘man’ for ‘humanity’ a genuinely live rendering choice. Render inclusively (‘mankind,’ ‘humankind,’ ‘human beings’) at 1:26-27 while noting the Hebrew’s own generic, not exclusively male, sense at this point in the text, distinct from its later narrowing to the individual proper name Adam (from 2:19/3:17 onward).
Dominion
Approved rendering: dominion
Transliteration: radah
Doctrine: The Image of God
Rejected alternatives: dominion theology (a live pejorative in some environmental-ethics writing, used to critique the term as license for ecological exploitation)
Original: רָדָה
Category: Anthropology
NEW TERM. Post-Christian cultural erosion risk: contemporary environmental discourse frequently reads ‘dominion’ as license for ecological exploitation, inverting the text’s own framing of accountable stewardship under God’s ultimate ownership (cf. Psalm 24:1). State the stewardship framing explicitly every occurrence (1:26-28; reaffirmed 9:1-2).
Subdue
Approved rendering: subdue
Transliteration: kabash
Doctrine: The Image of God
Rejected alternatives: conquer (the word’s other biblical military-conquest register, e.g. Numbers 32:22, 2 Samuel 8:11, which must not dominate this reading)
Original: כָּבַשׁ
Category: Anthropology
NEW TERM. Same false-friend risk profile as ‘dominion’: the conquest-language origin can (mis)license readings of the earth as an adversary to be exploited rather than a good creation to be cultivated and cared for as God’s steward.
Helper Corresponding
Approved rendering: a helper fit for him
Transliteration: ezer kenegdo
Doctrine: The Image of God
Rejected alternatives: subordinate assistant (the wrongly implied sense of ordinary English ‘helper’)
Original: עֵזֶר כְּנֶגְדּוֹ
Category: Anthropology
NEW TERM. DENOMINATIONAL CONTEST: a live, contested term in contemporary gender-role debates (egalitarian vs. complementarian readings). Ordinary English ‘helper’ wrongly suggests subordinate/lesser status, which the Hebrew kenegdo (‘corresponding to,’ used elsewhere of face-to-face equals) resists. State the term’s meaning carefully without silently endorsing one side of the wider debate as though uncontested (Genesis 2:18, 20).
The Fall
Approved rendering: the Fall
Transliteration: n/a (theological proper noun, not a single Hebrew word)
Doctrine: The Fall and the Origin of Sin
Rejected alternatives: autumn (the dominant everyday American-English sense of ‘fall,’ an unrelated homograph)
Original: (narrative title for Genesis 3, not a single Hebrew word)
Category: Sin
NEW TERM. CRITICAL HOMOGRAPH RISK FOR AMERICAN ENGLISH READERS: ‘fall’ is the dominant everyday word for the autumn season; the capitalized theological proper noun must be clearly distinguished from the season on first use in every document. Names humanity’s original disobedience and its consequences (Genesis 3).
Curse
Approved rendering: curse
Transliteration: arar / qelalah
Doctrine: The Fall and the Origin of Sin
Rejected alternatives: a witch’s curse / a curse word (dominant contemporary superstition/profanity associations)
Original: אָרַר / קְלָלָה
Category: Sin
NEW TERM. Post-Christian cultural erosion: contemporary secular usage overwhelmingly associates ‘curse’ with superstition, folklore, or profanity, almost totally displacing the judicial, covenant-lawsuit sense intended in Genesis 3:14-19, 4:11, 9:25. Restore the sense of a real, comprehensive, but not immediately fatal divine sentence.
Violence Corrupt
Approved rendering: violence
Transliteration: chamas / shachat
Doctrine: Sin’s Consequences and Common Grace
Rejected alternatives: the transliteration ‘chamas’ used on its own without an English gloss (see note)
Original: חָמָס / שָׁחַת
Category: Sin
NEW TERM. Describes the pre-flood world’s moral collapse (Genesis 6:11-13), the narrative basis for the flood judgment. GROUNDED CONTEMPORARY-ENGLISH RISK: the transliteration ‘chamas’ closely resembles ‘Hamas,’ the name of a Palestinian political/militant organization prominent in current events — a live, politically fraught association entirely unrelated to the Hebrew term’s meaning. Use the English gloss ‘violence’ in all teaching contexts; handle the transliteration itself with care.
Covenant Loyalty Chesed
Approved rendering: steadfast love
Transliteration: chesed
Doctrine: Covenant Faithfulness across Generations
Rejected alternatives: mercy / kindness / lovingkindness (all partial, translation-tradition-variable glosses that fail to capture the covenant-loyalty dimension alone)
Original: חֶסֶד
Category: Covenant
NEW TERM. One of the most frequently flattened Hebrew theological terms in English Bible translation, rendered variously across different translation traditions. Standardize on ‘steadfast love’ throughout this curriculum for consistency (Genesis 24:12, 24:14, 24:27; 32:10) and state explicitly this is committed relational faithfulness, not mere emotion or occasional kindness.
Circumcision
Approved rendering: circumcision
Transliteration: brit milah
Doctrine: The Abrahamic Covenant and Promise
Rejected alternatives: a routine health/medical procedure (the dominant contemporary secular/medical framing)
Original: בְּרִית מִילָה
Category: Covenant
NEW TERM. DENOMINATIONAL CONTEST: covenant-theology traditions historically link circumcision typologically to Christian baptism as covenant sign; other traditions see it as belonging strictly to the Abrahamic/Mosaic economy, superseded in Christ (cf. Colossians 2:11-12, Galatians 5:2-6) without a direct replacing rite in the same terms. Separate false-friend risk: secular/medical framing strips out covenantal meaning entirely. State the specific covenantal meaning (Genesis 17:9-14) plainly; note, without resolving, the later Christian debate.
Rainbow Sign
Approved rendering: sign of the covenant
Transliteration: qeshet / ‘ot
Doctrine: Covenant Faithfulness across Generations
Original: קֶשֶׁת / אוֹת
Category: Covenant
NEW TERM. Genuine, live contemporary cultural collision: the rainbow symbol carries strong, widely recognized secular associations today (notably as an LGBTQ+ pride symbol) entirely unrelated to its Genesis 9:12-17 meaning as a sign of God’s covenant promise never again to send a global flood. State the text’s own specific covenantal meaning plainly and pastorally, without polemicizing the modern symbol’s unrelated contemporary use.
Medium Risk Terms
God
Approved rendering: God
Transliteration: Elohim
Doctrine: Deity of Christ
Rejected alternatives: a higher power (a common, deliberately vague contemporary substitute, e.g. in recovery-program language), the universe (a New-Age-influenced impersonal substitute, e.g. ‘the universe has a plan for you’)
Original: אֱלֹהִים
Category: God
INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE — fields copied exactly per the baseline. Genesis-specific note: Genesis 1:1’s opening use establishes God as the sole, personal, pre-existent agent of creation, prior to and outside the created order. This curriculum’s own extended term registry elevates this specific Genesis 1:1 sense to Critical risk (contemporary materialist cosmology treats a personal Creator as, at best, an open question rather than a settled starting premise); the baseline’s Medium tier is retained here per the exact-copy rule, but reviewers should apply heightened scrutiny to every occurrence in Genesis 1.
Israel
Approved rendering: Israel
Transliteration: Yisra’el
Doctrine: Unity of Jews and Gentiles
Original: יִשְׂרָאֵל
Category: Covenant
INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE — fields copied exactly. Genesis-specific note: Genesis 32:28 (renamed at Peniel, ‘he wrestles/strives with God’ or ‘God prevails’) and 35:10 are the direct narrative origin of the name later borne by the covenant nation throughout Scripture. Context should make plain that the patriarch Jacob/Israel and the ancient covenant people, not the modern nation-state, is the referent, per the baseline’s identical caution.
Intercession
Approved rendering: intercession
Transliteration: n/a (Abraham’s plea, Genesis 18:22-33); enteuxis (baseline)
Doctrine: Prayer and Intercession
Original: (Abraham’s plea, Genesis 18:22-33)
Category: Faith
INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE — fields copied exactly. Genesis-specific note: Abraham’s extended bargaining for Sodom (18:22-33) is a directly relevant Old Testament instance of intercessory prayer, here a human interceding with God, complementing rather than duplicating the baseline’s primary sense of Christ’s and the Spirit’s intercession for believers (Romans 8:26-27, 34).
Peace
Approved rendering: peace
Transliteration: shalom / eirene (baseline)
Doctrine: Peace with God
Rejected alternatives: world peace / inner peace (the dominant secular senses)
Original: שָׁלוֹם
Category: Salvation
INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE — fields copied exactly. Genesis-specific note: Genesis 33’s reconciliation between Jacob and Esau uses the same underlying Hebrew concept (shalom) in an interpersonal, not specifically Godward, register — distinct from but conceptually continuous with the judicial peace-with-God sense the baseline documents for Romans 5:1.
Messiah
Approved rendering: Messiah
Transliteration: shevet / ad ki-yavo (Genesis 49:10); Christos/Mashiach (baseline)
Doctrine: Messianic Promise
Rejected alternatives: a messiah complex (a pop-psychology pejorative term)
Original: שֵׁבֶט / עַד כִּי־יָבֹא
Category: Christology
INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE — fields copied exactly. Genesis-specific note: the Judah blessing’s scepter/ruler promise (Genesis 49:10) is widely read in Christian tradition as an early anticipation of the Davidic line and Christ, but the title ‘Messiah’ itself is NOT used in the Hebrew text of Genesis 49. Present this connection as later Christian canonical/typological reading, not an explicit self-identifying title already present in the text.
Holy
Approved rendering: holy
Transliteration: qadosh / qiddesh; hagios (baseline)
Doctrine: Sanctification
Rejected alternatives: holier-than-thou, holy cow / holy moly
Original: קָדוֹשׁ / קִדֵּשׁ
Category: Sanctification
INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE — fields copied exactly. Genesis-specific note: Genesis 2:3, God himself sets apart the seventh day as holy — the earliest use of the term in Scripture, grounding the later Sabbath law (Exodus 20:8-11). This curriculum’s extended term registry treats this Genesis 2:3 instance as High risk given its direct entanglement with the contested Sabbath-observance doctrine (see ‘sabbath_rest’ below); the baseline’s Medium tier is retained here per the exact-copy rule, with the elevation noted for reviewer awareness.
Holy Spirit
Approved rendering: Holy Spirit
Transliteration: pneuma hagion (baseline); ruach Elohim (Genesis 1:2)
Doctrine: Sanctification
Rejected alternatives: good vibes / positive energy
INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE — fields copied exactly. Genesis-specific note: Genesis 1:2’s ruach Elohim (‘Spirit of God … hovering over the face of the waters’) is genuinely ambiguous in the Hebrew itself between ‘wind,’ ‘breath,’ and ‘Spirit.’ State this ambiguity honestly while affirming the historic Trinitarian reading of a personal divine agent active in creation, rather than flattening into vague ‘spiritual energy’ wellness-culture language. This curriculum’s extended term registry rates this specific Genesis 1:2 instance Critical given its foundational placement in the curriculum’s opening verses; the baseline’s Medium tier is retained here per the exact-copy rule. See also the separate new entry ‘spirit_of_god’ below for the Genesis-specific rendering distinct from the fuller New Testament title ‘Holy Spirit.‘
Gentiles
Approved rendering: Gentiles
Transliteration: ethne (baseline)
Doctrine: Unity of Jews and Gentiles
Rejected alternatives: non-believers (a common but incorrect modern gloss)
INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE — fields copied exactly. Genesis-specific note: this exact rendering (‘Gentiles’) should be RESERVED for contexts presupposing the later Jew/Gentile covenantal distinction; it must NOT be used for Genesis 10’s pre-Abrahamic ‘Table of Nations,’ where Israel does not yet exist as a covenant nation. See the new entry ‘nations’ below for the correct Genesis 10-11 rendering, which avoids anachronistic retrojection.
Kind Min
Approved rendering: kind
Transliteration: min
Doctrine: Creation Ex Nihilo
Rejected alternatives: species (the modern scientific-taxonomic term, carrying evolutionary-biology connotations the Hebrew does not itself address)
Original: מִין
Category: Creation
NEW TERM. False-friend risk with the modern scientific term ‘species’; readers steeped in origins debates may import scientific categories the text does not intend to settle either way. Use ‘kind,’ note it is not a taxonomic claim.
Formless And Void
Approved rendering: formless and empty
Transliteration: tohu wabohu
Doctrine: Creation Ex Nihilo
Rejected alternatives: chaos (risks implying active disorder or evil, which the text does not assert)
Original: תֹהוּ וָבֹהוּ
Category: Creation
NEW TERM. Obsolescence risk: the alliterative Hebrew idiom has no natural English equivalent; readers may wrongly infer that verse 1’s ‘create’ produced a chaotic mess rather than unformed material awaiting God’s further ordering word.
Expanse Raqia
Approved rendering: expanse
Transliteration: raqia
Doctrine: Creation Ex Nihilo
Rejected alternatives: firmament (archaic, KJV-derived; retained only as a secondary gloss)
Original: רָקִיע
Category: Creation
NEW TERM. Obsolescence risk compounded by a live scientific-concordist debate (some literalist and skeptical readers alike take this to teach a solid physical dome). Note the observational-language question exists without needing to adjudicate it.
God Most High Melchizedek
Approved rendering: God Most High
Transliteration: El Elyon / Malki-Tsedeq
Doctrine: Messianic Promise
Original: אֵל עֶלְיוֹן / מַלְכִּי־צֶדֶק
Category: God
NEW TERM. The mysterious king-priest Melchizedek (Genesis 14:18-20) is later taken up typologically (Psalm 110, Hebrews 7); flag that deeper canonical development as a later reading, not already explicit in Genesis’s own plain sense.
Angel Of The Lord
Approved rendering: angel of the LORD
Transliteration: mal’akh YHWH
Doctrine: Providence
Rejected alternatives: guardian angel (contemporary greeting-card/sentimental imagery)
Original: מַלְאַךְ יהוה
Category: God
NEW TERM. Obsolescence plus dilution risk: contemporary secular guardian-angel imagery softens this figure’s authoritative, God-representing (sometimes closely God-identified) role into generic benevolent spirit-guide imagery.
Fear Of God
Approved rendering: fear of God
Transliteration: yirat Elohim
Doctrine: Sin’s Consequences and Common Grace
Rejected alternatives: terror / anxiety (the dominant ordinary-English sense of ‘fear’)
Original: יִרְאַת אֱלֹהִים
Category: Sin
NEW TERM. False-friend risk: ordinary English ‘fear’ defaults to terror/anxiety; the term denotes reverent moral awe. Its attribution to a non-covenant figure (Abimelech, Genesis 20:11) is itself a Common Grace text — God’s moral order is not confined to the covenant line alone.
Living Creature
Approved rendering: living creature
Transliteration: nephesh chayyah
Doctrine: The Image of God
Rejected alternatives: living soul (risks importing post-biblical body/soul dualism absent from the Hebrew)
Original: נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה
Category: Anthropology
NEW TERM. Applies to both animals (1:20, 1:24) and man (2:7); readers may wrongly assume ‘soul’ language is reserved for humans alone. Humanity’s distinct dignity rests on the image of God (1:26-27), not on exclusive possession of nephesh — state this distinction explicitly.
Dust And Breath
Approved rendering: dust and the breath of life
Transliteration: aphar / nishmat chayyim
Doctrine: The Image of God
Rejected alternatives: just dust (a reductive-naturalist misreading), just a soul (a body-devaluing misreading)
Original: עָפָר / נִשְׁמַת חַיִּים
Category: Anthropology
NEW TERM. Humanity’s dual constitution (Genesis 2:7): humble material origin and directly God-given life-breath. Risk of collapsing into either a purely materialist or a purely spiritualist misreading; the text holds humble creatureliness and unique dignity together.
Serpent
Approved rendering: serpent
Transliteration: nachash
Doctrine: The Fall and the Origin of Sin
Rejected alternatives: Satan (a legitimate later canonical identification, Revelation 12:9, 20:2, but NOT already explicit in the wording of Genesis 3 itself)
Original: נָחָשׁ
Category: Sin
NEW TERM. Readers should not assume Genesis 3 itself names the serpent as Satan; present that identification as a legitimate but later canonical development, not read back into the passage silently.
Garden Of Eden
Approved rendering: garden of Eden
Transliteration: gan-Eden
Doctrine: The Fall and the Origin of Sin
Rejected alternatives: paradise (as a generic idyllic-resort marketing byword, often ironic)
Original: גַּן־עֵדֶן
Category: Sin
NEW TERM. Secular/commercial usage flattens the text’s specific, real, geographically located, probationary setting (Genesis 2:8-3:24) into generic nostalgia for lost innocence. Present as a real, historical, particular place of both provision and testing.
Tree Of Life And Knowledge
Approved rendering: tree of life / tree of the knowledge of good and evil
Transliteration: etz hachayyim / etz hada’at tov vara
Doctrine: The Fall and the Origin of Sin
Rejected alternatives: forbidden fruit (a generic folklore/media trope that can obscure the specific covenantal probation)
Original: עֵץ הַחַיִּים / עֵץ הַדַּעַת טוֹב וָרָע
Category: Sin
NEW TERM. Central to the probationary command (Genesis 2:9, 2:17). Risk of flattening into a generic fairy-tale ‘forbidden fruit’ trope, obscuring the real moral stakes of the specific command.
Test Nasah
Approved rendering: test
Transliteration: nasah
Doctrine: Providence
Rejected alternatives: exam (implies uncertainty on the tester’s part, absent from the narrative’s assumption of God’s prior knowledge)
Original: נִסָּה
Category: Sin
NEW TERM. False-friend risk: ‘test’ in modern English often implies uncertainty on the tester’s part, whereas Genesis 22:1 assumes God’s prior knowledge and providential purpose even in testing Abraham’s faith and obedience. Distinguish clearly from tempting toward sin.
Seed Offspring
Approved rendering: seed
Transliteration: zera
Doctrine: The Abrahamic Covenant and Promise
Rejected alternatives: descendant(s) (an acceptable modern-register gloss, used alongside, not instead of, the traditional phrase)
Original: זֶרַע
Category: Covenant
NEW TERM. Same profile as the baseline’s seed_of_david entry: modern ‘seed’ defaults to a plant seed or a financial input (‘seed money’). Retain ‘seed of the woman’ (3:15, the earliest messianic promise, the protoevangelium) and ‘seed of Abraham’ (12:7; 15:5; 22:17-18) alongside a plain ‘offspring/descendants’ gloss given the term’s importance across the whole book.
Blessing
Approved rendering: blessing
Transliteration: berakah / barak
Doctrine: The Abrahamic Covenant and Promise
Rejected alternatives: a blessing in disguise / count your blessings (secular idiom generalizing the word into vague good fortune)
Original: בְּרָכָה / בָּרַךְ
Category: Covenant
NEW TERM. Post-Christian cultural erosion: secular idiom has generalized the word into vague good fortune or politeness (the sneeze-response ‘bless you’). Restore its specific, spoken, performative, covenantal, God-sourced sense, especially at the formal Abrahamic promise (Genesis 12:2-3) and intergenerational transmission (chs. 27, 48).
Birthright
Approved rendering: birthright
Transliteration: bekorah
Doctrine: Sin’s Consequences and Common Grace
Rejected alternatives: birthright citizenship (an unrelated contemporary American political/legal usage)
Original: בְּכֹרָה
Category: Covenant
NEW TERM. Modern contemporary-politics collision: ‘birthright’ is currently a live term in American political discourse around birthright citizenship, an unrelated legal-political sense. Clarify the Genesis sense is inherited covenantal/family precedence (25:29-34), unrelated to citizenship law.
Offering Minchah
Approved rendering: offering
Transliteration: minchah
Doctrine: Sin’s Consequences and Common Grace
Original: מִנְחָה
Category: Worship
NEW TERM. Obsolescence risk: modern readers with no sacrificial-system background may need the concept built from scratch (similar profile to the baseline’s sanctification entry). Cain’s and Abel’s offerings (Genesis 4:3-5) are the first worship narrative after the Fall; acceptability concerns the heart/manner of the offerer, not merely ritual performance.
Burnt Offering
Approved rendering: burnt offering
Transliteration: olah / YHWH Yireh
Doctrine: The Abrahamic Covenant and Promise
Original: עֹלָה / יהוה יִרְאֶה
Category: Worship
NEW TERM. God’s substitutionary provision of a ram in place of Isaac and his naming as ‘the LORD will provide’ (Genesis 22:13-14). Carries substitutionary-atonement typological weight worth flagging as later canonical development (Hebrews) without overreading it as an explicit doctrine already stated in Genesis itself.
Garments Of Skin
Approved rendering: garments of skin
Transliteration: kutnot ‘or
Doctrine: Sin’s Consequences and Common Grace
Original: כֻּתְנוֹת עוֹר
Category: Worship
NEW TERM. God’s provision of a costly covering for Adam and Eve’s shame (Genesis 3:21), widely read as an early foreshadowing of substitutionary atonement. Present the typological reading as a well-established later Christian reading, not stated explicitly in the text itself.
Flood Mabbul
Approved rendering: flood
Transliteration: mabbul
Doctrine: Sin’s Consequences and Common Grace
Original: מַבּוּל
Category: Sin
NEW TERM. A specialized term used only of this cataclysmic judgment (Genesis 6-9; echoed Psalm 29:10). Live scientific/historicity debate among English-speaking Christian traditions (global vs. local flood); note the debate exists without adjudicating the geological question.
Dreams
Approved rendering: dreams
Transliteration: chalom
Doctrine: Joseph and God’s Providence in Suffering
Rejected alternatives: subconscious processing (the dominant contemporary secular psychoanalytic framework)
Original: חֲלוֹם
Category: God
NEW TERM. A vehicle of divine revelation and providential foreshadowing, central to the Joseph narrative (Genesis 37, 40-41). Contemporary secular psychoanalytic/pop-psychological framing offers a competing, God-absent account of dreams; note the distinction without needing to adjudicate dream psychology generally.
Wisdom Chokmah
Approved rendering: wisdom
Transliteration: chokmah
Doctrine: Joseph and God’s Providence in Suffering
Rejected alternatives: innate talent / giftedness (the dominant secular meritocratic framing)
Original: חָכְמָה
Category: God
NEW TERM. Joseph’s God-given interpretive wisdom before Pharaoh (Genesis 41:38-39) is explicitly credited to God’s Spirit, not innate cleverness — parallel to the baseline’s caution about ‘spiritual_gifts’ not being innate merit-based talent.
Blameless
Approved rendering: blameless
Transliteration: tamim
Doctrine: Sin’s Consequences and Common Grace
Rejected alternatives: sinlessly perfect (an overreading the term does not support)
Original: תָּמִים
Category: Sin
NEW TERM. Describes Noah (Genesis 6:9) as complete/blameless relative to his corrupt generation, not sinless perfection. Pair carefully with the ‘grace’ entry’s caution about ordering: favor (6:8) precedes this description (6:9), so ‘blameless’ should not be read as the cause of God’s favor.
Nations
Approved rendering: nations
Transliteration: goyim
Doctrine: Unity of Jews and Gentiles
Rejected alternatives: Gentiles (anachronistic at this pre-Abrahamic stage; see the inherited ‘gentiles’ entry above)
Original: גּוֹיִם
Category: Church
NEW TERM, distinct from but conceptually related to the inherited baseline term ‘gentiles.’ Genesis 10’s ‘Table of Nations’ presents the full spread of humanity under God’s ordering providence. Render ‘nations,’ NOT ‘Gentiles,’ at this pre-Abrahamic stage, since Israel does not yet exist as a covenant nation and the later Jew/Gentile contrast should not be retrojected anachronistically onto Genesis 10-11.
Low Risk Terms
Very Good
Approved rendering: very good
Transliteration: tov me’od
Doctrine: Creation Ex Nihilo
Original: טוֹב מְאֹד
Category: Creation
NEW TERM. Minor risk: secular relativizing of ‘good’ as subjective preference risks flattening God’s objective, capstone evaluation of the entire finished creation (1:31); worth stating explicitly against any residual body-devaluing (gnostic-adjacent) cultural assumption.
Hovering
Approved rendering: hovering
Transliteration: merachefet
Doctrine: Creation Ex Nihilo
Original: מְרַחֵפֶת
Category: Creation
NEW TERM. Rare word (used elsewhere of an eagle over its nest, Deuteronomy 32:11) with no competing secular sense; gloss as active, caring divine presence, not passive absence.
Host Tsava
Approved rendering: host
Transliteration: tsava
Doctrine: Creation Ex Nihilo
Original: צָבָא
Category: Creation
NEW TERM. Mild obsolescence (‘army, array’); gloss as ‘everything in them’ (Genesis 2:1) for clarity.
El Shaddai
Approved rendering: God Almighty
Transliteration: El Shaddai
Doctrine: Providence
Original: אֵל שַׁדַּי
Category: God
NEW TERM. Comparatively stable divine title with hymnic recognition; retain the traditional English gloss ‘God Almighty’ alongside the transliteration where cross-reference is useful. Emphasizes God’s sufficient power to fulfill impossible-seeming promises (Genesis 17:1).
One Flesh
Approved rendering: one flesh
Transliteration: basar echad
Doctrine: The Image of God
Original: בָּשָׂר אֶחָד
Category: Anthropology
NEW TERM. A covenantal, familial union (Genesis 2:24), foundational to later marriage theology (Matthew 19:5, Ephesians 5:31). Comparatively stable in contemporary English.
Pleasing Aroma
Approved rendering: pleasing aroma
Transliteration: reiach hanichoach
Doctrine: Sin’s Consequences and Common Grace
Original: רֵיחַ הַנִּיחֹחַ
Category: Worship
NEW TERM. God’s acceptance of Noah’s post-flood offering (Genesis 8:21), linked to his commitment to creational stability. An early Common Grace text: God sustains an ordered world for a still-sinful humanity. Rare phrase; low competing-meaning risk once glossed.
Ark Teivah
Approved rendering: ark
Transliteration: teivah
Doctrine: Sin’s Consequences and Common Grace
Original: תֵּבָה
Category: Sin
NEW TERM. The vessel of preserved life amid judgment (Genesis 6-9), later typologically connected to salvation through water (1 Peter 3:20-21). Clarify this is a different Hebrew word (teivah) than the later Ark of the Covenant (aron); avoid reader confusion between the two.
Babel Confuse
Approved rendering: confused
Transliteration: balal
Doctrine: Sin’s Consequences and Common Grace
Original: בָּלַל
Category: Covenant
NEW TERM. God’s judgment on human self-exaltation (‘let us make a name for ourselves,’ Genesis 11:4), wordplay with ‘Bavel’/Babel. The English word ‘babble/babbling’ derives popularly from this narrative and is a mild cultural asset, not a drift risk.
Generations Toledot
Approved rendering: generations
Transliteration: toledot
Doctrine: Covenant Faithfulness across Generations
Original: תּוֹלְדֹת
Category: Covenant
NEW TERM. The recurring literary formula (‘these are the generations/account of…’) structuring Genesis into linked family-history units, recurring roughly ten times across the whole book (e.g., 2:4; 5:1; 6:9; 10:1; 11:10; 25:19; 36:1; 37:2). Gloss briefly at first occurrence as a structural-navigation aid.
Referenced passages