Core Glossary

Core Glossary — Hebrews (Full Book)

This glossary consolidates every load-bearing term identified in 07_semantic_analysis.md, drawn from every chapter of Hebrews (1-13), for use in Phase 2 translation/editorial passes and Phase 1 Step 2 (doctrine risk registry construction).

Legend for “Baseline Status”:

[REUSE] — term already recorded in the baseline Romans translation_memory.json; rendering reused exactly, risk tier as documented there unless Hebrews’ usage introduces a new nuance (noted).
[NEW] — term not present in the baseline Romans package; introduced fresh for Hebrews.
[REUSE+] — baseline term reused, with an additional Hebrews-specific nuance or risk flagged.

Risk tiers follow the baseline framework exactly: Critical (human theologian review mandatory), High (human theologian review), Medium (native speaker review), Low (automated review only). Risk categories: FF = False-Friend Drift, DC = Denominational Contest, OB = Obsolescence/Obscurity, CD = Cultural Discomfort/Distortion (a category not needed in the Romans baseline but required for Hebrews’ sacrificial and angelic imagery).

#	Term (English rendering)	Original (Greek)	Transliteration	First occurrence	Category/Doctrine	Risk	Risk type(s)	Baseline status	Notes
1	high priest	ἀρχιερεύς	archiereus	2:17 (first); central 4:14-10:22	Christ as the Great High Priest	High	OB	[NEW]	No living cultural referent for exclusive sanctuary-access priesthood; requires active OT background teaching.
2	angels	ἄγγελοι	angeloi	1:4	Superiority of Christ over Angels	High	CD	[NEW]	Sentimentalized/New-Age pop-culture angel imagery displaces the austere, worshiping, created-being sense.
3	Son (of God)	υἱός	huios	1:2	Superiority of Christ over Angels; Deity of Christ	Medium	OB	[REUSE — “Son of God”]	Retains baseline profile; “historical Jesus” framings can strip divine sonship while retaining the title.
4	heir of all things	κληρονόμος πάντων	klēronomos pantōn	1:2	Superiority of Christ over Angels	Medium	OB	[NEW]	“Heir” partially helpful (rightful possession by relationship) but cosmic scope needs emphasis.
5	radiance of glory / exact representation	ἀπαύγασμα, χαρακτήρ	apaugasma, charaktēr	1:3	Deity of Christ	High	FF	[NEW]	English “character” (from charaktēr) has drifted to personality/ethics, offering false help toward a weaker reading.
6	upholds/sustains all things	φέρων τὰ πάντα	pherōn ta panta	1:3	Providence (adjacent)	Medium	OB	[REUSE — adjacent to “providence,” Critical]	Christ’s personal sustaining agency vs. impersonal “everything happens for a reason.”
7	purification for sins	καθαρισμὸν τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν	katharismon tōn hamartiōn	1:3	The Once-for-All Atoning Sacrifice	High	FF	[REUSE — component “sin,” High]	Governs sin’s trivialization/guilt-aversion risk throughout the letter.
8	such a great salvation	σωτηρία	sōtēria	2:3	Danger of Apostasy	Critical	FF/DC	[REUSE — “salvation,” Critical]	Full baseline profile retained; foundational to the first warning passage.
9	taste death	γεύσηται θανάτου	geusētai thanatou	2:9	Christ’s Atoning Death	Low	OB	[NEW]	Idiom transparent once glossed.
10	founder/pioneer (of salvation/faith)	ἀρχηγός	archēgos	2:10; 12:2	Christ as Forerunner/Pioneer	Medium	OB	[NEW]	No single English word captures both “originator” and “one who goes first”; standardize rendering across chs. 2 & 12.
11	made perfect through suffering	τελειῶσαι διὰ παθημάτων	teleiōsai dia pathēmatōn	2:10; also 5:8-9; 7:28	Christ’s Qualification as High Priest	Critical	FF	[NEW]	Strong risk readers infer Christ was previously flawed/deficient; must correct explicitly every occurrence.
12	brothers (siblings)	ἀδελφοί	adelphoi	2:11-12	Christ’s Solidarity with Humanity	Medium	DC	[NEW]	Gender-inclusive rendering choice (“brothers” vs. “brothers and sisters”) is a live, contested translation-practice question.
13	make propitiation/atonement for sins	ἱλάσκεσθαι τὰς ἁμαρτίας	hilaskesthai tas hamartias	2:17	The Once-for-All Atoning Sacrifice; Access to God through Christ’s Blood	Critical	OB/DC	[NEW]	Rare word; genuine, longstanding English-translation and denominational disagreement over “propitiation” (satisfying wrath) vs. “expiation” (covering/removing sin).
14	apostle (applied to Christ)	ἀπόστολος	apostolos	3:1	Christ as Sent One	Medium	OB	[REUSE+ — “apostle,” Medium]	Unique NT application of the term to Jesus himself; flag as exception to the baseline’s human-office default sense.
15	confession	ὁμολογία	homologia	3:1; 4:14; 10:23	Perseverance and Assurance	Medium	OB/FF	[NEW]	Competes with the “admission of guilt” sense of “confession” in ordinary English.
16	harden your hearts	σκληρύνητε τὰς καρδίας	sklērynēte tas kardias	3:8	Danger of Apostasy	Medium	OB	[NEW]	Risk of reading as generic emotional coldness rather than specific resistance to God’s voice.
17	unbelief	ἀπιστία	apistia	3:12	Danger of Apostasy; Faith	High	FF	[REUSE — component “faith,” High]	English “unbelief” skews toward mere skepticism rather than relational betrayal of trust.
18	falling away / apostasy	ἀφίστημι	aphistēmi	3:12	The Danger of Apostasy and Warning Passages	High	DC	[NEW]	Directly contested among English-speaking traditions re: whether true believers can finally apostatize; central to Perseverance/Assurance doctrine.
19	rest	κατάπαυσις	katapausis	3:11; developed ch. 4	Perseverance and Assurance	High	FF	[NEW]	“Rest” defaults in English to relaxation/vacation, obscuring the covenantal/eschatological sense.
20	Sabbath rest	σαββατισμός	sabbatismos	4:9	Perseverance and Assurance	Medium	DC	[NEW]	Intersects the live English-speaking-Christian Sabbath-observance debate (Sabbatarian vs. typological readings).
21	word of God, living and active	λόγος τοῦ θεοῦ ζῶν καὶ ἐνεργής	logos tou theou zōn kai energēs	4:12	Inspiration of Scripture (adjacent)	High	DC	[REUSE — adjacent to baseline’s “inspiration of Scripture,” High]	Contemporary academic/secular treatment of Scripture as merely human literary artifact directly contested here.
22	discerner of thoughts and intentions	κριτικὸς ἐνθυμήσεων καὶ ἐννοιῶν	kritikos enthymēsēōn kai ennoiōn	4:12	Inspiration of Scripture	Medium	FF	[NEW]	English “critical/criticize” skews toward fault-finding negativity, not penetrating discernment.
23	throne of grace	θρόνος τῆς χάριτος	thronos tēs charitos	4:16	Access to God through Christ’s Blood	Critical	FF/DC	[REUSE — component “grace,” Critical]	Full baseline “grace” risk profile retained and compounded with unfamiliar throne/monarchy imagery.
24	draw near with confidence/boldness	προσέρχομαι μετὰ παρρησίας	proserchomai meta parrēsias	4:16; 10:19-22	Access to God through Christ’s Blood	Medium	OB	[NEW]	Political “free speech before a ruler” background largely lost but not misleading once explained.
25	called (priestly office)	καλούμενος	kaloumenos	5:4	Christ as the Great High Priest	High	FF	[REUSE — “called,” High]	Baseline agency-direction concern (God calls; person does not self-appoint), applied here to priestly office.
26	order of Melchizedek	τάξις Μελχισέδεκ	taxis Melchisedek	5:6, 10; full ch. 7	Superiority of Christ over the Levitical Priesthood	High	OB	[NEW]	Genuinely obscure OT figure to most contemporary readers; entire ch. 7 argument depends on supplied background.
27	learned obedience through suffering	ἔμαθεν τὴν ὑπακοήν	emathen tēn hypakoēn	5:8	Christ’s Qualification as High Priest	Critical	FF	[NEW]	Same misreading risk as “made perfect through suffering” (#11); Christ was not previously disobedient.
28	source of eternal salvation	αἴτιος σωτηρίας αἰωνίου	aitios sōtērias aiōniou	5:9	The Once-for-All Atoning Sacrifice	Critical	FF/DC	[REUSE — “salvation,” Critical]	Full baseline profile; “all who obey him” clause intersects the baseline’s “obedience of faith” doctrine.
29	milk vs. solid food	γάλα, βρῶμα	gala, brōma	5:12-14	Spiritual Maturity (adjacent to Sanctification)	Low	—	[NEW]	Stable, widely accessible pedagogical metaphor.
30	repentance from dead works	μετάνοια ἀπὸ νεκρῶν ἔργων	metanoia apo nekrōn ergōn	6:1	Perseverance and Assurance	Medium	OB	[NEW]	“Repentance” tends toward vague regret rather than decisive reorientation.
31	enlightened / tasted / partakers (of the Holy Spirit)	φωτισθέντας, γευσαμένους, μετόχους	phōtisthentas, geusamenous, metochous	6:4-5	Perseverance and Assurance; Danger of Apostasy	Critical	DC	[NEW]	One of the most contested phrases in English-language Hebrews scholarship regarding the identity of those who “fall away”; directly shapes Perseverance/Assurance doctrine.
32	fall away	παραπίπτω	parapiptō	6:6	Danger of Apostasy	High	DC	[NEW]	Same contested cluster as #18 (aphistēmi) and #31; cross-reference consistently.
33	crucify again / public contempt	ἀνασταυρόω, παραδειγματίζω	anastauroō, paradeigmatizō	6:6	Danger of Apostasy	Medium	CD	[NEW]	Deliberately shocking imagery; risk is under-translation/softening, not misreading.
34	anchor of the soul	ἄγκυρα τῆς ψυχῆς	agkyra tēs psychēs	6:19	Perseverance and Assurance	Low	—	[NEW]	Nautical stability metaphor remains broadly accessible and positive.
35	forerunner	πρόδρομος	prodromos	6:20	Christ as the Great High Priest	Medium	OB	[NEW]	Rare English word; no misleading competing sense.
36	Melchizedek	Μελχισέδεκ	Melchisedek	5:6; full ch. 7	Superiority of Christ over the Levitical Priesthood	High	OB	[NEW]	Genuinely obscure OT figure; substantial background required.
37	without genealogy	ἀγενεαλόγητος	agenealogētos	7:3	Superiority of Christ over the Levitical Priesthood	Medium	OB	[NEW]	Risk of overreaching into speculative claims about Melchizedek’s nature beyond the text’s actual (textual-silence) argument.
38	tithe	δεκάτη	dekatē	7:2, 4-9	Superiority of Christ over the Levitical Priesthood	Medium	DC	[NEW]	Intersects the live, contested contemporary Christian tithing-practice debate; text’s actual use is narrative/typological, not prescriptive.
39	better (covenant/priesthood/promises/sacrifices/hope/resurrection/country)	κρείττων/κρεῖσσον	kreittōn/kreisson	1:4; 6:9; 7:7,19,22; 8:6; 9:23; 10:34; 11:16,35,40; 12:24	Structural keyword across multiple doctrines	Low	—	[NEW]	Individually low risk; render consistently throughout to preserve the writer’s deliberate rhetorical pattern.
40	indestructible life	ζωὴ ἀκατάλυτος	zōē akatalytos	7:16	Christ as the Great High Priest	Low	—	[NEW]	Vivid, largely self-explanatory.
41	guarantor/surety	ἔγγυος	engyos	7:22	The New Covenant versus the Old	Medium	OB	[NEW]	Rare word, but financial-guarantor association is a helpful, largely accurate bridge.
42	intercede	ἐντυγχάνω	entynchanō	7:25	Christ as the Great High Priest	Medium	OB	[REUSE — “intercession,” Medium]	Mild asset; “intercessory prayer” has no competing secular meaning.
43	mediator	μεσίτης	mesitēs	8:6; 9:15; 12:24	The New Covenant versus the Old	High	FF	[NEW]	English “mediator” defaults to a neutral legal/labor-dispute facilitator, not a covenant-securing, divine representative.
44	new covenant / better covenant	καινή/κρείττων διαθήκη	kainē/kreittōn diathēkē	8:6-13; 9:15; 12:24	The New Covenant versus the Old	High	FF	[REUSE — “covenant,” High]	Full baseline risk (property/contract-law drift); “New Testament” book-title conflation also possible.
45	fault / find fault	μέμφομαι	memphomai	8:8	The New Covenant versus the Old	Medium	DC	[NEW]	Care needed to avoid implying the old covenant itself, not merely Israel’s failure, was defective; connects to baseline’s “hyper-grace”/anti-legalism caution.
46	grow obsolete / fading away	παλαιόω, ἀφανισμός	palaioō, aphanismos	8:13	The New Covenant versus the Old	Medium	FF	[NEW]	English “obsolete” can carry a dismissive tone absent from the text’s more measured “fulfilled, therefore fading” logic.
47	Holy Place / Most Holy Place	ἅγια, ἅγια ἁγίων	hagia, hagia hagiōn	9:1-8	Access to God through Christ’s Blood	Medium	OB	[REUSE — component “holy,” Medium]	Two-chamber tabernacle structure needs active teaching; no competing false meaning.
48	tabernacle furnishings (lampstand, table, ark, mercy seat, cherubim)	λυχνία, τράπεζα, κιβωτός, ἱλαστήριον, χερουβίμ	lychnia, trapeza, kibōtos, hilastērion, cheroubim	9:2-5	Access to God through Christ’s Blood	Medium	OB	[NEW]	Cumulative background-teaching need; hilastērion cross-references Romans 3:25’s “propitiation.”
49	veil / curtain	καταπέτασμα	katapetasma	9:3; 6:19; 10:20	Access to God through Christ’s Blood	Low	OB	[NEW]	Genuine asset once connected to the Gospels’ torn-curtain narrative.
50	regulations for the body / flesh	δικαιώματα σαρκός	dikaiōmata sarkos	9:10	The New Covenant versus the Old	Medium	FF	[NEW]	“Flesh” in casual English (gym/diet culture) does not carry the outward/inward theological contrast intended.
51	high priest of the good things to come	ἀρχιερεύς τῶν… ἀγαθῶν	archiereus tōn agathōn	9:11	Christ as the Great High Priest	High	OB	[NEW — see #1]	Core passage first term.
52	tabernacle (greater, not made with hands)	σκηνή, ἀχειροποίητος	skēnē, acheiropoiētos	9:11	Christ as the Great High Priest	Medium	OB	[NEW]	No secular currency outside camping-brand names.
53	once for all	ἐφάπαξ/ἅπαξ	ephapax/hapax	9:12, 25, 26, 28; 10:10	The Once-for-All Atoning Sacrifice	Critical	FF	[NEW]	Idiom “once and for all” trivializes into settling an argument; must be explicitly re-weighted every occurrence.
54	blood (of Christ)	αἷμα	haima	9:12, 14, 18-22, 25	Access to God through Christ’s Blood	High	CD	[NEW]	Contemporary squeamishness/distance from literal blood-sacrifice risks reducing this to mere metaphor.
55	eternal redemption	αἰωνία λύτρωσις	aiōnia lytrōsis	9:12	The Once-for-All Atoning Sacrifice	Medium	OB	[NEW]	“Redemption” partially assisted by finance/pop-culture “redemption arc” usage, but full sense needs active teaching.
56	sanctify / purification of flesh	ἁγιάζω	hagiazō	9:13	Sanctification	Medium	OB	[REUSE — “sanctification,” Medium]	Hebrews adds the flesh/conscience contrast not present in the baseline’s Romans usage.
57	eternal Spirit	πνεῦμα αἰώνιον	pneuma aiōnion	9:14	Christ as the Great High Priest	High	DC	[NEW]	Genuine English-language interpretive divide: Holy Spirit vs. Christ’s own divine-eternal nature.
58	without blemish	ἄμωμος	amōmos	9:14	The Once-for-All Atoning Sacrifice	Low	OB	[NEW]	Unfamiliar agricultural background, no competing false meaning.
59	conscience	συνείδησις	syneidēsis	9:14; 10:22	Access to God through Christ’s Blood	High	FF	[NEW]	Fully secularized psychological faculty in English; must state Christ’s blood, not self-effort, cleanses it.
60	dead works	νεκρὰ ἔργα	nekra erga	9:14; 6:1	Perseverance and Assurance	Medium	OB	[NEW]	Unusual phrase requiring unpacking, no competing meaning.
61	serve/worship	λατρεύω	latreuō	9:14	Christ as the Great High Priest	Medium	FF	[NEW]	Risk of flattening to generic helpfulness rather than cultic worship.
62	mediator (of the new covenant)	μεσίτης	mesitēs	9:15	The New Covenant versus the Old	High	FF	[NEW — see #43]	Core passage occurrence.
63	eternal inheritance	κληρονομία αἰωνία	klēronomia aiōnios	9:15	Perseverance and Assurance	Medium	OB	[REUSE — adjacent to “adoption,” Low]	Largely positive drift (estate/inheritance imagery), “eternal” qualifier needs emphasis.
64	will / covenant (wordplay)	διαθήκη	diathēkē	9:16-17 (cf. 9:15, 18)	The New Covenant versus the Old	Critical	FF	[REUSE+ — “covenant,” High]	Unique risk: one Greek word must be split into two English words (“covenant”/“will”), obscuring the writer’s deliberate pun unless explained.
65	first covenant	πρώτη διαθήκη	prōtē diathēkē	9:18	The New Covenant versus the Old	High	FF/DC	[REUSE — “covenant,” High]	“Old covenant” phrasing risks a dismissive tone toward a genuine, God-given covenant.
66	sprinkled / sprinkling	ῥαντίζω	rhantizō	9:13, 19-22; 10:22	Access to God through Christ’s Blood	Medium	OB	[NEW]	No living ritual referent; distinct from the denominationally-contested practice of baptismal sprinkling.
67	blood of the covenant	τὸ αἷμα τῆς διαθήκης	to haima tēs diathēkēs	9:20	The New Covenant versus the Old	Medium	DC	[NEW]	Echoes Communion liturgy; Communion theology itself is denominationally contested territory to note without adjudicating.
68	shedding of blood	αἱματεκχυσία	haimatekchysia	9:22	The Once-for-All Atoning Sacrifice	High	CD	[NEW]	Contemporary discomfort risks softening the text’s insistence on literal necessity.
69	forgiveness / remission of sins	ἄφεσις	aphesis	9:22	The Once-for-All Atoning Sacrifice	Medium	OB	[NEW]	Prefer “forgiveness” over “remission” (medical false-friend: temporary abatement).
70	copies (of heavenly things)	ὑποδείγματα	hypodeigmata	9:23	The New Covenant versus the Old	Medium	OB	[NEW]	Copy/reality framework unfamiliar; avoid implying the OT system was meaningless rather than a true pointer.
71	heavenly things	ἐπουράνια	epourania	9:23-24	Access to God through Christ’s Blood	Low	—	[NEW]	Fairly stable religious vocabulary.
72	copies of the true / antitype	ἀντίτυπα τῶν ἀληθινῶν	antitypa tōn alēthinōn	9:24	The New Covenant versus the Old	Medium	OB	[NEW]	Technical loanword; explain plainly rather than leave as jargon.
73	appear in the presence of God	ἐμφανισθῆναι	emphanisthēnai	9:24	Christ as the Great High Priest	Medium	FF	[NEW]	“Appear” is weak in English; needs the courtroom/royal-presentation force restored.
74	foundation of the world	καταβολὴ κόσμου	katabolē kosmou	9:26	The Once-for-All Atoning Sacrifice	Low	—	[NEW]	Stable archaic-but-understood phrase.
75	end of the age	συντέλεια τῶν αἰώνων	synteleia tōn aiōnōn	9:26	The Once-for-All Atoning Sacrifice	Medium	FF	[NEW]	Popular “end times” media associates this with a still-future event; Hebrews places it at an event already accomplished.
76	put away sin	ἀθέτησις ἁμαρτίας	athetēsis hamartias	9:26	The Once-for-All Atoning Sacrifice	Medium	FF	[NEW]	Casual “put away” idioms (groceries, imprisonment, euphemism for death) do not carry legal-annulment force.
77	appointed (to die) / judgment	ἀπόκειται, κρίσις	apokeitai, krisis	9:27	Perseverance and Assurance	Medium	DC/FF	[NEW]	Denominational variance on nature/timing of judgment after death; secular “judgment” is impersonal/evaluative.
78	offered once to bear the sins of many	ἅπαξ προσενεχθείς… ἀνενέγκειν ἁμαρτίας πολλῶν	hapax prosenechtheis… anenegkein hamartias pollōn	9:28	The Once-for-All Atoning Sacrifice	High	DC	[NEW]	Directly intersects historic English-speaking debates over the extent/mechanism of the atonement.
79	appear a second time	ἐκ δευτέρου ὀφθήσεται	ek deuterou ophthēsetai	9:28	Perseverance and Assurance	Medium	DC	[NEW]	Eschatological-scheme diversity among English-speaking traditions; state what the text affirms without importing one full system.
80	eagerly waiting	ἀπεκδεχομένοις	apekdechomenois	9:28	Perseverance and Assurance	Low	—	[NEW]	Positive, largely stable; minor risk “waiting” alone reads as passive.
81	save	σωτηρίαν	sōtērian	9:28	Salvation	Critical	FF/DC	[REUSE — “salvation,” Critical]	Future, consummating sense; distinguish from purely past-tense “got saved” usage without denying it.
82	shadow	σκιά	skia	10:1	The New Covenant versus the Old	Low	—	[NEW]	Reinforce alongside “copies”/“antitype” as one shadow/reality theme.
83	full assurance of faith	πληροφορία πίστεως	plērophoria pisteōs	10:22	Perseverance and Assurance	High	DC	[NEW]	Same denominational cluster as baseline’s flagged “assurance of salvation,” Critical/High.
84	hold fast the confession of hope	κατέχωμεν τὴν ὁμολογίαν	katechōmen tēn homologian	10:23	Perseverance and Assurance	Medium	OB/FF	[NEW — see #15]	Consistent cross-reference with ch. 3 “confession.”
85	stir up to love and good works	παροξυσμὸς ἀγάπης καὶ ἔργων	paroxysmos agapēs kai ergōn	10:24	Mutual Edification (adjacent)	Low	FF (minor)	[NEW]	English “paroxysm” now negative/violent; low practical risk since loanword unused in translation.
86	willful/deliberate sin	ἑκουσίως ἁμαρτάνοντες	hekousiōs hamartanontes	10:26	The Danger of Apostasy and Warning Passages	High	DC	[NEW]	Same contested cluster as #18, #31, #32.
87	vengeance	ἐκδίκησις	ekdikēsis	10:30	The Danger of Apostasy and Warning Passages	Medium	FF	[NEW]	Casual “revenge” connotations undermine God’s righteous, judicial character.
88	shrink back / preserve the soul	ὑποστολή, περιποίησις ψυχῆς	hypostolē, peripoiēsis psychēs	10:38-39	Perseverance and Assurance	Low	—	[NEW]	Transparent, well-supported by ch. 11 that follows.
89	faith	πίστις	pistis	ch. 11 (pervasive)	Faith of the Old Testament Saints	High	FF	[REUSE — “faith,” High]	Baseline profile retained; narrative illustrations are a pedagogical asset against generic-optimism drift.
90	assurance/substance of things hoped for	ὑπόστασις ἐλπιζομένων	hypostasis elpizomenōn	11:1	Faith of the Old Testament Saints	High	DC (translation ambiguity)	[NEW]	Genuine, unresolved divergence among major published English translations (substance/assurance/confidence).
91	conviction/evidence of things not seen	ἔλεγχος οὐ βλεπομένων	elegchos ou blepomenōn	11:1	Faith of the Old Testament Saints	High	CD	[NEW]	Direct clash with contemporary empiricist “seeing is believing” default.
92	by faith (formula)	πίστει	pistei	11:4-38	Faith of the Old Testament Saints	Medium	—	[NEW]	Preserve as sustained theological argument, not mere biographical inspiration.
93	better resurrection	κρείττων ἀνάστασις	kreittōn anastasis	11:35	Faith of the Old Testament Saints	High	CD	[REUSE — “resurrection,” Critical/High]	Baseline “resurrection as myth/Easter-commercialization” risk retained.
94	strangers and exiles / seeking a homeland	ξένοι καὶ παρεπίδημοι	xenoi kai parepidēmoi	11:13-14	Faith of the Old Testament Saints	Medium	CD	[NEW]	Live contemporary political resonance around “exile”/“strangers”/“homeland” language.
95	city with foundations	πόλις… θεμέλιοι	polis… themelioi	11:10, 16	Faith of the Old Testament Saints	Low	—	[NEW]	Positive, stable eschatological imagery.
96	cloud of witnesses	νέφος μαρτύρων	nephos martyrōn	12:1	Faith of the Old Testament Saints; Perseverance	Medium	FF	[NEW]	Popular “watching spectators” image may overstate the text’s testimonial (not necessarily observational) sense.
97	race	ἀγών	agōn	12:1	Perseverance and Assurance	Low	—	[NEW]	Athletic metaphor remains broadly accessible.
98	founder and perfecter of faith	ἀρχηγὸς καὶ τελειωτής	archēgos kai teleiōtēs	12:2	Christ as the Great High Priest	High	FF	[NEW — see #10, #11]	Same “perfecter” misreading caution as elsewhere.
99	discipline	παιδεία	paideia	12:5-11	Perseverance and Assurance	High	FF	[NEW]	English “discipline” defaults to punishment/control, not loving fatherly formation.
100	Mount Sinai vs. Mount Zion	Σινᾶ, Σιών	Sina, Siōn	12:18-24	The New Covenant versus the Old	Medium	DC	[NEW]	Present as covenant-access contrast, not ethnic/national replacement, per post-Holocaust sensitivity.
101	unshakable kingdom	βασιλεία ἀσάλευτος	basileia asaleutos	12:28	Kingdom Mission (adjacent)	Medium	OB	[REUSE — “kingdom of God,” Medium]	“Unshakable” qualifier is a genuine asset against fantasy-fiction dilution.
102	consuming fire	πῦρ καταναλίσκον	pyr katanaliskon	12:29	Danger of Apostasy (holiness of God)	Medium	DC	[NEW]	Preserve full weight of God’s holiness against sentimentalized “God is only love” tendencies.
103	brotherly love	φιλαδελφία	philadelphia	13:1	Christian Fellowship (adjacent)	Low	—	[NEW]	Stable; minor city-name association, non-confusing.
104	hospitality	φιλοξενία	philoxenia	13:2	Christian Fellowship (adjacent)	Medium	FF	[NEW]	Commercialized “hospitality industry” sense displaces personal, costly welcome of strangers.
105	Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, forever	Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς χθὲς καὶ σήμερον ὁ αὐτός	Iēsous Christos chthes kai sēmeron ho autos	13:8	Deity of Christ	Low	—	[NEW]	Well-known, stable phrase; genuine asset.
106	strange teachings	διδαχαὶ ποικίλαι καὶ ξέναι	didachai poikilai kai xenai	13:9	Perseverance and Assurance	Low	—	[NEW]	Straightforward.
107	altar	θυσιαστήριον	thysiastērion	13:10	Access to God through Christ’s Blood	High	DC	[NEW]	Real denominational divergence (Eucharistic/altar theology vs. typological once-for-all reading).
108	outside the camp	ἔξω τῆς παρεμβολῆς	exō tēs parembolēs	13:13	The Once-for-All Atoning Sacrifice	Medium	OB	[NEW]	Requires OT sin-offering background to carry its full force.
109	sacrifice of praise / fruit of lips	θυσία αἰνέσεως, καρπὸς χειλέων	thysia aineseōs, karpos cheileōn	13:15	Thanksgiving (adjacent)	Low	—	[REUSE — “thanksgiving,” Low]	Genuine asset connecting to the letter’s central sacrificial vocabulary.
110	doing good and sharing	εὐποιία καὶ κοινωνία	eupoiia kai koinōnia	13:16	Christian Fellowship (adjacent)	Medium	FF (muted)	[REUSE — “fellowship,” Low/Medium]	Practical-sharing sense explicit in context, mitigating baseline academic-grant drift risk.
111	obey your leaders	πείθεσθε τοῖς ἡγουμένοις	peithesthe tois hēgoumenois	13:17	Obedience of Faith (adjacent); Church as God’s People	High	DC/CD	[REUSE — adjacent to “obedience of faith,” High]	Contemporary distrust of institutional religious authority; present with the text’s own accountability rationale.
112	God of peace	ὁ θεὸς τῆς εἰρήνης	ho theos tēs eirēnēs	13:20	Peace with God	Medium	FF	[REUSE — “peace,” Medium]	Baseline “world peace”/“inner peace” secular-drift profile retained.

Summary Risk Counts (Hebrews-specific new terms + reused baseline terms combined)

Risk Tier	Count	Review Routing
Critical	9	Human theologian review mandatory
High	25	Human theologian review mandatory
Medium	51	Native speaker (general audience) review
Low	27	Automated review sufficient
Total terms catalogued	112

New risk category introduced for Hebrews not required in the Romans baseline: Cultural Discomfort/Distortion (CD) — covering (a) contemporary squeamishness toward literal blood-sacrifice language (blood, shedding of blood, altar), and (b) contemporary sentimentalized/pop-culture distortion of angelic and other imagery (angels, cloud of witnesses). This supplements, rather than replaces, the baseline’s three original categories (False-Friend Drift, Denominational Contest, Obsolescence/Obscurity).

Terms requiring identical cross-document rendering per the baseline’s consistency rule: once for all (ephapax/hapax), made perfect/learned through suffering (teleioō/emathen… epathen), better (kreittōn), the four major warning-passage clusters (2:1-4; 3:7-4:13; 6:4-8; 10:26-31), and every term already governed by the baseline Romans translation memory (covenant, faith, grace, salvation, called, calling, holy, saints, sanctification, law, sin, glory, intercession, resurrection, God, Jesus, Lord, Father, Holy Spirit, Son of God, Messiah, prophet, prophecy, Israel, kingdom of God, peace, thanksgiving, fellowship, apostle).

This glossary feeds directly into Phase 1 Step 2 (doctrine_risk_registry.json construction) and must be loaded alongside the baseline translation_memory.json and bible_term_registry.json for every Phase 2 content-generation pass on Hebrews material.

Critical Risk Terms

Grace

Approved rendering: grace
Transliteration: grace
Doctrine: Christ as the Great High Priest
Rejected alternatives: elegance/poise (the dominant secular sense), a grace period (the dominant legal/financial sense)
Original: χάρις
Category: Salvation

[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE] Full baseline Critical false-friend and denominational-contest profile retained. Hebrews-specific: concentrated in 4:16’s ‘throne of grace’ (where it compounds with unfamiliar monarchy/throne imagery) and 12:15’s warning against ‘failing to obtain the grace of God’ (an apostasy-adjacent use).

Salvation

Approved rendering: salvation
Transliteration: salvation
Doctrine: The Once-for-All Atoning Sacrifice
Rejected alternatives: being saved (contested denominational shorthand), rescue (too generic a gloss on its own)
Original: σωτηρία
Category: Salvation

[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE] Full baseline denominational-contest and secular-generic-rescue drift risk retained. Hebrews-specific: 2:3’s ‘such a great salvation’ opens the book’s first warning passage; 9:28 places the future, consummating sense of salvation directly alongside the once-for-all past sacrifice, illustrating the already/not-yet structure the baseline already flags.

Resurrection

Approved rendering: resurrection
Transliteration: resurrection
Doctrine: Resurrection of Christ and the Saints
Rejected alternatives: Easter (commercialized cultural holiday sense)
Original: ἀνάστασις
Category: Eschatology

[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE] Contemporary post-Christian culture broadly treats resurrection as metaphor or myth; state plainly as historical fact. Hebrews-specific: 11:35 (‘a better resurrection’) and 13:20 (‘brought back from the dead’) both depend on this historical, bodily claim.

God

Approved rendering: God
Transliteration: God
Doctrine: Deity of Christ
Rejected alternatives: a higher power (deliberately vague contemporary substitute), the universe (New-Age-influenced impersonal substitute)
Original: θεός
Category: God

[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE] Guard against impersonal ‘higher power’/‘the universe’ substitutes. Hebrews-specific: repeatedly names God ‘the living God’ (3:12; 9:14; 10:31; 12:22), reinforcing the baseline’s caution against impersonal substitutes even more emphatically than Romans does.

Jesus

Approved rendering: Jesus
Transliteration: Jesus
Doctrine: Deity of Christ
Rejected alternatives: Jesus (as a casual interjection/expletive)
Original: Ἰησοῦς
Category: Christology

[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE] Guard against ‘historical Jesus’ framings that strip divine claims. Hebrews-specific: 3:1 uniquely applies the title ‘apostle’ directly to Jesus alongside ‘high priest’ — the only such NT usage.

Lord

Approved rendering: Lord
Transliteration: Lord
Doctrine: Lordship of Christ
Rejected alternatives: boss / master (loses exclusivity), a British Lord (aristocratic-title sense)
Original: κύριος
Category: Christology

[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE] ‘Lord’ has nearly disappeared from ordinary spoken English outside this religious usage. Hebrews-specific: occurs throughout OT citations (1:10; 7:21; 8:8-11 quoting Jeremiah 31) and must retain the same restored, total-allegiance weight as in Romans 10:9.

Holy Spirit

Approved rendering: Holy Spirit
Transliteration: Holy Spirit
Doctrine: Christ as the Great High Priest
Rejected alternatives: good vibes / positive energy (vague contemporary spiritual substitutes)
Original: πνεῦμα ἅγιον
Category: God

[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE] Guard against vague ‘good vibes’/‘energy’ substitutes. Hebrews-specific: 6:4 (‘partakers of the Holy Spirit’) and 9:14’s disputed ‘eternal Spirit’ both intersect this entry; note the genuine English-language interpretive divide at 9:14 (Holy Spirit vs. Christ’s own eternal divine nature).

Son Of God

Approved rendering: Son of God
Transliteration: Son of God
Doctrine: Sonship of Christ
Original: υἱὸς θεοῦ
Category: Christology

[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE] Guard against metaphorical/honorary readings of sonship. Hebrews-specific: foundational to chapter 1’s entire argument for the Son’s superiority over angels and prophets.

Providence

Approved rendering: providence
Transliteration: providence
Doctrine: Providence
Rejected alternatives: everything happens for a reason (impersonal secular folk-spiritual substitute), Providence (the proper noun, Rhode Island)
Original: πρόνοια
Category: God

[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE] Rare, archaic-sounding word; guard against the impersonal folk-spiritual substitute. Hebrews-specific: 1:3’s ‘upholding/sustaining all things by his word’ applies this doctrine directly to Christ’s own personal agency in creation’s ongoing existence, not an impersonal force — a sharper, more explicitly Christological statement than anything in Romans.

Made Perfect Through Suffering

Approved rendering: made perfect / learned obedience through suffering
Transliteration: teleiōsai dia pathēmatōn / emathen tēn hypakoēn
Doctrine: Christ’s Solidarity with Humanity and Qualification through Suffering
Rejected alternatives: Christ was previously flawed, imperfect, or disobedient (the false inference this phrase must explicitly prevent)
Original: τελειῶσαι διὰ παθημάτων / ἔμαθεν τὴν ὑπακοήν
Category: Christology

NEW TERM [FF]. Ordinary English ‘made perfect’ and ‘learned obedience’ strongly imply correcting a prior flaw or deficiency; applied to a sinless Christ (2:10; 5:8-9; 7:28; and the related ‘perfecter’ at 12:2), this creates serious risk that readers will infer Christ was previously imperfect or disobedient. Must be explicitly corrected at every occurrence: qualified/completed for office, tested and proven at real cost, not morally improved. One of the most severe recurring false-friend risks in the entire book.

Propitiation

Approved rendering: make atonement / propitiation
Transliteration: hilaskesthai tas hamartias
Doctrine: The Once-for-All Atoning Sacrifice
Rejected alternatives: merely covering/concealing sin without addressing God’s wrath (the ‘expiation-only’ reading this curriculum does not adopt as primary)
Original: ἱλάσκεσθαι τὰς ἁμαρτίας
Category: Sacrifice

NEW TERM [OB/DC]. Rare, almost exclusively theological English word, compounded with genuine, longstanding disagreement among English Bible translations/traditions over whether God’s own wrath is actively satisfied (‘propitiation’) or sin is merely covered/removed (‘expiation’). This curriculum’s reading: God’s just wrath against sin is actively and savingly satisfied through Christ’s sacrifice (2:17), not merely concealed; name the alternative ‘expiation-only’ reading as held by other serious English-speaking traditions.

Throne Of Grace

Approved rendering: throne of grace
Transliteration: thronos tēs charitos
Doctrine: Access to God through Christ’s Blood
Original: θρόνος τῆς χάριτος
Category: Access to God

NEW TERM [FF/DC], compound built on baseline ‘grace.’ Retains the baseline’s full Critical grace risk profile and compounds it with unfamiliar monarchy/throne-room imagery (4:16); both components must be actively taught together, not assumed retained.

Once For All

Approved rendering: once for all
Transliteration: ephapax / hapax
Doctrine: The Once-for-All Atoning Sacrifice
Rejected alternatives: let’s settle this once and for all (the dominant contemporary idiom meaning finally ending an argument or annoyance, not a technical theological claim)
Original: ἐφάπαξ / ἅπαξ
Category: Sacrifice

NEW TERM [FF]. The single highest-risk term in the letter. Contemporary English ‘once and for all’ trivializes into finally settling an argument; readers must be told this is a technical, load-bearing claim about the unrepeatable sufficiency of the cross (7:27; 9:12, 25-26, 28; 10:10), re-weighted identically at every occurrence.

Will Covenant Wordplay

Approved rendering: covenant / will
Transliteration: diathēkē
Doctrine: The New Covenant versus the Old
Rejected alternatives: treating ‘covenant’ and ‘will’ as two unrelated concepts (the risk if the pun is not flagged)
Original: διαθήκη
Category: New Covenant

NEW TERM [FF, reversed direction]. The single Greek word diathēkē covers both ‘covenant’ and ‘will/testament’; Hebrews 9:16-17 deliberately exploits both senses in the same word. English must SPLIT one Greek word into two English words to render the wordplay, risking the false impression of two unrelated ideas unless explicitly flagged as one deliberate legal pun.

High Risk Terms

Covenant

Approved rendering: covenant
Transliteration: covenant
Doctrine: The New Covenant versus the Old
Rejected alternatives: a restrictive covenant (the dominant contemporary legal sense: a binding clause in a property deed, employment contract, or loan agreement)
Original: διαθήκη
Category: Covenant

[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE] Prefer a term for relational/binding promise over one limited to commercial contract. Hebrews concentrates this term more densely than any other New Testament book (chs. 7-10, 12-13). Hebrews-specific: see also new_covenant, first_covenant, and will_covenant_wordplay below for extensions unique to this letter’s argument, especially the deliberate covenant/will pun of 9:16-17.

Faith

Approved rendering: faith
Transliteration: faith
Doctrine: Faith of the Old Testament Saints
Rejected alternatives: faith in humanity / a leap of faith (secularized idioms meaning generic optimism or an unsupported gamble, not trust in a specific person)
Original: πίστις
Category: Faith

[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE] Contemporary English detaches ‘faith’ from any specific object; Romans’ sense of personal trust in Christ must be made explicit. Hebrews-specific: chapter 11 (~24 occurrences) is a genuine pedagogical asset against this drift, since each ‘by faith’ example anchors the word in a specific person trusting a specific, named promise of God rather than generic hopefulness.

Called

Approved rendering: called
Transliteration: called
Doctrine: Divine Calling
Original: κλητός
Category: Salvation

[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE] Context-sensitive across ministry calling, sainthood, and effectual calling to salvation. Hebrews-specific: applied at 5:4 to priestly appointment (no one, including Christ, self-appoints to priestly office) and at 9:15 to those called to receive the eternal inheritance.

Calling

Approved rendering: calling
Transliteration: calling
Doctrine: Divine Calling
Rejected alternatives: finding your calling (the dominant contemporary secular sense: career vocation or personal passion, discovered through self-reflection rather than received from God)
Original: κλῆσις
Category: Salvation

[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE] Retains the baseline’s self-actualization-culture drift caution. Hebrews-specific: reinforces that God’s initiative, not human self-selection, governs both priestly legitimacy (5:4) and reception of the eternal inheritance (9:15).

Saints

Approved rendering: saints
Transliteration: saints
Doctrine: Sainthood
Original: ἅγιοι
Category: Church

[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE] Catholic/Orthodox-vs-Protestant denominational-contest profile retained. Hebrews-specific: 6:10 and 13:24 use related language for the whole believing community, consistent with the baseline’s corporate, non-elite sense.

Law

Approved rendering: law
Transliteration: law
Doctrine: The New Covenant versus the Old
Original: νόμος
Category: Covenant

[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE] Guard against a simplistic ‘legalism is always bad’ reading. Hebrews-specific: consistently frames the law as a genuine but provisional ‘shadow’ of realities fulfilled in Christ (10:1), not as inherently defective; avoid a dismissive tone toward it.

Sin

Approved rendering: sin
Transliteration: sin
Doctrine: The Once-for-All Atoning Sacrifice
Rejected alternatives: sinfully delicious / my one sin (trivialized marketing/joking usage)
Original: ἁμαρτία
Category: Sin

[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE] Trivialization/guilt-aversion risk retained. Hebrews-specific: governs the whole letter’s sacrificial argument (1:3; 9:26; 10:1-18).

Glory

Approved rendering: glory
Transliteration: glory
Doctrine: Deity of Christ
Rejected alternatives: glory days (nostalgic secular usage), a glory hound (pejorative self-seeking usage)
Original: δόξα
Category: God

[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE] Retains nostalgic/self-seeking secular-drift risk. Hebrews-specific: applied to Christ at 1:3 (‘radiance of his glory’) and 2:9-10 (Christ ‘crowned with glory and honor’ through suffering).

Father

Approved rendering: Father
Transliteration: Father
Doctrine: Fatherly Discipline and Sonship
Original: πατήρ
Category: God

[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE] Pastoral-sensitivity note for readers with painful human-father associations retained. Hebrews-specific: 12:5-11’s discipline (paideia) passage directly develops the Father/son relationship, making this pastoral-sensitivity note especially load-bearing in this letter.

Adoption

Approved rendering: adoption / sonship
Transliteration: adoption
Doctrine: Fatherly Discipline and Sonship
Original: υἱοθεσία
Category: Salvation

[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE] The baseline’s positive adoption-awareness cultural asset still applies. Hebrews-specific: does not use huiothesia directly but develops the underlying reality extensively through ‘sons,’ ‘heir of all things’ (1:2), and the fatherly discipline passage (12:5-11).

Obedience Of Faith

Approved rendering: obedience of faith
Transliteration: obedience of faith
Doctrine: Obedience of Faith
Rejected alternatives: blind obedience / just following orders (negative idioms)
Original: ὑπακοὴ πίστεως
Category: Faith

[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE] Contemporary Western suspicion of obedience as servility retained. Hebrews-specific: 5:9’s ‘source of eternal salvation… to all who obey him’ and 13:17’s ‘obey your leaders’ both intersect this entry; obedience is the fruit of trust in Christ, not a separate requirement earning salvation apart from him.

High Priest

Approved rendering: high priest
Transliteration: archiereus
Doctrine: Christ as the Great High Priest
Rejected alternatives: a generic clergyman or ‘religious leader’ (loses the exclusive, restricted, sanctuary-access office)
Original: ἀρχιερεύς
Category: Priesthood

NEW TERM. No living cultural referent for a hereditary, sacrificial priesthood with exclusive sanctuary access; the ‘how much more’ argument running through chs. 4-10 (esp. 9:11-28) collapses without active reconstruction of the Levitical background, ideally with a diagram of the two-chamber tabernacle. First occurrence 2:17; central 4:14-10:22.

Angels

Approved rendering: angels
Transliteration: angeloi
Doctrine: The Superiority of Christ over Angels
Rejected alternatives: guardian angels / angel numbers (sentimentalized, New-Age pop-spirituality imagery)
Original: ἄγγελοι
Category: Christology

NEW TERM [CD]. Contemporary Western culture is saturated with sentimentalized, cherubic, or New-Age ‘guardian angel’/‘angel numbers’ imagery almost entirely detached from Hebrews’ austere, created, worshiping servant-beings; the writer’s created-being-vs.-worshiped-Son contrast (1:4-14) is blunted unless this pop-culture distortion is actively named and corrected.

Radiance And Exact Representation

Approved rendering: radiance of God’s glory and exact representation of his being
Transliteration: apaugasma tēs doxēs, charaktēr tēs hypostaseōs
Doctrine: Deity of Christ
Rejected alternatives: exact representation of his character (a false-friend gloss suggesting Jesus modeled good ethics)
Original: ἀπαύγασμα τῆς δόξης, χαρακτὴρ τῆς ὑποστάσεως
Category: Christology

NEW TERM [FF]. English ‘character’ (etymological descendant of charaktēr) has drifted entirely to personality/ethics; a reader could wrongly hear this phrase as praise for Jesus’ good ethics rather than the far stronger claim of shared divine essence with the Father (1:3). The deity-of-Christ force must be stated explicitly, not left to the English cognate.

Unbelief

Approved rendering: unbelief
Transliteration: apistia
Doctrine: The Danger of Apostasy and Warning Passages
Rejected alternatives: mere intellectual skepticism or doubt about claims (the dominant contemporary sense, distinct from relational betrayal of trust in a person)
Original: ἀπιστία
Category: Faith

NEW TERM [FF], component of baseline ‘faith’ entry in negative form. English ‘unbelief’ skews toward skepticism about claims rather than the relational betrayal of trust in a person that Hebrews 3:12-19 intends; this distinction must be made explicit.

Falling Away

Approved rendering: falling away
Transliteration: aphistēmi / parapiptō
Doctrine: The Danger of Apostasy and Warning Passages
Original: ἀφίστημι / παραπίπτω
Category: Danger of Apostasy

NEW TERM [DC]. English-speaking Christian traditions disagree sharply on whether this (3:12; 6:6) describes genuine believers who can finally lose salvation, professing-but-unregenerate persons unmasked, or a hypothetical warning never actually realized among the truly regenerate. State this curriculum’s own reading transparently and name the other readings as genuinely held.

Rest

Approved rendering: rest
Transliteration: katapausis
Doctrine: Perseverance and Assurance
Rejected alternatives: physical relaxation, recovery from tiredness, a vacation (‘I just need some rest’) — the dominant contemporary secular sense
Original: κατάπαυσις
Category: Perseverance

NEW TERM [FF]. Contemporary English ‘rest’ overwhelmingly means relaxation/leisure; Hebrews’ rest (3:11-4:11) is a theological, covenantal, eschatological category entirely distinct from napping or a holiday and must be actively taught before this letter’s argument can land.

Word Of God Living And Active

Approved rendering: the word of God is living and active
Transliteration: ho logos tou theou zōn kai energēs
Doctrine: Inspiration of Scripture
Rejected alternatives: Scripture as a purely human, historically-conditioned literary artifact (the dominant contemporary secular/academic view this claim directly contests)
Original: ὁ λόγος τοῦ θεοῦ ζῶν καὶ ἐνεργής
Category: Inspiration of Scripture

NEW TERM [DC]. Contemporary secular and much academic culture treats the Bible as a purely human literary product; Hebrews 4:12’s claim that Scripture is itself a living, active divine agent should be engaged directly, consistent with the baseline’s ‘inspiration of Scripture’ concern.

Melchizedek

Approved rendering: Melchizedek
Transliteration: Melchisedek
Doctrine: The Superiority of Christ over the Levitical Priesthood
Original: Μελχισέδεκ
Category: Priesthood

NEW TERM [OB]. Genuinely obscure Old Testament figure (Genesis 14) to most contemporary readers, yet the entire chapter 7 argument depends on him; substantial background must be supplied, not assumed known.

Mediator

Approved rendering: mediator
Transliteration: mesitēs
Doctrine: The New Covenant versus the Old
Rejected alternatives: a neutral legal/labor arbitrator who helps two roughly equal sides reach a compromise (the dominant contemporary secular sense)
Original: μεσίτης
Category: New Covenant

NEW TERM [FF]. Contemporary English ‘mediator’ is dominated by the neutral compromise-broker sense; Christ (8:6; 9:15; 12:24) is not a neutral facilitator of compromise but a covenant-securing, divine representative who himself absorbs the price — must be distinguished explicitly.

New Covenant

Approved rendering: new covenant
Transliteration: kainē diathēkē
Doctrine: The New Covenant versus the Old
Rejected alternatives: a purely Christian invention disconnected from Israel’s own Scriptures (a misreading this term must avoid, since the promise is Old Testament in origin, Jeremiah 31)
Original: καινὴ διαθήκη
Category: New Covenant

NEW TERM [FF], component of baseline ‘covenant.’ Retains the baseline’s property/contract-law false-friend risk; additionally, the English phrase ‘New Testament’ (a Bible section name) can cause readers to conflate the covenant concept with the book collection — distinguish explicitly (8:8-13; 9:15; 12:24).

First Covenant

Approved rendering: first covenant
Transliteration: prōtē diathēkē
Doctrine: The New Covenant versus the Old
Rejected alternatives: old covenant (an acceptable but riskier gloss that can unintentionally suggest something discarded or worthless)
Original: πρώτη διαθήκη
Category: New Covenant

NEW TERM [FF/DC], component of baseline ‘covenant.’ Prefer ‘first covenant’ over ‘old covenant’ where possible; a genuine, God-given covenant that has reached its intended fulfillment is not the same as a failed or worthless one (9:18).

Blood Of Christ

Approved rendering: blood
Transliteration: haima
Doctrine: Access to God through Christ’s Blood
Rejected alternatives: a merely symbolic or metaphorical reference (the risk contemporary squeamishness invites)
Original: αἷμα
Category: Sacrifice

NEW TERM [CD]. Contemporary Western squeamishness about blood-sacrifice imagery, largely removed from daily life by industrialized food systems, can cause readers to receive this language (9:12, 14, 18-22, 25; 10:19; 13:12) as merely metaphorical rather than the costly, literal ground of atonement; state plainly, do not soften.

Eternal Spirit

Approved rendering: eternal Spirit
Transliteration: pneuma aiōnion
Doctrine: Christ as the Great High Priest
Original: πνεῦμα αἰώνιον
Category: Sacrifice

NEW TERM [DC]. Genuine, unresolved English-language interpretive divide (Holy Spirit vs. Christ’s own divine-eternal nature) at 9:14; state this curriculum’s reading plainly and note the alternative exists — this is a real theological ambiguity, not a communication gap fixable by word choice.

Conscience

Approved rendering: conscience
Transliteration: syneidēsis
Doctrine: Access to God through Christ’s Blood
Rejected alternatives: a self-generated psychological/ethical faculty cleansable by self-improvement or therapy (the dominant contemporary secular sense)
Original: συνείδησις
Category: Access to God

NEW TERM [FF]. Contemporary English ‘conscience’ is fully secularized into an internal faculty; readers will understand having a conscience but will not automatically infer that only Christ’s blood, not self-effort, can actually cleanse it (9:14; 10:22) — this contrast must be manufactured explicitly.

Shedding Of Blood

Approved rendering: shedding of blood
Transliteration: haimatekchysia
Doctrine: The Once-for-All Atoning Sacrifice
Original: αἱματεκχυσία
Category: Sacrifice

NEW TERM [CD]. As with ‘blood’ generally, contemporary sensibilities may receive this visceral language (9:22) as primitive or purely metaphorical; the text’s insistence on its literal necessity (‘no forgiveness without…’) should not be softened.

Bear The Sins Of Many

Approved rendering: offered once to bear the sins of many
Transliteration: hapax prosenechtheis… anenegkein hamartias pollōn
Doctrine: The Once-for-All Atoning Sacrifice
Original: ἀνενέγκειν ἁμαρτίας πολλῶν
Category: Sacrifice

NEW TERM [DC]. Directly intersects historic Protestant/Reformed vs. Arminian/Wesleyan vs. Catholic debates over the extent of the atonement (limited vs. general/unlimited) at 9:28; state this curriculum’s reading plainly and note that other traditions read the scope differently.

Full Assurance Of Faith

Approved rendering: full assurance of faith
Transliteration: plērophoria pisteōs
Doctrine: Perseverance and Assurance
Original: πληροφορία πίστεως
Category: Perseverance

NEW TERM [DC]. English-speaking traditions differ on whether ‘full assurance’ (10:22) describes a settled, permanent, universally-available confidence or a mature, hard-won state compatible with ongoing uncertainty for some; state this curriculum’s reading and note the range, consistent with the baseline’s flagged ‘assurance of salvation’ entry.

Willful Sin

Approved rendering: sinning willfully / deliberately
Transliteration: hekousiōs hamartanontōn
Doctrine: The Danger of Apostasy and Warning Passages
Original: ἑκουσίως ἁμαρτανόντων
Category: Danger of Apostasy

NEW TERM [DC]. Persistent, knowing, unrepentant rejection of received truth (10:26), not every sin; same contested cluster as ‘falling away’ regarding a genuine believer’s ongoing struggle vs. decisive, settled apostasy.

Hypostasis Assurance Of Things Hoped For

Approved rendering: assurance / substance of things hoped for
Transliteration: hypostasis elpizomenōn
Doctrine: Faith of the Old Testament Saints
Original: ὑπόστασις ἐλπιζομένων
Category: Faith

NEW TERM [DC, translation ambiguity]. Major published English translations genuinely diverge (KJV/NASB ‘substance,’ ESV ‘assurance,’ NIV/NLT ‘confidence’) at 11:1, reflecting a real, unresolved lexical question; note the range and its differing doctrinal weight rather than silently picking one.

Elegchos Conviction Of Things Not Seen

Approved rendering: conviction / evidence of things not seen
Transliteration: elegchos ou blepomenōn
Doctrine: Faith of the Old Testament Saints
Original: ἔλεγχος οὐ βλεπομένων
Category: Faith

NEW TERM [CD/worldview]. Contemporary secular empiricism (‘only what can be seen/measured counts as real evidence’) stands in direct tension with 11:1’s claim that faith itself constitutes valid evidence of unseen realities; engage this as a genuine worldview clash, not something to smooth over.

Discipline Paideia

Approved rendering: discipline
Transliteration: paideia
Doctrine: Fatherly Discipline and Sonship
Rejected alternatives: punishment, control, disciplinary action (the dominant contemporary secular sense)
Original: παιδεία
Category: Adoption

NEW TERM [FF]. Contemporary English ‘discipline’ defaults heavily to punishment/control; the father-son, family-formation sense central to 12:5-11, connecting directly to the baseline’s ‘Father’/‘adoption’ doctrines, must be actively restored — expand to ‘the loving, sometimes painful training of a father committed to his child’s growth.‘

Altar

Approved rendering: altar
Transliteration: thysiastērion
Doctrine: Access to God through Christ’s Blood
Original: θυσιαστήριον
Category: Access to God

NEW TERM [DC]. Documented history of divergent denominational use — some traditions with strong Eucharistic/altar theology read 13:10 in continuity with an ongoing Christian altar/sacrifice, while most Protestant traditions read it typologically of Christ’s finished sacrifice; state this curriculum’s own reading (typological, consistent with the letter’s once-for-all argument) and name the alternative.

Obey Your Leaders

Approved rendering: obey your leaders
Transliteration: peithesthe tois hēgoumenois
Doctrine: Church Leadership and Authority
Rejected alternatives: a generic, unconditional call to submission (this term’s actual rationale is leaders’ own accountability before God, not blanket authority)
Original: πείθεσθε τοῖς ἡγουμένοις
Category: Church

NEW TERM [DC/CD]. Contemporary Western distrust of institutional religious authority, amplified by high-profile clergy-abuse scandals (already flagged under the baseline’s ‘church’ entry), makes 13:7, 17 an especially sensitive instruction; present the text’s own accountability rationale, not a generic call to submission.

Founder And Perfecter Of Faith

Approved rendering: the pioneer and perfecter of faith
Transliteration: archēgon kai teleiōtēn tēs pisteōs
Doctrine: Christ’s Solidarity with Humanity and Qualification through Suffering
Rejected alternatives: the author and finisher of our faith (an older, KJV-tradition phrase acceptable as a familiar variant, provided the same ‘perfecter’ caution is applied)

NEW TERM, combining ‘pioneer’ and ‘made perfect through suffering’ entries. At 12:2, Christ is both the origin and the successful completion of the life of faith; the same ‘perfecter’ misreading caution documented under made_perfect_through_suffering applies here without exception.

Medium Risk Terms

Holy

Approved rendering: holy
Transliteration: holy
Doctrine: Sanctification
Rejected alternatives: holier-than-thou (negative idiom), holy cow / holy moly (content-free exclamations)
Original: ἅγιος
Category: Sanctification

[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE] Idiom-drained in ordinary contemporary speech. Hebrews-specific: underlies the tabernacle’s spatial vocabulary throughout chapter 9 (‘the Holy Place,’ ‘the Most Holy Place’).

Sanctification

Approved rendering: sanctification
Transliteration: sanctification
Doctrine: Sanctification
Original: ἁγιασμός
Category: Sanctification

[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE] Obsolescence risk rather than false-friend risk. Hebrews-specific: 9:13 and 10:10, 14 add a flesh/conscience contrast not developed in Romans — outward ceremonial cleansing versus inward moral cleansing — which must be surfaced explicitly.

Intercession

Approved rendering: intercession
Transliteration: intercession
Doctrine: Christ as the Great High Priest
Original: ἐντυγχάνω
Category: Faith

[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE] Rare, formal word; ‘intercessory prayer’ has no strong competing secular meaning, a mild asset. Hebrews-specific: applied to Christ’s permanent, ongoing high-priestly intercession at 7:25.

Messiah

Approved rendering: Messiah
Transliteration: Messiah
Doctrine: Messianic Promise
Rejected alternatives: a messiah complex (pop-psychology pejorative)
Original: Χριστός
Category: Christology

[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE] Restate the term’s specific, positive, Jewish-messianic-fulfillment sense. Hebrews-specific: 1:9’s anointing citation ties Christ’s kingship directly to this tradition.

Israel

Approved rendering: Israel
Transliteration: Israel
Doctrine: Unity of Old and New Covenant Saints
Original: יִשְׂרָאֵל
Category: Covenant

[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE] Be aware of contemporary political sensitivity around this proper name. Hebrews-specific: named explicitly in the Jeremiah 31 citation (8:8, 10) as the covenant partner of both the old and new covenants.

Kingdom Of God

Approved rendering: kingdom of God
Transliteration: kingdom of God
Doctrine: Kingdom Mission
Rejected alternatives: a fantasy kingdom (contemporary media associations)
Original: βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ
Category: Kingdom

[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE] Guard against fantasy-fiction dilution. Hebrews-specific: 12:28’s distinctive ‘unshakable’ qualifier is a genuine asset reinforcing the kingdom’s real, permanent, present-and-coming nature against this dilution.

Peace

Approved rendering: peace
Transliteration: peace
Doctrine: Peace with God
Rejected alternatives: world peace / inner peace (dominant secular senses)
Original: εἰρήνη
Category: Salvation

[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE] Distinguish from geopolitical and therapeutic senses. Hebrews-specific: the letter’s closing benediction (13:20) names God ‘the God of peace,’ echoing Paul’s typical closing formula.

Church

Approved rendering: church
Transliteration: church
Doctrine: Church Leadership and Authority
Original: ἐκκλησία
Category: Church

[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE] Guard against post-Christian negative institutional associations. Hebrews-specific: 2:12 and 12:23 (‘assembly of the firstborn’) both use this term; risk is somewhat mitigated here by the vivid, festive heavenly-assembly imagery of 12:22-24, though the baseline’s Critical concern still applies where ‘church’ is used of present, visible congregations (13:7, 17).

Apostle

Approved rendering: apostle
Transliteration: apostle
Doctrine: Superiority of Christ over Moses
Original: ἀπόστολος
Category: Church

[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE, WITH HEBREWS-SPECIFIC EXCEPTION] Hebrews 3:1 is the only New Testament text applying ‘apostle’ directly to Jesus himself, not a delegated human messenger; flag this as an exception to the baseline’s human-office default sense, to avoid confusing readers who have learned ‘apostle’ only as a human office.

Power Of God

Approved rendering: power of God
Transliteration: power of God
Doctrine: Providence
Original: δύναμις θεοῦ
Category: God

[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE] Guard against contemporary power-abuse secular discourse. Hebrews-specific: 1:3 and 7:16’s ‘power of an indestructible life’ extend this doctrine into Christ’s own eternal life and sustaining word.

Heir Of All Things

Approved rendering: heir of all things
Transliteration: klēronomos pantōn
Doctrine: The Superiority of Christ over Angels
Original: κληρονόμος πάντων
Category: Christology

NEW TERM. ‘Heir’ retains a positive estate/monarchy association (heir to the throne) partially supporting the sense of rightful possession by relationship, but the truly cosmic scope (‘of all things,’ 1:2) exceeds normal inheritance scale and needs active emphasis.

Pioneer

Approved rendering: pioneer
Transliteration: archēgos
Doctrine: Christ’s Solidarity with Humanity and Qualification through Suffering
Rejected alternatives: founder alone (loses the leading-the-way sense), leader alone (loses the originating sense)
Original: ἀρχηγός
Category: Christology

NEW TERM. No single English word captures both ‘originator’ and ‘one who goes first/leads the way.’ Standardize as ‘pioneer’ across 2:10 and 12:2 and explain both components together at each occurrence.

Confession

Approved rendering: confession
Transliteration: homologia
Doctrine: Perseverance and Assurance
Rejected alternatives: a confession of guilt (the dominant contemporary sense: admitting wrongdoing, a police confession)
Original: ὁμολογία
Category: Perseverance

NEW TERM [FF/OB]. English ‘confession’ chiefly survives as admitting wrongdoing; the positive sense of confidently professing shared true belief (3:1; 4:14; 10:23) must be distinguished — pair with ‘profession of faith’ as a clarifying gloss on first use.

Harden Your Hearts

Approved rendering: harden your hearts
Transliteration: sklērynēte tas kardias
Doctrine: The Danger of Apostasy and Warning Passages
Rejected alternatives: generic emotional coldness or cruelty (the risk this phrase must be distinguished from)
Original: σκληρύνητε τὰς καρδίας
Category: Danger of Apostasy

NEW TERM [OB]. Direct citation of Psalm 95 (3:8, 15; 4:7); the surviving English idiom ‘hard-hearted’ risks being read as generic unkindness rather than the specific, spiritually fatal resistance to God’s own voice intended here — tie explicitly to unbelief.

Sabbath Rest

Approved rendering: Sabbath rest
Transliteration: sabbatismos
Doctrine: Perseverance and Assurance
Original: σαββατισμός
Category: Perseverance

NEW TERM [DC]. Intersects the live English-speaking-Christian Sabbath-observance debate (Sabbatarian traditions vs. most Protestant typological readings); state that Hebrews 4:9 treats the Sabbath primarily as pointing typologically to a greater rest, while noting the observance debate exists elsewhere.

Discerner Of Thoughts

Approved rendering: discerner of the thoughts and intentions of the heart
Transliteration: kritikos enthymēsēōn kai ennoiōn kardias
Doctrine: Inspiration of Scripture
Rejected alternatives: mere fault-finding negativity (the dominant sense of English ‘critical/criticize’)
Original: κριτικὸς ἐνθυμήσεων καὶ ἐννοιῶν καρδίας
Category: Inspiration of Scripture

NEW TERM [FF]. English ‘critical/criticize’ skews toward fault-finding negativity in casual usage; the root sense at 4:12 — careful, penetrating discernment of hidden motive, not mere fault-finding — should be distinguished.

Draw Near With Confidence

Approved rendering: draw near with confidence
Transliteration: proserchōmetha meta parrēsias
Doctrine: Access to God through Christ’s Blood
Original: προσερχώμεθα μετὰ παρρησίας
Category: Access to God

NEW TERM [OB]. Originally a political term for a citizen’s free speech before a ruler; this specific background is largely lost in contemporary English but is not misleading once briefly explained (4:16; 10:19-22).

Without Genealogy

Approved rendering: without genealogy
Transliteration: agenealogētos
Doctrine: The Superiority of Christ over the Levitical Priesthood
Rejected alternatives: a claim that Melchizedek was literally without parents or supernatural (a speculative overreading this term does not support)
Original: ἀγενεαλόγητος
Category: Priesthood

NEW TERM [OB]. Lacking recorded ancestry in Scripture (7:3), used typologically; care is needed to avoid the false inference that Melchizedek was a supernatural or eternal being merely because Scripture is silent about his origins — the argument is about textual silence, not ontological nature.

Tithe

Approved rendering: tithe
Transliteration: dekatē
Doctrine: The Superiority of Christ over the Levitical Priesthood
Original: δεκάτη
Category: Priesthood

NEW TERM [DC]. Intersects the live, contested contemporary Christian tithing-practice debate; Hebrews 7 uses the tithe narratively/typologically to establish priestly superiority, not as a direct prescription for New Testament giving — distinguish explicitly.

Guarantor

Approved rendering: guarantor
Transliteration: engyos
Doctrine: The New Covenant versus the Old
Original: ἔγγυος
Category: New Covenant

NEW TERM. Rare word in ordinary English outside finance/law (a loan guarantor, co-signer), but this financial association is a helpful, largely accurate bridge to Christ’s personal guarantee of the new covenant (7:22); brief definition suffices.

Fault Find Fault

Approved rendering: find fault
Transliteration: memphomai
Doctrine: The New Covenant versus the Old
Rejected alternatives: the old covenant itself was defective (a misreading this term must guard against; the fault named at 8:8 is Israel’s failure to keep it, not God’s giving of it)
Original: μέμφομαι
Category: New Covenant

NEW TERM [DC]. Care is needed to avoid implying the old covenant/law itself, rather than Israel’s failure to keep it, was defective — directly relevant to the baseline’s existing caution against a simplistic ‘legalism is always bad’ reading.

Grow Obsolete

Approved rendering: growing obsolete / fading away
Transliteration: palaioumenon… aphanismou
Doctrine: The New Covenant versus the Old
Original: παλαιούμενον… ἀφανισμοῦ
Category: New Covenant

NEW TERM [FF]. English ‘obsolete’ can carry a dismissive connotation absent from the text’s more measured ‘fulfilled, therefore fading’ logic (8:13); use a light touch to avoid contempt for the old covenant.

Holy Place Most Holy Place

Approved rendering: the Holy Place / the Most Holy Place
Transliteration: hagia, hagia hagiōn
Doctrine: Access to God through Christ’s Blood
Original: ἅγια, ἅγια ἁγίων
Category: Access to God

NEW TERM [OB], component of baseline ‘holy.’ The two-chambered tabernacle structure (9:1-8, 12, 24-25) needs active teaching, ideally with a simple diagram; no competing false meaning, purely unfamiliarity.

Tabernacle

Approved rendering: tabernacle
Transliteration: skēnē
Doctrine: Christ as the Great High Priest
Original: σκηνή
Category: Access to God

NEW TERM [OB]. Almost no secular currency in contemporary English outside camping-brand names or explicitly religious usage; requires definition, but carries no competing false meaning (9:11).

Mercy Seat

Approved rendering: mercy seat
Transliteration: hilastērion
Doctrine: Access to God through Christ’s Blood
Rejected alternatives: place of atonement (a modern functional gloss some translations use in place of the traditional phrase)
Original: ἱλαστήριον
Category: Access to God

NEW TERM [OB]. The atonement cover of the ark (9:5); this is the same Greek word Paul applies directly to Christ in Romans 3:25 (‘propitiation’) — cross-reference explicitly to reinforce doctrinal continuity.

Regulations For The Flesh

Approved rendering: regulations for the body / flesh
Transliteration: dikaiōmata sarkos
Doctrine: The New Covenant versus the Old
Rejected alternatives: ‘flesh’ as gym/diet-culture bodily reference (does not carry the outward/inward theological contrast intended)
Original: δικαιώματα σαρκός
Category: New Covenant

NEW TERM [FF]. ‘Flesh’ in contemporary English does not carry the outward-versus-inward theological contrast intended at 9:10; needs explicit unpacking, matching the same caution required at 9:13-14.

Eternal Redemption

Approved rendering: eternal redemption
Transliteration: aiōnia lytrōsis
Doctrine: The Once-for-All Atoning Sacrifice
Original: αἰωνία λύτρωσις
Category: Sacrifice

NEW TERM [OB]. ‘Redemption’ survives mainly in finance and pop-culture ‘redemption arc’ usage — mild positive assets, but neither carries the full sense of a purchased, permanent deliverance from sin’s guilt before God (9:12); actively teach, do not assume.

Dead Works

Approved rendering: dead works
Transliteration: nekra erga
Doctrine: Perseverance and Assurance
Original: νεκρὰ ἔργα
Category: Perseverance

NEW TERM [OB]. Futile, lifeless religious or moral effort apart from Christ, contrasted with serving the living God (6:1; 9:14); no competing false meaning, but unusual enough to need unpacking.

Serve Worship

Approved rendering: serve / worship
Transliteration: latreuō
Doctrine: Christ as the Great High Priest
Rejected alternatives: generic helpfulness (the risk of flattening the specifically cultic, worshipful sense)
Original: λατρεύω
Category: Priesthood

NEW TERM [FF]. English ‘serve’ risks flattening to generic helpfulness rather than the specifically cultic, worshipful sense intended at 9:14; 12:28; 13:10.

Eternal Inheritance

Approved rendering: eternal inheritance
Transliteration: klēronomia aiōnios
Doctrine: The New Covenant versus the Old
Original: κληρονομία αἰωνία
Category: New Covenant

NEW TERM [OB], positively assisted by the baseline’s ‘adoption’ entry. ‘Inheritance’ retains largely positive asset/estate connotations that partially support the sense of a secure, permanent possession (9:15), though the ‘eternal’ qualifier needs stressing against merely temporal (wills, taxes, estates) associations.

Sprinkling

Approved rendering: sprinkled / sprinkling
Transliteration: rhantizō
Doctrine: Access to God through Christ’s Blood
Rejected alternatives: baptismal sprinkling (a denominationally contested and different rite, not the intended referent)
Original: ῥαντίζω
Category: Access to God

NEW TERM [OB]. No living ritual referent in contemporary Western culture (9:13, 19-22; 10:22); the nearest analogy, sprinkling baptism in some traditions, is itself a denominationally contested and different rite — requires Old Testament background teaching.

Blood Of The Covenant

Approved rendering: the blood of the covenant
Transliteration: to haima tēs diathēkēs
Doctrine: The New Covenant versus the Old
Original: τὸ αἷμα τῆς διαθήκης
Category: New Covenant

NEW TERM [DC]. Echoes Communion liturgy for many readers (a genuine asset); Communion theology itself is a live area of English-speaking denominational disagreement (memorial view vs. real presence vs. transubstantiation) — note the connection at 9:20 without adjudicating that separate debate.

Forgiveness Remission

Approved rendering: forgiveness
Transliteration: aphesis
Doctrine: The Once-for-All Atoning Sacrifice
Rejected alternatives: remission (imports a false medical sense of temporary abatement, as in ‘cancer in remission’)
Original: ἄφεσις
Category: Sacrifice

NEW TERM [FF]. Older English ‘remission’ now survives mainly in a medical sense; prefer ‘forgiveness’ as the primary rendering for the complete, legal/relational release intended at 9:22; 10:18.

Copies Hypodeigmata

Approved rendering: copies
Transliteration: hypodeigmata
Doctrine: The New Covenant versus the Old
Rejected alternatives: the Old Testament system was fake or meaningless (a misreading this term must guard against)
Original: ὑποδείγματα
Category: New Covenant

NEW TERM [OB]. A model or outline pointing to a greater reality, not the reality itself (9:23); the copy/reality framework is unfamiliar and needs brief explanation to avoid implying the OT system was fraudulent rather than a true, God-given pointer.

Antitype

Approved rendering: copies of the true things
Transliteration: antitypa tōn alēthinōn
Doctrine: The New Covenant versus the Old
Rejected alternatives: antitype (a technical theological loanword with almost no contemporary secular currency, best avoided in body text)
Original: ἀντίτυπα τῶν ἀληθινῶν
Category: New Covenant

NEW TERM [OB]. A corresponding image or counterpart pointing to an original (9:24); explain via plain-language ‘a copy of the real thing’ rather than leaving as unexplained jargon.

Appear In Presence Of God

Approved rendering: appear in the presence of God
Transliteration: emphanisthēnai
Doctrine: Christ as the Great High Priest
Rejected alternatives: mere visibility (the weak, low-content default sense of English ‘appear’)
Original: ἐμφανισθῆναι
Category: Priesthood

NEW TERM [FF]. ‘Appear’ in ordinary English is a weak word that risks losing the courtroom/royal-presentation force of the original at 9:24; expand to ‘presenting himself formally on our behalf before God’ at every occurrence.

End Of The Age

Approved rendering: the end of the age
Transliteration: synteleia tōn aiōnōn
Doctrine: The Once-for-All Atoning Sacrifice
Rejected alternatives: a still-future cataclysm (the dominant popular ‘end times’ media association, which misplaces the event Hebrews describes as already accomplished)
Original: συντέλεια τῶν αἰώνων
Category: Sacrifice

NEW TERM [FF]. Contemporary ‘end of the age’/‘end times’ popular culture associates the phrase with a still-future cataclysm; Hebrews 9:26 uses it of an event already accomplished at the cross — distinguish from purely futurist popular usage.

Put Away Sin

Approved rendering: put away sin
Transliteration: athetēsis hamartias
Doctrine: The Once-for-All Atoning Sacrifice
Rejected alternatives: casual idiomatic ‘put away’ (groceries, imprisonment, a euphemism for a pet’s death — none carry legal-annulment force)
Original: ἀθέτησις ἁμαρτίας
Category: Sacrifice

NEW TERM [FF]. Legal/covenantal annulment or cancellation of sin’s guilt and power (9:26), not mere concealment or postponement; pair with a plainer gloss such as ‘decisively canceled’ or ‘done away with for good.‘

Appointed Judgment

Approved rendering: appointed… judgment
Transliteration: apokeitai… krisis
Doctrine: Perseverance and Assurance
Rejected alternatives: an impersonal, evaluative sense (a judgment call, poor judgment — the dominant secular sense of English ‘judgment’)
Original: ἀπόκειται… κρίσις
Category: Perseverance

NEW TERM [DC/FF]. Some English-speaking traditions read ‘judgment’ here (9:27) through a purgatorial or particular-judgment lens, others through immediate/final judgment categories; state this curriculum’s own reading (immediate accountability to God after death) and note the range exists.

Appear A Second Time

Approved rendering: will appear a second time
Transliteration: ek deuterou… ophthēsetai
Doctrine: Perseverance and Assurance
Rejected alternatives: importing one full eschatological system’s timeline (premillennial, postmillennial, amillennial) as though it were the text’s own explicit claim
Original: ἐκ δευτέρου… ὀφθήσεται
Category: Perseverance

NEW TERM [DC]. English-speaking Christian traditions vary widely on the timing, nature, and sequence of Christ’s return; state plainly what 9:28 itself affirms — a real, future, visible appearing — without importing one full system’s timeline.

Vengeance

Approved rendering: vengeance
Transliteration: ekdikēsis
Doctrine: Holiness and Judgment of God
Rejected alternatives: petty personal revenge (revenge films, ‘sweet revenge’ — the dominant contemporary casual sense)
Original: ἐκδίκησις
Category: Danger of Apostasy

NEW TERM [FF]. God’s ekdikēsis (10:30) is righteous, judicial, and just, not a personal grudge; this distinction should be made explicit to avoid an unworthy picture of God’s character.

Strangers And Exiles

Approved rendering: strangers and exiles
Transliteration: xenoi kai parepidēmoi
Doctrine: Faith of the Old Testament Saints
Original: ξένοι καὶ παρεπίδημοι
Category: Faith

NEW TERM [CD]. ‘Exiles,’ ‘strangers,’ and ‘homeland’ carry significant, live political resonance in contemporary English-language discourse around immigration and national identity (11:13-14); use the term in its intended theological sense while noting readers may first hear it through a contemporary political lens.

Cloud Of Witnesses

Approved rendering: cloud of witnesses
Transliteration: nephos martyrōn
Doctrine: Perseverance and Assurance
Rejected alternatives: a stadium of spectators presently watching (a popular but not textually required inference)
Original: νέφος μαρτύρων
Category: Perseverance

NEW TERM [FF]. Popular usage often reads ‘witnesses’ (12:1) as spectators actively watching; the Greek sense is closer to legal witnesses who testify BY their completed lives — worth noting rather than assuming the popular spectator image is simply correct.

Mount Sinai And Mount Zion

Approved rendering: Mount Sinai / Mount Zion
Transliteration: Sina oros… Siōn oros
Doctrine: Unity of Old and New Covenant Saints
Rejected alternatives: the church replacing Israel (a supersessionist misreading this term must guard against)
Original: Σινᾶ ὄρος… Σιὼν ὄρος
Category: New Covenant

NEW TERM [DC]. Given contemporary post-Holocaust theological caution about supersessionist readings, present 12:18-24 as Hebrews itself frames it — a contrast of covenant access and mediation, not an ethnic or national replacement claim.

Consuming Fire

Approved rendering: consuming fire
Transliteration: pyr katanaliskon
Doctrine: Holiness and Judgment of God
Rejected alternatives: a sentimentalized ‘God is only love’ framing that underplays this passage’s weight
Original: πῦρ καταναλίσκον
Category: God

NEW TERM [DC]. Direct citation of Deuteronomy 4:24/9:3 (12:29); preserve the full weight of God’s holiness and capacity for judgment, framed as grounds for reverent worship, not terror alone.

Hospitality

Approved rendering: hospitality
Transliteration: philoxenia
Doctrine: Christian Fellowship and Hospitality
Rejected alternatives: the hospitality industry (the dominant contemporary commercialized sense: hotels, restaurants, event catering)
Original: φιλοξενία
Category: Church

NEW TERM [FF]. Active, often costly welcome of outsiders into one’s own home and life (13:2, ‘entertained angels unaware’), quite different from the professional-service sense dominant in contemporary English.

Outside The Camp

Approved rendering: outside the camp
Transliteration: exō tēs parembolēs
Doctrine: The Once-for-All Atoning Sacrifice
Original: ἔξω τῆς παρεμβολῆς
Category: Sacrifice

NEW TERM [OB]. Requires the Old Testament sin-offering background (Lev 16:27) to land its full force at 13:11-13; without it, the phrase reads as a merely geographic detail rather than a call to costly identification with a shamed and excluded Savior.

Forerunner

Approved rendering: forerunner
Transliteration: prodromos
Doctrine: Christ as the Great High Priest
Original: πρόδρομος
Category: Priesthood

NEW TERM [OB]. A scout or advance representative who goes ahead to secure the way for others (6:20); rare word in ordinary English but not misleading once briefly defined.

Brothers Siblings

Approved rendering: brothers
Transliteration: adelphoi
Doctrine: Christ’s Solidarity with Humanity and Qualification through Suffering
Rejected alternatives: brothers and sisters (a genuine, defensible, but distinct contemporary translation-practice choice this curriculum notes rather than silently adopts)
Original: ἀδελφοί
Category: Christology

NEW TERM [DC]. Contemporary English translation practice is genuinely split, and denominationally contested, on rendering generic-plural adelphoi (2:11-12) as ‘brothers’ or ‘brothers and sisters’; this curriculum’s default is ‘brothers’ (matching its NLT citation base where applicable) while noting the alternative practice exists.

Low Risk Terms

Prophet

Approved rendering: prophet
Transliteration: prophet
Doctrine: Inspiration of Scripture
Rejected alternatives: a tech prophet / prophet of doom (secular usage)
Original: προφήτης
Category: Covenant

[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE] Hebrews-specific: 1:1 opens the whole letter with God’s former speaking ‘by the prophets,’ now superseded (not contradicted) by his Son — a comparative structure worth preserving.

Prophecy

Approved rendering: prophecy
Transliteration: prophecy
Doctrine: Inspiration of Scripture
Rejected alternatives: a self-fulfilling prophecy (unrelated secular idiom)
Original: προφητεία
Category: Covenant

[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE] Hebrews-specific: underlies the letter’s extensive Old Testament citation practice, especially chapters 1-2 and 8 (Jeremiah 31).

Thanksgiving

Approved rendering: thanksgiving
Transliteration: thanksgiving
Doctrine: Thanksgiving
Original: εὐχαριστία
Category: Faith

[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE] Hebrews-specific: 13:15’s ‘sacrifice of praise… the fruit of lips’ is a genuine asset connecting thanksgiving to the letter’s central sacrificial vocabulary rather than a risk of confusion.

Fellowship

Approved rendering: fellowship
Transliteration: fellowship
Doctrine: Christian Fellowship and Hospitality
Rejected alternatives: a fellowship (academic/professional grant sense)
Original: κοινωνία
Category: Church

[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE] Hebrews-specific: 13:16’s practical, material generosity sense (‘doing good and sharing’) mitigates the baseline’s flagged academic-grant secular drift, since koinōnia’s practical-sharing meaning is explicit in context here.

David

Approved rendering: David
Transliteration: David
Doctrine: Faith of the Old Testament Saints
Original: Δαυίδ
Category: Covenant

[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE] Standard, comparatively stable proper name. Hebrews-specific: 4:7 cites ‘through David’ (Psalm 95) and 11:32 names David among the heroes of faith.

Taste Death

Approved rendering: taste death
Transliteration: geusētai thanatou
Doctrine: Christ’s Solidarity with Humanity and Qualification through Suffering
Original: γεύσηται θανάτου
Category: Christology

NEW TERM. Idiom for genuinely, personally experiencing death (2:9), not merely observing it; unusual but transparent once glossed.

Better

Approved rendering: better
Transliteration: kreittōn / kreisson
Doctrine: The New Covenant versus the Old
Rejected alternatives: greater / superior / preferable (stylistic variants that break the writer’s deliberate rhetorical pattern)
Original: κρείττων / κρεῖσσον
Category: New Covenant

NEW TERM. Hebrews’ signature comparative keyword (1:4; 6:9; 7:7,19,22; 8:6; 9:23; 10:34; 11:16,35,40; 12:24); render consistently as ‘better’ throughout to preserve the writer’s deliberate rhetorical pattern for the reader.

Indestructible Life

Approved rendering: indestructible life
Transliteration: zōē akatalytos
Doctrine: Christ as the Great High Priest
Original: ζωὴ ἀκατάλυτος
Category: Priesthood

NEW TERM. Permanent, unending life (7:16), the basis of Christ’s permanent, non-transferable priesthood; vivid and largely self-explanatory.

Veil Curtain

Approved rendering: veil / curtain
Transliteration: katapetasma
Doctrine: Access to God through Christ’s Blood
Original: καταπέτασμα
Category: Access to God

NEW TERM [OB]. Rare word in ordinary English but vivid and effective once explained, especially connected to the Gospels’ torn-curtain narrative many readers already know (6:19; 9:3; 10:20).

Without Blemish

Approved rendering: without blemish
Transliteration: amōmos
Doctrine: The Once-for-All Atoning Sacrifice
Original: ἄμωμος
Category: Sacrifice

NEW TERM [OB]. Physical perfection required of sacrificial animals (Lev 22:20-25), applied to Christ’s moral sinlessness (9:14); agricultural background unfamiliar but not misleading.

Shadow

Approved rendering: shadow
Transliteration: skia
Doctrine: The New Covenant versus the Old
Original: σκιά
Category: New Covenant

NEW TERM. An outline cast by a solid object, indicating but not embodying the object itself (10:1); explain alongside ‘copies’/‘antitype’ from chapter 9 as part of the same shadow/reality theme.

Stir Up Love And Good Works

Approved rendering: stir up to love and good works
Transliteration: paroxysmon agapēs kai kalōn ergōn
Doctrine: Mutual Edification
Rejected alternatives: a paroxysm of rage/coughing (the now almost exclusively negative/violent sense of the English cognate ‘paroxysm’)
Original: παροξυσμὸν ἀγάπης καὶ καλῶν ἔργων
Category: Church

NEW TERM [FF, minor]. Deliberately provocative mutual encouragement toward love and good works (10:24); since translations do not use the loanword ‘paroxysm’ directly, practical risk is low.

Anchor Of The Soul

Approved rendering: anchor of the soul
Transliteration: agkyra tēs psychēs
Doctrine: Perseverance and Assurance
Original: ἄγκυρα τῆς ψυχῆς
Category: Perseverance

NEW TERM. A firm, secure holdfast preventing drift (6:19), grounded in God’s unchangeable oath and promise; nautical stability imagery remains broadly familiar in contemporary English and works positively here.

Brotherly Love

Approved rendering: brotherly love
Transliteration: philadelphia
Doctrine: Christian Fellowship and Hospitality

NEW TERM. Family-based love within the Christian community (13:1); stable, minor non-confusing association with the U.S. city name.

Strange Teachings

Approved rendering: strange teachings
Transliteration: didachai poikilai kai xenai
Doctrine: Perseverance and Assurance

NEW TERM. Doctrinally deviant or novel teaching departing from the apostolic gospel (13:9); straightforward.

Milk And Solid Food

Approved rendering: milk vs. solid food
Transliteration: gala, brōma
Doctrine: Spiritual Maturity

NEW TERM. Standard ancient (and modern) metaphor for elementary vs. mature instruction (5:12-14); stable, widely accessible pedagogical image, minimal drift risk.

Race

Approved rendering: race
Transliteration: agōn
Doctrine: Perseverance and Assurance

NEW TERM. Athletic-contest imagery requiring endurance (12:1); remains broadly accessible in contemporary sports-saturated English culture, a genuine asset.

Shrink Back Preserve Soul

Approved rendering: shrink back / preserve the soul
Transliteration: hypostolē, peripoiēsis psychēs
Doctrine: Perseverance and Assurance

NEW TERM. Closing contrast of the fourth warning passage (10:38-39); transparent and well-supported by chapter 11 that immediately follows.

Jesus Christ Same Yesterday Today Forever

Approved rendering: Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever
Transliteration: Iēsous Christos chthes kai sēmeron ho autos kai eis tous aiōnas
Doctrine: Deity of Christ

NEW TERM. Affirms Christ’s unchanging identity and reliability across all time (13:8); a well-known, stable phrase, often already familiar to churched readers from hymnody, and a genuine asset connecting to the deity-of-Christ argument of chapter 1.

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