Core Glossary
Core Glossary — Gospel of Mark
Destination language: english | Curriculum: Mark 1–16 | Core passage: Mark 10:35-45
This glossary consolidates every load-bearing term identified in analysis/07_semantic_analysis.md, drawn from all sixteen chapters of Mark. Per project rule, any term already recorded in the baseline Romans translation_memory.json is reused here with its exact recorded English rendering and risk tier is carried forward (marked “Reuse — baseline” below); genuinely new terms introduced by Mark’s own vocabulary and narrative are marked “New — Mark.” Risk tiers use the identical four-tier framework established in the baseline doctrine_risk_registry.json (Critical / High / Medium / Low), extended here with a fourth risk category unique to this book: textual-critical risk (Mark 16:9-20), alongside the baseline’s three categories of false-friend drift, denominational contest, and obsolescence/obscurity.
Doctrine key (curriculum doctrines)
- D1 — Jesus as the Suffering Servant and Son of God
- D2 — The Kingdom of God Breaking In
- D3 — Faith and Discipleship amid Fear
- D4 — The Necessity of the Cross
- D5 — Servanthood versus Worldly Greatness
- D6 — The Messianic Secret
- D7 — Jesus’ Authority over Sickness, Sin, and Nature
- D8 — The Ransom for Many
| Term (English rendering) | Original (Greek) | Transliteration | Doctrine(s) | Risk Tier | Status | Definition | Rendering/Translation Notes | Key Mark References |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| gospel | εὐαγγέλιον | euangelion | D2 | Medium | Reuse — baseline | Authoritative announcement of God’s saving reign in Christ | Reuse baseline “gospel” exactly; watch “the Gospels” (four books) vs. “the gospel” (message) confusion. | 1:1,14-15; 8:35; 10:29; 13:10; 14:9 |
| baptism / baptize | βάπτισμα / βαπτίζω | baptisma / baptizō | D3, D4 | Medium | New — Mark | Ritual immersion; metaphorically, total immersion in suffering | Not in Romans baseline. Metaphorical sense (10:38-39) is easily missed if readers default to their own tradition’s ritual-mode debates. | 1:4-9; 10:38-39 |
| repent / repentance | μετανοέω / μετάνοια | metanoeō / metanoia | D2 | Medium | New — Mark | Whole-person reorientation of mind and direction, not mere regret | Distinguish from “feeling sorry”; also carries mild negative “street-preacher” cultural coding to overcome. | 1:4,15; 6:12 |
| Holy Spirit | πνεῦμα ἅγιον | pneuma hagion | D1, D7 | Medium | Reuse — baseline | The third Person of the Trinity, personal and divine | Reuse baseline exactly; guard against “good vibes”/impersonal-energy substitution. | 1:8,10,12; 3:29; 12:36; 13:11 |
| Son of God | υἱὸς θεοῦ | huios theou | D1 | Medium (compounds toward Critical in Passion context) | Reuse — baseline | Christ’s eternal, unique, divine Sonship | Reuse baseline exactly. Structural bookend: 1:1 and 15:39. | 1:1,11; 3:11; 5:7; 9:7; 15:39 |
| temptation / tempt | πειρασμός / πειράζω | peirasmos / peirazō | D1, D4 | Medium | New — Mark | Testing, trial; hostile enticement to sin (here, Satan’s) | Everyday usage trivializes to minor indulgence; restore cosmic Satan-vs-Messiah scale. | 1:12-13; 8:11; 10:2; 12:15 |
| kingdom of God | βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ | basileia tou theou | D2 | Medium | Reuse — baseline | God’s sovereign reign, advancing through the gospel | Reuse baseline exactly; add Mark-specific “at hand” already/not-yet risk (see below). | 1:15; 4:11,26,30; 9:1,47; 10:14-15,23-25; 12:34; 14:25; 15:43 |
| at hand / has come near | ἤγγικεν | ēngiken | D2 | High | New — Mark | Perfect-tense “has drawn near” — a present, decisive in-breaking, not mere future approach | Genuine denominational/eschatological-framework contest (already/not-yet); translation variance (“at hand” vs. “has come near”) affects felt meaning. | 1:15 |
| disciple | μαθητής | mathētēs | D3 | High | New — Mark | One who follows and learns through total, costly life-reordering | ”Student”/social-media “follow” associations domesticate the costliness. | 1:16-20; throughout |
| follow | ἀκολουθέω | akoloutheō | D3, D4 | Medium | New — Mark | Technical Markan term for committed discipleship, not mere accompaniment | New false-friend risk: digital-platform “follow” (low-commitment, one click). | 1:18; 2:14; 8:34; 10:21,28,52 |
| authority | ἐξουσία | exousia | D7 | High | New — Mark | Legitimate, granted power to act (teaching, exorcism, healing, forgiveness) | Contemporary suspicion of “authority” (authoritarianism, institutional abuse) needs active positive reframing; distinguish from illegitimate “domineering” use (10:42, katexousiazousin). | 1:22,27; 2:10; 3:15; 6:7; 11:28-33 |
| unclean spirit / demon | πνεῦμα ἀκάθαρτον / δαιμόνιον | pneuma akatharton / daimonion | D7 | Medium | New — Mark | Hostile personal spirit-beings opposed to God, subdued by Jesus’ authority | Cuts two ways: secular dismissal as superstition/mental-illness reframing, or horror-genre sensationalism. | 1:23-27,34; 3:11,22; 5:1-20; 7:24-30; 9:14-29 |
| heal | θεραπεύω | therapeuō | D7 | Medium | New — Mark | Restoration to physical health/wholeness | Mild modern “therapy/therapeutic” association is a relatively gentle drift. | 1:29-34,40-45; 3:2,10; 6:5,13 |
| Son of Man | υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου | huios tou anthrōpou | D1, D4, D8 | Critical | New — Mark | Jesus’ preferred self-title, drawing on Daniel 7’s exalted, throne-and-authority-bearing figure, held together with suffering | Single highest false-friend risk in Mark’s own Christological vocabulary: surface meaning (“a human”) obscures the specific Danielic authority-and-glory claim. Anchors D1 and D8 together. | 2:10,28; 8:31,38; 9:9,12,31; 10:33,45; 13:26; 14:21,41,62 |
| forgive (sins) | ἀφίημι (ἁμαρτίας) | aphiēmi (hamartias) | D1, D7 | Medium | New — Mark | Divine release/cancellation of sin’s guilt, an exclusively divine prerogative | ”Forgive a friend” is a decent anchor but readers may miss the deity-claim provoking the blasphemy charge. | 2:5-12; 3:28-29; 11:25 |
| sin / sinner | ἁμαρτία / ἁμαρτωλός | hamartia / hamartōlos | D1, D4 | High | Reuse — baseline | Moral transgression before a personal God; “sinners” as a specific social-religious outcast category | Reuse baseline “sin” exactly (High risk, trivialized by marketing/“sinfully delicious” usage); “sinners” also names a specific first-century social category readers may not recognize. | 2:15-17; 8:38; 14:41 |
| blasphemy | βλασφημία | blasphēmia | D1, D6 | Medium | New — Mark | Verbal dishonoring of God’s unique majesty/prerogatives; capital legal charge | Modern loose usage (“blasphemy against my ideology”) dilutes specific God-directed sense. | 2:7; 3:28-29; 14:64 |
| Sabbath | σάββατον | sabbaton | D7 | Medium | New — Mark | The weekly rest day commanded in the Law, subject to detailed legal debate | Contemporary readers lacking lived Sabbath practice need the life-and-death legal stakes of the controversy supplied. | 2:23-28; 3:1-6 |
| Satan | Σατανᾶς | Satanas | D4, D7 | Medium | New — Mark | The personal chief spiritual adversary of God and humanity | Pop-culture cartoon caricature or joking idiom (“the devil made me do it”) trivializes; horror-genre risks over-sensationalizing. | 1:13; 3:23-26; 4:15; 8:33 |
| Beelzebul | Βεελζεβούλ | Beelzeboul | D7 | Low | New — Mark | Derogatory title for the “prince of demons,” applied to Satan | Purely obscure proper name; needs simple identification only. | 3:22 |
| eternal/unforgivable sin | ἁμάρτημα εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα | hamartēma eis ton aiōna | D1, D4 | High | New — Mark | Deliberate, hardened attribution of the Spirit’s clear work to Satan | Significant pastoral-anxiety/denominational-contest risk; state specifically what the sin is to relieve misplaced fear. | 3:28-30 |
| apostle / the Twelve | ἀπόστολος / δώδεκα | apostolos / dōdeka | D3 | Medium | Reuse — baseline (apostle) | A foundational, non-repeatable sent-and-authorized office; the inner circle of twelve | Reuse baseline “apostle” exactly. | 3:14-19; 6:7,30 |
| parable | παραβολή | parabolē | D2, D6 | Medium | New — Mark | Extended metaphor deliberately functioning to both reveal and conceal | ”Simple morality fable” genre expectation misses the deliberate concealing function (4:11-12). | 3:23; 4:2-34; 12:1-12 |
| mystery / secret | μυστήριον | mystērion | D2, D6 | Medium | New — Mark | Divine truth graciously disclosed, not humanly deduced | ”Detective novel” mystery-genre association wrongly implies human cleverness solves it. | 4:11 |
| faith / believe | πίστις / πιστεύω | pistis / pisteuō | D3, D8 | High | Reuse — baseline | Personal trust in Jesus, not generalized optimism | Reuse baseline “faith” exactly (High risk). Recurs with fear as Mark’s central discipleship pairing. | 4:40; 5:34,36; 6:6; 9:23-24; 10:52; 11:22-24; 16:16 |
| your faith has saved/healed you | ἡ πίστις σου σέσωκέν σε | hē pistis sou sesōken se | D3, D8 | Critical | Reuse — baseline (faith, salvation) | σῴζω spans physical healing and spiritual salvation in one Markan verb | Most English translations render “healed/made well,” obscuring the identical Greek verb used elsewhere for “salvation” — flag explicitly. | 5:34; 10:52 |
| Legion | λεγιών | legiōn | D7 | Medium | New — Mark | A Roman military unit-name adopted as the demon’s self-identification | Obscure without Roman-military background; misses imperial-power resonance otherwise. | 5:9 |
| Talitha koum | ταλιθὰ κούμ(ι) | talitha koum(i) | D1, D7 | Low | New — Mark | ”Little girl, arise” — Jesus’ preserved spoken Aramaic | Simple obsolescence; no competing modern association (unlike “Abba”). | 5:41 |
| prophet | προφήτης | prophētēs | D1 | Medium | Reuse — baseline | God’s spokesperson; popular (insufficient) category applied to Jesus | Reuse baseline “prophet” exactly. | 6:4,15; 8:28 |
| ”I am” / “It is I” | ἐγώ εἰμι | egō eimi | D1, D6 | Critical | New — Mark | Simple self-identification, likely echoing the OT divine self-naming formula | Most translations flatten to ordinary reassurance; theophanic resonance must be actively supplied, with acknowledged scholarly debate on its strength here vs. John’s Gospel. | 6:50; 14:62 |
| unbelief | ἀπιστία | apistia | D3 | Medium | New — Mark | Lack of faith; a real obstacle to receiving Jesus’ ministry | Fairly stable; rare in ordinary contemporary speech. | 6:6; 9:24 |
| tradition (of the elders) | παράδοσις | paradosis | D7 | Medium | New — Mark | Accumulated oral legal interpretation surrounding the Law | Denominational-contest-adjacent (traditions valuing church tradition vs. sola scriptura); clarify Jesus critiques tradition that nullifies God’s command, not tradition as such. | 7:3-13 |
| clean / unclean (defilement) | καθαρός / ἀκάθαρτος (κοινός) | katharos / akathartos (koinos) | D7 | Medium | New — Mark | Ceremonial purity categories, relocated by Jesus to the heart’s moral condition | Readers with no purity-law framework need the ceremonial/moral distinction actively explained. | 7:1-23 |
| Corban | κορβάν | korban | D7 | Low | New — Mark | A vow dedicating an asset to the temple, abused to evade family duty | Obscure technical term; needs definition, not correction. | 7:11 |
| Gentiles | τὰ ἔθνη | ta ethnē | D2, D8 | Medium | Reuse — baseline | Non-Jewish peoples/nations | Reuse baseline “Gentiles” exactly; do not gloss as “non-believers.” Syrophoenician episode anticipates full gospel extension (13:10). | 7:24-30; 10:33,42; 13:10 |
| Christ / Messiah | Χριστός | Christos | D1, D6 | Medium | Reuse — baseline | The Jewish OT-promised Anointed One, fulfilled exclusively in Jesus | Reuse baseline “Messiah” exactly. Structural turning point at 8:29. | 1:1; 8:29; 9:41; 12:35; 13:21; 14:61; 15:32 |
| must suffer | δεῖ…παθεῖν | dei pathein | D4 | High | New — Mark | Divine, scripturally-grounded necessity of the Messiah’s suffering | English “must” reads as circumstantial; restore δεῖ’s weight of foreordained, purposive necessity. | 8:31; 9:12,31; 10:33-34 |
| cross / crucify | σταυρός / σταυρόω | stauros / stauroō | D4 | Critical | New — Mark | A shameful Roman execution instrument for the lowest criminal classes | Contemporary decorative/jewelry secularization and “my cross to bear” idiom drastically dilute the concrete, costly, shameful meaning. | 8:34; 10:21; 15:13-15,20-27,30-32 |
| deny (oneself) | ἀπαρνέομαι | aparneomai | D4 | Medium | New — Mark | To formally disown one’s own claims/self-interest | Contemporary self-actualization/authenticity culture resists any positively-framed self-denial call. | 8:34; 14:30,72 |
| soul / life | ψυχή | psychē | D4, D8 | Medium | New — Mark | The whole animating self, not mere biological life or dualistic “soul” | English “soul” imports body/soul dualism not quite identical to ψυχή’s holistic sense. | 8:35-37; 10:45; 12:30 |
| Messianic-secret silencing commands | ἐπιτιμάω / διαστέλλομαι | epitimaō / diastellomai | D6 | High | New — Mark | Jesus’ repeated restraint of premature, politically-charged identity proclamation | Risk of reading as narrative inconsistency or PR strategy; theological point is correct understanding only in light of the cross. | 1:34,44; 3:12; 5:43; 7:36; 8:30; 9:9 |
| transfigured | μετεμορφώθη | metemorphōthē | D1 | Medium | New — Mark | Visible, temporary unveiling of pre-existing divine glory | Essentially no life outside this narrative; needs definition, not correction. | 9:2-8 |
| beloved Son | ὁ υἱός μου ὁ ἀγαπητός | ho huios mou ho agapētos | D1 | Medium | Reuse — baseline (Son of God) | Repeats baptismal voice, adding “listen to him” | Reuse baseline “Son of God” cluster. | 9:7 (cf. 1:11) |
| first / last / servant | πρῶτος / ἔσχατος / διάκονος | prōtos / eschatos / diakonos | D5 | High | New — Mark | Kingdom-rank reversal: greatness through service, not status | Contemporary “servant leadership” corporate buzzword risks domesticating the radical, status-forfeiting reversal. | 9:35; 10:43-44 (Core Passage) |
| Gehenna / hell | γέεννα | geenna | D4 | Medium | New — Mark | Final judgment, named from a literal valley near Jerusalem | Cartoon/pop-culture baggage or casual profanity trivializes; concrete valley background helps ground the image. | 9:43-47 |
| eternal life | ζωὴ αἰώνιος | zōē aiōnios | D2, D3 | Medium | New — Mark | Qualitative, kingdom-age life with God, not merely unending duration | Sci-fi/immortality-narrative associations substitute a merely quantitative idea. | 10:17,30 |
| hand over / betray | παραδίδωμι | paradidōmi | D4 | Medium | New — Mark | Human treachery operating simultaneously with divine foreordained plan | Personal-betrayal-drama resonance is helpful but risks missing the “fulfills God’s plan” layer. | 10:33; 14:10-11,18,21,41-42 |
| Son of David | υἱὲ Δαυίδ | huie Dauid | D1 | Medium | Reuse — baseline (David) | A royal Messianic title claiming Davidic covenant fulfillment | Reuse baseline “David” exactly. | 10:47-48; 11:10; 12:35-37 |
| cup (Core Passage) | ποτήριον | potērion | D1, D4, D8 | High | New — Mark | OT metaphor (Ps 75:8; Isa 51:17) for one’s assigned portion of wrath/judgment | Everyday “cup” (a beverage container) has zero surviving wrath connotation; must be actively supplied. | 10:38-39 (Core); 14:23,36 |
| baptism (metaphorical, Core Passage) | βάπτισμα | baptisma | D4, D8 | High | New — Mark | Total immersion/identification with Jesus’ coming suffering and death | Readers’ sole category is their own tradition’s ritual mode/timing debate; misses the metaphorical suffering sense entirely. | 10:38-39 (Core) |
| has been prepared | ἡτοίμασται | hētoimastai | D1, D2 | Critical | Reuse — baseline (providence) | Passive-voice statement of the Father’s prior, sovereign, purposive assignment | Reuse baseline “providence” Critical risk exactly; passive grammar often flattened into folk fatalism (“everything happens for a reason”) or missed entirely. | 10:40 (Core) |
| lord it over / dominate | κατακυριεύουσιν | katakyrieuousin | D5 | High | New — Mark | Illegitimate, self-serving domination — the negative cognate of “Lord” | Word-family link to “Lord” (legitimate, positive use elsewhere in Mark) is invisible in English and must be surfaced explicitly. | 10:42 (Core) |
| exercise/flaunt authority | κατεξουσιάζουσιν | katexousiazousin | D5, D7 | High | New — Mark | Self-serving exercise of authority — the negative cognate of ἐξουσία | Must be distinguished from Jesus’ own legitimate authority (Ch.1, Ch.11) elsewhere praised, not condemned, in Mark. | 10:42 (Core) |
| servant | διάκονος | diakonos | D5 | High | New — Mark | One who serves another’s needs; graded below δοῦλος in this passage | ”Servant leadership” corporate buzzword risks domesticating radical self-emptying. | 10:43 (Core); 9:35 |
| slave | δοῦλος | doulos | D5, D8 | Critical | New — Mark | Total, willing self-subjection; the strongest servant-term, escalated beyond diakonos | Inescapable association with the trans-Atlantic chattel slave trade in Anglophone context; must be handled with historical/pastoral care, distinguishing Mark’s voluntary rhetorical sense from coercive chattel slavery, without evading or softening the term’s deliberate escalation. | 10:44 (Core) |
| ransom | λύτρον | lytron | D8 | Critical | New — Mark | The price paid to secure release of a slave/captive; applied to Jesus’ self-giving death | Single highest-risk term in the Core Passage: dominant modern usage (kidnapping/hostage-crisis news) risks recasting the Father as a hostage-taker; state plainly the ransom is from sin/death/Satan’s bondage, not from an angry Father. | 10:45 (Core) |
| in place of / for | ἀντὶ | anti | D8 | High | New — Mark | Strongly substitutionary preposition — “instead of,” “in exchange for” | Most translations soften to ambiguous “for” (benefit vs. substitution); sharper substitutionary force must be actively taught given live atonement-model debate. | 10:45 (Core) |
| many | πολλῶν | pollōn | D8 | High | New — Mark | Echoes Isaiah 53:11-12’s “the many”; debated scope (limited vs. general atonement) | Denominational contest: Calvinist/Arminian debate over atonement’s scope centers on exactly this word — state transparently, do not silently resolve. | 10:45 (Core) |
| Hosanna | ὡσαννά | hōsanna | D1, D2 | Medium | New — Mark | Originally “save now!” (Ps 118:25); by Jesus’ day, an acclamation of praise/welcome | Most readers know it only as a liturgical hymn-word, missing its original cry-for-deliverance force and the crowd’s nationalist-political hope. | 11:9-10 |
| Lord (κύριος) | Κύριος | Kyrios | D1 | Critical | Reuse — baseline | Exclusive, supreme authority; the salvation-confession title | Reuse baseline “Lord” exactly. Peaks at Ps 110 argument (12:35-37) and is the negative-cognate contrast for D5 (10:42). | 1:3; 2:28; 5:19; 7:28; 11:3,9-10; 12:29-30,36-37; 13:20,35 |
| house of prayer / den of robbers | οἶκος προσευχῆς / σπήλαιον λῃστῶν | oikos proseuchēs / spēlaion lēstōn | D2 | Medium | New — Mark | Isaiah 56:7 / Jeremiah 7:11 combined quotation, a prophetic judgment sign-act | Popular readings flatten to generic anti-commercialism, missing the specific prophetic/Christological point about the temple’s coming replacement. | 11:15-17 |
| the stone the builders rejected | λίθον ὃν ἀπεδοκίμασαν | lithon hon apedokimasan | D1, D4 | Medium | New — Mark | Psalm 118:22-23 quotation: rejection-to-vindication reversal applied to Jesus | Needs ancient building/cornerstone image explained for full force. | 12:10-11 |
| commandment / love | ἐντολή / ἀγάπη | entolē / agapē | D2, D5 | High | New — Mark | Willed, committed, whole-person love of God and neighbor as the Law’s summary | ”Love” is radically overloaded in everyday English (romantic, casual, familial); the specific covenantal, willed sense must be actively distinguished. | 12:28-31 |
| election / elect / chosen | ἐκλογή / ἐκλεκτός | eklogē / eklektos | D2 | Critical | Reuse — baseline | God’s sovereign, personal, prior choice | Reuse baseline “election” exactly (Critical: near-total political-vote capture in modern English). | 13:20,22,27 |
| abomination of desolation | βδέλυγμα τῆς ἐρημώσεως | bdelygma tēs erēmōseōs | D2, D4 | High | New — Mark | Daniel-echoing phrase for a coming sacrilegious crisis | Live preterist/futurist/historicist/idealist denominational-interpretive contest; state which reading is presented. | 13:14 |
| watch / be alert | γρηγορεῖτε | grēgoreite | D2, D3 | Medium | New — Mark | Physical wakefulness extended to eschatological vigilance | Risk of flattening to generic “be careful,” losing urgency and the “no date-setting” restraint (13:32). | 13:33-37 |
| Passover | πάσχα | pascha | D4, D8 | Medium | New — Mark | The Exodus-commemorating feast, reinterpreted around Jesus’ sacrificial death | Handle with sensitivity to Jewish tradition; avoid supersessionist over-simplification. | 14:1,12-16 |
| covenant (blood of the covenant) | διαθήκη | diathēkē | D4, D8 | High | Reuse — baseline | Relational, promissory bond, not a legal-document clause | Reuse baseline “covenant” exactly. Directly reinforces “ransom” (10:45). | 14:24 |
| Abba, Father | Ἀββά ὁ πατήρ | Abba ho patēr | D1, D3, D4 | Medium | Reuse — baseline (both terms) | Aramaic term of filial intimacy, immediately glossed “Father” | Reuse baseline “Abba” and “Father” exactly. Completes the Core Passage’s “cup” motif (10:38 → 14:36). | 14:36 |
| ”I am” (before the high priest) | ἐγώ εἰμι | egō eimi | D1, D6 | Critical | New — Mark | Unambiguous self-identification as Messiah/Son of God/Son of Man, the direct legal basis of the blasphemy charge | Do not soften into a mere “yes” affirmation; read together with 6:50. | 14:61-64 |
| King of the Jews | βασιλεὺς τῶν Ἰουδαίων | basileus tōn Ioudaiōn | D1, D4 | High | New — Mark | Political mockery-title, ironically and simply true in Mark’s Christology | Handle with historical/pastoral sensitivity given past misuse to fuel anti-Jewish sentiment; Rome, under Roman legal process, carried out the execution. | 15:2,9,12,18,26,32 |
| ”My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” | Ελωΐ Ελωΐ, λεμα σαβαχθανί | Elōi Elōi, lema sabachthani | D1, D4 | High | New — Mark | Psalm 22:1 quotation; Jesus’ genuine cry of dereliction on the cross | Denominational contest on how to understand the cry (rupture vs. full-psalm citation vs. both); do not resolve too quickly or soften the anguish. | 15:34 |
| temple curtain torn | τὸ καταπέτασμα ἐσχίσθη | to katapetasma eschisthē | D4, D8 | Medium | New — Mark | The Holy-of-Holies veil torn at Jesus’ death — a sign of opened access to God | Needs temple-architecture/theological-significance background actively supplied. | 15:38 |
| Son of God (centurion’s confession) | υἱὸς θεοῦ | huios theou | D1 | Medium | Reuse — baseline | Gospel’s structural bookend confession, spoken by a Gentile at the cross | Reuse baseline exactly; note the confession’s placement makes the cross itself, not miracles alone, the definitive revelation of sonship. | 15:39 |
| resurrection / he has risen | ἀνάστασις / ἐγείρω | anastasis / egeirō | D1, D4 | High | Reuse — baseline | Bodily, historical, once-for-all rising from death | Reuse baseline “resurrection” exactly (High risk: post-Christian “myth/Easter-commercialization” framing). Fulfills repeated Passion-prediction promises. | 8:31; 9:9,31; 10:34; 12:18-27; 16:6 |
| Mark 16:9-20 (longer ending) | — | — | D1 | Critical (textual-critical category) | New — Mark (special) | Disputed manuscript ending containing resurrection-appearance and commissioning material | Flag explicitly wherever used: earliest best manuscripts end at 16:8; mainstream scholarship regards 9-20 as a later addition; some English-speaking traditions build doctrine/practice on it in ways others do not. | 16:9-20 |
Risk Summary
| Tier | Count | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Critical | 11 | Son of Man; “I am” (both occurrences treated as one entry); ransom; slave; “has been prepared” (providence reuse); Lord (reuse); election/elect (reuse); cross/crucify; your faith has saved/healed you (faith/salvation reuse); Mark 16:9-20 (textual-critical); “I am” before high priest counted with 6:50 entry |
| High | 15 | at hand/kingdom breaking in; disciple; authority; must suffer; deny (oneself)-adjacent cluster; Messianic-secret silencing; first/last/servant; servant (diakonos); lord it over; exercise/flaunt authority; in place of/anti; many; abomination of desolation; commandment/love; covenant (reuse); King of the Jews; “My God, my God…”; resurrection (reuse); sin (reuse) |
| Medium | 27 | gospel (reuse); baptism; repentance; Holy Spirit (reuse); Son of God (reuse); temptation; kingdom of God (reuse); unclean spirit/demon; heal; forgive sins; blasphemy; Sabbath; Satan; apostle (reuse); parable; mystery; Legion; prophet (reuse); unbelief; tradition; clean/unclean; Gentiles (reuse); Christ/Messiah (reuse); Gehenna; eternal life; hand over/betray; Son of David (reuse); beloved Son (reuse); house of prayer/den of robbers; stone rejected; watch/be alert; Passover; Abba/Father (reuse); temple curtain torn; Hosanna |
| Low | 4 | Beelzebul; Talitha koum; Corban |
Escalation note: all Critical and High tier entries above require human theologian review per the same routing logic established in the baseline doctrine_risk_registry.json; Medium tier requires native-speaker (general audience) review; Low tier is sufficient for automated review only. The ransom / anti / many / slave cluster (Mark 10:45 and 10:44) and the Son of Man / “I am” / cross cluster together constitute the highest-density Critical-risk zone in the entire book and should receive priority theologian attention in Phase 2.
Critical Risk Terms
Salvation
Approved rendering: salvation
Transliteration: sōtēria
Doctrine: The Ransom for Many / Faith and Discipleship amid Fear
Rejected alternatives: being saved (contested denominational shorthand), rescue (too generic on its own)
Inherited from Romans package. Denominational contest between single-event and lifelong-process readings; guard against a fully secularized generic ‘rescue’ sense. Mark-specific: the Greek verb sōzō spans both physical healing and spiritual salvation in a single word (5:23,28,34; 6:56; 8:35; 10:26,52; 13:13,20), a deliberate overlap most English translations obscure by rendering ‘healed’ rather than ‘saved’ in the healing narratives — flag explicitly wherever this occurs.
Lord
Approved rendering: Lord
Transliteration: kyrios
Doctrine: Jesus as the Suffering Servant and Son of God
Rejected alternatives: boss / master (loses exclusivity and worship-worthiness), a British aristocratic title, fantasy-fiction ‘dark lord’
Original: κύριος
Category: Christology
Inherited from Romans package. ‘Lord’ has nearly disappeared from ordinary spoken English outside religious usage. Mark-specific: peaks at the Psalm 110 argument (12:35-37, David’s son who is also David’s Lord) and functions as the positive term whose negative cognate ‘lord it over’ (katakyrieuousin, 10:42) Jesus explicitly condemns in his disciples — this word-family contrast is invisible in English and must be surfaced explicitly.
Election
Approved rendering: election
Transliteration: eklogē
Doctrine: The Kingdom of God Breaking In
Rejected alternatives: an election (dominant political-vote sense)
Inherited from Romans package. Near-total political-vote capture in contemporary English. Mark-specific: underlies the adjective ‘elect/chosen’ used in the Olivet Discourse (see elect_chosen entry below), where the elect are protected/gathered by God amid tribulation (13:20,22,27).
Providence
Approved rendering: providence
Transliteration: pronoia
Doctrine: Jesus as the Suffering Servant and Son of God / The Kingdom of God Breaking In
Rejected alternatives: everything happens for a reason (impersonal folk-fatalism substitute), Providence, Rhode Island (proper noun)
Inherited from Romans package. Now genuinely rare/archaic in ordinary speech. Mark-specific: underlies the perfect-passive ‘has been prepared’ (hētoimastai) in the core passage (10:40) — see has_been_prepared entry — where the Father’s prior, sovereign assignment of honor is stated in deliberately agent-hidden passive grammar.
Son Of Man
Approved rendering: Son of Man
Transliteration: ho huios tou anthrōpou
Doctrine: Jesus as the Suffering Servant and Son of God / The Ransom for Many
Rejected alternatives: a human being (the surface-plausible but doctrinally wrong plain reading)
Original: ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου
Category: Christology
NEW term. Jesus’ preferred self-designation (14+ occurrences), drawing on Daniel 7:13-14’s exalted, throne-and-authority-bearing figure, held together in Mark with suffering. Surface English meaning (‘a human’) is the single most natural, confidently wrong reading; requires explicit re-teaching of the Daniel 7 background at every recurrence (2:10,28; 8:31,38; 9:9,12,31; 10:33,45; 13:26; 14:21,41,62).
Your Faith Has Saved You
Approved rendering: your faith has saved/healed you
Transliteration: hē pistis sou sesōken se
Doctrine: Faith and Discipleship amid Fear / The Ransom for Many
Rejected alternatives: your faith has made you well (a partial rendering that erases the sōzō overlap)
Original: ἡ πίστις σου σέσωκέν σε
Category: Salvation
NEW compound term reusing baseline faith/salvation risk. The Greek sōzō spans healing and salvation in one word (5:34; 10:52); most English translations, including NLT, render ‘healed/made well’ rather than ‘saved,’ obscuring the identical underlying verb also used for salvation from sin and judgment (8:35; 10:26; 13:13,20).
I Am
Approved rendering: “I am”
Transliteration: egō eimi
Doctrine: Jesus as the Suffering Servant and Son of God / The Messianic Secret
Rejected alternatives: I am here / it’s just me (ordinary-reassurance paraphrase that erases the possible theophanic echo)
NEW term. A simple self-identification formula likely also echoing God’s own self-revelatory divine-name formula (Exodus 3:14; Isaiah 43/45); used walking on water (6:50) and, unmistakably, before the high priest (14:61-64), where it is the direct legal basis of the blasphemy charge. Must not be softened into a mere polite affirmative; the water-walking echo should be flagged as scholarly-debated, not asserted as certain.
Cross
Approved rendering: cross
Transliteration: stauros / stauroō
Doctrine: The Necessity of the Cross
Rejected alternatives: decorative jewelry/fashion symbol, my cross to bear (idiom for any generic personal annoyance)
Original: σταυρός / σταυρόω
Category: Discipleship
NEW term. A specific, shameful Roman execution instrument for the lowest criminal classes (8:34; 10:21; 15:13-15,20-27,30-32), not a generic symbol of hardship. Contemporary secularization/decoration and the ‘my cross to bear’ idiom drastically dilute Mark’s concrete, costly, life-costing meaning; must be actively restored, treated with baseline-‘grace’-level Critical handling.
Slave Doulos
Approved rendering: slave
Transliteration: doulos
Doctrine: Servanthood versus Worldly Greatness / The Ransom for Many
Rejected alternatives: servant (a softened substitute that erases Mark’s deliberate diakonos-to-doulos escalation)
Original: δοῦλος
Category: Servanthood
NEW term. Total, willing self-subjection — the strongest servant-term in Mark’s vocabulary, deliberately escalated beyond diakonos (10:44) before Jesus applies it to himself (10:45). The English word ‘slave’ is inescapably associated with the trans-Atlantic chattel slave trade for Anglophone readers; this curriculum must neither flatten nor evade this association, distinguishing Mark’s voluntary rhetorical sense from coercive chattel slavery with explicit historical/pastoral care, without softening the term or avoiding it.
Ransom
Approved rendering: ransom
Transliteration: lytron
Doctrine: The Ransom for Many
Rejected alternatives: a ransom paid to Satan / a ransom paid to an angry Father (rejected transaction models), free many people (a paraphrastic softening that loses the price-payment force)
Original: λύτρον
Category: Salvation
NEW term. Single highest-risk term in the core passage. Dominant contemporary usage is entirely secular/media-driven (kidnapping, hostage crises, extortion), risking recasting God the Father as a hostage-taker whom Jesus’ death appeases. Must state plainly from whom/what the ransom secures release (sin, death, Satan’s bondage — not an angry Father) while preserving the genuine substitutionary, costly-payment force (10:45).
Has Been Prepared
Approved rendering: has been prepared
Transliteration: hētoimastai
Doctrine: Jesus as the Suffering Servant and Son of God / The Kingdom of God Breaking In
Rejected alternatives: everything happens for a reason (impersonal folk fatalism)
Original: ἡτοίμασται
Category: God
NEW term reusing baseline ‘providence’ Critical risk exactly. A perfect-passive verb (10:40) expressing the Father’s prior, sovereign, purposive assignment of honor; the agent-hiding passive grammar is often flattened into folk fatalism or missed altogether as impersonal grammar.
Elect Chosen
Approved rendering: elect / chosen
Transliteration: eklektos
Doctrine: The Kingdom of God Breaking In
Rejected alternatives: elect (political-vote-adjacent association from ‘election’)
NEW term reusing baseline ‘election’ Critical risk exactly. The adjectival form (13:20,22,27); the elect are protected/gathered by God amid tribulation. Carries the identical near-total political-vote-capture risk and Calvinist/Arminian denominational-contest layering documented for ‘election’ in the baseline.
Mark 16 Longer Ending
Approved rendering: the longer ending (Mark 16:9-20)
Transliteration: —
Doctrine: Jesus as the Suffering Servant and Son of God (textual-critical)
Original: — (Mark 16:9-20)
Category: Textual Criticism
NEW term — a distinct TEXTUAL-CRITICAL RISK category not present in the Romans baseline. The earliest and best manuscripts (Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Vaticanus) end Mark at 16:8; verses 9-20 are widely regarded by mainstream textual scholarship as a later addition. Must be flagged explicitly wherever used, including the sign-gift promises (16:17-18) some traditions build distinctive practice on (e.g., snake-handling) in ways others reject.
High Risk Terms
Faith
Approved rendering: faith
Transliteration: pistis
Doctrine: Faith and Discipleship amid Fear
Rejected alternatives: faith in humanity / a leap of faith (generic optimism or an unsupported gamble, not trust in a specific person)
Original: πίστις / πιστεύω
Category: Faith
Inherited from Romans package. Contemporary English detaches ‘faith’ from any specific object. Mark-specific: paired repeatedly with fear as Mark’s central discipleship contrast (4:40; 5:36; 9:23-24) and underlies the healing formula ‘your faith has saved/healed you’ (5:34; 10:52), where Jesus’ person must always be named as faith’s explicit object.
Resurrection
Approved rendering: resurrection
Transliteration: anastasis
Doctrine: Jesus as the Suffering Servant and Son of God / The Necessity of the Cross
Rejected alternatives: Easter (commercialized cultural holiday sense, detached from the historical claim)
Original: ἀνάστασις / ἐγείρω
Category: Eschatology
Inherited from Romans package. Contemporary post-Christian culture treats resurrection as myth or seasonal observance. Mark-specific: fulfills the threefold repeated Passion-prediction promise (‘and after three days rise again,’ 8:31; 9:31; 10:34), narratively realized at the empty tomb (16:6); state as historical fact, not hedged as legend.
Sin
Approved rendering: sin
Transliteration: hamartia
Doctrine: Jesus’ Authority over Sickness, Sin, and Nature
Rejected alternatives: sinfully delicious (trivialized marketing usage)
Original: ἁμαρτία / ἁμαρτωλός
Category: Sin
Inherited from Romans package. Trivialized by marketing/casual usage; resisted by non-judgmental therapeutic culture. Mark-specific: ‘sinners’ (hamartōloi, 2:15-17) names a specific first-century social-religious outcast category most modern readers will not recognize without it being supplied.
Covenant
Approved rendering: covenant
Transliteration: diathēkē
Doctrine: The Ransom for Many / The Necessity of the Cross
Rejected alternatives: a restrictive covenant (real-estate/contract-law sense)
Original: διαθήκη
Category: Covenant
Inherited from Romans package. Most readers encounter ‘covenant’ chiefly via property/contract law. Mark-specific: Jesus’ words over the cup at the Last Supper (‘my blood of the covenant,’ 14:24, echoing Exodus 24:8 and Jeremiah 31:31) directly reinforce the core passage’s ransom language (10:45); handle the surrounding Passover material with sensitivity to Jewish tradition.
Baptism
Approved rendering: baptism
Transliteration: baptisma / baptizō
Doctrine: The Necessity of the Cross
Rejected alternatives: one’s own tradition’s ritual-mode/timing debate (infant vs. believer’s; immersion vs. sprinkling) treated as the only available sense
Original: βάπτισμα / βαπτίζω
Category: Discipleship
NEW term for this book. Two senses collide: John’s/Christian ritual immersion (1:4-9) and Jesus’ metaphorical extension of the same word to total immersion in coming suffering (10:38-39, echoed at Gethsemane 14:36). Readers will default to their own tradition’s ritual-mode debate unless the metaphorical sense is explicitly flagged.
At Hand
Approved rendering: at hand / has come near
Transliteration: ēngiken
Doctrine: The Kingdom of God Breaking In
Original: ἤγγικεν
Category: Kingdom
NEW term. Perfect-tense verb signaling a decisive present in-breaking, not mere future approach (1:15). Genuine denominational/eschatological-framework contest over the already/not-yet balance; translation variance itself (‘is at hand’ vs. ‘has come near’) lands with different felt urgency to modern ears though translating one unchanged Greek form.
Disciple
Approved rendering: disciple
Transliteration: mathētēs
Doctrine: Faith and Discipleship amid Fear
Rejected alternatives: a student (casual, droppable course-enrollment metaphor)
Original: μαθητής
Category: Discipleship
NEW term. Total, costly, life-reordering following (1:16-20), not enrollment in a course of instruction; contemporary ‘student’ associations domesticate the immediate, livelihood-abandoning pattern Mark depicts.
Authority
Approved rendering: authority
Transliteration: exousia
Doctrine: Jesus’ Authority over Sickness, Sin, and Nature
Original: ἐξουσία
Category: Authority
NEW term. Legitimate, granted power to act (teaching, exorcism, healing, forgiveness; 1:22,27; 2:10; 3:15; 6:7; 11:28-33). Contemporary suspicion of institutional authority requires active positive reframing; must be distinguished from its illegitimate cognate ‘exercise/flaunt authority’ (10:42), which Mark itself condemns.
Unforgivable Sin
Approved rendering: unforgivable sin
Transliteration: hamartēma eis ton aiōna
Doctrine: Jesus’ Authority over Sickness, Sin, and Nature
Original: ἁμάρτημα εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα
Category: Sin
NEW term. A deliberate, hardened attribution of the Spirit’s clear work to Satan (3:28-30) — not any ordinary sin, doubt, or momentary lapse. Generates real, significant pastoral anxiety among English-speaking Christians; must state specifically what the sin is to relieve misplaced dread.
Must Suffer
Approved rendering: must suffer
Transliteration: dei pathein
Doctrine: The Necessity of the Cross
Rejected alternatives: it happens that he must (circumstantial reading)
Original: δεῖ…παθεῖν
Category: Christology
NEW term. Divine, scripturally-grounded necessity (8:31; 9:12,31; 10:33-34), not mere likelihood. Plain English ‘must’ reads as circumstantial obligation; must be restored to its foreordained, purposive, Isaiah-53-fulfilling weight at every Passion prediction.
Messianic Secret Silencing
Approved rendering: silencing commands
Transliteration: epitimaō / diastellomai
Doctrine: The Messianic Secret
Rejected alternatives: a narrative inconsistency (why hide good news?), a PR ‘controlled reveal’ marketing strategy
Original: ἐπιτιμάω / διαστέλλομαι
Category: Christology
NEW pattern/term-cluster. Jesus’ repeated restraint of premature, politically-charged identity proclamation (1:34,44; 3:12; 5:43; 7:36; 8:30; 9:9). Both listed alternatives miss Mark’s theological point: correct understanding of Jesus’ identity is possible only after, and in light of, the cross.
First Last Servant
Approved rendering: first / last / servant
Transliteration: prōtos / eschatos / diakonos
Doctrine: Servanthood versus Worldly Greatness
Rejected alternatives: servant leadership (corporate management-technique buzzword)
Original: πρῶτος / ἔσχατος / διάκονος
Category: Servanthood
NEW term. Kingdom-rank reversal: greatness through downward service, not despite it (9:35; 10:43-44). Modern ‘servant leadership’ risks domesticating the radical, status-forfeiting reversal into a palatable management technique.
Cup
Approved rendering: cup
Transliteration: potērion
Doctrine: The Necessity of the Cross / The Ransom for Many
Rejected alternatives: my cup of coffee (an ordinary beverage container with zero wrath connotation)
Original: ποτήριον
Category: Christology
NEW term. An Old Testament metaphor for one’s assigned portion of blessing or, here, divine wrath/judgment (Psalm 75:8; Isaiah 51:17; Jeremiah 25:15), applied by Jesus to his own coming Passion (10:38-39; echoed at Gethsemane, 14:36). Zero surviving wrath connotation in ordinary English; the Old Testament background must be actively supplied.
Lord It Over
Approved rendering: lord it over
Transliteration: katakyrieuousin
Doctrine: Servanthood versus Worldly Greatness
Original: κατακυριεύουσιν
Category: Servanthood
NEW term. Illegitimate, self-serving domination — the negative cognate of kyrios/‘Lord’ (10:42), used elsewhere in Mark positively of Jesus. This word-family link is invisible in English translation and must be surfaced explicitly.
Exercise Authority
Approved rendering: exercise/flaunt authority
Transliteration: katexousiazousin
Doctrine: Servanthood versus Worldly Greatness
Original: κατεξουσιάζουσιν
Category: Servanthood
NEW term. Self-serving, oppressive exercise of authority — the negative cognate of exousia (10:42), contrasted with Jesus’ own legitimate authority elsewhere in Mark (Ch. 1, 11). Contemporary suspicion of authority risks collapsing both senses together unless the distinction is made explicit.
Servant Diakonos
Approved rendering: servant
Transliteration: diakonos
Doctrine: Servanthood versus Worldly Greatness
Rejected alternatives: servant leadership (corporate management-technique buzzword)
Original: διάκονος
Category: Servanthood
NEW term. One who serves another’s needs; the more modest of Mark’s two servant-terms in 10:43-45, escalated to doulos (‘slave’) in the next verse.
Anti In Place Of
Approved rendering: for / in place of
Transliteration: anti
Doctrine: The Ransom for Many
Rejected alternatives: for (ambiguous English preposition collapsing ‘on behalf of’ and ‘in place of’)
Original: ἀντὶ
Category: Salvation
NEW term. A strongly substitutionary preposition (10:45) — the same preposition in ‘an eye for an eye.’ Most translations soften to ambiguous ‘for’; the sharper substitutionary force must be actively taught given live atonement-model debate.
Many
Approved rendering: many
Transliteration: pollōn
Doctrine: The Ransom for Many
Original: πολλῶν
Category: Salvation
NEW term. Echoes Isaiah 53:11-12’s ‘the many’ (10:45; also 14:24). Sits at the center of the historic Calvinist/Arminian limited-vs-unlimited atonement debate; state the debate transparently rather than silently resolving it, per the baseline’s denominational-transparency rule.
Commandment Love
Approved rendering: love
Transliteration: entolē / agapaō, agapē
Doctrine: Servanthood versus Worldly Greatness
Rejected alternatives: romantic attraction, family affection, casual enthusiasm (‘I love this song’)
Original: ἐντολή / ἀγαπάω, ἀγάπη
Category: Ethics
NEW term. Committed, willed, covenantal love of God and neighbor, named as the summary and priority of the entire Law (12:28-31). Contemporary English radically overloads ‘love’; the specific willed, whole-person sense must be actively distinguished from all three competing everyday senses at once, comparably to the baseline’s treatment of ‘grace’ and ‘faith.‘
Abomination Of Desolation
Approved rendering: abomination of desolation
Transliteration: bdelygma tēs erēmōseōs
Doctrine: The Kingdom of God Breaking In
Original: βδέλυγμα τῆς ἐρημώσεως
Category: Eschatology
NEW term. A Daniel-echoing phrase (Daniel 9:27; 11:31; 12:11) signaling a coming sacrilegious crisis (13:14). Genuine, live preterist/historicist/futurist/idealist denominational-interpretive contest; state which reading this curriculum presents and transparently note the range of other readings.
King Of The Jews
Approved rendering: King of the Jews
Transliteration: ho basileus tōn Ioudaiōn
Doctrine: Jesus as the Suffering Servant and Son of God / The Necessity of the Cross
Original: ὁ βασιλεὺς τῶν Ἰουδαίων
Category: Christology
NEW term. Pilate’s/Rome’s political mockery-title (15:2,9,12,18,26,32), ironically and simply true in Mark’s Christology. Requires deliberate historical/pastoral care: this title and the surrounding Passion narrative have been misused across church history to fuel anti-Jewish sentiment; state explicitly that Roman authorities carried out the execution under Roman legal process, and note Mark’s own dramatic irony rather than any collective-blame reading.
Cry Of Dereliction
Approved rendering: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
Transliteration: Elōi Elōi, lema sabachthani
Doctrine: The Necessity of the Cross
Original: Ελωΐ Ελωΐ, λεμα σαβαχθανί
Category: Christology
NEW term. A direct quotation of Psalm 22:1 (15:34), Jesus’ genuine cry of dereliction. English-speaking Christian traditions differ on how to understand the cry (a genuine relational rupture, a citation of the whole psalm including its eventual vindication, or both); note the range of readings rather than resolving the tension too quickly, and resist any impulse to soften the genuine anguish.
Medium Risk Terms
Gospel
Approved rendering: gospel
Transliteration: euangelion
Doctrine: The Kingdom of God Breaking In
Rejected alternatives: good news (acceptable explanatory gloss only, not a full replacement)
Original: εὐαγγέλιον
Category: Salvation
Inherited from Romans package. Comparatively stable; main historic risk is confusing ‘the Gospels’ (the four books) with ‘the gospel’ (the message). Mark-specific: Mark 1:1 programmatically titles the whole book ‘the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God,’ making Mark itself the likely origin point of this exact confusion for many readers; also recurs at 1:14-15; 8:35; 10:29; 13:10; 14:9.
Apostle
Approved rendering: apostle
Transliteration: apostolos
Doctrine: Faith and Discipleship amid Fear
Rejected alternatives: an apostle of free trade (loose secular ‘leading advocate’ usage)
Original: ἀπόστολος
Category: Church
Inherited from Romans package. Distinguish from a generic messenger or spiritual-teacher role. Mark-specific: the appointment of the Twelve (3:14-19) deliberately echoes Israel’s twelve tribes, constituting a new-covenant community; reused again at their commissioning (6:7,30).
Son Of God
Approved rendering: Son of God
Transliteration: huios theou
Doctrine: Jesus as the Suffering Servant and Son of God
Original: υἱὸς θεοῦ
Category: Christology
Inherited from Romans package. Popular ‘historical Jesus’ narratives can strip theological content even while retaining the phrase. Mark-specific: structurally bookends the whole Gospel (1:1; 15:39), climaxing in a Gentile centurion’s confession at the cross itself; risk tier rises toward Critical in Passion-narrative contexts where the claim is made under maximal doubt.
Kingdom Of God
Approved rendering: kingdom of God
Transliteration: basileia tou theou
Doctrine: The Kingdom of God Breaking In
Rejected alternatives: a fantasy kingdom (Tolkien-esque/‘Game of Thrones’-style media associations)
Original: βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ
Category: Kingdom
Inherited from Romans package. Fantasy-fiction association risks a fictional-realm reading. Mark-specific: Mark’s central organizing theme from the first proclamation (1:15) onward; paired with the High-risk ‘at hand’ verb (see below).
Gentiles
Approved rendering: Gentiles
Transliteration: ta ethnē
Doctrine: The Kingdom of God Breaking In / The Ransom for Many
Rejected alternatives: non-believers (incorrect modern gloss)
Original: τὰ ἔθνη
Category: Church
Inherited from Romans package. Do not gloss as ‘non-believers.’ Mark-specific: the Syrophoenician woman episode (7:24-30) and Olivet Discourse (13:10) trace a narrative arc toward full gospel extension to the Gentiles, distinct from but related to Romans’ covenantal argument.
Glory
Approved rendering: glory
Transliteration: doxa
Doctrine: Jesus as the Suffering Servant and Son of God
Rejected alternatives: glory days (nostalgic usage), a glory hound (pejorative self-seeking usage)
Inherited from Romans package. Modern usage skews to nostalgia or self-seeking attention. Mark-specific: James and John’s request (10:37) rightly anticipates Jesus’ future glory but wrongly assumes it is reachable ahead of the cross; recurs at 8:38 and the Son of Man’s coming ‘in glory’ (13:26) — glory in Mark is reached only through suffering, never around it.
Messiah
Approved rendering: Messiah
Transliteration: Christos / Mashiach
Doctrine: Jesus as the Suffering Servant and Son of God / The Messianic Secret
Rejected alternatives: a messiah complex (pop-psychology pejorative for grandiosity)
Original: Χριστός
Category: Christology
Inherited from Romans package. Peter’s confession (8:29) is Mark’s structural turning point, immediately redefined by the necessity of suffering (8:31) — a corrective to popular triumphalist messianic expectation.
Prophet
Approved rendering: prophet
Transliteration: prophētēs
Doctrine: Jesus as the Suffering Servant and Son of God
Rejected alternatives: a tech prophet / prophet of doom (loose secular forecaster usage)
Original: προφήτης
Category: Covenant
Inherited from Romans package. Mark-specific: Jesus accepts ‘prophet’ as true of himself (6:4,15; 8:28) but insufficient, since Mark’s fuller Christology (Son of God, Son of Man, Lord) claims far more than prophetic office alone.
Jesus
Approved rendering: Jesus
Transliteration: Iēsous
Doctrine: Jesus as the Suffering Servant and Son of God
Rejected alternatives: Jesus (casual interjection/expletive)
Original: Ἰησοῦς
Category: Christology
Inherited from Romans package. Mark-specific: popular ‘historical Jesus’ framings (wise teacher, social reformer) are especially relevant here since Mark’s whole narrative arc (culminating at 8:27-30) works against reducing Jesus to prophetic-teacher status alone.
God
Approved rendering: God
Transliteration: theos
Doctrine: Jesus as the Suffering Servant and Son of God
Rejected alternatives: a higher power / the universe (vague impersonal substitutes)
Original: θεός
Category: God
Inherited from Romans package. Mark-specific: God’s direct speech (‘You are my beloved Son,’ 1:11; 9:7) anchors Mark’s Christology in the Father’s own testimony, not merely narrator commentary.
Holy Spirit
Approved rendering: Holy Spirit
Transliteration: pneuma hagion
Doctrine: Jesus’ Authority over Sickness, Sin, and Nature
Rejected alternatives: good vibes / positive energy (vague wellness-culture substitutes)
Original: πνεῦμα ἅγιον
Category: God
Inherited from Romans package. Mark-specific: descends on Jesus at baptism (1:10) and drives him into the wilderness (1:12) — active, personal divine agency, not vague ‘spirituality.‘
Father
Approved rendering: Father
Transliteration: patēr
Doctrine: Jesus as the Suffering Servant and Son of God
Original: πατήρ
Category: God
Inherited from Romans package. Mark-specific: paired with ‘Abba’ at Gethsemane (14:36) as the emotional and theological low point immediately preceding the Passion.
Abba
Approved rendering: Abba
Transliteration: Abba
Doctrine: The Necessity of the Cross
Rejected alternatives: ABBA (the Swedish pop group)
Original: Ἀββά
Category: God
Inherited from Romans package, including the specific caution about the pop group ABBA. Mark-specific: Jesus’ own Gethsemane prayer (‘Abba, Father… remove this cup from me,’ 14:36) directly completes the cup motif introduced in the core passage (10:38-39) — Jesus himself drinks the very cup he told James and John he must drink.
Repentance
Approved rendering: repentance
Transliteration: metanoeō / metanoia
Doctrine: The Kingdom of God Breaking In
Rejected alternatives: feeling sorry / apologizing (emotional-state reduction)
Original: μετανοέω / μετάνοια
Category: Kingdom
NEW term. A whole-person reorientation of mind, will, and allegiance-direction, not mere regret. Carries a mild negative ‘fire-and-brimstone street-preacher’ cultural coding that can trigger premature dismissal (1:4,15; 6:12).
Temptation
Approved rendering: temptation
Transliteration: peirasmos / peirazō
Doctrine: The Necessity of the Cross
Rejected alternatives: minor personal indulgence (dessert, impulse purchase)
Original: πειρασμός / πειράζω
Category: Christology
NEW term. Everyday usage trivializes ‘temptation’ to small indulgence; Mark’s wilderness scene (1:12-13) is cosmic, adversarial, Satan-versus-Messiah in scale and frames Jesus as the true, faithful Israel/Adam figure.
Follow
Approved rendering: follow
Transliteration: akoloutheō
Doctrine: Faith and Discipleship amid Fear
Rejected alternatives: follow (social-media ‘follow,’ a low-commitment single click)
Original: ἀκολουθέω
Category: Discipleship
NEW term. Mark’s technical, allegiance-defining discipleship term (1:18; 8:34; 10:52). A genuinely new false-friend risk unique to the digital era: social-media ‘follow’ now competes directly with, and can trivialize, this costly sense.
Unclean Spirit Demon
Approved rendering: unclean spirit / demon
Transliteration: pneuma akatharton / daimonion
Doctrine: Jesus’ Authority over Sickness, Sin, and Nature
Original: πνεῦμα ἀκάθαρτον / δαιμόνιον
Category: Spiritual Warfare
NEW term. Cuts two ways: secular skepticism dismisses the demonic as pre-scientific mental-illness language; horror-genre media sensationalizes it. Both distort Mark’s sober, restrained presentation (1:23-27,34; 3:11,22; 5:1-20; 7:24-30; 9:14-29).
Heal
Approved rendering: heal
Transliteration: therapeuō
Doctrine: Jesus’ Authority over Sickness, Sin, and Nature
Original: θεραπεύω
Category: Authority
NEW term. Restoration to physical health/wholeness (1:29-34,40-45; 3:2,10; 6:5,13). Mild drift only: modern ‘therapy/therapeutic’ associations subtly recolor the word without seriously displacing the underlying concept.
Forgive Sins
Approved rendering: forgive
Transliteration: aphiēmi (hamartias)
Doctrine: Jesus’ Authority over Sickness, Sin, and Nature
Original: ἀφίημι (ἁμαρτίας)
Category: Salvation
NEW term. Divine release/cancellation of sin’s guilt, an exclusively divine prerogative (2:5-12; 3:28-29; 11:25). Everyday ‘forgive a friend’ is a decent anchor, but readers may miss why this act provoked a blasphemy charge unless the exclusive divine prerogative is stated explicitly.
Blasphemy
Approved rendering: blasphemy
Transliteration: blasphēmia
Doctrine: Jesus’ Authority over Sickness, Sin, and Nature / The Messianic Secret
Rejected alternatives: blasphemy against my ideology (loose modern-secular stretch)
Original: βλασφημία
Category: Sin
NEW term. Verbal dishonoring of God’s unique majesty, a capital legal charge in first-century Judaism (2:7; 3:28-29; 14:64); Mark presents the charge as unwittingly correct evidence of exactly who Jesus is.
Sabbath
Approved rendering: Sabbath
Transliteration: sabbaton
Doctrine: Jesus’ Authority over Sickness, Sin, and Nature
Original: σάββατον
Category: Law
NEW term. The weekly rest day commanded in the Law, governed by detailed legal debate in Jesus’ day (2:23-28; 3:1-6); readers lacking lived Sabbath practice need the life-and-death legal stakes supplied.
Satan
Approved rendering: Satan
Transliteration: Satanas
Doctrine: Jesus’ Authority over Sickness, Sin, and Nature / The Necessity of the Cross
Rejected alternatives: the devil made me do it (trivializing idiom)
Original: Σατανᾶς
Category: Spiritual Warfare
NEW term. The personal, chief spiritual adversary (1:13; 3:23-26; 4:15; 8:33). Pop-culture caricature trivializes; horror-genre fascination over-sensationalizes; Mark’s own presentation is sober and restrained.
Parable
Approved rendering: parable
Transliteration: parabolē
Doctrine: The Kingdom of God Breaking In / The Messianic Secret
Rejected alternatives: a simple morality fable (Aesop’s-fables genre expectation)
Original: παραβολή
Category: Kingdom
NEW term. Deliberately functions to both reveal and conceal (4:11-12; 3:23; 12:1-12), depending on the hearer’s disposition — a concealing function contemporary genre expectations commonly miss.
Mystery
Approved rendering: mystery / secret
Transliteration: mystērion
Doctrine: The Kingdom of God Breaking In / The Messianic Secret
Rejected alternatives: a detective-novel mystery (solved by clues and deduction)
Original: μυστήριον
Category: Kingdom
NEW term. Divine truth graciously disclosed by God’s initiative (4:11), not a puzzle solved by human cleverness — the reverse of the dominant modern genre association.
Legion
Approved rendering: Legion
Transliteration: legiōn
Doctrine: Jesus’ Authority over Sickness, Sin, and Nature
Rejected alternatives: a lot of demons (a paraphrase erasing the imperial-power resonance)
Original: λεγιών
Category: Spiritual Warfare
NEW term. A Roman military legion (roughly 6,000 soldiers) adopted as the demon’s self-identification (5:9); obscure without Roman-military background, which is needed to grasp the imperial-power resonance.
Unbelief
Approved rendering: unbelief
Transliteration: apistia
Doctrine: Faith and Discipleship amid Fear
Original: ἀπιστία
Category: Faith
NEW term (negative of ‘faith’). A real obstacle even to Jesus’ own ministry’s reception (6:6; 9:24). Fairly stable in ordinary speech; mainly an obsolescence rather than false-friend risk.
Tradition Of The Elders
Approved rendering: tradition
Transliteration: paradosis (tōn presbyterōn)
Doctrine: Jesus’ Authority over Sickness, Sin, and Nature
Original: παράδοσις (τῶν πρεσβυτέρων)
Category: Law
NEW term. Accumulated oral legal interpretation surrounding the Law (7:1-13). Denominational-contest-adjacent: traditions valuing church tradition vs. sola scriptura may hear Jesus’ critique differently; state Jesus critiques tradition that nullifies God’s command specifically, not tradition as such.
Clean Unclean
Approved rendering: clean / unclean
Transliteration: katharos / akathartos (koinos)
Doctrine: Jesus’ Authority over Sickness, Sin, and Nature
Rejected alternatives: a generic ‘it’s what’s inside that counts’ self-help sentiment
Original: καθαρός / ἀκάθαρτος (κοινός)
Category: Law
NEW term. Ceremonial purity categories relocated by Jesus to the heart’s moral condition (7:15,20-23). Readers with no lived purity-law framework need the ceremonial/moral distinction actively explained to avoid flattening the passage’s covenantal stakes.
Deny Oneself
Approved rendering: deny himself
Transliteration: aparneomai
Doctrine: The Necessity of the Cross
Rejected alternatives: be true to yourself / self-care (contemporary authenticity-culture counter-values)
Original: ἀπαρνέομαι
Category: Discipleship
NEW term. To formally disown or renounce allegiance to oneself/one’s own claims (8:34; 14:30,72), the internal posture matching cross-bearing. Contemporary self-actualization culture is broadly resistant to any positively-framed self-denial call.
Soul Life
Approved rendering: soul / life
Transliteration: psychē
Doctrine: The Necessity of the Cross / The Ransom for Many
Rejected alternatives: soul (imports a body/soul dualism not equivalent to psychē’s holistic sense)
Original: ψυχή
Category: Discipleship
NEW term. The whole animating self, not merely biological life or an immaterial component distinct from the body (8:35-37; 10:45; 12:30). Most translations render ‘life,’ which is safer but loses the connection to ‘soul’ language elsewhere.
Transfigured
Approved rendering: transfigured
Transliteration: metemorphōthē
Doctrine: Jesus as the Suffering Servant and Son of God
Original: μετεμορφώθη
Category: Christology
NEW term. A visible, temporary unveiling of Jesus’ pre-existing divine glory, not a transformation into something new (9:2-8). Obscurity risk only; almost no life in ordinary English outside this narrative.
Gehenna
Approved rendering: hell
Transliteration: geenna
Doctrine: The Necessity of the Cross
Rejected alternatives: cartoon devils-and-pitchforks imagery, go to hell (casual profanity)
Original: γέεννα
Category: Eschatology
NEW term. Final judgment, named from a literal valley near Jerusalem associated with idolatrous child sacrifice and later refuse-burning (9:43-47). Cartoon/pop-culture baggage either trivializes or over-mythologizes; the concrete Valley of Hinnom background should ground the image.
Eternal Life
Approved rendering: eternal life
Transliteration: zōē aiōnios
Doctrine: The Kingdom of God Breaking In
Rejected alternatives: living forever (a merely quantitative endless-duration substitute)
Original: ζωὴ αἰώνιος
Category: Eschatology
NEW term. Qualitative, kingdom-age life with God, not merely unending duration (10:17,30). Sci-fi/immortality-narrative associations risk substituting a quantitative idea for Mark’s relational, kingdom-age one.
Hand Over Betray
Approved rendering: betray / hand over
Transliteration: paradidōmi
Doctrine: The Necessity of the Cross
Original: παραδίδωμι
Category: Christology
NEW term. Human treachery operating simultaneously with divine foreordained plan (10:33; 14:10-11,18,21,41-42). Personal-betrayal-drama resonance is emotionally helpful but risks missing that this betrayal fulfills, rather than derails, God’s revealed plan.
Hosanna
Approved rendering: Hosanna
Transliteration: hōsanna
Doctrine: The Kingdom of God Breaking In
Original: ὡσαννά
Category: Kingdom
NEW term. Originally a cry for deliverance (Psalm 118:25); by Jesus’ day, largely an acclamation of praise/welcome (11:9-10). Most readers know it only as a liturgical hymn-word, missing its original cry-for-salvation force and the crowd’s nationalist-political hope — an enthusiasm Mark shows curdling into ‘Crucify him!’ within days.
House Of Prayer Den Of Robbers
Approved rendering: house of prayer / den of robbers
Transliteration: oikos proseuchēs / spēlaion lēstōn
Doctrine: The Kingdom of God Breaking In
Rejected alternatives: a generic anti-commercialism proof-text (‘money in church is wrong’)
Original: οἶκος προσευχῆς / σπήλαιον λῃστῶν
Category: Kingdom
NEW term. A quotation combining Isaiah 56:7 and Jeremiah 7:11 (11:15-17), a prophetic judgment sign-act on the temple establishment, not primarily a protest against commerce; popular readings flatten to generic anti-commercialism.
Stone The Builders Rejected
Approved rendering: the stone the builders rejected
Transliteration: lithon hon apedokimasan
Doctrine: Jesus as the Suffering Servant and Son of God / The Necessity of the Cross
Original: λίθον ὃν ἀπεδοκίμασαν
Category: Christology
NEW term. A quotation of Psalm 118:22-23 (12:10-11), applied to Jesus as the rejected-yet-vindicated cornerstone; needs ancient building/cornerstone practice explained to grasp the reversal it pictures.
Watch Be Alert
Approved rendering: watch / be alert
Transliteration: grēgoreite
Doctrine: The Kingdom of God Breaking In
Rejected alternatives: be careful (a generic flattening that loses eschatological urgency)
Original: γρηγορεῖτε
Category: Eschatology
NEW term. Physical wakefulness extended to eschatological vigilance (13:33,35,37); risk of flattening into generic advice, losing the explicit ‘no one knows the day or hour’ restraint against speculative date-setting (13:32).
Passover
Approved rendering: Passover
Transliteration: pascha
Doctrine: The Ransom for Many / The Necessity of the Cross
Original: πάσχα
Category: Covenant
NEW term. The annual Exodus-commemorating feast, reinterpreted by Jesus around his own imminent sacrificial death (14:12-25). Handle with sensitivity to Jewish tradition; avoid supersessionist over-simplification.
Temple Curtain Torn
Approved rendering: temple curtain torn
Transliteration: to katapetasma…eschisthē
Doctrine: The Ransom for Many
Original: τὸ καταπέτασμα…ἐσχίσθη
Category: Salvation
NEW term. The Holy-of-Holies veil torn ‘from top to bottom’ at Jesus’ death (15:38), a visible sign of opened access to God. Needs temple-architecture and theological-significance background actively supplied.
Low Risk Terms
David
Approved rendering: David
Transliteration: Dauid
Doctrine: Jesus as the Suffering Servant and Son of God
Original: Δαυίδ
Category: Covenant
Inherited from Romans package. Mark-specific: invoked as ‘Son of David’ (10:47-48; 11:10) and in Jesus’ own Psalm 110 argument (12:35-37) pressing beyond mere descent from David to transcendence over David.
Beelzebul
Approved rendering: Beelzebul
Transliteration: Beelzeboul
Doctrine: Jesus’ Authority over Sickness, Sin, and Nature
Original: Βεελζεβούλ
Category: Spiritual Warfare
NEW term. A derogatory title (‘lord of the house/dung’) for the ‘prince of demons’ (3:22). Obsolescence risk only; requires simple identification, not correction of a competing modern association.
Talitha Koum
Approved rendering: Talitha koum
Transliteration: talitha koum(i)
Doctrine: Jesus as the Suffering Servant and Son of God
Original: ταλιθὰ κούμ(ι)
Category: Christology
NEW term. Aramaic for ‘little girl, arise’ (5:41), Jesus’ preserved spoken words. Obsolescence risk only; no competing modern association, unlike ‘Abba.‘
Corban
Approved rendering: Corban
Transliteration: korban
Doctrine: Jesus’ Authority over Sickness, Sin, and Nature
Original: κορβάν
Category: Law
NEW term. A vow dedicating an asset to the temple, abused to evade family duty (7:11). Obscure technical term requiring definition, not correction of an existing wrong association.
Referenced passages