Core Glossary
Core Glossary — Revelation (Full Book)
English destination-language term registry, extending the Romans baseline
This glossary indexes every load-bearing term identified in analysis/07_semantic_analysis.md, across the entire book of Revelation (chapters 1–22), citing occurrences from every chapter. It extends, and does not contradict, the baseline Romans translation_memory.json and bible_term_registry.json. Terms already recorded in the baseline must reuse the recorded English rendering exactly; this glossary marks these “Baseline reuse” and adds only Revelation-specific notes.
Risk categories (extending the baseline’s three categories with two new categories required by this book’s genre and reception history):
- False-friend drift — a strong competing secular/legal/everyday meaning silently displaces the theological sense.
- Denominational contest — English-speaking Christian traditions disagree on the term’s meaning.
- Obsolescence/obscurity — the term is rare in ordinary contemporary speech.
- Genre-drift / literalist-symbolic misreading (new — required by apocalyptic genre) — disaster-film, horror, and conspiracy-theory culture attaches specific, often anachronistic pop-cultural content, producing flattened literalism or dismissive “just symbolic” readings.
- Historic-misuse risk (new — required by this book’s reception history) — a phrase has a documented history of being weaponized against a group of people in ways the text does not intend.
Section A — Terms Reused Exactly from the Baseline Romans Translation Memory
| Term | Original | Baseline Risk | Rendering | Key Revelation References | Revelation-Specific Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| God | θεός | Critical | God | throughout | Reused exactly; see “the one seated on the throne,” “Almighty” |
| Lord | κύριος | Critical | Lord | 1:8; 4:8,11; 11:15; 15:4; 17:14; 19:16; 22:20-21 | Reused exactly; intensified in “King of kings and Lord of lords” (19:16) — see Section B |
| Jesus | Ἰησοῦς | Critical | Jesus | 1:1,2,5,9; 12:17; 14:12; 17:6; 19:10; 20:4; 22:16,20-21 | Reused exactly |
| Messiah / Christ | Χριστός | Critical | Christ / Messiah | 1:1,2,5; 11:15; 12:10; 20:4,6 | Reused exactly; note 11:15’s “his Christ” ties directly into “kingdom of God” |
| Holy Spirit | πνεῦμα ἅγιον / τὸ Πνεῦμα | Critical | Holy Spirit | 1:4,10; 2:7,11,17,29; 3:6,13,22; 4:2,5; 14:13; 17:3; 19:10; 21:10; 22:17 | Reused exactly; also “the seven spirits” (1:4; 4:5) requires a clarifying note distinguishing symbolic sevenfold fullness from a claim of multiple Spirits |
| faith / faithful | πίστις / πιστός | High | faith / faithful | 2:10,13,19; 13:10; 14:12; 17:14; 21:5; 22:6 | Reused exactly; direct antonym “unbelieving” (ἄπιστος) appears 21:8 |
| grace | χάρις | Critical | grace | 1:4; 22:21 | Reused exactly; frames both the opening greeting and closing benediction of the book |
| glory | δόξα | Medium | glory | 1:6; 4:9,11; 5:12-13; 7:12; 11:13; 14:7; 15:8; 16:9; 18:1; 19:1,7; 21:11,23-24,26 | Reused exactly; unusually vivid positive/concrete usage in 21:11,23 (literal light source) |
| salvation | σωτηρία | Critical | salvation | 7:10; 12:10; 19:1 | Reused exactly; consistently corporate/doxological usage (“Salvation belongs to our God”) rather than individual-conversion usage |
| resurrection | ἀνάστασις | High | resurrection | 20:5-6,12-13 | Reused exactly; “the first resurrection” (20:5-6) is Critical-tier due to added millennium denominational contest — see Section B |
| holy | ἅγιος | Medium | holy | 3:7; 4:8; 6:10; 11:2; 20:6; 21:2,10; 22:11,19 | Reused exactly; Trisagion (4:8) intensifies via triple repetition |
| saints | ἅγιοι | High | saints | 5:8; 8:3-4; 11:18; 13:7,10; 14:12; 16:6; 17:6; 18:24; 19:8; 20:9 | Reused exactly; consistently corporate, never an ascetic elite |
| sanctification / holiness concept | ἁγιασμός (concept) | Medium | (concept reused; term itself not lexically present in Revelation) | cf. 22:11 “let the holy be holy still” | No direct occurrence of the noun; concept present via “holy” usage |
| church(es) | ἐκκλησία / ἐκκλησίαι | Critical | church(es) | 1:4,11,20; 2:1,7,8,11,12,17,18,23,29; 3:1,6,7,13,14,22; 22:16 | Reused exactly; plural “churches” — see Section B for the specific-local vs. representative-universal tension |
| kingdom of God | βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ (concept) / ἡ βασιλεία | Medium | kingdom of God / kingdom | 1:6,9; 5:10; 11:15; 12:10 | Reused exactly; 11:15 and 12:10 are climactic thesis-level occurrences |
| covenant | διαθήκη (concept) | High | covenant | 11:19 (ark of the covenant); underlying 21:3,7 covenant formula | Reused exactly; core-passage covenant formula (21:3,7) is the most purely relational, least contractual use in the whole canon — valuable corrective to baseline’s legal-document caution |
| sin | ἁμαρτία (concept) | High | sin | underlies “second death,” 21:8 vice list, 22:15 | No frequent direct lexical occurrence; concept present throughout judgment material |
| Israel | Ἰσραήλ | Medium | Israel | 2:14; 7:4; 21:12 (twelve tribes) | Reused exactly; live contemporary geopolitical association must be distinguished from the twelve-tribes covenant reference |
| David | Δαβίδ | Low | David | 3:7 (key of David); 5:5; 22:16 (Root/Offspring of David) | Reused exactly; ties Davidic covenant background (baseline ch.1-8 note) directly into Christ’s messianic identity in Revelation |
| gospel | εὐαγγέλιον | Medium | gospel | 14:6 (eternal gospel) | Reused exactly; adds an eschatological-universal-proclamation dimension |
| prophet / prophecy | προφήτης / προφητεία | Medium/Low | prophet / prophecy | 1:3; 10:7; 11:3,10,18; 16:6; 18:20,24; 19:10; 22:6-7,9-10,18-19 | Reused exactly; “false prophet” (16:13;19:20;20:10) is the direct antonym — see Section B |
| Gentiles / nations | ἔθνη | Medium | Gentiles / the nations | 2:26; 7:9; 11:2,9,18; 12:5; 14:8; 15:3-4; 16:19; 18:3,23; 19:15; 20:3,8; 21:24,26; 22:2 | Reused exactly (rendered “the nations” per context, consistent with baseline note that “Gentiles” ≠ “non-believers”) |
| adoption (sonship concept) | υἱοθεσία (concept) | Low | inheritance / children of God | 21:7 (“I will be their God and they will be my children”) | Reused exactly; extends baseline’s full-inheritance-rights emphasis to the overcomer’s promise |
Section B — New Terms Introduced by Revelation (Not in Baseline Romans TM)
| Term | Original / Transliteration | Doctrine Category | Risk Tier | Rendering | Key References | Translation Risk Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revelation / Apocalypse | ἀποκάλυψις / apokalypsis | Symbolic and Apocalyptic Interpretation | High | revelation | 1:1 (title) | Genre-drift: contemporary “apocalyptic” means cataclysmic destruction, nearly inverting the word’s actual sense of disclosure/unveiling |
| Sign / to signify | σημαίνω, σημεῖον / sēmainō, sēmeion | Symbolic and Apocalyptic Interpretation | High | sign / signify | 1:1; 12:1,3; 13:13-14; 15:1; 16:14; 19:20 | Most English translations flatten “signified” to “made known,” losing the book’s own built-in hermeneutical signal to read symbolically |
| Endurance / perseverance | ὑπομονή / hypomonē | Perseverance and Faithful Witness under Persecution | High | endurance / perseverance | 1:9; 2:2-3,19; 3:10; 13:10; 14:12 | Modern “patience” too weak; secular “resilience/grit” culture strips out the Christ-directed, faith-rooted character |
| Witness / testimony / martyr | μαρτυρία, μάρτυς / martyria, martys | Perseverance and Faithful Witness under Persecution | High | witness / testimony | 1:2,5,9; 2:13; 6:9; 11:3,7; 12:11,17; 17:6; 20:4 | English “martyr” narrowed to “killed for a cause,” plus trivializing pop-psychology “martyr complex” usage |
| Almighty | Παντοκράτωρ / Pantokratōr | Sovereignty of God over History | Medium | Almighty | 1:8; 4:8; 11:17; 15:3; 16:14; 19:6,15; 21:22 | Risks vague-superlative or impersonal-power reading rather than personal, purposive sovereignty |
| Alpha and Omega / Beginning and End | τὸ Ἄλφα καὶ τὸ Ὦ / to Alpha kai to Ō | Sovereignty of God over History; Return and Reign of Christ | Medium | Alpha and Omega | 1:8; 21:6; 22:13 | Shared title for God (1:8;21:6) and Christ (22:13) — load-bearing for Christ’s deity; modern “alpha” pop-psychology usage risks dominance-connotation drift |
| Who is, who was, who is to come | ὁ ὢν καὶ ὁ ἦν καὶ ὁ ἐρχόμενος | Sovereignty of God over History | Medium | who is, who was, and who is to come | 1:4,8; 4:8 | Divine-name (Exodus 3:14) echo; risk of narrowing to “future second coming” only |
| Son of Man | υἱὸς ἀνθρώπου / huios anthrōpou | Return and Reign of Christ | Medium | Son of Man | 1:13; 14:14 | Danielic royal-judicial title, distinct from baseline “Son of God”; must not be collapsed into either “mere human” or a synonym for Sonship-as-deity |
| Hades | ᾅδης / Hadēs | Judgment of the Wicked and Vindication of the Saints | High | Hades | 1:18; 6:8; 20:13-14 | Routinely conflated with “Hell”/lake of fire in contemporary usage; text distinguishes Hades (intermediate state) from the lake of fire (final judgment) |
| Repent | μετανοέω / metanoeō | Perseverance and Faithful Witness; Judgment of the Wicked | High | repent | 2:5,16,21-22; 3:3,19; 9:20-21; 16:9,11 | Trivialized by cartoonish street-preacher caricature; risk of flattening to mere regret rather than full reorientation |
| Overcome / conqueror | νικάω / nikaō | Perseverance and Faithful Witness; Assurance of Final Victory | Medium | overcome / the one who overcomes | 2:7,11,17,26; 3:5,12,21; 5:5; 6:2; 11:7; 12:11; 15:2; 17:14; 21:7 | Self-help/motivational-branding culture reframes as self-generated triumph, obscuring “by the blood of the Lamb” (12:11) |
| Satan / devil | Σατανᾶς, διάβολος / Satanas, diabolos | Sovereignty of God over History; Assurance of Final Victory | Medium | Satan / devil | 2:9-10,13,24; 3:9; 12:9; 20:2,7,10 | Both trivialized (cartoon-devil imagery) and sensationalized (horror-genre tropes) in popular culture |
| Synagogue of Satan | συναγωγὴ τοῦ Σατανᾶ | (historic-misuse caution; adjacent to Unity of Jews and Gentiles) | Critical | synagogue of Satan | 2:9; 3:9 | Historic-misuse risk: documented history of anti-Jewish weaponization; must be explained as a localized first-century local dispute, not a statement about Judaism generally |
| Crown | στέφανος / stephanos | Perseverance and Faithful Witness | Medium | crown | 2:10; 3:11; 4:4,10; 6:2; 9:7; 12:1; 14:14 | English collapses victor’s-wreath (stephanos) and royal-crown (diadēma) into one word; modern “crown” evokes monarchy, not athletic victory |
| Second death | ὁ θάνατος ὁ δεύτερος | Judgment of the Wicked and Vindication of the Saints | Critical | second death | 2:11; 20:6,14; 21:8 | Book’s own unique technical term for final judgment; denominational contest over ontological nature (eternal conscious torment / conditional immortality / minority universalist-leaning readings) |
| Morning star | ὁ ἀστὴρ ὁ πρωϊνός / astēr prōinos | Return and Reign of Christ | High | morning star | 2:28; 22:16 | Same image applied positively to Christ here but popularly (mis)associated, via KJV Isaiah 14:12 tradition, with a name for Satan — requires explicit disambiguation |
| Book of life | βιβλίον/βίβλος τῆς ζωῆς | Judgment of the Wicked and Vindication of the Saints | Medium | book of life | 3:5; 13:8; 17:8; 20:12,15; 21:27; 22:19 | Generic pop-culture “book of life”/destiny metaphor dilutes the specific judicial-registry sense |
| The Amen (title) | ὁ Ἀμήν / ho Amēn | Return and Reign of Christ; Christ’s faithfulness | Medium | the Amen | 3:14 | ”Amen” reduced to closing liturgical word/casual affirmation; unlikely to be recognized as a personal title for Christ without flagging |
| Lukewarm | χλιαρός / chliaros | Perseverance and Faithful Witness | Low-Medium | lukewarm | 3:16 | Rare positive case: idiom derived directly from this passage reinforces rather than undermines the biblical sense |
| Throne | θρόνος / thronos | Sovereignty of God over History | Medium | throne | 40+ occurrences throughout | Fantasy-genre “contested throne” entertainment culture risks framing God’s throne as one prize among rivals rather than settled, uncontested sovereignty |
| Worthy | ἄξιος / axios | Worship of the Lamb | Medium | worthy | 4:11; 5:2,4,9,12 | Self-esteem/marketing-culture “worthy/worth it” language dilutes the exclusive Christological claim |
| Lamb | ἀρνίον / arnion | Worship of the Lamb; central Christological title | Critical | Lamb | 5:6,8,12-13; 6:1,16; 7:9-10,14,17; 12:11; 13:8,11; 14:1,4,10; 15:3; 17:14; 19:7,9; 21:9,14,22-23,27; 22:1,3 | Central, unique Christological title; risk of sentimentalizing (cute/gentle) and losing the paradoxical conquering-sovereign dimension; distinct from amnos (John 1:29) |
| Worship | προσκυνέω / proskyneō | Worship of the Lamb | High | worship | 4:10; 5:14; 7:11; 9:20; 11:16; 13:4,8,12,15; 14:7,9,11; 15:4; 16:2; 19:4,10,20; 20:4; 22:8-9 | Secular hyperbolic usage (“worship the ground she walks on”) trivializes the term; text’s own refused-worship scenes (19:10;22:8-9) are a built-in corrective |
| Dragon | δράκων / drakōn | Sovereignty of God over History; Assurance of Final Victory | High | dragon | 12:3,7,9,13,16-17; 13:2,4,11; 16:13; 20:2 | Fantasy-genre “dragon” imagery risks fictionalizing a real spiritual enemy; text explicitly identifies dragon = ancient serpent = Satan (12:9) |
| Beast | θηρίον / thērion | Judgment of the Wicked; Sovereignty of God over History | Critical | beast | 13:1-18; 14:9,11; 15:2; 16:2,10,13; 17:3,7-8,11-13,16-17; 19:19-20; 20:4,10 | Pop-culture/conspiracy saturation; popularly mislabeled “the Antichrist,” a term never actually used in Revelation |
| Mark (of the beast) | χάραγμα / charagma | Judgment of the Wicked | Critical | mark | 13:16-17; 14:9,11; 16:2; 19:20; 20:4 | Live, current conspiracy-theory associations (microchips, vaccines) go well beyond and often against the text’s first-century economic-exclusion referent |
| 666 | ἑξήκοντα ἕξ / hexēkonta hex | Symbolic and Apocalyptic Interpretation | Critical | 666 | 13:18 | Free-floating secular “number of evil” symbol divorced from its specific first-century gematria-based referent |
| False prophet | ψευδοπροφήτης / pseudoprophētēs | Judgment of the Wicked | Medium | false prophet | 13:11-17; 16:13; 19:20; 20:10 | Reinforces baseline “prophet” caution by presenting its dark counterfeit |
| Babylon the great | Βαβυλὼν ἡ μεγάλη / Babylōn hē megalē | Judgment of the Wicked; Sovereignty of God over History | High | Babylon | 14:8; 16:19; 17:5; 18:2,10,21 | Pop-culture usage (Rastafarian, band names, “Sin City”) both reinforces and narrows the text’s broader “any anti-God empire” symbol; live interpretive debate over referent |
| Armageddon | Ἁρμαγεδών / Harmagedōn | Judgment of the Wicked; Assurance of Final Victory | Critical | Armageddon | 16:16 | Among the most secularized biblical loanwords in English; generic “catastrophic conflict” usage entirely detached from the text’s specific, debated symbolic referent |
| Great prostitute | ἡ πόρνη ἡ μεγάλη / hē pornē hē megalē | Judgment of the Wicked | High | the great prostitute | 17:1,5,15-16; 19:2 | KJV “whore” now vulgar; OT covenant-unfaithfulness idiom risks being misheard as demeaning to women rather than to the corrupt system it symbolizes |
| Hallelujah | Ἀλληλουϊά / Allēlouia | Worship of the Lamb | Medium | Hallelujah | 19:1,3-4,6 | Secularized generic exclamation of relief/triumph dilutes direct address to God; Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus” is a mild cultural asset |
| Marriage / wedding supper of the Lamb | ὁ γάμος τοῦ ἀρνίου / ho gamos tou arniou | Church as Bride of Christ | Medium | marriage / wedding supper of the Lamb | 19:7,9 | Wedding-industry romantic/commercial saturation flattens covenantal, corporate depth into sentimental romance imagery |
| Word of God (title) | ὁ λόγος τοῦ θεοῦ / ho logos tou theou | Return and Reign of Christ | Medium | the Word of God | 19:13 | Overwhelmingly identified today with Scripture-as-book, risking loss of the personal Christological title sense here |
| King of kings and Lord of lords | Βασιλεὺς βασιλέων καὶ Κύριος κυρίων | Return and Reign of Christ; Lordship of Christ (baseline extension) | Critical | King of kings and Lord of lords | 19:16 | Directly extends baseline’s Critical “Lord” risk; commercial/entertainment usage of “King of Kings” flattens the absolute, exclusive claim |
| Lake of fire | ἡ λίμνη τοῦ πυρός / hē limnē tou pyros | Judgment of the Wicked and Vindication of the Saints | Critical | lake of fire | 19:20; 20:10,14-15; 21:8 | Archaic “brimstone” idiom risks caricature (“fire and brimstone preaching”); denominational contest over final state parallels “second death” |
| A thousand years / the millennium | χίλια ἔτη / chilia etē | The Return and Reign of Christ | Critical | a thousand years / the millennium | 20:2-7 | Single largest denominational fault-line in the book (premillennial / amillennial / postmillennial readings); mandatory transparent statement of the curriculum’s own position |
| Gog and Magog | Γὼγ καὶ Μαγώγ | Judgment of the Wicked | Medium | Gog and Magog | 20:8 | OT background (Ezekiel 38-39) largely unfamiliar; fringe contemporary speculative identification with specific modern nations should be flagged and cautioned against |
| Great white throne | θρόνος λευκὸς μέγας | Judgment of the Wicked and Vindication of the Saints | High | the great white throne | 20:11 | Extends baseline’s Critical “Universal Human Accountability” into its climactic Revelation-specific staging; non-judgmental culture resists final individual accounting |
| New (qualitative) | καινός / kainos | New Heaven and New Earth | High | new | 21:1,5; 3:12; 2:17; 5:9; 14:3; 21:2 | Contemporary marketing-driven “new” (planned obsolescence, “new and improved”) flattens qualitative renewal into mere replacement-in-sequence |
| Holy city, new Jerusalem | ἡ πόλις ἡ ἁγία, Ἰερουσαλὴμ καινή | New Heaven and New Earth | High | new Jerusalem | 3:12; 21:2,10 | Live contemporary geopolitical association with the modern city/nation-state must be explicitly distinguished |
| Bride / wife of the Lamb | νύμφη, γυνὴ τοῦ ἀρνίου / nymphē, gynē tou arniou | Church as Bride of Christ | High | bride | 19:7; 21:2,9; 22:17 | Wedding-industry romantic saturation risks losing OT covenant-fidelity background and corporate (not individual-romantic) referent |
| Tabernacle / dwell | σκηνή, σκηνόω / skēnē, skēnoō | New Heaven and New Earth | Medium | dwell / tabernacle | 7:15; 12:12; 13:6; 15:5; 21:3 | Obsolescence risk (rare word) but high payoff: direct echo of John 1:14’s incarnation language, connecting Exodus, Gospel, and Revelation |
| Covenant formula (“his people… their God”) | (formulaic, echoing Jeremiah 31:33; Ezekiel 37:27) | New Heaven and New Earth; Sovereignty of God over History | High | his people… their God | 21:3,7 | Climactic fulfillment of the whole-canon covenant formula; risk of reading as generic closeness rather than recognized covenant fulfillment |
| Freely / as a gift | δωρεάν / dōrean | New Heaven and New Earth; grace (baseline extension) | High | freely / without cost | 21:6; 22:17 | Should be explicitly connected to baseline’s “grace” Critical-risk entry; consumer “free gift with purchase” marketing language trivializes the costliness underlying the gift |
| Vice list (cowardly, unbelieving, detestable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, liars) | δειλοί, ἄπιστοι, ἐβδελυγμένοι, φονεῖς, πόρνοι, φάρμακοι, εἰδωλολάτραι, ψευδεῖς | Judgment of the Wicked and Vindication of the Saints | Critical | (rendered individually per baseline conventions) | 21:8 | Multiple etymological false-friends within one verse: pornois → English “porn” (narrowed to visual media); pharmakois → English “pharmacy” (inverted to positive medical connotation); eidōlolatrais → trivialized modern “idolatry” (celebrity-culture usage) |
| Tree of life | τὸ ξύλον τῆς ζωῆς / to xylon tēs zōēs | New Heaven and New Earth | Medium | tree of life | 2:7; 22:2,14,19 | Widely secularized, syncretistic decorative/esoteric symbol (jewelry, film title, Kabbalah, Yggdrasil) dilutes the specific Genesis-to-Revelation biblical storyline |
| Coming soon / quickly | ταχύ / tachy | Return and Reign of Christ | High | soon / quickly | 22:7,12,20 (cf. “near,” 1:3;22:10) | Two-thousand-year interval generates serious, common lay objection requiring transparent interpretive statement |
| Spirit and Bride say, Come | τὸ Πνεῦμα καὶ ἡ νύμφη λέγουσιν, Ἔρχου | Church as Bride of Christ | Medium | the Spirit and the Bride say, “Come” | 22:17 | Risk of missing the joint Spirit-and-church missionary posture in the invitation |
| Do not add / take away | μὴ ἐπιθῇ, ἀφελεῖν | Symbolic and Apocalyptic Interpretation | Medium | do not add to / take away from | 22:18-19 | Popularly (over-)extended to the whole biblical canon; text’s direct referent is this specific book/scroll |
| Sea (symbolic) | θάλασσα / thalassa | Sovereignty of God over History; New Heaven and New Earth | Medium | sea | 4:6; 13:1; 15:2; 21:1 | Symbolic chaos/beast-origin association (13:1) risks flat-literal hydrological reading of 21:1 without that cross-reference |
| Mystery (of God) | μυστήριον / mystērion | Symbolic and Apocalyptic Interpretation | Medium | mystery | 1:20; 10:7; 17:5,7 | Detective-fiction/code-breaking secular framing encourages a puzzle-solving posture rather than proclamation-and-worship posture |
| Abyss | ἄβυσσος / abyssos | Judgment of the Wicked; Assurance of Final Victory | Medium | the abyss | 9:1-2,11; 11:7; 17:8; 20:1,3 | Secular metaphorical/poetic “abyss” (existential dread) obscures the text’s concrete apocalyptic geography |
| Great tribulation / tribulation | ἡ θλῖψις ἡ μεγάλη, θλῖψις / thlipsis | Perseverance and Faithful Witness under Persecution | Critical | tribulation | 1:9; 2:9-10,22; 7:14 | Major denominational contest (futurist/dispensationalist specific-period reading vs. preterist/historicist/idealist ongoing-suffering reading); “rapture” (a word absent from this book) is a common but mistaken assumed-vocabulary risk |
Section C — Glossary Maintenance Notes
- Version control: This glossary is version 1.0 of the Revelation-specific extension. Any new term discovered during Phase 2 content generation must be assessed against all five risk categories in this document (not just the baseline’s three) before being added, per the same versioning discipline the baseline
12_ai_translation_requirements.mdestablishes for translation memory updates. - Cross-document consistency: Section A terms must render identically to their baseline Romans occurrences in every Revelation curriculum document. Section B terms, once rendered in any published document, must render identically thereafter (e.g., “Lamb” always capitalized when referring to Christ; “the great tribulation” always rendered consistently once the curriculum’s interpretive stance is fixed).
- Mandatory theologian-review terms (Critical tier, Section B, in addition to all Critical baseline reuses): synagogue of Satan; second death; beast; mark (of the beast); 666; Armageddon; King of kings and Lord of lords; lake of fire; a thousand years/the millennium; the vice list of 21:8; great tribulation/tribulation.
- Chapters reviewed with no new Section B vocabulary: Chapter 15 (beyond “song of Moses and the Lamb” and “tabernacle of testimony,” both minor extensions of established terms) and Chapter 18 (elaborates “Babylon,” introduced ch.14, developed ch.17) are explicitly confirmed reviewed and contain no additional new load-bearing theological vocabulary requiring separate glossary entries.
Critical Risk Terms
God
Approved rendering: God
Transliteration: God
Doctrine: Deity of Christ / The Sovereignty of God over History
Rejected alternatives: a higher power (deliberately vague contemporary substitute), the universe (New-Age-influenced impersonal substitute)
Original: θεός / אֱלֹהִים / יהוה
Category: God
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE — rendering, transliteration, and risk tier reused exactly] Contemporary spiritual-but-not-religious culture often substitutes vague or impersonal alternatives for a personal, specific, self-revealing God. Revelation extension: repeatedly identified as ‘the one seated on the throne’ (4:2-3,9-10; 5:1,7,13; 19:4; 21:5) and as ‘Alpha and Omega… who is, and who was, and who is to come’ (1:8; 21:6), titles that ground God’s sovereignty over the entire span of history the book depicts.
Lord
Approved rendering: Lord
Transliteration: Lord
Doctrine: Lordship of Christ / The Return and Reign of Christ
Rejected alternatives: boss / master (loses exclusivity and worship-worthiness), a British Lord (aristocratic title sense)
Original: κύριος
Category: Christology
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE — rendering, transliteration, and risk tier reused exactly] English ‘Lord’ has nearly disappeared from ordinary spoken use outside archaic or fantasy-fiction associations. Revelation extension: risk intensifies in the doubled superlative ‘King of kings and Lord of lords’ (19:16) and the climactic ‘the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ’ (11:15); both require deliberate restoration of total, exclusive, personal allegiance, not passive repetition.
Jesus
Approved rendering: Jesus
Transliteration: Jesus
Doctrine: Lordship of Christ
Rejected alternatives: Jesus as a casual interjection/expletive
Original: Ἰησοῦς
Category: Christology
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE — rendering, transliteration, and risk tier reused exactly] Revelation extension: ‘the testimony of Jesus’ (1:2,9; 12:17; 19:10) links this name directly to Perseverance and Faithful Witness under Persecution, since holding to this testimony under pressure provokes the beast’s hostility (12:17).
Messiah
Approved rendering: Messiah
Transliteration: Messiah
Doctrine: Messianic Promise
Rejected alternatives: a messiah complex (pop-psychology pejorative for grandiosity)
Original: Χριστός / מָשִׁיחַ
Category: Christology
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE — rendering, transliteration, and risk tier reused exactly] Revelation extension: rendered ‘Christ’ in most Revelation running text (‘his Christ,’ 11:15; 20:4,6); this curriculum should use ‘Christ’ and ‘Messiah’ interchangeably per established English Bible-translation convention while keeping both traceable to this single entry.
Holy Spirit
Approved rendering: Holy Spirit
Transliteration: Holy Spirit
Doctrine: Sanctification / God
Rejected alternatives: good vibes / positive energy (vague spiritual substitutes)
Original: πνεῦμα ἅγιον / τὸ Πνεῦμα
Category: God
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE — rendering, transliteration, and risk tier reused exactly] Revelation extension: ‘the seven spirits’ (1:4; 4:5; cf. 3:1; 5:6) requires an explicit clarifying note that this is symbolic language for the Spirit’s sevenfold, complete fullness before God’s throne, not a claim of multiple distinct Spirits; the Spirit jointly issues the closing invitation with the church (22:17).
Grace
Approved rendering: grace
Transliteration: grace
Doctrine: Grace
Rejected alternatives: elegance/poise (dominant secular sense), a grace period (dominant legal/financial sense)
Original: χάρις
Category: Salvation
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE — rendering, transliteration, and risk tier reused exactly] Revelation extension: opens (1:4) and closes (22:21) the book with the same plain grace-benediction found at the end of every Pauline letter — a reassurance that the most intensely symbolic NT book is not a different gospel but the same grace-centered gospel carried to its consummation; the related adverb ‘freely/without cost’ (21:6; 22:17) should be explicitly connected to this entry.
Salvation
Approved rendering: salvation
Transliteration: salvation
Doctrine: Salvation
Rejected alternatives: being saved (contested denominational shorthand), rescue (too generic alone)
Original: σωτηρία
Category: Salvation
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE — rendering, transliteration, and risk tier reused exactly] Revelation extension: consistently used in corporate, doxological exclamation (‘Salvation belongs to our God,’ 7:10; 12:10; 19:1) rather than the individual-conversion-event usage common in revivalist traditions; this difference should be stated explicitly per the baseline’s denominational-transparency principle.
Resurrection
Approved rendering: resurrection
Transliteration: resurrection
Doctrine: Resurrection / The Millennial Reign
Rejected alternatives: reincarnation / rebirth into an ongoing cycle
Original: ἀνάστασις
Category: Eschatology
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE — rendering, transliteration, and risk tier reused exactly] Revelation extension: ‘the first resurrection’ (20:5-6) inherits this Critical risk in full and adds a further layer — its timing and referent are themselves disputed within the larger millennial debate; this curriculum must state its own reading transparently.
Church
Approved rendering: church
Transliteration: church
Doctrine: Church as God’s People
Original: ἐκκλησία / ἐκκλησίαι
Category: Church
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE — rendering, transliteration, and risk tier reused exactly] Revelation extension: names seven specific, real, first-century congregations (1:4,11,20; 2:1-3:22) that are simultaneously, by the symbolically complete number seven, representative of the whole church across all times and places; readers must hold both referents together without collapsing into either extreme.
Son Of God
Approved rendering: Son of God
Transliteration: Son of God
Doctrine: Sonship of Christ / Deity and Titles of Christ
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE — rendering, transliteration, and risk tier reused exactly] Revelation extension: used directly as a title in 2:18 (‘the Son of God, whose eyes are like blazing fire’), distinct from ‘Son of Man’ (1:13; 14:14), which carries a Danielic royal-judicial force rather than a deity-emphasis; the two titles refer to the same Christ but must be kept conceptually distinct.
Synagogue Of Satan
Approved rendering: synagogue of Satan
Transliteration: synagōgē tou Satana
Doctrine: Historic-Misuse Caution
Rejected alternatives: a general theological statement about Judaism or Jewish people (documented history of anti-Jewish weaponization; text intends a localized first-century conflict only)
Original: συναγωγὴ τοῦ Σατανᾶ
Category: Historic-Misuse Caution
A specific local first-century conflict in Smyrna and Philadelphia (2:9; 3:9), not a blanket claim about Jewish people or Judaism generally. Must be stated explicitly on every substantive occurrence. Human theologian review mandatory.
Second Death
Approved rendering: second death
Transliteration: ho thanatos ho deuteros
Doctrine: Judgment of the Wicked and Vindication of the Saints
Rejected alternatives: ordinary physical death (collapses the book’s own critical distinction), annihilation / a vague ‘bad afterlife’ (understates its technical force)
Original: ὁ θάνατος ὁ δεύτερος
Category: Judgment
The book’s own unique technical term for final judgment (2:11; 20:6,14; 21:8). No competing secular meaning, but the highest doctrinal stakes in the book; English-speaking traditions differ on its ontological nature (eternal conscious torment / conditional immortality / minority universalist-leaning readings). State the curriculum’s own reading plainly while noting the range. Human theologian review required.
Lamb
Approved rendering: Lamb
Transliteration: arnion
Doctrine: Worship of the Lamb / Christology
Rejected alternatives: a cute/gentle Easter-card image (sentimentalizes, erasing the conquering-sovereign paradox of 5:5-6 and ‘wrath of the Lamb,’ 6:16)
Original: ἀρνίον
Category: Christology
The single most theologically load-bearing term unique to this curriculum, fusing sacrificial-victim imagery with paradoxical conquering-sovereign imagery (28+ occurrences from ch.5). Must be taught as BOTH slain sacrifice AND enthroned conqueror on every substantive occurrence. Distinct from Greek amnos (John 1:29). Human theologian review mandatory.
Beast
Approved rendering: beast
Transliteration: thērion
Doctrine: The Beast, Its Mark, and Its Number
Rejected alternatives: the Antichrist (popularly assumed but never actually used in Revelation; occurs only in 1 John/2 John)
Original: θηρίον
Category: Judgment
A monstrous composite creature symbolizing oppressive, blasphemous imperial power, echoing Daniel’s four beasts (ch.13; 14:9,11; 15:2; 16:2,10,13; 17:3,7-8,11-13,16-17; 19:19-20; 20:4,10). Human theologian review mandatory.
Mark Of The Beast
Approved rendering: mark
Transliteration: charagma
Doctrine: The Beast, Its Mark, and Its Number
Rejected alternatives: microchip implants / QR codes / vaccination-related conspiracy theories
Original: χάραγμα
Category: Judgment
A visible mark of allegiance and ownership enforcing economic/social exclusion (13:16-17; 14:9,11; 16:2; 19:20; 20:4); the negative counterpart to God’s positive seal (7:3-8; 14:1). Live conspiracy-culture literalism must be corrected explicitly. Human theologian review mandatory.
Number 666
Approved rendering: 666
Transliteration: hexēkonta hex
Doctrine: The Beast, Its Mark, and Its Number / Symbolic and Apocalyptic Interpretation
Rejected alternatives: a free-floating generic symbol of evil/horror
Original: ἀριθμὸς αὐτοῦ, ἑξήκοντα ἕξ
Category: Symbolic Numbers
A gematria-based coded first-century reference (widely held scholarly view: Nero Caesar), and/or a symbol of persistent falling-short of the divine ‘seven’ (13:18). Needs explicit historical-symbolic grounding; do not paraphrase the numeral into words.
Armageddon
Approved rendering: Armageddon
Transliteration: Harmagedōn
Doctrine: Babylon and the Fall of Worldly Power / Assurance of God’s Final Victory over Evil
Rejected alternatives: generic ‘catastrophic conflict’ (film titles, news headlines — ‘economic Armageddon’)
Original: Ἁρμαγεδών
Category: Judgment
A symbolic staging-ground (‘Har-Megiddo’) for the final gathering of hostile powers (16:16), not necessarily a literal future battlefield. Among the most secularized biblical loanwords in English; requires explicit correction back to its debated, restrained symbolic referent.
King Of Kings Lord Of Lords
Approved rendering: King of kings and Lord of lords
Transliteration: Basileus basileōn kai Kyrios kyriōn
Doctrine: Deity and Titles of Christ / The Return and Reign of Christ
Rejected alternatives: a generic honorific (commercial/entertainment usage of ‘King of Kings’ album/film titles)
Original: Βασιλεὺς βασιλέων καὶ Κύριος κυρίων
Category: Christology
A doubled superlative title of Christ’s absolute, exclusive sovereignty (19:16); directly extends the baseline’s Critical ‘Lord’ risk with even more deliberate weight-restoration required. Human theologian review mandatory.
Lake Of Fire
Approved rendering: lake of fire
Transliteration: hē limnē tou pyros
Doctrine: Judgment of the Wicked and Vindication of the Saints
Rejected alternatives: ‘fire and brimstone preaching’ (mocking idiom, risks caricature)
Original: ἡ λίμνη τοῦ πυρός / ἡ λίμνη τῇ καιομένῃ πυρὶ καὶ θείῳ
Category: Judgment
The final, decisive place/state of judgment (19:20; 20:10,14-15; 21:8). Same denominational-transparency requirement as ‘second death.’ Human theologian review required.
Thousand Years Millennium
Approved rendering: a thousand years / the millennium
Transliteration: chilia etē
Doctrine: The Millennial Reign
Rejected alternatives: asserting one of premillennial/amillennial/postmillennial readings as unexamined consensus
Original: χίλια ἔτη
Category: Return and Reign of Christ
The single largest denominational fault-line in the book (20:2-7). This curriculum must state plainly which reading it presents and respectfully note the other major traditions. Human theologian review mandatory — highest-stakes term in this registry.
First Resurrection
Approved rendering: the first resurrection
Transliteration: hē anastasis hē prōtē
Doctrine: The Millennial Reign / The Return and Reign of Christ
Rejected alternatives: resurrection as metaphor/myth
Original: ἡ ἀνάστασις ἡ πρώτη
Category: Return and Reign of Christ
Inherits both the resurrection Critical risk AND the millennium denominational-contest risk layered on top, since its timing and referent (20:5-6) is itself part of the millennial debate.
Great Tribulation
Approved rendering: tribulation / the great tribulation
Transliteration: hē thlipsis hē megalē / thlipsis
Doctrine: Perseverance and Faithful Witness under Persecution
Rejected alternatives: ‘the rapture’ as this book’s own vocabulary (a term absent from Revelation and from Scripture, deriving from Latin rapio via 1 Thessalonians 4:17)
Original: ἡ θλῖψις ἡ μεγάλη / θλῖψις
Category: Persecution and Witness
Intense eschatological distress endured by the redeemed (1:9; 2:9-10,22; 7:14), distinct from ordinary tribulation elsewhere. Major denominational contest (futurist/dispensationalist specific-period reading vs. preterist/historicist/idealist ongoing-suffering reading); state the curriculum’s stance transparently. Human theologian review required.
High Risk Terms
Righteousness
Approved rendering: righteousness
Transliteration: righteousness
Doctrine: Salvation
Rejected alternatives: self-righteous / holier-than-thou (smug, judgmental connotation)
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE — rendering, transliteration, and risk tier reused exactly] Revelation extension: appears concretely as ‘the righteous acts of the saints,’ pictured as the Bride’s fine linen (19:8); readers should be told this is a gift-clothed status flowing from the Lamb’s redemption (7:14), not a self-generated moral achievement.
Saints
Approved rendering: saints
Transliteration: saints
Doctrine: Sainthood
Original: ἅγιοι
Category: Church
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE — rendering, transliteration, and risk tier reused exactly] Revelation extension: consistently corporate (5:8; 8:3-4; 11:18; 13:7,10; 14:12; 17:6; 18:24; 19:8; 20:9), including the striking picture of the saints’ prayers rising with incense before God’s throne and functioning as a trigger for the judgments that follow (8:3-4).
Covenant
Approved rendering: covenant
Transliteration: covenant
Doctrine: Covenant Fulfillment Formula
Rejected alternatives: a restrictive covenant (dominant contemporary legal sense)
Original: διαθήκη
Category: Covenant
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE — rendering, transliteration, and risk tier reused exactly] Revelation extension: the ‘ark of the covenant’ seen in the heavenly temple (11:19) visibly continues this promise, while the core passage’s covenant formula (‘I will be their God, and they will be my people,’ 21:3,7) is the most purely relational, least contractual use of covenant language in the entire canon.
Sin
Approved rendering: sin
Transliteration: sin
Doctrine: Universal Human Accountability
Rejected alternatives: sinfully delicious (trivialized marketing usage)
Original: ἁμαρτία
Category: Sin
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE — rendering, transliteration, and risk tier reused exactly] Revelation extension: the lexeme itself is rare, but the concept undergirds the whole judgment sequence, culminating in the vice list of 21:8 and the final ‘let the vile be vile still’ (22:11), a stark statement of settled moral character resisting therapeutic softening.
Called
Approved rendering: called
Transliteration: called
Doctrine: Divine Calling / The Millennial Reign
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE — rendering, transliteration, and risk tier reused exactly] Revelation extension: ‘called, chosen and faithful’ (17:14) applies this term to those who stand with the Lamb against the beast; must not be reduced to human self-selection.
Calling
Approved rendering: calling
Transliteration: calling
Doctrine: Divine Calling
Rejected alternatives: finding your calling (secular career-vocation sense)
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE — rendering, transliteration, and risk tier reused exactly] Revelation extension: the same direction-of-agency caution (God calls; the person does not self-select) applies to 17:14’s ‘called, chosen and faithful’ formula.
Revelation Apocalypse
Approved rendering: revelation
Transliteration: apokalypsis
Doctrine: Symbolic and Apocalyptic Interpretation
Rejected alternatives: apocalypse as the primary rendering (contemporary meaning of cataclysmic destruction nearly inverts the word’s actual sense of unveiling/disclosure)
Original: ἀποκάλυψις
Category: Symbolic and Apocalyptic Interpretation
This book’s own title and self-description (1:1). Contemporary ‘apocalyptic’ has drifted toward disaster-film catastrophe, nearly the opposite of the word’s true meaning. Must be corrected on first use; render as ‘revelation,’ reserving ‘apocalypse/apocalyptic’ for explicitly flagged genre-discussion contexts only.
Sign Signify
Approved rendering: sign / signify
Transliteration: sēmainō / sēmeion
Doctrine: Symbolic and Apocalyptic Interpretation
Rejected alternatives: made known / showed (loses the sign-communication nuance embedded in the Greek verb’s root)
Original: σημαίνω / σημεῖον
Category: Symbolic and Apocalyptic Interpretation
The book’s very first verse (1:1) contains its own built-in hermeneutical signal that this revelation is communicated by signs, not flat narration. Losing this nuance at the outset feeds every genre-drift risk documented in this book (beast, mark, 666, dragon, Babylon).
Endurance Perseverance
Approved rendering: endurance / perseverance
Transliteration: hypomonē
Doctrine: Perseverance and Faithful Witness under Persecution
Rejected alternatives: patience (too weak, reduced to tolerating minor inconvenience), resilience / grit (secular self-help framing detached from Christ-directed, faith-rooted character)
Original: ὑπομονή
Category: Persecution and Witness
Active, resilient, faithful persistence under pressure (1:9; 2:2-3,19; 3:10; 13:10; 14:12), not passive resignation. Must always be anchored to persecution and faith, never generic willpower.
Witness Testimony
Approved rendering: witness / testimony
Transliteration: martyria / martys
Doctrine: Perseverance and Faithful Witness under Persecution
Rejected alternatives: martyr as the default rendering (narrowed almost entirely to ‘one killed for a cause,’ plus trivializing ‘martyr complex’ usage)
Original: μαρτυρία / μάρτυς
Category: Persecution and Witness
Jesus is ‘the faithful witness’ (1:5); John bears witness to what he has seen. Witness does not automatically mean death, even though the book increasingly links the two (6:9; 11:3,7; 12:11,17; 17:6; 20:4) — both the distinction and the connection require explicit statement.
Hades
Approved rendering: Hades
Transliteration: Hadēs
Doctrine: The Intermediate State and Hades
Rejected alternatives: Hell (conflates the intermediate state with the final lake of fire), ‘hot as Hades’ idiom (drains all technical meaning)
Original: ᾅδης
Category: Judgment
The temporary abode/state of the dead awaiting final judgment (1:18; 6:8; 20:13-14), carefully distinguished from the lake of fire. Hades is itself finally thrown into the lake of fire (20:14) — this sequence must be explicitly preserved.
Repent
Approved rendering: repent
Transliteration: metanoeō
Doctrine: Repentance and the Call to the Seven Churches
Rejected alternatives: feel sorry / regret (too weak), cartoonish street-preacher caricature (trivializes)
Original: μετανοέω
Category: Persecution and Witness
A full reorientation of mind and life (2:5,16,21-22; 3:3,19; 9:20-21; 16:9,11), not mere regret; must be restored to serious moral-relational weight.
Morning Star
Approved rendering: morning star
Transliteration: ho astēr ho prōinos
Doctrine: Deity and Titles of Christ
Rejected alternatives: a name for Satan (popular KJV Isaiah 14:12 ‘Lucifer, son of the morning’ association)
Original: ὁ ἀστὴρ ὁ πρωϊνός
Category: Christology
Applied positively to Christ (2:28; 22:16), yet popularly (mis)associated with a name for Satan via a different, unrelated OT passage. Must be explicitly disambiguated.
Worship
Approved rendering: worship
Transliteration: proskyneō
Doctrine: Worship of the Lamb
Rejected alternatives: ‘I worship the ground she walks on’ (secular hyperbole)
Original: προσκυνέω
Category: Worship of the Lamb
To fall down/prostrate in exclusive homage, due to God/the Lamb alone; the text’s own refused-worship scenes (19:10; 22:8-9) are a built-in corrective this curriculum should leverage explicitly.
Dragon
Approved rendering: dragon
Transliteration: drakōn
Doctrine: The Sovereignty of God over History / Assurance of God’s Final Victory over Evil
Rejected alternatives: fantasy-genre dragon imagery (fictionalizes a real spiritual enemy), auspicious/benevolent dragon symbolism from some cultural traditions
Original: δράκων
Category: Sovereignty of God over History
Explicitly identified by the text itself as ‘the ancient serpent… the devil, or Satan’ (12:9), fusing Genesis 3 with mythic dragon imagery; this identification must be stated plainly and repeatedly (12:3,7,9,13,16-17; 13:2,4,11; 16:13; 20:2).
Babylon The Great
Approved rendering: Babylon
Transliteration: Babylōn hē megalē
Doctrine: Babylon and the Fall of Worldly Power
Rejected alternatives: Rastafarian usage for oppressive state power / band and album names / casual ‘Sin City’ associations
Original: Βαβυλὼν ἡ μεγάλη
Category: Judgment
A symbol for the oppressive, idolatrous world-system/empire, widely understood by first-century readers as coded Rome (14:8; 16:19; 17:1-18:24). Live interpretive debate (Rome / any anti-God empire / a future revived empire) should be presented transparently. Human theologian review recommended.
Great Prostitute
Approved rendering: the great prostitute
Transliteration: hē pornē hē megalē
Doctrine: Babylon and the Fall of Worldly Power
Rejected alternatives: KJV ‘whore’ (now vulgar, unsuitable for reverent public reading), a statement demeaning to women as a class
Original: ἡ πόρνη ἡ μεγάλη
Category: Judgment
OT prophetic idiom (Hosea; Ezekiel 16; Isaiah 23) for covenant/religious unfaithfulness, applied to Babylon/Rome’s system (17:1,5,15-16; 19:2). The OT background must be stated explicitly to prevent misreading as anti-woman rather than anti-system.
Great White Throne
Approved rendering: the great white throne
Transliteration: thronos leukos megas
Doctrine: Universal Human Accountability at the Final Judgment
Rejected alternatives: a softened, non-final accounting
Original: θρόνος λευκὸς μέγας
Category: Judgment
The book’s climactic final-judgment scene (20:11-15); extends the baseline’s Universal Human Accountability doctrine into its ultimate staging against non-judgmental therapeutic culture.
New Qualitative
Approved rendering: new
Transliteration: kainos
Doctrine: The New Heaven and New Earth
Rejected alternatives: ‘new and improved’ / planned-obsolescence marketing sense
Original: καινός
Category: New Heaven and New Earth
New in kind/quality (contrast neos, new in time), renewed/transformed rather than replaced-from-scratch (21:1,5; 2:17; 3:12; 5:9; 14:3). Requires explicit kainos/neos contrast on first substantive use.
New Jerusalem
Approved rendering: new Jerusalem
Transliteration: hē polis hē hagia, Ierousalēm kainē
Doctrine: The New Heaven and New Earth
Rejected alternatives: a prediction about present-day Middle East geopolitics
Original: ἡ πόλις ἡ ἁγία, Ἰερουσαλὴμ καινή
Category: New Heaven and New Earth
The eschatological, transformed people-and-place of God, simultaneously a place and a personified people (3:12; 21:2,9-27). Must be distinguished plainly from the modern city/nation-state.
Bride
Approved rendering: bride
Transliteration: nymphē
Doctrine: The Church as Bride of Christ
Rejected alternatives: sentimental individual romance divorced from OT covenant-fidelity background
Original: νύμφη
Category: Church as Bride of Christ
The church’s identity as Christ’s covenant-partner, prepared and adorned for consummated union (19:7-9; 21:2,9; 22:17), drawing on OT marriage-covenant imagery (Hosea; Isaiah 62:5; Ezekiel 16); the passive, God-initiated ‘prepared/adorned’ verbs must be retained.
Covenant Formula
Approved rendering: his people… their God
Transliteration: n/a (formulaic, echoing Jeremiah 31:33; Ezekiel 37:27)
Doctrine: Covenant Fulfillment Formula
Rejected alternatives: a generic statement of closeness
Original: (formulaic; echoing Jeremiah 31:33; Ezekiel 37:27)
Category: New Heaven and New Earth
The recurring OT covenant formula (21:3,7) reaching its final, unbreakable fulfillment; the most purely relational, least contractual use of covenant language in the entire canon.
Freely Without Cost
Approved rendering: freely / without cost
Transliteration: dōrean
Doctrine: The New Heaven and New Earth / Grace
Rejected alternatives: ‘free gift with purchase’ consumer-marketing sense
Original: δωρεάν
Category: New Heaven and New Earth
Given without cost, merit, or earning, from the spring of the water of life (21:6; 22:17); should be explicitly connected to the baseline’s ‘grace’ entry — the costliness to Christ underlying this gift must not be trivialized.
Coming Soon Quickly
Approved rendering: soon / quickly
Transliteration: tachy / ho kairos engys
Doctrine: The Imminence of Christ’s Return
Rejected alternatives: a strict, failed chronological prediction
Original: ταχύ / ὁ καιρὸς ἐγγύς
Category: Return and Reign of Christ
Two thousand elapsed years since this promise (1:3; 3:11; 22:7,10,12,20) generate a substantial, reasonable lay objection requiring a transparent interpretive statement (near-term imminence; qualitative suddenness; God’s differently-scaled relationship to time). Human theologian review recommended.
Unbelieving
Approved rendering: unbelieving
Transliteration: apistoi
Doctrine: Universal Human Accountability at the Final Judgment
Rejected alternatives: ‘skeptical’ / ‘not religious’ (a vague, low-stakes descriptor)
Original: ἀπίστοις
Category: Judgment
The direct antonym of ‘faith’ (pistis); if readers have already detached ‘faith’ from a specific object, they will likewise fail to recognize this (21:8) as specifically refusing trust in Christ.
Sexually Immoral
Approved rendering: sexually immoral
Transliteration: pornoi
Doctrine: Universal Human Accountability at the Final Judgment
Rejected alternatives: pornography/visual-media-specific narrowing (etymological false-friend)
Original: πόρνοις
Category: Judgment
Root of the English word ‘pornography,’ whose meaning has narrowed almost entirely to sexually explicit visual media (21:8), quite different from this term’s broader ancient sense.
Sorcerers Magic Arts
Approved rendering: those who practice magic arts
Transliteration: pharmakoi
Doctrine: Universal Human Accountability at the Final Judgment
Rejected alternatives: pharmacy/licensed-medical-profession positive connotation (an inverted etymological false-friend)
Original: φαρμάκοις
Category: Judgment
Root of English ‘pharmacy’ and ‘pharmaceutical,’ today carrying an entirely positive, licensed-medical connotation, nearly inverted from the negative, occult, drug-and-poison-linked sorcery sense intended (21:8).
Blood Of The Lamb
Approved rendering: blood of the Lamb
Transliteration: to haima tou arniou
Doctrine: Assurance of God’s Final Victory over Evil
Rejected alternatives: one item in a list (should be read as the book’s own summary formula for how believers overcome)
Original: τὸ αἷμα τοῦ ἀρνίου
Category: Assurance of God’s Final Victory over Evil
The stated means of the saints’ victory over the accuser (12:11); ties together Worship of the Lamb, Perseverance and Faithful Witness, and Assurance of God’s Final Victory over Evil in a single verse.
Medium Risk Terms
Holy
Approved rendering: holy
Transliteration: holy
Doctrine: Sanctification
Rejected alternatives: holier-than-thou (sanctimonious idiom), holy cow / holy moly (content-free exclamation)
Original: ἅγιος
Category: Sanctification
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE — rendering, transliteration, and risk tier reused exactly] Revelation extension: the triple repetition ‘Holy, holy, holy’ (4:8, the Trisagion) is a Hebrew idiom of superlative intensification that contemporary readers, unfamiliar with this convention, may hear as flat repetition; the term also names the eschatological ‘holy city’ itself (21:2,10).
Sanctification
Approved rendering: sanctification
Transliteration: sanctification
Doctrine: Sanctification
Original: ἁγιασμός
Category: Sanctification
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE — rendering, transliteration, and risk tier reused exactly] Revelation extension: the noun itself does not recur as a distinct lexeme, but the concept is present in ‘let the holy be holy still’ (22:11) and throughout the call to persevere in holiness across chapters 2-3.
Kingdom Of God
Approved rendering: kingdom of God
Transliteration: kingdom of God
Doctrine: Kingdom Mission / The Return and Reign of Christ
Rejected alternatives: a fantasy kingdom (contemporary media associations)
Original: βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ
Category: Kingdom
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE — rendering, transliteration, and risk tier reused exactly] Revelation extension: the climactic seventh-trumpet proclamation ‘the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ’ has now visibly and finally taken effect in history (11:15), directly grounding both The Sovereignty of God over History and The Return and Reign of Christ.
Israel
Approved rendering: Israel
Transliteration: Israel
Doctrine: Unity of Jews and Gentiles
Original: יִשְׂרָאֵל
Category: Covenant
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE — rendering, transliteration, and risk tier reused exactly] Revelation extension: the twelve tribes (7:4; 21:12, named on the new Jerusalem’s gates) must be distinguished from the modern nation-state of the same name.
Gospel
Approved rendering: gospel
Transliteration: gospel
Doctrine: Gospel
Rejected alternatives: good news alone (loses proclamatory weight)
Original: εὐαγγέλιον
Category: Salvation
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE — rendering, transliteration, and risk tier reused exactly] Revelation extension: ‘the eternal gospel’ (14:6) adds an eschatological-universal-proclamation dimension not emphasized in Romans — a final, universal call to worship the Creator issued to every nation, tribe, language, and people immediately before judgment.
Prophet
Approved rendering: prophet
Transliteration: prophet
Doctrine: Inspiration of Scripture
Rejected alternatives: a tech prophet / prophet of doom (secular confident-forecaster usage)
Original: προφήτης
Category: Covenant
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE — rendering, transliteration, and risk tier reused exactly] Revelation extension: identifies John himself within the prophetic office (1:3; 22:9) and introduces the term’s direct dark counterfeit, the ‘false prophet.‘
Prophecy
Approved rendering: prophecy
Transliteration: prophecy
Doctrine: Fulfillment of Prophecy / Symbolic and Apocalyptic Interpretation
Rejected alternatives: a self-fulfilling prophecy (secular psychological idiom)
Original: προφητεία
Category: Covenant
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE — rendering, transliteration, and risk tier reused exactly] Revelation extension: the book explicitly self-designates as ‘this prophecy’ (1:3; 22:7,10,18-19), the only NT book to make this claim as its own genre label, grounding Symbolic and Apocalyptic Interpretation in the text’s own stated identity.
Gentiles
Approved rendering: Gentiles / the nations
Transliteration: Gentiles
Doctrine: Unity of Jews and Gentiles / Mission and Universal Worship of All Nations
Rejected alternatives: non-believers (common but incorrect modern gloss)
Original: ἔθνη
Category: Church
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE — rendering, transliteration, and risk tier reused exactly] Revelation extension: frequently rendered contextually as ‘the nations’ in universal-worship contexts (5:9; 7:9; 15:4; 21:24,26; 22:2), supporting rather than complicating the baseline’s caution since these occurrences depict redeemed international worship, not unbelief.
Father
Approved rendering: Father
Transliteration: Father
Doctrine: Adoption into God’s Family
Original: πατήρ
Category: God
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE — rendering, transliteration, and risk tier reused exactly] Revelation extension: believers are marked as belonging to ‘his Father’s name’ (14:1) and Christ speaks of ‘my God and Father’ (1:6; 3:5,21), continuing the baseline’s pastoral caution for readers with painful or absent human father figures.
Apostle
Approved rendering: apostle
Transliteration: apostle
Doctrine: Apostleship
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE — rendering, transliteration, and risk tier reused exactly] Revelation extension: ‘the twelve apostles’ are named as one of the new Jerusalem’s twelve foundations (21:14), and false claimants to apostleship are rebuked at Ephesus (2:2).
Peace
Approved rendering: peace
Transliteration: peace
Doctrine: Peace with God
Rejected alternatives: world peace / inner peace (dominant secular senses)
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE — rendering, transliteration, and risk tier reused exactly] Revelation extension: opens the book’s greeting alongside grace (1:4), a stable and largely unremarkable recurrence of the baseline term in an otherwise highly symbolic book.
Power Of God
Approved rendering: power of God
Transliteration: power of God
Doctrine: Power of God for Salvation / The Sovereignty of God over History
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE — rendering, transliteration, and risk tier reused exactly] Revelation extension: ‘power’ recurs in doxological ascriptions to God and the Lamb (5:12; 11:17; 12:10; 19:1); should be distinguished from the largely negative secular power-and-abuse discourse per the baseline caution.
Seed Of David
Approved rendering: seed of David
Transliteration: seed of David
Doctrine: Davidic Covenant
Rejected alternatives: descendant of David (acceptable modern-register gloss)
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE — rendering, transliteration, and risk tier reused exactly] Revelation extension: appears in variant form as ‘the Root and Offspring of David’ (22:16) and ‘the Root of David’ (5:5), directly tying the Romans 1:3 background into the book’s central Christological title.
Almighty
Approved rendering: Almighty
Transliteration: Pantokratōr
Doctrine: The Sovereignty of God over History
Rejected alternatives: the almighty dollar (vague secular superlative)
Original: Παντοκράτωρ
Category: Sovereignty of God over History
Occurs at structurally important points (1:8; 4:8; 11:17; 15:3; 16:14; 19:6,15; 21:22). Must be tied to personal, purposive sovereignty (cf. baseline ‘providence’ entry), not raw, impersonal omnipotence.
Alpha And Omega
Approved rendering: Alpha and Omega
Transliteration: to Alpha kai to Ō
Doctrine: Deity and Titles of Christ / The Sovereignty of God over History
Rejected alternatives: alpha male/personality (unrelated pop-psychology dominance usage)
Original: τὸ Ἄλφα καὶ τὸ Ὦ
Category: Christology
Shared without distinction between God (1:8; 21:6) and Christ (22:13) — a load-bearing claim of Christ’s full deity; the two occurrences must be cross-referenced, not treated as unrelated.
Who Is Who Was Who Is To Come
Approved rendering: who is, and who was, and who is to come
Transliteration: ho ōn kai ho ēn kai ho erchomenos
Doctrine: The Sovereignty of God over History
Rejected alternatives: a statement only about a future second coming (too narrow, loses the Exodus 3:14 ‘I AM’ echo)
Original: ὁ ὢν καὶ ὁ ἦν καὶ ὁ ἐρχόμενος
Category: Sovereignty of God over History
A triadic divine-name formula (1:4,8; 4:8) grounding eternal self-existence; both the eternal-existence sense and the future-return sense should be taught together.
Son Of Man
Approved rendering: Son of Man
Transliteration: huios anthrōpou
Doctrine: The Return and Reign of Christ / Deity and Titles of Christ
Rejected alternatives: a synonym for ‘Son of God’ (collapses the specific Danielic royal-judicial force), simply ‘a human being’ (loses that force entirely)
Original: υἱὸς ἀνθρώπου
Category: Christology
A specific Danielic messianic title (Daniel 7:13-14) for the exalted, enthroned, judging figure (1:13; 14:14); must be kept conceptually distinct from Son of God even though both refer to the same Christ.
Overcome
Approved rendering: overcome / the one who overcomes
Transliteration: nikaō
Doctrine: Perseverance and Faithful Witness under Persecution / Assurance of God’s Final Victory over Evil
Rejected alternatives: overcomer/conqueror as self-help achievement-branding language
Original: νικάω
Category: Persecution and Witness
The repeated promise-formula closing each of the seven letters (2:7,11,17,26; 3:5,12,21), fulfilled comprehensively at 21:7. Must be anchored to its stated means, ‘by the blood of the Lamb’ (12:11), never unaided willpower.
Satan Devil
Approved rendering: Satan / devil
Transliteration: Satanas / diabolos
Doctrine: The Sovereignty of God over History / Assurance of God’s Final Victory over Evil
Rejected alternatives: cartoon-devil imagery / Halloween costuming (trivializes), horror-genre occult sensationalism (distorts)
Original: Σατανᾶς / διάβολος
Category: Sovereignty of God over History
A real, already-judged-but-still-active cosmic adversary (2:9-10,13,24; 3:9; 12:9; 20:2,7,10) behind specific historical persecution; the related title ‘the accuser’ (12:10) names his courtroom-slander role.
Crown
Approved rendering: crown
Transliteration: stephanos
Doctrine: Perseverance and Faithful Witness under Persecution
Rejected alternatives: hereditary royal crown/diadem imagery (collapses the stephanos/diadēma distinction)
Original: στέφανος
Category: Persecution and Witness
A victor’s wreath (athletic/military award), distinct from diadēma (12:3;13:1;19:12); English ‘crown’ evokes monarchy rather than an athletic reward for endurance (2:10; 3:11; 4:4,10; 6:2; 9:7; 12:1; 14:14).
Book Of Life
Approved rendering: book of life
Transliteration: biblion / biblos tēs zōēs
Doctrine: Judgment of the Wicked and Vindication of the Saints
Rejected alternatives: generic pop-culture ‘book of life’/destiny metaphor
Original: βιβλίον / βίβλος τῆς ζωῆς
Category: Judgment
The divine judicial/redemptive registry of those who belong to God (3:5; 13:8; 17:8; 20:12,15; 21:27; 22:19); the specific judicial sense must be restored against generic-destiny dilution.
The Amen Title
Approved rendering: the Amen
Transliteration: ho Amēn
Doctrine: Deity and Titles of Christ
Rejected alternatives: closing liturgical formula / casual interjection of agreement
Original: ὁ Ἀμήν
Category: Christology
A personal title for Christ (3:14) affirming his utter reliability; readers are unlikely to recognize it as a title unless explicitly flagged.
Throne
Approved rendering: throne
Transliteration: thronos
Doctrine: The Sovereignty of God over History
Rejected alternatives: a contested prize among rivals (fantasy-genre entertainment framing)
Original: θρόνος
Category: Sovereignty of God over History
The central controlling image of the whole book (40+ occurrences); God’s throne is never contested as a plot device, only opposed by doomed rebellion — the opposite of fantasy-genre succession-drama tropes.
Worthy
Approved rendering: worthy
Transliteration: axios
Doctrine: Worship of the Lamb
Rejected alternatives: generic feel-good affirmation (‘you are worthy’ self-esteem/marketing usage)
Original: ἄξιος
Category: Worship of the Lamb
The Lamb’s exclusive worthiness to open the scroll and receive worship (4:11; 5:2,4,9,12), not a diffuse affirmation-culture category.
False Prophet
Approved rendering: false prophet
Transliteration: pseudoprophētēs
Doctrine: The Beast, Its Mark, and Its Number
Rejected alternatives: a merely mistaken predictor
Original: ψευδοπροφήτης
Category: Judgment
The ‘second beast’ (13:11-17; 16:13; 19:20; 20:10), whose role is religious propaganda legitimizing the first beast’s political power.
Hallelujah
Approved rendering: Hallelujah
Transliteration: Allēlouia
Doctrine: Worship of the Lamb
Rejected alternatives: generic secular exclamation of relief/triumph
Original: Ἀλληλουϊά
Category: Worship of the Lamb
Hebrew loanword, ‘praise Yah(weh)’ — direct address to God (19:1,3-4,6); Handel’s ‘Hallelujah Chorus’ is a mild cultural asset drawing directly on this book’s own language.
Marriage Supper Of The Lamb
Approved rendering: marriage / wedding supper of the Lamb
Transliteration: ho gamos tou arniou
Doctrine: The Church as Bride of Christ
Rejected alternatives: sentimental wedding-industry romance imagery
Original: ὁ γάμος τοῦ ἀρνίου
Category: Church as Bride of Christ
The consummated covenant union between Christ and his redeemed people (19:7,9); wedding-industry saturation risks flattening covenantal, corporate depth into individual romance.
Word Of God Title
Approved rendering: the Word of God
Transliteration: ho logos tou theou
Doctrine: Deity and Titles of Christ
Rejected alternatives: the Bible-as-book (‘read the Word’)
Original: ὁ λόγος τοῦ θεοῦ
Category: Christology
A personal title for Christ, riding to judge and make war (19:13); overwhelmingly identified today with Scripture-as-text, risking loss of the personal Christological sense here.
Gog And Magog
Approved rendering: Gog and Magog
Transliteration: Gōg kai Magōg
Doctrine: Gog and Magog and the Final Rebellion
Rejected alternatives: speculative identification with specific present-day nations
Original: Γὼγ καὶ Μαγώγ
Category: Judgment
OT symbolic names (Ezekiel 38-39) reused for a final hostile coalition (20:8); fringe modern-nation identification should be flagged and cautioned against.
Tabernacle Dwell
Approved rendering: dwell / tabernacle
Transliteration: skēnē / skēnoō
Doctrine: The New Heaven and New Earth
Rejected alternatives: merely ‘live’ or ‘stay’ (a thinner gloss losing the Exodus/John 1:14 connection)
Original: σκηνή / σκηνόω
Category: New Heaven and New Earth
God’s tabernacling presence, directly echoing Exodus and John 1:14’s ‘the Word became flesh and dwelt among us’ (7:15; 12:12; 13:6; 15:5; 21:3) — high-value catechesis connecting the whole canon.
Sea Symbolic
Approved rendering: sea
Transliteration: thalassa
Doctrine: The Sovereignty of God over History / The New Heaven and New Earth
Rejected alternatives: flat-literal hydrology/geography concern
Original: θάλασσα
Category: Sovereignty of God over History
In the book’s own symbolic idiom, the sea is repeatedly the source of chaos and the beast (4:6; 13:1; 15:2); ‘the sea was no more’ (21:1) needs an explicit cross-reference to 13:1 to avoid flat-literal misreading.
Tree Of Life
Approved rendering: tree of life
Transliteration: to xylon tēs zōēs
Doctrine: The Tree of Life and Restored Eden
Rejected alternatives: decorative jewelry motif / a well-known film title / Kabbalah symbol / Norse Yggdrasil
Original: τὸ ξύλον τῆς ζωῆς
Category: New Heaven and New Earth
An Edenic image of unbroken access to God’s life-giving provision, lost at the Fall, now restored (2:7; 22:2,14,19); should be anchored explicitly to Genesis 2-3 as the deliberate canon bookend it is.
Mystery Of God
Approved rendering: mystery
Transliteration: mystērion tou theou
Doctrine: Symbolic and Apocalyptic Interpretation
Rejected alternatives: detective-fiction/code-breaking puzzle framing
Original: μυστήριον τοῦ θεοῦ
Category: Symbolic and Apocalyptic Interpretation
A secret divine plan, previously concealed, now proclaimed (1:20; 10:7; 17:5,7) — not a puzzle for clever human decoding; the text’s own proclamation-and-worship posture should be modeled, not a code-cracking one.
Abyss
Approved rendering: the abyss
Transliteration: abyssos
Doctrine: Judgment of the Wicked and Vindication of the Saints
Rejected alternatives: existential dread / ‘staring into the abyss’ (vague poetic metaphor)
Original: ἄβυσσος
Category: Judgment
A specific cosmological location — the underworld prison of demonic forces (9:1-2,11; 11:7; 17:8; 20:1,3), not a vague metaphor; a real place with a key that is opened and later sealed.
Cowardly
Approved rendering: cowardly
Transliteration: deiloi
Doctrine: Universal Human Accountability at the Final Judgment
Rejected alternatives: generic schoolyard-insult timidity
Original: δειλοῖς
Category: Judgment
Fear leading to denial of Christ under pressure (21:8), the antithesis of the perseverance commended throughout the book — not generic timidity.
Vile Detestable
Approved rendering: vile / detestable
Transliteration: ebdelygmenois
Doctrine: Universal Human Accountability at the Final Judgment
Original: ἐβδελυγμένοις
Category: Judgment
A strong LXX-background term historically associated with idolatrous practices (21:8); an obsolescence-type word requiring active glossing rather than a false-friend risk.
Idolaters
Approved rendering: idolaters
Transliteration: eidōlolatrai
Doctrine: Universal Human Accountability at the Final Judgment
Rejected alternatives: celebrity ‘idol’ worship / ‘American Idol’ talent-show branding
Original: εἰδωλολάτραις
Category: Judgment
Direct root of English ‘idolatry/idolater’ (21:8); contemporary usage has diluted the term into low-stakes metaphor, needing the same active re-teaching recommended for ‘holy.‘
Do Not Add Take Away
Approved rendering: do not add to / take away from
Transliteration: mē epithē… aphelein
Doctrine: Symbolic and Apocalyptic Interpretation / Inspiration and Prophetic Authority of Scripture
Rejected alternatives: a general claim about the closed canon of the entire Bible (popularly over-extended)
Original: μὴ ἐπιθῇ… ἀφελεῖν
Category: Symbolic and Apocalyptic Interpretation
A solemn warning against tampering with this specific book/scroll (22:18-19); should be clarified without denying the legitimate broader canonical principle theologians have drawn from it by extension.
Spirit And Bride Say Come
Approved rendering: the Spirit and the Bride say, ‘Come’
Transliteration: to Pneuma kai hē nymphē legousin, Erchou
Doctrine: The Church as Bride of Christ
Rejected alternatives: a generic closing liturgical flourish
Original: τὸ Πνεῦμα καὶ ἡ νύμφη λέγουσιν, Ἔρχου
Category: Church as Bride of Christ
The church’s Spirit-empowered longing for Christ’s return, paired with an open invitation to the thirsty (22:17); risk of missing that the Spirit and the church jointly issue this invitation.
Temple Of God
Approved rendering: temple of God
Transliteration: naos tou theou
Doctrine: Temple and Ark of the Covenant Imagery
Rejected alternatives: a future literal rebuilt temple asserted as settled fact
Original: ναὸς τοῦ θεοῦ
Category: Symbolic and Apocalyptic Interpretation
A live debate exists over a future literal rebuilt temple vs. the church-as-temple reading (11:1-2); should be flagged as a range of views rather than silently resolved.
Ark Of The Covenant
Approved rendering: ark of the covenant
Transliteration: hē kibōtos tēs diathēkēs
Doctrine: Temple and Ark of the Covenant Imagery / Covenant
Original: ἡ κιβωτὸς τῆς διαθήκης
Category: Covenant
The visible sign of God’s ancient covenant relationship, seen in the opened heavenly temple (11:19); reinforces the baseline’s caution against a modern legal-contract lens on ‘covenant.‘
Two Witnesses
Approved rendering: two witnesses
Transliteration: dyo martyres
Doctrine: The Two Witnesses and Prophetic Testimony
Rejected alternatives: a single reading of their identity asserted as settled
Original: δύο μάρτυρες
Category: Symbolic and Apocalyptic Interpretation
Two prophetic figures who testify, are killed, and are raised (11:3-13); substantial interpretive range on their identity should be presented transparently as an instance of the book’s symbolic-but-real methodology.
The Accuser
Approved rendering: the accuser
Transliteration: ho katēgoros
Doctrine: Judgment of the Wicked and Vindication of the Saints
Original: ὁ κατήγορος
Category: Judgment
A specific legal-courtroom term for Satan’s role (12:10), pairing instructively with Judgment of the Wicked and Vindication of the Saints.
Low Risk Terms
David
Approved rendering: David
Transliteration: David
Doctrine: Davidic Covenant
Original: דָּוִד
Category: Covenant
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE — rendering, transliteration, and risk tier reused exactly] Revelation extension: ‘the key of David’ (3:7) and ‘the Root and Offspring of David’ (5:5; 22:16) directly connect the Davidic covenant background to Christ’s messianic identity, the book’s central Christological title.
Adoption
Approved rendering: adoption / inheritance as children
Transliteration: huiothesia
Doctrine: Adoption into God’s Family
Original: υἱοθεσία (concept)
Category: Salvation
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE — rendering, transliteration, and risk tier reused exactly] Revelation extension: directly extended in the overcomer’s promise, ‘I will be their God and they will be my children’ (21:7) and ‘will inherit all this’ — the filial, not merely legal-transactional, ground of this inheritance should be drawn out explicitly.
Thanksgiving
Approved rendering: thanksgiving
Transliteration: thanksgiving
Doctrine: Thanksgiving
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE — rendering, transliteration, and risk tier reused exactly] Revelation extension: appears within the elders’ doxology (‘thanks be to you,’ 11:17) and the sevenfold ascription of 7:12; low risk, reinforcing the baseline term.
Lukewarm
Approved rendering: lukewarm
Transliteration: chliaros
Doctrine: The Lukewarm Faith Warning
Original: χλιαρός
Category: Persecution and Witness
A rare positive case: ‘lukewarm’ is now a stable English idiom derived directly from this passage (3:16), reinforcing rather than undermining the biblical sense; confirm readers know the biblical source.
Murderers
Approved rendering: murderers
Transliteration: phoneusi
Doctrine: Universal Human Accountability at the Final Judgment
Original: φονεῦσι
Category: Judgment
Stable, unambiguous term with no significant competing modern sense (21:8).
Liars
Approved rendering: liars
Transliteration: pseudesin
Doctrine: Universal Human Accountability at the Final Judgment
Original: ψευδέσιν
Category: Judgment
Stable term; scope likely those who deny the truth about Christ (cf. 22:15), not every casual untruth — a scope clarification rather than a false-friend risk (21:8).
Referenced passages