Semantic Analysis — Matthew 1–28 (English → French)

Curriculum: Matthew Core passage: Matthew 5:1–12 (The Beatitudes) Doctrines in scope: The Kingdom of Heaven; Jesus as the Promised Messiah and Son of David; Fulfillment of Old Testament Prophecy; The Authority of Jesus’ Teaching; Righteousness Exceeding the Pharisees; The Church and Church Discipline; The Great Commission; Judgment and the End of the Age; Discipleship and the Cost of Following Jesus

Governing rule: Every term already recorded in the baseline Romans translation_memory.json / bible_term_registry.json is reused exactly as recorded there (French rendering, risk tier, doctrine label). This document does not re-derive those renderings; it cites them and notes any contextual nuance that Matthew’s usage adds. New terms required by Matthew’s doctrines are analyzed fresh and risk-tiered using the same Critical/High/Medium/Low framework.

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PART 1 — Core Passage: Matthew 5:1–12 (The Beatitudes), verse by verse

Matthew 5:1–2 (Narrative frame)

• ὄρος (oros) — “mountain.” Literal: a hill/mountain. Semantic range: any elevated ground; in Matthew’s narrative shaping, deliberately evokes Sinai (Moses ascending the mountain to receive the Law). English variants: mountain, mountainside, hill. Contextual theological meaning: frames Jesus as a new-Moses / greater-lawgiver figure, setting up 5:17–20’s fulfillment-of-the-Law claim. French rendering: “montagne.” Risk: Low — the word itself is not disputed, but the typological freight (new Sinai) can be lost without a teaching note; not a lexical risk, a catechetical one.
• μαθηταί (mathētai) — “disciples.” See Matthew 4 entry below (first full call at 4:18–22); reused throughout. French: “disciples.” Risk: Medium (see Ch. 4).
• ἐδίδασκεν (edidasken), from διδάσκω (didaskō) — “he was teaching.” Literal: to teach, instruct. Semantic range: formal instruction, not casual conversation. English variants: taught, was teaching, instructed. Contextual theological meaning: introduces the Sermon on the Mount as authoritative teaching (cf. 7:28–29, “the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one who had authority”). French rendering: “enseigner.” Risk: Medium — undergirds the “Authority of Jesus’ Teaching” doctrine; French secular register can flatten “enseigner” into a neutral pedagogical act (a schoolteacher) rather than an authoritative divine pronouncement. See autorité (Ch. 5/7/8) below.

Matthew 5:3

Μακάριοι οἱ πτωχοὶ τῷ πνεύματι, ὅτι αὐτῶν ἐστιν ἡ βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν.

• μακάριος (makarios) — “blessed.” Literal: fortunate, in a privileged/enviable state. Semantic range: from ordinary “happy” (Greco-Roman usage) to a technical divine-favor pronouncement in Jewish wisdom literature (cf. Psalm 1:1 LXX). English variants: blessed, happy, fortunate. Contextual theological meaning: not a subjective emotion but an objective declaration of a person’s God-given standing, paradoxically pronounced over the poor, mourning, and persecuted. French rendering: “heureux” (the established Segond/TOB/Bible de Jérusalem rendering; NOT “béni,” which is reserved for εὐλογέω/εὐλογητός, a distinct verb of pronounced divine blessing). Risk: Medium — secular French “heureux” primarily denotes subjective happiness/contentment; risks collapsing Jesus’ paradoxical, eschatological declaration into a self-help promise of good feelings. Teaching apparatus must clarify this is a conferred state, not an emotion.
• πτωχός (ptōchos) τῷ πνεύματι — “poor in spirit.” Literal: economically destitute, reduced to begging; “in spirit” qualifies it as a spiritual, not merely economic, poverty. Semantic range: from literal material poverty to a metaphorical posture of complete dependence on God. English variants: poor in spirit, poor of spirit. Contextual theological meaning: the opposite of self-sufficiency; the entry posture for the Kingdom. French rendering: “pauvres en esprit.” Risk: Medium — risk of a purely social-justice reading (economic poverty only) OR a purely interior-psychological reading (low self-esteem); must retain the theological sense of spiritual bankruptcy before God.
• βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν (basileia tōn ouranōn) — “kingdom of heaven.” See full treatment under Kingdom of Heaven, Matthew 3 below (first occurrence). French rendering: “Royaume des cieux.” Risk: High.

Matthew 5:4

Μακάριοι οἱ πενθοῦντες, ὅτι αὐτοὶ παρακληθήσονται.

• πενθέω (pentheō) — “to mourn.” Literal: to grieve, lament, especially over loss or death. Semantic range: personal bereavement, national/covenantal lament (as in OT prophetic mourning over sin and exile), grief over sin. English variants: mourn, grieve, be sorrowful. Contextual theological meaning: likely includes grief over sin and brokenness (both one’s own and the world’s), not only bereavement. French rendering: “pleurer” (Segond) or “être dans le deuil” (TOB); recommend “ceux qui pleurent.” Risk: Low.
• παρακληθήσονται, from παρακαλέω (parakaleō) — “they will be comforted.” Translation-memory flag: the baseline Romans translation_memory.json records exhort → “exhorter” for this same Greek verb (used there in the sense of building up/encouraging). In Matthew 5:4 the sense is consolation of grief, not exhortation to action — the same root, a different point on its semantic range. Contextual theological meaning: God himself will console the grieving, echoing Isaiah 61:2 (“to comfort all who mourn”), which Jesus later claims to fulfill (Luke 4:18–21; cf. Matthew’s own fulfillment theme). French rendering here: “seront consolés” (NOT “seront exhortés”). Risk: Medium — flagged specifically because a translator pattern-matching to the baseline’s “exhorter” entry could misapply it here; this entry should be added to translation memory as a second, context-conditioned sense of παρακαλέω.

Matthew 5:5

Μακάριοι οἱ πραεῖς, ὅτι αὐτοὶ κληρονομήσουσιν τὴν γῆν.

• πραΰς (praus) — “meek, gentle.” Literal: mild, unassertive of one’s own rights. Semantic range: NOT weakness or timidity, but strength held under control, submitted to God (used of Moses, Numbers 12:3 LXX, and of Jesus himself, Matthew 11:29, 21:5). English variants: meek, gentle, humble. Contextual theological meaning: a Christlike, God-submitted strength, echoing Psalm 37:11. French rendering: “doux” (established) — recommend the fuller gloss “les doux (au sens biblique de force maîtrisée, non de faiblesse)” in teaching notes. Risk: Medium — French “doux” alone suggests a mild, sweet personality trait; risks losing the “strength-under-restraint” sense entirely.
• κληρονομέω (klēronomeō) — “to inherit.” Literal: to receive as an heir, by right of legal/familial inheritance. Semantic range: literal inheritance of property; theological inheritance of covenant promises. English variants: inherit, receive as inheritance. Contextual theological meaning: connects to the baseline’s adoption/adoption filiale doctrine (full son-status carries full inheritance rights) — the meek inherit the earth precisely because they are God’s children, not landowners by conquest. French rendering: “hériter.” Risk: Medium — must not be read as a future political/territorial land-claim (a live risk given contemporary Israel/Middle-East associations already flagged in baseline’s israel entry); this is eschatological, new-creation inheritance.

Matthew 5:6

Μακάριοι οἱ πεινῶντες καὶ διψῶντες τὴν δικαιοσύνην, ὅτι αὐτοὶ χορτασθήσονται.

• πεινάω / διψάω (peinaō / dipsaō) — “to hunger / to thirst.” Literal: physical hunger and thirst. Semantic range: intensified here as metaphor for consuming spiritual longing. French rendering: “avoir faim et soif.” Risk: Low.
• δικαιοσύνη (dikaiosynē) — “righteousness.” Baseline reuse required: the Romans translation memory records this term as “justice,” risk High, with the note that Romans’ usage is forensic (God’s gift-status righteousness received by faith, contrasted with human moral achievement). Matthew’s usage adds a distinct nuance that must be flagged, not resolved by substitution: in Matthew (5:6, 5:10, 5:20, 6:33), δικαιοσύνη frequently denotes the practical, ethical righteousness of conduct and character that flows from and evidences right standing with God — the “Righteousness Exceeding the Pharisees” doctrine turns on this sense. The French word remains “justice” in both books (per glossary-consistency rule), but the curriculum’s teaching notes for Matthew must distinguish: Romans’ justice = declared forensic status; Matthew’s justice = the lived righteousness that flows from and displays that status, exceeding external Pharisaic rule-keeping. Risk: High — same word, doctrinally adjacent but distinct emphasis; conflating the two senses either turns Matthew’s ethical exhortation into legalism (if read as earning standing) or drains it of ethical seriousness (if read as pure forensic status with no behavioral entailment).
• χορτάζω (chortazō) — “to be satisfied/filled” (originally of feeding animals fodder — a vivid, earthy image). French rendering: “seront rassasiés.” Risk: Low.

Matthew 5:7

Μακάριοι οἱ ἐλεήμονες, ὅτι αὐτοὶ ἐλεηθήσονται.

• ἐλεήμων (eleēmōn) / ἐλεέω (eleeō) — “merciful / to show mercy.” Literal: compassion acted upon toward someone in a position of need or fault. Semantic range: from simple pity to active, costly intervention on behalf of the suffering or guilty. English variants: merciful, compassionate, showing mercy. Contextual theological meaning: mercy shown to others as the God-given character of those who have themselves received mercy (cf. 9:13, 18:33). French rendering: “miséricordieux.” Risk: Medium — contemporary French Catholic devotional culture (the Divine Mercy devotion associated with Sainte Faustine Kowalska, “Dimanche de la Miséricorde Divine”) gives “miséricorde” strong devotional color oriented toward receiving Christ’s mercy; Matthew 5:7 is oriented the other direction — believers extending mercy to others — and this outward-facing sense must not be lost to the inward-facing devotional association.

Matthew 5:8

Μακάριοι οἱ καθαροὶ τῇ καρδί�ᾳ, ὅτι αὐτοὶ τὸν θεὸν ὄψονται.

• καθαρός (katharos) τῇ καρδίᾳ — “pure in heart.” Literal: clean, unmixed, undefiled. Semantic range: ranges from ritual/ceremonial purity (Levitical cleanliness codes) to moral/interior purity of motive and desire. English variants: pure, clean. Contextual theological meaning: interior integrity of motive before God, not external ritual cleanness — a direct anticipation of Matthew 15’s tradition-of-the-elders controversy (ritual purity vs. heart-defilement). French rendering: “purs de cœur.” Risk: Medium — French readers with any exposure to ritual-purity codes (or none at all, given low OT literacy) may miss that Jesus is deliberately relocating purity from external rite to internal disposition.
• καρδία (kardia) — “heart.” Literal: the physical heart; figuratively, the seat of will, thought, and moral disposition (not primarily emotion, as in modern French/English usage). French rendering: “cœur.” Risk: Medium — modern French “cœur” leans toward emotion/sentiment (as in English), risking a loss of the Hebraic sense of the heart as the seat of will and moral choice.
• ὄψονται τὸν θεόν (opsontai ton theon) — “will see God.” Contextual theological meaning: the beatific hope of unmediated, personal communion with God — an eschatological promise, not a claim of achieving mystical vision by ascetic effort in this life. French rendering: “verront Dieu.” Risk: Medium — Catholic scholastic theology has a developed technical category “la vision béatifique,” which can be a helpful resonance if kept eschatological (future, resurrection-state) but risks being pulled into speculative discussion of degrees of mystical attainment in this present life if not anchored to Matthew’s eschatological horizon.

Matthew 5:9

Μακάριοι οἱ εἰρηνοποιοί, ὅτι αὐτοὶ υἱοὶ θεοῦ κληθήσονται.

• εἰρηνοποιός (eirēnopoios) — “peacemaker.” A compound of εἰρήνη (peace — baseline term, reused exactly as “paix”) + ποιέω (to make/do). Literal: one who actively makes/produces peace, not merely one who avoids conflict. French rendering: “artisans de paix.” Risk: Low — well-established compound rendering across French Bible traditions.
• υἱοὶ θεοῦ κληθήσονται (huioi theou klēthēsontai) — “will be called sons of God.” Critical cross-reference flag: the baseline registry marks “Fils de Dieu” as Critical risk, reserved for Christ’s unique, eternal, co-equal divine Sonship (Romans 1:4; John 1:14). Matthew 5:9 uses the plural, lower-case sense — believers called (adoptively, derivatively) “sons of God,” the same conceptual family as the baseline’s adoption/adoption filiale doctrine (Medium risk), NOT Christ’s unique title. Rendering rule for this curriculum: render as lower-case “fils de Dieu” (no capital) here and everywhere the referent is believers, reserving capitalized “Fils de Dieu” exclusively for Christ, consistent with baseline usage of “appelé” (baseline: “called,” context-sensitive across at least three senses). Risk: High — a capitalization or contextual slip here would blur Christ’s unique Sonship with common adoptive sonship, a genuine Critical-adjacent doctrinal risk if mishandled.

Matthew 5:10

Μακάριοι οἱ δεδιωγμένοι ἕνεκεν δικαιοσύνης, ὅτι αὐτῶν ἐστιν ἡ βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν.

• διώκω (diōkō), here as perfect passive participle δεδιωγμένοι — “persecuted.” Literal: pursued, chased, hounded; by extension, persecuted for a cause. English variants: persecuted, pursued, harassed. Contextual theological meaning: introduces the Discipleship and the Cost of Following Jesus doctrine — persecution specifically “for righteousness’ sake,” i.e., because of faithful conduct/identity, not generic hardship. French rendering: “persécutés.” Risk: Medium — must retain the qualifier “for righteousness’ sake” (reuse δικαιοσύνη/“justice” note above) to avoid the beatitude being applied to any and all suffering.

Matthew 5:11–12

Μακάριοί ἐστε ὅταν ὀνειδίσωσιν ὑμᾶς καὶ διώξωσιν καὶ εἴπωσιν πᾶν πονηρὸν καθ’ ὑμῶν [ψευδόμενοι] ἕνεκεν ἐμοῦ. χαίρετε καὶ ἀγαλλιᾶσθε, ὅτι ὁ μισθὸς ὑμῶν πολὺς ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς· οὕτως γὰρ ἐδίωξαν τοὺς προφήτας τοὺς πρὸ ὑμῶν.

• ὀνειδίζω (oneidizō) — “to revile, reproach.” Literal: to heap insult/shame upon someone publicly. Contextual theological meaning: honor-shame dynamics reversed — the disciple’s public shaming becomes, paradoxically, cause for rejoicing. French rendering: “insulter / outrager.” Risk: Low.
• ἕνεκεν ἐμοῦ (heneken emou) — “because of me / on my account.” Contextual theological meaning: the decisive criterion — persecution for Christ’s sake, tying the beatitude directly to allegiance to Jesus, not to righteousness in the abstract. French rendering: “à cause de moi.” Risk: Medium — must not be diluted into generic “for being a good person.”
• χαίρετε καὶ ἀγαλλιᾶσθε (chairete kai agalliasthe) — “rejoice and be glad.” Literal: two overlapping joy-verbs stacked for emphasis; ἀγαλλιάω especially connotes exuberant, often worship-oriented joy (cf. LXX Psalms). French rendering: “réjouissez-vous et soyez dans l’allégresse.” Risk: Low.
• μισθός (misthos) — “reward.” Literal: wages paid for labor/service. Semantic range: from ordinary commercial wages to God’s gracious eschatological recompense. English variants: reward, wages, recompense. Contextual theological meaning: direct grace-versus-merit collision point, already flagged at the doctrine level in the Romans baseline (grace ≠ merit, Romans 4:4–5, 11:5–6). Matthew’s reward language must be taught as God’s gracious response to faith-produced obedience — echoing the baseline’s obéissance de la foi — never as wages earned that create a legal claim on God. French rendering: “récompense.” Risk: High — a careless rendering or unglossed use throughout Matthew’s many reward sayings (5:12; 6:1–6, 16–18; 10:41–42; 20:1–16; 25:14–30) risks smuggling in a merit-based soteriology that contradicts this curriculum’s (and Romans’) grace theology.
• προφήτης (prophētēs) — “prophets.” Baseline reuse: exactly “prophète,” risk Low. Contextual note: the disciples’ persecution is placed in continuity with the persecuted prophets of Israel, reinforcing the Fulfillment-of-Prophecy doctrine’s historical throughline.

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PART 2 — Chapter-by-Chapter Study, Matthew 1–28

Format below: for each chapter, load-bearing terms new to the book’s vocabulary are given full treatment (original, transliteration, literal meaning, semantic range, English variants, contextual theological meaning, French rendering and risk). Terms already treated in the Core Passage or an earlier chapter are cited by name only, with any additional contextual nuance noted. Baseline Romans terms are cited as “baseline reuse.”

Matthew 1 — Genealogy and Birth

• Χριστός (Christos) — baseline reuse, “Messie” (as title) / “Christ” (as name-component, e.g., “Jésus Christ,” 1:1, 1:18). Risk: Medium, per baseline messiah entry. Note: Matthew opens by fusing the name “Jesus” with the title “Christ,” establishing the Messiah doctrine from the first verse.
• υἱὸς Δαυίδ (huios Dauid) — “Son of David.” Literal: David’s son/descendant. Semantic range: ordinary genealogical descent OR the specific messianic office promised in 2 Samuel 7:12–16 (an eternal Davidic throne). English variants: son of David, David’s son, descendant of David. Contextual theological meaning: Matthew 1:1 opens the whole Gospel with this title, making it programmatic for the “Jesus as the Promised Messiah and Son of David” doctrine; the genealogy (1:2–17) exists to substantiate the claim. French rendering: “Fils de David.” Risk: High — reuses baseline’s Low-risk “David” but the combined title is new to this curriculum; French readers risk hearing only a genealogical footnote rather than the fulfillment of a specific royal covenant promise (baseline davidic_covenant, Medium risk, applies directly here).
• Ἐμμανουήλ (Emmanouēl) — “Immanuel/Emmanuel,” from Hebrew עִמָּנוּ אֵל. Literal: “with-us God” / “God [is] with us.” Matthew supplies his own gloss in-text: μεθ’ ἡμῶν ὁ θεός. English variants: Immanuel, Emmanuel. Contextual theological meaning: cites Isaiah 7:14 as fulfilled in Jesus’ birth (Fulfillment-of-Prophecy doctrine) and asserts the Incarnation — God himself present among his people, not a divinely inspired human agent. French rendering: “Emmanuel,” with Matthew’s own gloss retained: “Dieu avec nous.” Risk: Critical — this is one of the most direct incarnational/deity claims in the Gospel; must preserve both the transliteration and the in-text translation Matthew himself provides, since the verse supplies its own doctrinal commentary.
• παρθένος (parthenos) — “virgin.” Literal: an unmarried woman who has not had sexual relations. Semantic range: in some LXX contexts can denote simply “young woman,” a fact often raised regarding Isaiah 7:14’s Hebrew עַלְמָה; but Matthew’s own narrative (1:18, 1:20, 1:25 — “before they came together,” “conceived…by the Holy Spirit,” “knew her not until she had given birth”) locks the sense to a literal, miraculous virginal conception regardless of debate over the Isaiah source text. English variants: virgin, young woman (rejected here). Contextual theological meaning: foundational to the doctrine of the Incarnation and the sinless, uniquely-originated humanity of Christ. French rendering: “vierge.” Risk: Critical — no room for a “young woman” softening within Matthew’s own narrative frame.
• πληρόω (plēroō), in the recurring formula ἵνα/ὅπως πληρωθῇ τὸ ῥηθὲν… (hina/hopōs plērōthē to rhēthen…) — “that it might be fulfilled…” (first occurrence 1:22–23, citing Isaiah 7:14). Literal: to fill up, complete, bring to full realization. Semantic range: fulfillment of a legal requirement, a measure, or (as here) a prophetic word finding its intended referent. English variants: fulfilled, so that it might be fulfilled, in fulfillment of. Contextual theological meaning: this formula recurs roughly fourteen times across Matthew (1:22; 2:15, 17, 23; 4:14; 8:17; 12:17; 13:35; 21:4; 26:56; 27:9, etc.) and is the primary literary vehicle for the “Fulfillment of Old Testament Prophecy” doctrine — establishing a linear, historical fulfillment pattern (OT promise → NT event) rather than a cyclical or merely illustrative use of Scripture. French rendering: “afin que s’accomplisse… / il arriva ceci pour que s’accomplît…” Risk: Medium — the French rendering itself is stable across all traditions; the risk is pedagogical, not lexical: readers with low OT literacy (a documented risk factor across all three target audience segments per the baseline requirements document) will not recognize the OT texts being cited without added cross-reference notes.
• ἄγγελος (angelos) — “angel/messenger.” Low risk, standard term, French “ange.” Not separately tabled below given minimal ambiguity.
• Ἰησοῦς (Iēsous) — baseline reuse, “Jésus,” risk Low. Added contextual note for this curriculum: Matthew 1:21 explicitly glosses the name’s meaning (“he will save his people from their sins”), echoing the Hebrew יְהוֹשֻׁעַ / יֵשׁוּעַ (“YHWH saves”); this etymological wordplay is worth a teaching note even though the name itself carries no rendering risk.

Matthew 2 — The Magi, the Flight to Egypt

• μάγοι (magoi) — “magi.” Literal: originally a Persian priestly-scholarly caste; by NT times, broadly “wise men,” astronomer-scholars from the East. Semantic range: from respected court sages to (pejoratively, elsewhere in the NT, e.g., Simon Magus in Acts 8) sorcerers/magicians. English variants: wise men, magi, astrologers. Contextual theological meaning: Gentile outsiders are the first in Matthew’s narrative to recognize and worship the newborn king — an early signal of the gospel’s universal scope. French rendering: “mages.” Risk: Medium — French “mage” carries strong occult/fortune-telling connotations in contemporary popular usage (tarot, fantasy fiction, “mage noir”) stronger than the relatively neutral “scholar-astronomer” sense intended; a brief clarifying note is warranted so the narrative is not read as endorsing occult practice.
• προσκυνέω (proskyneō) — “to worship / to prostrate oneself before.” Literal: to fall down and kiss the feet or the ground before a superior; a gesture of homage. Semantic range: ranges from ordinary court obeisance to a human ruler, to full religious worship of deity — genuinely ambiguous without context. English variants: worship, do homage, bow down, pay homage. Contextual theological meaning: first occurrence at 2:2, 2:11 (the Magi); recurs at 14:33 and climactically at 28:9, 17 (the risen Jesus). Contextual meaning shifts along the narrative from ambiguous royal homage (ch. 2) to unambiguous divine worship (ch. 14, 28). French rendering: “adorer” (when the divine-worship sense is intended, especially 14:33, 28:9, 17) or “se prosterner devant” (when royal-homage ambiguity should be preserved, as arguably in 2:2, 2:11). Risk: Medium — a flattening to only one French verb throughout risks either overstating the Magi’s theological understanding or understating the disciples’ post-resurrection confession.
• Fulfillment formula — reused from Matthew 1 (2:15, 2:17, 2:23, citing Hosea 11:1, Jeremiah 31:15, and a composite “Nazarene” reference).

Matthew 3 — John the Baptist; the Baptism of Jesus

• βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν (basileia tōn ouranōn) — “kingdom of heaven.” First occurrence 3:2 (“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand”). Literal: the reign/rule (βασιλεία) belonging to the heavens (a Jewish reverential circumlocution avoiding direct use of God’s name, functionally equivalent to “kingdom of God”). Semantic range: God’s sovereign, saving reign — both a present reality breaking into history through Jesus’ ministry and a future consummated reality at the end of the age. English variants: kingdom of heaven, kingdom of God (used interchangeably by the Synoptic writers, though Matthew overwhelmingly prefers “of heaven,” using it roughly 32 times, versus “kingdom of God” only about 4–5 times: 12:28, 19:24, 21:31, 21:43). Contextual theological meaning: the central organizing theme of Matthew’s Gospel and the first curriculum doctrine listed. French rendering: “Royaume des cieux,” kept distinct in form from the baseline’s “Royaume de Dieu” (used for the rare Matthean occurrences of the God-form, see Matthew 12 and 21 below) while both must be taught as referring to the identical reality — God’s own saving reign. Risk: High — two distinct risks converge: (1) French secular “le ciel” (heaven) is heard primarily as an afterlife destination, risking a reduction of “kingdom of heaven” to “going to heaven when you die” rather than God’s reign breaking into present history; (2) maintaining two French phrases (“des cieux” / “de Dieu”) for what is theologically one reality requires an explicit glossary note so students do not conclude Matthew describes two different kingdoms.
• μετάνοια (metanoia) / μετανοέω (metanoeō) — “repentance / to repent.” Literal: a change of νοῦς (mind) — a fundamental reorientation of thought and direction, not mere regret. Semantic range: from simple change of opinion to the biblical sense of a complete turning from sin toward God. English variants: repent, repentance, turn. Contextual theological meaning: John’s and later Jesus’ (4:17) opening summons; a precondition for entering the kingdom. French rendering: “repentir” (noun) / “se repentir” (verb). Risk: High — French Catholic sacramental theology strongly associates “repentir” with the formal act of confession within the sacrement de la Pénitence et de la Réconciliation; Matthew’s usage denotes the prior, inward reorientation of mind and life that such a sacramental act (where practiced) is meant to express, not the rite itself. Must not be reduced to “aller se confesser.”
• βάπτισμα (baptisma) / βαπτίζω (baptizō) — “baptism / to baptize.” Literal: to dip, immerse. Semantic range: ritual immersion for purification (Jewish proselyte baptism, Qumran practices) sharpened by John into an eschatological repentance-rite anticipating the Messiah, later instituted by Jesus himself as the entry rite of discipleship (28:19). English variants: baptism, baptize, immerse. Contextual theological meaning: first occurrence here (John’s baptism of repentance); climactic occurrence at 28:19 (the Great Commission’s Trinitarian baptismal formula). French rendering: “baptême” (noun) / “baptiser” (verb). Risk: High — the Catholic-Protestant divide over baptismal mode, timing (infant vs. believer), and sacramental efficacy (regeneration vs. symbol) is a live, unresolved denominational difference across this curriculum’s mixed readership (per the baseline requirements document’s audience profile); render literally in every instance and let pastoral/teaching notes — not the glossary — carry denominational nuance.
• περιστερά (peristera) — “dove.” Low risk, standard symbolic image of the Spirit’s descent (3:16); French “colombe.”
• υἱός… ἀγαπητός… εὐδόκησα (huios… agapētos… eudokēsa) — “Son… beloved… [in whom] I am well pleased” (3:17). Baseline reuse: “Fils de Dieu” (Critical) and “Père” (Medium) apply directly. Contextual note: this is the first explicit divine confirmation of Jesus’ unique Sonship in Matthew’s narrative (paired later with 17:5’s Transfiguration repetition), directly supporting the “Deity of Christ” / “Sonship of Christ” doctrines already flagged Critical in the baseline.

Matthew 4 — Temptation; Calling of the First Disciples

• πειρασμός (peirasmos) / πειράζω (peirazō) — “temptation / to tempt, test.” Literal: a trial or test, morally neutral in itself (God “tests,” the devil “tempts” — same Greek root, differentiated by agent and intent). Semantic range: a divinely permitted test that proves character (as with Job) versus an enticement to sin. English variants: temptation, testing, trial. Contextual theological meaning: Jesus’ wilderness testing (4:1–11) recapitulates and reverses Israel’s wilderness failures, each temptation answered with Scripture — reinforcing both the sinlessness of Christ and the authority of Scripture. Recurs in the Lord’s Prayer (6:13). French rendering: “tentation” (noun) / “tenter” (verb). Risk: Medium — French colloquial usage trivializes “tentation” (e.g., a dessert menu); must retain the moral-spiritual weight and the distinct sense of being tested versus being enticed to sin.
• ἀκολουθέω (akoloutheō) — “to follow.” Literal: to walk the same road as, to accompany. Semantic range: from literal physical accompaniment to total-life allegiance and discipleship. English variants: follow, come after. Contextual theological meaning: first full call narrative at 4:18–22 (“Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men” — the disciples “immediately left their nets”); establishes the “Discipleship and the Cost of Following Jesus” doctrine’s characteristic vocabulary. French rendering: “suivre.” Risk: Medium — French “suivre” can read as passive accompaniment (following a guide, following a trend/celebrity on social media) rather than the total, costly reorientation of life Matthew intends; must be reinforced by context (leaving nets, boats, family) rather than by lexical choice alone.
• μαθητής (mathētēs) — “disciple.” Literal: a learner, pupil, apprentice. Semantic range: a student of a philosophical school (a “disciple of Aristotle”) through to a total-life follower who models his whole existence on the teacher. English variants: disciple, follower, student. Contextual theological meaning: reused constantly through Matthew; the whole Gospel’s discipleship material (culminating in 28:19’s “make disciples”) depends on this word retaining its total-allegiance sense rather than degrading to “student of a teaching.” French rendering: “disciple” (established loanword, stable across French Bible traditions). Risk: Medium — precisely because it is a stable, comfortable loanword, French readers may under-notice how costly the term’s content actually is (cf. 8:18–22; 10:37–39; 16:24–26); the lexical choice is safe, but the doctrinal content requires reinforcement.
• εὐαγγέλιον τῆς βασιλείας (euangelion tēs basileias) — “gospel of the kingdom” (4:23). Combines two baseline/registry terms: gospel (baseline: “Évangile,” Low risk) + kingdom of heaven (this document: “Royaume des cieux,” High risk). French rendering: “l’Évangile du Royaume.” Risk: Medium — the compound itself is new to this curriculum and should be tabled distinctly since it ties the Gospel doctrine directly to the Kingdom doctrine, Matthew’s most repeated summary of Jesus’ own proclamation (4:23, 9:35, 24:14).

Matthew 5 — The Sermon on the Mount (I): Beatitudes (5:1–12, treated fully in Part 1 above) and 5:13–48

• ἅλας / φῶς (halas / phōs) — “salt / light” (5:13–16). Low risk, established cultural metaphors for a distinct, visible, preserving/illuminating presence in the world; French “sel” / “lumière.” Risk: Low.
• νόμος (nomos) — “the Law.” Baseline reuse: exactly “loi” (capitalized “la Loi” for the Mosaic/Torah referent), risk High per baseline. Contextual note, critical for this curriculum: Matthew 5:17 (“I have not come to abolish the Law or the Prophets, but to fulfill them”) is the single most important verse for holding together the “Fulfillment of Old Testament Prophecy” and “Authority of Jesus’ Teaching” doctrines — Jesus asserts continuity with, not abolition of, the Law, while simultaneously claiming the authority to intensify and reinterpret it (5:21–48, “You have heard… but I say to you”). Risk here rises to High (matching baseline) precisely because both Catholic natural-law theological categories and antinomian misreadings are live risks in French theological discourse, per the baseline’s own caution.
• δικαιοσύνη (dikaiosynē) — “righteousness” (5:20: “unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees”). See full discussion under Matthew 5:6 above (Part 1). This is the verse that most directly states the “Righteousness Exceeding the Pharisees” doctrine. Risk: High.
• ἀλλὰ ἐγὼ λέγω ὑμῖν (alla egō legō hymin) — “But I say to you…” — the repeated antithesis formula (5:21–48). Not a single lexical term but a grammatical-rhetorical marker of divine authority: Jesus sets his own word alongside, and in intensifying tension with, the received reading of the Law, a claim to an authority no contemporary rabbi asserted for himself. Directly supports the “Authority of Jesus’ Teaching” doctrine (see ἐξουσία below). French rendering: “Mais moi, je vous dis…” Risk: Medium — grammatically straightforward, but the rhetorical force (a claim to an authority equal to or greater than Moses) must be preserved in translation register, not softened into a gentler “on the other hand.”
• τέλειος (teleios) — “perfect” (5:48: “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect”). Literal: complete, fully mature, having reached its intended end (τέλος). Semantic range: moral flawlessness (a common but risky reading) versus wholeness/maturity/completeness of covenant loyalty (the more likely sense, echoing Deuteronomy 18:13 LXX). English variants: perfect, complete, mature. Contextual theological meaning: a call to undivided, comprehensive love (including of enemies, 5:44–47) reflecting God’s own character, not flawless moral performance as a precondition of acceptance. French rendering: “parfait.” Risk: Medium — French “parfait” strongly connotes flawless performance/perfectionism; risks either despair (an unreachable moral bar) or a legalistic, merit-based misreading if not anchored to covenant wholeness and grace.

Matthew 6 — The Sermon on the Mount (II): Prayer, Fasting, Treasure

• The Lord’s Prayer (6:9–13) — a cluster of load-bearing terms requiring joint treatment:
  • Πάτερ ἡμῶν (Pater hēmōn) — “Our Father.” Baseline reuse: “Père” (Medium risk). French: “Notre Père.”
  • ὀφειλήματα (opheilēmata) — “debts” (6:12: “forgive us our debts, as we forgive those who are indebted to us”). Literal: monetary or moral debts owed. Semantic range: financial debt used as a live metaphor for moral culpability/sin. English variants: debts, trespasses, sins. Contextual theological meaning: sin conceived as an obligation owed to God, which he graciously cancels, conditioned on the disciple’s own practice of canceling others’ debts against them (cf. 6:14–15; 18:21–35). French rendering: major liturgical flashpoint. The historic French Catholic liturgical text of the “Notre Père” reads “pardonne-nous nos offenses, comme nous pardonnons aussi à ceux qui nous ont offensés,” while the modern ecumenical liturgical translation (2017, adopted across French Catholic and many Protestant usage) and most study Bibles render more literally “remets-nous nos dettes, comme nous remettons [aussi] leurs dettes à nos débiteurs.” Recommend “nos dettes” for lexical fidelity to ὀφειλήματα, with an explicit reviewer note flagging the liturgical variant “nos offenses” that students will recognize from church usage. Risk: High — a fixed, memorized liturgical text competing with the more literal translation is a genuine collision point requiring a translator’s note at every occurrence (6:12, and conceptually in 18:21–35).
  • τοῦ πονηροῦ (tou ponērou) — “from evil” or “from the evil one” (6:13b). Genuinely ambiguous in Greek between an abstract “evil” (neuter) and a personal “the evil one” (masculine, i.e., Satan). English variants: evil, the evil one. French rendering: “le mal” (abstract) vs. “le Mauvais” (personal, the established French rendering when the personal sense is intended, as in the 2017 ecumenical liturgical text). Risk: Medium — the curriculum should preserve the ambiguity or follow the modern ecumenical liturgical choice (“Mauvais”) for consistency with what French-speaking students already pray, flagging the alternative for reviewers.
• ὑποκριτής (hypokritēs) — “hypocrite.” Literal: originally a stage actor, one who speaks from behind a mask; by extension, one who performs a false persona. Semantic range: theatrical performer → morally, one who feigns piety for public approval while lacking inward reality. English variants: hypocrite, pretender, actor. Contextual theological meaning: first developed at length in 6:2, 5, 16 (almsgiving, prayer, fasting done “to be seen by others”) and later intensified into the seven woes of Matthew 23; central to the “Righteousness Exceeding the Pharisees” doctrine as its negative foil. French rendering: “hypocrite” (stable cognate loanword). Risk: Medium — the risk is not lexical but idiomatic: French idiom “faire le pharisien” / “c’est un pharisien” (to be a Pharisee = to be a self-righteous hypocrite) risks flattening the Pharisees into cartoon villains, letting French readers feel comfortably superior rather than examining their own hearts, which undercuts the Sermon’s actual pastoral aim (see Matthew 23 below).
• μαμωνᾶς (mamōnas) — “mammon” (6:24, “You cannot serve God and mammon”). An Aramaic loanword meaning wealth/property, personified here as a rival master demanding total allegiance. English variants: money, wealth, mammon. French rendering: “Mamon” (transliterated, as in Segond and TOB, preserving the personification) rather than a flat translation as simply “l’argent.” Risk: Medium — flattening to “l’argent” loses the rhetorical personification of wealth as a rival god demanding worship, weakening the stark either/or Jesus poses.

Matthew 7 — The Sermon on the Mount (III): Judging, the Narrow Gate, True and False Disciples

• κρίνω (krinō) — “to judge” (7:1, “Judge not, that you be not judged”). Literal: to distinguish, evaluate, decide a case (a legal/judicial term). Semantic range: neutral discernment through to condemnatory, self-righteous censure. English variants: judge, condemn, evaluate. Contextual theological meaning: begins the vocabulary of the “Judgment and the End of the Age” doctrine, here applied interpersonally rather than eschatologically (contrast Matthew 24–25); warns against hypocritical, self-exempting censoriousness, not against all moral discernment (cf. 7:6, 15–20, which require discernment). French rendering: “juger.” Risk: Medium — risk of over-application (a “never judge/never discern” quietism that contradicts 7:6, 15–20) or under-application (dismissing the warning as merely tolerant relativism); requires the immediate co-text (the log/speck illustration) to be preserved intact.
• ἡ στενὴ πύλη / ὁδός (hē stenē pylē / hodos) — “the narrow gate / way” (7:13–14). Contextual theological meaning: exclusivity of the one true way (Christ himself, cf. John 14:6) versus the broad way of self-directed religiosity — not primarily a statement about moral effort or difficulty. French rendering: “la porte étroite” / “le chemin étroit.” Risk: Medium — risk of a moralistic misreading (narrow = requiring more works/effort) rather than the intended exclusivity claim (narrow = the one true way, as opposed to the many broad, self-chosen ways).
• ψευδοπροφήτης (pseudoprophētēs) — “false prophet.” Baseline reuse of prophète (Low) with a negative qualifier; French “faux prophète.” Risk: Low.
• ἐξουσία (exousia) — “authority” — introduced fully here at the Sermon’s close (7:28–29: “the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes”) though its content has been building since chapter 5. Literal: the right/power to act, sanctioned power (distinct from mere βία, brute force). Semantic range: delegated administrative authority, inherent sovereign authority, or (as claimed of Jesus) an authority that is self-evidently his own rather than derivative. English variants: authority, power, right. Contextual theological meaning: the organizing term for the “Authority of Jesus’ Teaching” doctrine; recurs at 8:9 (the centurion’s own authority as an analogy), 9:6 (authority to forgive sins), 9:8, 21:23–27 (challenged by the religious leaders), and climactically 28:18 (“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me”). French rendering: “autorité.” Risk: High — in a strongly laïque (secular) French public culture with an ambivalent-to-critical stance toward institutional religious authority (and a post-Vatican II Catholic culture attentive to clerical-authority abuses), “autorité” risks being heard as institutional/organizational power rather than the intrinsic, self-authenticating divine authority Matthew claims for Jesus himself, distinct from and greater than that of “their scribes.”

Matthew 8 — Miracles; the Centurion; Following Jesus

• υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου (huios tou anthrōpou) — “Son of Man.” First occurrence 8:20. Literal: “son of a human being,” a Semitic idiom that can simply mean “a human being” (as often in the OT, e.g. Ezekiel), but which Jesus uses as a distinctive self-designation drawing on Daniel 7:13–14’s vision of “one like a son of man” who receives everlasting dominion, glory, and kingship from God. Semantic range: from a modest, humility-emphasizing self-reference (a common but incomplete popular reading) to a majestic, Daniel-7 authority-and-judgment title. English variants: Son of Man. Contextual theological meaning: Matthew’s most frequent Christological self-designation (used roughly 30 times), deliberately pairing genuine human vulnerability (“the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head,” 8:20) with divine authority (9:6, forgiving sins; 24:30, coming in glory to judge; 26:64, seated at the right hand of Power). French rendering: “Fils de l’homme.” Risk: Critical — the live and specific risk (distinct from, and in addition to, its status as a title) is that French readers and even teachers commonly gloss “Fils de l’homme” as emphasizing only Jesus’ humanness/humility (a plausible but incomplete reading of the surface phrase), missing the Daniel 7 authority-and-judgment claim; this title must never be collapsed into, nor treated as a synonym for, “Fils de Dieu” — the two titles carry distinct (though complementary) theological freight and must remain lexically distinct throughout.
• πίστις (pistis) — baseline reuse, “foi,” risk Medium, applied here to the centurion’s remarkable faith (8:10, “I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel”) — an early instance of the “Universal Scope of the Gospel” doctrine (a Gentile’s faith exceeding Israel’s), reinforced at 8:11 (“many will come from east and west”).

Matthew 9 — Authority to Forgive; Calling of Matthew; Compassion

• ἀφίημι (aphiēmi), in the sense “to forgive [sins]” — “forgive/forgiveness” (9:2–6, “the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”). Literal: to release, let go, send away. Semantic range: releasing a debt, divorcing a spouse, or (theologically) releasing/canceling the guilt of sin. English variants: forgive, release, let go. Contextual theological meaning: Jesus’ direct, unmediated claim to forgive sins provokes the charge of blasphemy (9:3) precisely because forgiveness of sins was understood as God’s prerogative alone — a direct assertion of deity bound up with the ἐξουσία/authority doctrine. French rendering: “pardonner” (verb) / “pardon” (noun). Risk: Medium — must be taught as Jesus exercising a divine prerogative directly (not a priestly/sacramental mediation of God’s forgiveness, which is a distinct, later ecclesial category); the French Catholic sacramental category of priestly absolution should not be read back into this direct dominical claim.
• σπλαγχνίζομαι (splanchnizomai) — “to have compassion, to be moved with compassion.” Literal: to be moved in one’s σπλάγχνα (inward parts/entrails) — a vivid, gut-level image of compassion. Semantic range: a strong, visceral compassion prompting action, not mere sentiment. English variants: have compassion, be moved with pity. Contextual theological meaning: recurs at 9:36, 14:14, 15:32, 18:27, 20:34, consistently describing Jesus’ (or a merciful figure’s) motivation for acts of mercy toward the needy or lost — reinforcing the character behind the mercy beatitude (5:7). French rendering: “avoir compassion” / “être ému de compassion.” Risk: Low.

Matthew 10 — Sending the Twelve

• ἀπόστολος (apostolos) — baseline reuse, “apôtre,” risk Low. First formal listing of “the twelve apostles” at 10:2.
• ψυχή (psychē) — “life/soul” (10:39, “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it”). Literal: the life-principle, the self as a living being. Semantic range: physical life, the whole person, or (less often here) the “soul” as distinct from body in a later Greek-philosophical sense. English variants: life, soul, self. Contextual theological meaning: central to the “Discipleship and the Cost of Following Jesus” doctrine — the paradox that self-preservation is self-loss, and self-surrender to Christ is true self-finding. French rendering: “vie.” Risk: Medium — French “âme” would risk importing a body-soul dualism (a later Greek-philosophical, not Matthew’s Hebraic, category) not clearly intended here; “vie” better preserves the whole-person, this-life-and-beyond sense; recommend “vie” with a note that ψυχή is broader than the modern French “âme.”
• Persecution/reward vocabulary — reused from the core passage (5:10–12).

Matthew 11 — John the Baptist; Woes; the Father-Son Relationship

• ζυγός (zygos) — “yoke” (11:29–30, “Take my yoke upon you… for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light”). Literal: the wooden crosspiece binding two draft animals for shared labor. Semantic range: in Jewish usage, a common metaphor for submission to the Law (“the yoke of the Torah,” a widely used rabbinic image) or to a teacher’s discipline (“the yoke of a rabbi”). English variants: yoke. Contextual theological meaning: Jesus offers his own yoke as restful in deliberate contrast to the burdensome yoke of Pharisaic legal interpretation, directly feeding both the “Discipleship” and “Righteousness Exceeding the Pharisees” doctrines. French rendering: “joug.” Risk: Low — the lexical rendering is stable; the theological contrast (light yoke of Christ vs. heavy yoke of legalism) must be carried by teaching notes, since the agrarian image is unfamiliar to most contemporary French readers.
• 11:27 (“No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son…”) — not a single new term, but a critical Christological text asserting exclusive, reciprocal, unmediated knowledge between Father and Son. Baseline reuse: “Fils de Dieu” (Critical) and “Père” (Medium) both apply. Contextual note: this reciprocal-knowledge claim is one of Matthew’s clearest implicit deity claims and should be flagged for theologian review alongside the other Critical Sonship/Deity texts already listed in the baseline doctrine registry.

Matthew 12 — Sabbath Controversies; the Unforgivable Sin

• σάββατον (sabbaton) / κύριος τοῦ σαββάτου (kyrios tou sabbatou) — “Sabbath / Lord of the Sabbath.” Literal: the seventh-day rest commanded in the Law. Contextual theological meaning: Jesus’ claim to be “Lord of the Sabbath” (12:8) reuses the baseline’s “Seigneur” (High risk) in a specifically Christological authority-over-the-Law claim, tightly linked to the “Authority of Jesus’ Teaching” doctrine. French rendering: “sabbat” / “Seigneur du sabbat.” Risk: Medium — most French readers (across all three audience segments named in the baseline requirements) have low familiarity with Jewish Sabbath practice; the claim’s force (Jesus placing himself above an institution instituted by God himself in the Law) needs contextual framing, not a different French word.
• βλασφημία τοῦ πνεύματος (blasphēmia tou pneumatos) — “blasphemy against the Spirit” (12:31–32), the so-called “unforgivable sin.” Literal: speech/attribution that slanders or willfully misattributes the Spirit’s work. Semantic range: a specific, willful, hardened attribution of the Spirit’s clearly Spirit-empowered works to an evil source (in context, the Pharisees attributing Jesus’ Spirit-empowered exorcisms to Satan), not any doubt, struggle, or momentary sin. English variants: blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, the unforgivable sin. Contextual theological meaning: a uniquely sensitive pastoral text; feeds the “Judgment and the End of the Age” doctrine and requires precise handling given how commonly anxious believers fear they have committed this specific sin. French rendering: “blasphème contre l’Esprit.” Risk: Critical — must not be rendered or taught in a way that broadens it to ordinary sin, doubt, or spiritual struggle; requires theologian review at every occurrence given its pastoral stakes.
• Βεελζεβούλ (Beelzeboul) — proper name, transliterated “Béelzéboul,” Low risk.
• Rare Matthean use of βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ (basileia tou theou), “kingdom of God,” at 12:28 — baseline reuse, “Royaume de Dieu.” Risk: Medium, per baseline; flagged here as the first of Matthew’s small number of “kingdom of God” (rather than “of heaven”) occurrences (see also Matthew 19, 21).

Matthew 13 — The Kingdom Parables

• παραβολή (parabolē) — “parable.” Literal: a “placing beside,” a comparison. Semantic range: from a simple illustrative analogy to (as Matthew frames it, 13:10–17, citing Isaiah 6:9–10) a deliberately veiling form of speech that reveals truth to receptive hearers while concealing it from the hardened. English variants: parable, comparison. Contextual theological meaning: the primary literary form for the “Kingdom of Heaven” doctrine in this chapter (the sower, the weeds, the mustard seed, the leaven, the hidden treasure, the pearl, the net). French rendering: “parabole.” Risk: Medium — the established French term is stable, but its dual revealing/concealing function (per Jesus’ own explanation, 13:11–15) is easily missed if parables are taught merely as friendly illustrations rather than as a form that simultaneously discloses and hides.
• μυστήριον (mystērion) — “mystery” (13:11, “the mysteries [μυστήρια] of the kingdom of heaven”). Literal: a secret, something hidden until revealed to initiates. Semantic range: a Pauline/Matthean sense of a previously concealed divine purpose now disclosed to those with insight, distinct from an unsolvable puzzle. English variants: mystery, secret. Contextual theological meaning: the present, partly-hidden form of the kingdom (growing quietly, mixed with opposition, not yet visibly triumphant) as opposed to its future, unveiled consummation. French rendering: “mystère.” Risk: Medium — French Catholic liturgical usage (the Mass’s “mystère de la foi,” the Rosary’s “mystères”) gives “mystère” strong sacramental-devotional color that could import categories (sacramental participation in a hidden reality) foreign to Matthew 13’s sense of a previously concealed, now-revealed teaching about the kingdom’s present form.
• λόγος τῆς βασιλείας / σπόρος / ζιζάνια / κόκκος σινάπεως / ζύμη / θησαυρός / μαργαρίτης / σαγήνη (word of the kingdom / seed / weeds-tares / mustard seed / leaven / treasure / pearl / dragnet) — the cluster of parabolic images; individually low risk as concrete nouns, French “la parole du Royaume,” “la semence,” “l’ivraie,” “le grain de moutarde,” “le levain,” “le trésor,” “la perle,” “le filet.” Risk: Low for the images themselves; the cumulative theological point (the kingdom’s mixed, growing, hidden-then-revealed nature) is carried by teaching notes rather than lexical choice.

Matthew 14 — Feeding of the Five Thousand; Walking on Water

No major new theological vocabulary; this chapter reuses compassion (σπλαγχνίζομαι, ch. 9) and worship/προσκυνέω (ch. 2), the latter now in its unambiguous divine sense: 14:33, “Truly you are the Son of God” — the disciples’ first full confession of Jesus’ unique divine Sonship (baseline reuse, “Fils de Dieu,” Critical), worshipping him (“adorer”) rather than merely bowing in homage. No new term entries required.

Matthew 15 — Tradition of the Elders; the Canaanite Woman

• παράδοσις (paradosis) — “tradition” (15:2–6, “the tradition of the elders”). Literal: something handed down, transmitted. Semantic range: neutral (any transmitted teaching or custom) to, in this context, a specific body of oral legal interpretation that Jesus accuses of nullifying God’s actual command (15:3, 6, “you have made void the word of God for the sake of your tradition”). English variants: tradition, what is handed down. Contextual theological meaning: directly feeds “Righteousness Exceeding the Pharisees” — the Pharisees’ error is elevating human interpretive tradition to a level that overrides, rather than serves, God’s revealed command. French rendering: “tradition.” Risk: High — this is a genuine, specific French Catholic collision point: capitalized “la Tradition” functions in Catholic theology as a co-authoritative source of revelation alongside Scripture (the “deposit of faith” transmitted through the Church’s living Tradition and Magisterium). Matthew 15’s critique of “the tradition of the elders” targets a specific first-century body of Pharisaic oral legal interpretation, not a critique of the Catholic theological category of Sacred Tradition as such — but the shared French vocabulary makes this distinction easy to blur in either direction (Protestant readers over-applying the critique to Catholic Tradition broadly; Catholic readers under-applying it to any human religious accretion). Requires theologian-level framing, not a different lexical choice.
• κοινόω (koinoō) — “to defile, make common/unclean” (15:11, 18, 20, “it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth”). Literal: to render κοινός, “common” (in the ritual sense of profane/unclean, as opposed to consecrated/holy — a direct semantic partner to the baseline’s holy/saint vocabulary). Semantic range: ritual defilement (via food, contact) versus moral/heart-level defilement (via speech and inner disposition). English variants: defile, make unclean, corrupt. Contextual theological meaning: Jesus relocates defilement from external, ritual categories to internal, moral ones — directly continuing the purity-of-heart theme from the core passage (5:8). French rendering: “souiller” / “rendre impur.” Risk: Medium — must retain the deliberate external-versus-internal contrast; a flattened rendering risks losing the polemical structure of the passage.
• πίστις (pistis) — baseline reuse, applied to the Canaanite (Gentile) woman’s persistent faith (15:28), reinforcing the “Unity of Jews and Gentiles” / universal-scope doctrines already flagged High/Medium in the baseline.

Matthew 16 — Peter’s Confession; the Keys; the First Passion Prediction

• Χριστός… υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ τοῦ ζῶντος (Christos… huios tou theou tou zōntos) — “the Christ, the Son of the living God” (16:16), Peter’s confession. Baseline reuse: “Messie” (Medium) + “Fils de Dieu” (Critical). Contextual note: this is Matthew’s clearest single-verse fusion of the Messiah and Sonship doctrines, the narrative and theological turning point of the Gospel (marking the shift toward the Passion narrative, 16:21).
• κλεῖδας τῆς βασιλείας τῶν οὐρανῶν (kleidas tēs basileias tōn ouranōn) — “keys of the kingdom of heaven” (16:19). Literal: κλείς, a key, the instrument of access/control over a locked space. Semantic range: an image of delegated administrative authority (cf. Isaiah 22:22, the steward’s key), here granted to Peter (and, in the parallel 18:18, to the gathered disciples/community) in connection with binding and loosing. English variants: keys of the kingdom. Contextual theological meaning: directly touches the “Church and Church Discipline” doctrine, describing authority exercised on earth with heaven’s ratification. French rendering: “les clés du Royaume [des cieux].” Risk: Critical — this phrase is extraordinarily loaded in French Catholic visual and institutional culture: the crossed keys of St. Peter appear on the Vatican coat of arms and papal insignia, and “les clés de saint Pierre” is a live, popular symbol of papal primacy and apostolic succession. This curriculum’s glossary does not adjudicate the Catholic-Protestant debate over whether this text founds a unique Petrine/papal office or describes an authority exercised by the apostolic band/church more broadly; it flags the term for mandatory theologian review at every occurrence, per the escalation rules already established in the baseline requirements document.
• δέω / λύω (deō / lyō) — “to bind / to loose” (16:19; repeated 18:18). Literal: to tie/restrain versus to release/set free — legal-administrative language, likely reflecting a rabbinic idiom for authoritatively declaring something forbidden or permitted (halakhic ruling), or for authoritatively excluding from or admitting to the community. Semantic range: legal ruling-authority; community admission/exclusion authority; (in some readings) authority over forgiveness of sin. English variants: bind, loose, forbid, permit. Contextual theological meaning: the specific vocabulary of the “Church and Church Discipline” doctrine (see also Matthew 18 below). French rendering: “lier” / “délier.” Risk: Critical — directly collides with the Catholic sacramental doctrine of priestly/episcopal absolution (“le pouvoir de lier et de délier” is itself a historic Catholic theological phrase for the power of the keys exercised sacramentally through ordained clergy). The curriculum must present this as the church’s Spirit-given authority to make authoritative declarations regarding sin, doctrine, and membership exercised corporately (Matthew 18’s context is a gathered congregation, not a solitary office-holder), while flagging every occurrence for theologian review rather than resolving the sacramental-authority debate in the glossary itself.
• ἆρον τὸν σταυρὸν αὐτοῦ καὶ ἀκολουθείτω μοι (aron ton stauron autou kai akoloutheitō moi) — “take up his cross and follow me” (16:24). Literal: to physically pick up and carry the crossbeam a condemned criminal was forced to carry to his own execution — a stark, public, first-century image of shame and death, not a general metaphor for hardship until Jesus makes it one. Semantic range: literal Roman execution practice (the source image) → Jesus’ extended metaphor for costly, public, potentially fatal identification with him. English variants: take up your cross, bear your cross. Contextual theological meaning: the single most vivid statement of the “Discipleship and the Cost of Following Jesus” doctrine. French rendering: “prendre sa croix” / “porter sa croix.” Risk: High — the French idiom “porter sa croix” has drifted, exactly as in English, into a secular idiom for any burdensome life circumstance (a difficult marriage, an illness, an unpleasant coworker), entirely stripped of its original meaning of willing, public, potentially fatal self-renunciation for Christ’s sake specifically. Teaching notes must recover the concrete, violent, first-century referent behind the now-domesticated idiom.

Matthew 17 — The Transfiguration

• μετεμορφώθη (metemorphōthē), from μεταμορφόω (metamorphoō) — “was transfigured.” Literal: to change form/appearance. Semantic range: purely physical transformation versus a revelatory unveiling of pre-existing divine glory momentarily made visible. English variants: transfigured, transformed. Contextual theological meaning: reuses the baseline’s gloire (“glory,” Medium risk) — this is Jesus’ human form momentarily allowing his intrinsic divine glory to shine through, not an external transformation into something he was not already. French rendering: “fut transfiguré” (noun form: “la Transfiguration”, an established French liturgical/doctrinal term, celebrated as a feast day in both Catholic and Orthodox calendars). Risk: Medium — the established liturgical term is stable and low-ambiguity lexically, but its content (revealed pre-existing glory, not physical metamorphosis into a different being) needs reinforcement given how “transformation” language is used loosely in popular French (self-transformation, makeover culture).
• ἀκούετε αὐτοῦ (akouete autou) — “listen to him” (17:5), the divine voice’s command. Baseline reuse: “Père” (the speaker) context; reinforces the “Authority of Jesus’ Teaching” doctrine with the Father’s own explicit endorsement.

Matthew 18 — Church Discipline; Forgiveness

• μικροί (mikroi) — “little ones” (18:1–14). Literal: small, young, insignificant. Semantic range: literal children (18:2–5) extended metaphorically to vulnerable, immature, or socially insignificant believers whom the community must not despise or cause to stumble. English variants: little ones, the least. Contextual theological meaning: frames the entire chapter’s teaching on church discipline and forgiveness as fundamentally protective of the vulnerable, not punitive for its own sake. French rendering: “petits.” Risk: Low.
• σκάνδαλον (skandalon) — “stumbling block, occasion of sin” (18:6–9). Literal: originally the trigger-stick of a trap. Semantic range: anything that causes another to trip/fall (morally or spiritually), later broadening in Greek generally (and in English/French derivative words) toward “scandal” in the sense of public disgrace or outrage. English variants: stumbling block, occasion of sin, cause to sin. Contextual theological meaning: causing a vulnerable believer to sin or fall away is treated with extreme severity (18:6–7). French rendering: “scandale” or, to avoid the modern drift, “occasion de chute.” Risk: Medium — modern French “scandale” primarily denotes a public controversy or media scandal (un scandale politique, un scandale financier), risking a loss of the original sense: causing another believer to sin or fall away, especially a vulnerable one.
• ἐκκλησία (ekklēsia) — “church,” at 18:17 (“tell it to the church”). Baseline reuse: exactly “Église,” risk High per baseline, with the baseline’s own note that French Protestants historically reserve “église” for the body/congregation and “temple” for the building, while ordinary usage strongly denotes the institutional Catholic Church. Contextual note: Matthew 18:15–17 is the single clearest procedural text for the “Church and Church Discipline” doctrine and the passage most likely to be misread as referring to hierarchical/institutional adjudication (a bishop, a tribunal, the Magisterium) rather than the local gathered congregation exercising communal, relational accountability — the baseline’s clarifying gloss (“l’Église” as the gathered body, not the institution) is essential here above nearly any other passage in this curriculum.
• δέω / λύω — bind/loose, reused from Matthew 16, now explicitly in a congregational (not solely Petrine) context (18:18), reinforcing that this authority is not vested in a solitary office alone. Risk: Critical, as above.
• ἑβδομηκοντάκις ἑπτά (hebdomēkontakis hepta) — “seventy times seven” (18:22) — an idiom for limitless, uncounted forgiveness (echoing Genesis 4:24 by deliberate ironic reversal). French: “soixante-dix fois sept fois.” Risk: Low.

Matthew 19 — Marriage, Divorce, and the Rich Young Man

• Kingdom-of-heaven vocabulary reused (“Let the children come to me, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven,” 19:14).
• 19:24, 19:26 — rare Matthean use of βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ (“kingdom of God,” reuse from Ch. 12) alongside “kingdom of heaven” in the same pericope (19:23–24), the two phrases used interchangeably within a few verses — an important internal-textual confirmation that the two French renderings (“Royaume des cieux” / “Royaume de Dieu”) must be taught as synonymous in reference, distinguished only in customary Matthean phrasing.
• παρὰ δὲ θεῷ πάντα δυνατά (para de theō panta dynata) — “but with God all things are possible” (19:26). Reinforces the baseline’s puissance de Dieu (Medium) and providence (Medium) doctrines directly; salvation (here, entering the kingdom) is God’s gracious act, not a human achievement — directly relevant to the grace-versus-merit caution already established in the baseline.
• μισθός (reward) — reused (19:29, hundredfold reward and eternal life); see Matthew 5:11–12 discussion above.

Matthew 20 — Workers in the Vineyard; the Ransom Saying

• The parable of the workers in the vineyard (20:1–16) directly dramatizes the baseline’s grace ≠ merit doctrine (equal pay for unequal labor, “the last will be first”); no new lexical term is required, but this is one of the most important cross-reference passages in the whole Gospel for reinforcing the Romans-baseline grace theology within Matthew’s own narrative — flag for consistency-check against the baseline’s grace doctrine notes.
• λύτρον (lytron) — “ransom” (20:28, “the Son of Man came… to give his life as a ransom [λύτρον] for many”). Literal: the price paid to redeem a slave or captive, or to release a debtor. Semantic range: a straightforward commercial/manumission term in secular Greek, here applied metaphorically (and, in the wider NT, atonement-theologically) to Christ’s death as the price that secures release from sin’s bondage. English variants: ransom, redemption price. Contextual theological meaning: one of Matthew’s few explicit atonement statements, underlying much of the Passion narrative’s theological weight even though “atonement” itself is a Pauline-register word. French rendering: “rançon.” Risk: Critical — French “rançon” retains a vivid, apt commercial/kidnapping connotation (a payment made to a captor for a hostage’s release), which is broadly serviceable, but the curriculum must anchor the image to a substitutionary payment satisfying God’s own justice on behalf of guilty sinners, not to a “ransom paid to appease a hostile third party” (a crude ransom-to-the-devil reading found in some popular/patristic-derived retellings) nor to a merely sentimental “price of love” reading that loses the judicial weight entirely.
• δοῦλος / διάκονος (doulos / diakonos) — “slave/servant” and “servant/deacon” (20:26–27, “whoever would be great among you must be your servant [διάκονος], and whoever would be first among you must be your slave [δοῦλος]”). Literal: διάκονος, one who waits on tables/serves; δοῦλος, a slave, one wholly owned by a master, with no legal autonomy. Semantic range: διάκονος ranges toward voluntary service; δοῦλος denotes total, involuntary ownership — a much starker term. English variants: servant, slave, bondservant. Contextual theological meaning: Jesus overturns worldly greatness-through-domination with greatness-through-total-self-giving-service, modeled in his own ransom-death (20:28). French rendering: “serviteur” (διάκονος) / “esclave” (δοῦλος). Risk: High, and specifically French-cultural: France’s own historical reckoning with its role in the transatlantic and colonial slave trade (a subject of ongoing national memory and legal recognition, e.g., the 2001 Taubira law recognizing slavery as a crime against humanity) means “esclave” carries especially heavy, historically specific connotations for contemporary French readers — a genuine, distinct risk from the English-language reception of “slave,” where the term, while also weighty, does not carry quite the same immediate national-memory resonance in Bible translation contexts. Recommend retaining “esclave” for lexical accuracy (softening to “serviteur” for δοῦλος would erase Jesus’ rhetorical escalation from διάκονος to δοῦλος) but flagging the passage for a culturally sensitive teaching note distinguishing the voluntary, dignity-affirming self-giving Jesus commends from the coercive chattel institution France’s history addresses.

Matthew 21 — The Triumphal Entry; Temple Cleansing; the Vineyard Parable

• ὡσαννά (hōsanna) — “Hosanna” (21:9, 15). A transliterated Hebrew/Aramaic acclamation (הוֹשַׁע נָא, “save now! / save, we pray!”), originally a cry for deliverance (cf. Psalm 118:25) that becomes an acclamation of the Davidic king’s arrival. English variants: Hosanna (untranslated in virtually all traditions). French rendering: “Hosanna” (retained as a transliteration, following the same convention as the baseline’s treatment of Amen, Alléluia, and Abba). Risk: Low.
• υἱὸς Δαυίδ (Son of David) — reused (21:9, 21:15), the crowd’s acclamation directly invoking the “Jesus as the Promised Messiah and Son of David” doctrine at its most public, climactic moment before the Passion.
• κεφαλὴ γωνίας (kephalē gōnias) — “cornerstone” (21:42, citing Psalm 118:22, “the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone/capstone”). Literal: the “head of the corner,” the foundational or capping stone determining a structure’s alignment. Semantic range: a purely architectural term used messianically — the rejected-and-then-vindicated stone as a figure for the rejected-and-then-vindicated Messiah. English variants: cornerstone, capstone, chief stone. Contextual theological meaning: directly ties Jesus’ impending rejection by the religious leaders (dramatized in the vineyard-tenants parable, 21:33–41) to his ultimate vindication, reinforcing both the Messiah doctrine and the Fulfillment-of-Prophecy doctrine. French rendering: “pierre angulaire” (or “pierre de faîte” for the capstone nuance; “pierre angulaire” is the more established rendering). Risk: Medium — risk of a purely architectural, decorative reading (a nice building metaphor) that misses the rejection-then-vindication narrative arc central to its messianic use.
• 21:31, 21:43 — further rare Matthean occurrences of βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ (“kingdom of God,” baseline reuse), notably at 21:43 (“the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits”) — a text requiring careful, historically aware framing given its potential (mis)application to supersessionist readings of Israel; cross-reference the baseline’s own caution under israel and unity_of_jews_and_gentiles (both already High risk in the baseline registry).

Matthew 22 — The Wedding Feast; Caesar’s Coin; the Greatest Commandment

• ἀγάπη (agapē) / ἀγαπάω (agapaō) — “love” (22:37–39, the Great Commandment: “You shall love the Lord your God… and your neighbor as yourself”). Literal: a verb of will and commitment rather than primarily of emotion; in Koine usage generally (though not exclusively) denotes a chosen, self-giving love distinct from ἔρως (romantic/erotic desire) or φιλία (friendship-affection), though the semantic ranges of these Greek words overlap more than popular teaching often claims. Semantic range: covenantal loyalty and self-giving action, ranging to (in later theological usage) the technical term for God’s own self-giving nature. English variants: love, charity (archaic). Contextual theological meaning: the two-fold Great Commandment (love of God and neighbor) is Jesus’ own summary of “the Law and the Prophets” (22:40), directly bearing on the “Righteousness Exceeding the Pharisees” doctrine — righteousness as love-driven obedience, not rule-counting. French rendering: “amour” (noun) / “aimer” (verb). Risk: Medium — modern French “amour” is dominated by romantic-relational connotations (as strongly as, or more than, English “love”); must be clarified as covenantal, willed, self-giving love encompassing both God and neighbor, not primarily an emotion or romantic attachment.
• πλησίον (plēsion) — “neighbor” (22:39). Literal: one who is near. Semantic range: in Leviticus 19:18’s original context, a fellow Israelite; Jesus elsewhere (Luke 10, the Good Samaritan) deliberately expands this. French rendering: “prochain.” Risk: Low-Medium — a stable, established Bible French term without significant secular drift, though its scope (who counts as “neighbor”) is a live pastoral-teaching question rather than a lexical one.
• ἀνάστασις (anastasis) — baseline reuse, “résurrection,” risk Medium, applied here (22:23–33) in Jesus’ debate with the Sadducees affirming bodily resurrection against their denial of it.
• κύριος (kyrios), in the Psalm 110 riddle (“If David calls him Lord, how is he his son?”, 22:41–45) — baseline reuse, “Seigneur,” risk High, deployed here as a direct messianic-Davidic riddle establishing that the Messiah, though David’s descendant (Son of David), is also David’s Lord — an early implicit claim to the Messiah’s transcendence over the merely dynastic category, reinforcing both the Messiah and Deity-of-Christ doctrines.

Matthew 23 — Woes to the Scribes and Pharisees

• Φαρισαῖος (Pharisaios) / γραμματεύς (grammateus) — “Pharisee / scribe.” Literal: Φαρισαῖος, “separated one” (a party name, likely reflecting their program of ritual/legal separation for purity); γραμματεύς, a professional scribe/legal scholar trained in Torah interpretation and its application. Semantic range: sincere, zealous, socially respected experts in the Law, not (in their own first-century context) villains — Matthew 23’s force depends on this being a critique of specific, identifiable errors in otherwise serious religious practitioners, not a caricature. English variants: Pharisee, scribe, teacher of the law. Contextual theological meaning: the most extended and severe critique of the “Righteousness Exceeding the Pharisees” doctrine’s negative foil, structured as seven “woes” (23:13–36) targeting hypocrisy, misplaced priorities (straining a gnat while swallowing a camel, 23:24), and external religiosity without internal transformation. French rendering: “pharisien” / “scribe.” Risk: Medium — the specific, live French risk (already flagged in the baseline notes for this curriculum) is the idiom “faire le pharisien” (to be sanctimoniously self-righteous), which pre-loads French readers with a caricatured villain before they encounter the text, undercutting the passage’s actual pastoral aim: self-examination against the very same temptations (public piety, subtle self-exaltation, neglect of “justice, mercy, and faithfulness,” 23:23) rather than comfortable, distanced condemnation of a safely foreign “other.” A secondary risk: French “scribe” today denotes chiefly a copyist/clerk, obscuring the scribes’ actual status as authoritative legal-theological scholars.
• ὑποκριτής (hypocrite) — reused and intensified from Matthew 6; the term’s full development is completed in this chapter’s repeated refrain, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!”

Matthew 24 — The Olivet Discourse (I): Signs of the End

• παρουσία (parousia) — “coming, arrival” (24:3, 27, 37, 39, “the coming of the Son of Man”). Literal: presence, arrival — in secular Hellenistic usage, often the formal, ceremonial arrival/visit of a king or dignitary to a city. Semantic range: mere “presence” (a live secondary sense of the Greek word itself) versus the specific, technical NT sense of Christ’s visible, personal, future return in glory to judge and consummate his kingdom. English variants: coming, arrival, advent, second coming (a later theological label not itself in the Greek text). Contextual theological meaning: the central term for the “Judgment and the End of the Age” doctrine’s future dimension. French rendering: “venue” or “avènement” (the latter carrying more established theological weight, as in “l’Avènement” for Christ’s return, paralleling but distinct from the Advent-season “avènement” of his first coming). Risk: Critical — two distinct risks: (1) secular French “avènement” can drift toward a generic “dawning of a new era” (l’avènement d’une nouvelle ère) rather than the specific, personal, visible return of Christ; (2) the Greek word’s own secondary sense of mere “presence” (rather than “arrival/coming”) creates a live translation choice with eschatological stakes (a “presence” reading has sometimes been marshaled toward non-literal, purely spiritual or already-fulfilled interpretations of Christ’s return). Render as a visible, future, personal coming; flag every occurrence for theologian review.
• τὸ βδέλυγμα τῆς ἐρημώσεως (to bdelygma tēs erēmōseōs) — “the abomination of desolation” (24:15, citing Daniel 9:27, 11:31, 12:11). Literal: a detestable, defiling thing that causes desolation (in Daniel’s original context, the desecration of the Jerusalem temple). English variants: abomination of desolation, desolating sacrilege. Contextual theological meaning: a specifically apocalyptic term requiring substantial Old Testament (Daniel) background knowledge to be intelligible at all — a significant risk given the documented low OT literacy of this curriculum’s target audience across all three reader segments. French rendering: “l’abomination de la désolation.” Risk: High — not primarily a lexical-ambiguity risk (the French phrase is stable across traditions) but a comprehension risk: without substantial cross-referencing to Daniel, the phrase is simply opaque to a biblically unchurched French reader.
• γενεά (genea) — “generation” (24:34, “this generation will not pass away until all these things take place”). A term whose referent (which generation, and which “these things”) is a genuinely contested exegetical question across theological traditions (preterist, futurist, and mediating positions). French rendering: “génération.” Risk: Medium — the curriculum’s glossary should not resolve this exegetical debate; flag for theologian review so teaching material frames the interpretive options rather than asserting one silently through translation choice.
• οὐδεὶς οἶδεν τὴν ἡμέραν ἐκείνην καὶ ὥραν (oudeis oiden tēn hēmeran ekeinēn kai hōran) — “no one knows that day or hour” (24:36) — reinforces the baseline’s providence caution (Medium risk: avoid a deist, impersonal “law of history” reading) with an explicit warning against date-setting speculation, directly relevant to how this doctrine should be framed pastorally for a French audience.

Matthew 25 — The Olivet Discourse (II): Parables of Readiness and Judgment

• νυμφίος (nymphios) — “bridegroom” (25:1–13, the parable of the ten virgins). Literal: a man about to be, or newly, married. Semantic range: an ordinary marital term used messianically for Christ, echoing OT bridegroom-imagery for God’s covenant relationship with his people (Hosea, Isaiah, and Jesus’ own self-reference at 9:15). French rendering: “époux.” Risk: Low-Medium — the marital metaphor itself is culturally accessible in French, but readers need the OT covenant-bridegroom background supplied, since it is not self-evident from the image alone.
• τάλαντον (talanton) — “talent” (25:14–30, the parable of the talents). Literal: originally a unit of weight, and by extension a very large sum of money (silver or gold) — in the parable, a substantial monetary entrustment, not a natural aptitude or skill. English variants: talent (as a sum of money in the source text). Contextual theological meaning: the parable concerns faithful stewardship of what the master (God) has entrusted, in view of his eventual return and reckoning — directly touching both “Judgment and the End of the Age” and “Discipleship” doctrines. French rendering: “talents” (the established, and in this case historically causal, rendering — this very parable is the historical origin of the English and, derivatively, French idiom “talent” meaning natural ability/skill). Risk: High — a genuinely circular collision: the modern word for “natural ability” (avoir du talent) derives from this parable, which makes it strikingly easy for French readers to reflexively read the parable as being about natural aptitudes (“use your talents/gifts”) rather than its actual subject, stewardship of an entrusted resource (which, by extension, may certainly include gifts, opportunities, and resources broadly, but is not restricted to innate ability). This also directly intersects the baseline’s dons spirituels (spiritual gifts) entry, which already flags “talents” as a rejected alternative for Spirit-given gifts in Romans 12 — the curriculum must ensure Matthew 25’s “talents” is not silently conflated with the baseline’s Romans-12 “dons spirituels” vocabulary, since they are related-but-distinct concepts (an entrusted stewardship generally, versus Spirit-given ministry enablement specifically).
• αἰώνιος (aiōnios) in κόλασιν αἰώνιον / ζωὴν αἰώνιον (kolasin aiōnion / zōēn aiōnion) — “eternal punishment / eternal life” (25:46). Literal: pertaining to the αἰών (age), i.e., belonging to the age to come; by extension, everlasting, without temporal end. Semantic range: some traditions have argued for a qualitative (“age-appropriate,” of limited duration) sense in some contexts, but the parallel structure here (the same adjective, αἰώνιος, modifying both punishment and life in the same verse) is widely regarded as decisive for a symmetric, everlasting sense in both directions. English variants: eternal, everlasting, age-long. Contextual theological meaning: the climax of the Olivet Discourse’s judgment teaching — the sheep-and-goats separation (25:31–46) — establishing final, binary, everlasting outcomes based on how “the least of these” were treated, understood by the wider Gospel as evidencing (not earning) genuine faith. French rendering: “châtiment éternel” / “vie éternelle.” Risk: Critical — the French rendering must preserve the identical adjective (“éternel”) for both outcomes, since the text’s own rhetorical structure depends on this parallel; must not soften “châtiment éternel” toward a temporary, purgative suffering (which would import a purgatory-adjacent category foreign to this text’s stark binary framing) nor toward an annihilationist reading not supported by the parallel construction. Flag for mandatory theologian review at every occurrence.

Matthew 26 — The Last Supper; Gethsemane; the Arrest and Trial

• τοῦτό ἐστιν τὸ σῶμά μου… τὸ αἷμά μου τῆς διαθήκης (touto estin to sōma mou… to haima mou tēs diathēkēs) — “This is my body… my blood of the covenant” (26:26–28), the words of institution of the Lord’s Supper. Baseline reuse: διαθήκη → “alliance” (Medium risk per baseline). Contextual theological meaning: the single most doctrinally contested set of words in the entire Gospel for this curriculum’s mixed audience — the direct textual basis for Catholic eucharistic theology (transubstantiation, the Real Presence of Christ’s body and blood) as well as Lutheran, Reformed, and Zwinglian/memorial readings, all differing sharply on how “is” (ἐστιν) functions in this sentence. French rendering: “Ceci est mon corps… mon sang de l’alliance,” rendered with maximal literalness and with no interpretive gloss added in the text itself. Risk: Critical — this curriculum’s glossary and translation memory must not resolve the eucharistic debate through translation choice; render literally, reuse the baseline’s “alliance” exactly, and flag every occurrence (26:26, 26:27, 26:28) for mandatory human theologian review, per the same principle already applied to “justification” and “imputed righteousness” in the Romans baseline.
• Son of Man / Power — 26:64, “seated at the right hand of Power,” reuses υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου (Critical, Ch. 8) in the specific charge of blasphemy that leads to Jesus’ condemnation — the trial scene’s central Christological claim.
• Betrayal and “thirty pieces of silver” (26:15) reuse the fulfillment formula (cf. 27:9–10, citing Zechariah 11:12–13/Jeremiah).

Matthew 27 — The Crucifixion

• σταυρόω (stauroō) — “to crucify.” Literal: to impale/fasten to a cross (σταυρός). Low semantic ambiguity; a specific, well-documented Roman execution method. French rendering: “crucifier.” Risk: Low — stable, unambiguous across all French Bible traditions.
• Ἠλὶ Ἠλὶ, λεμὰ σαβαχθάνι (Ēli Ēli, lema sabachthani) — “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (27:46), Aramaic transliterated by Matthew himself and immediately glossed in Greek, quoting Psalm 22:1. French rendering: retain the transliteration “Éli, Éli, lema sabachthani” with Matthew’s own gloss, “Mon Dieu, mon Dieu, pourquoi m’as-tu abandonné?” — following the same principle already established in the baseline for preserving Abba untranslated alongside its gloss. Risk: Medium — theologically weighty (the cry of dereliction, bound up with the doctrine of the atonement) but lexically low-ambiguity once the transliteration-plus-gloss convention is followed.
• 27:54 — the centurion’s confession, “Truly this was the Son of God” (“Fils de Dieu,” Critical baseline reuse) — a climactic Gentile confession of Jesus’ deity at the cross, reinforcing the universal-scope doctrine at the Passion’s darkest moment.
• Temple veil torn (27:51) — a symbolic act (access to God’s presence opened) rather than a distinct lexical term; low risk, note for teaching context only.

Matthew 28 — The Resurrection and the Great Commission

• ἀνάστασις / ἠγέρθη (anastasis / ēgerthē) — “resurrection / he has risen.” Baseline reuse: “résurrection,” risk Medium. Contextual note: 28:6, “He is not here, for he has risen [ἠγέρθη], as he said” — must be rendered as a historical, bodily, once-for-all event per the baseline’s explicit caution against a metaphorical-renewal reading; this is Matthew’s own climactic fulfillment of the resurrection doctrine anchored throughout the baseline’s Romans package.
• πᾶσα ἐξουσία ἐν οὐρανῷ καὶ ἐπὶ [τῆς] γῆς (pasa exousia en ouranō kai epi [tēs] gēs) — “all authority in heaven and on earth” (28:18). Reuses ἐξουσία (Ch. 7–8, High risk); here Jesus’ authority claim reaches its fullest, most unqualified expression, forming the theological basis for the Commission that follows. Risk remains High, now intensified: this is the capstone statement of the “Authority of Jesus’ Teaching” doctrine, extended explicitly to cosmic scope.
• πορευθέντες… μαθητεύσατε πάντα τὰ ἔθνη (poreuthentes… mathēteusate panta ta ethnē) — “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations” (28:19), the Great Commission. μαθητεύω (mathēteuō) — “to make a disciple of, to disciple.” Literal: the verbal form of μαθητής (disciple); in this imperative form, an unusual, weighty command — Jesus commissions his followers to produce total-life disciples of others, not merely to inform or convert. Semantic range: no single French verb corresponds one-to-one; the sense requires the fuller clause “faire de [quelqu’un] un disciple.” English variants: make disciples, disciple (as a verb). Contextual theological meaning: the organizing command of the “Great Commission” doctrine, deliberately using the same root as every disciple-related term throughout Matthew’s Gospel (see Ch. 4), tying the whole book’s discipleship theme to its final missionary mandate. French rendering: “faites de toutes les nations des disciples” (a full clause, rather than collapsing into the thinner “évangélisez,” which would lose Matthew’s total-life-formation sense — the commission is to make disciples, encompassing but exceeding initial evangelistic proclamation, and to continue forming them through baptism and teaching, per 28:19b–20). Risk: High — beyond the translation-mechanics challenge (no single French verb), this connects directly to the baseline’s own caution under mission: France’s colonial-era missionary history (missions catholiques coloniales) carries live postcolonial critique in contemporary French theological and public discourse; this curriculum must frame the Commission as respectful gospel proclamation and disciple-formation, never as cultural conquest or assimilation.
• πάντα τὰ ἔθνη (panta ta ethnē) — “all nations/peoples” (28:19). Critical context-sensitivity flag distinct from the baseline’s own gentiles entry: the baseline records ἔθνη → “païens” for the Romans context, where ἔθνη is used in explicit contrast to Israel/Jews (non-Jewish peoples). In Matthew 28:19, ἔθνη is used inclusively — “all nations/peoples,” addressed to a mission that (per Matthew’s own narrative, e.g., the Magi, the centurion, the Canaanite woman) is not opposed to Israel but extends the covenant blessing to every people-group, Jew and Gentile alike. This occurrence must be rendered “nations” or “toutes les nations,” NOT “païens,” since “païens” here would wrongly narrow the Commission’s universal scope to non-Jews specifically and would also import the pejorative connotation the baseline itself already flags as a risk with “païens.” This is a critical instance of the same Greek word requiring two different French renderings depending on context — the mirror image of the παρακαλέω case noted in the Core Passage (Matthew 5:4) above — and should be added to translation memory as a context-conditioned dual entry.
• βαπτίζοντες αὐτοὺς εἰς τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ Πατρὸς καὶ τοῦ Υἱοῦ καὶ τοῦ Ἁγίου Πνεύματος (baptizontes autous eis to onoma tou Patros kai tou Huiou kai tou Hagiou Pneumatos) — “baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (28:19b), the Trinitarian baptismal formula. Baseline reuse: Père (Medium), Fils [de Dieu] (Critical), Esprit Saint (Medium); plus this chapter’s own baptême/baptiser (High, Ch. 3). Contextual theological meaning: the clearest single-verse Trinitarian formula in Matthew’s Gospel — three distinct persons named within a single divine “name” (singular ὄνομα, not “names”), a foundational text for the doctrine of the Trinity even though the word “Trinity” itself is a later theological label not present in the Greek. French rendering: “les baptisant au nom du Père, et du Fils, et du Saint-Esprit.” Risk: Critical — every element (the singular “name” encompassing three Persons, the fixed Father-Son-Spirit order, and the baptismal-formula collision already flagged under baptême) must be preserved without simplification; flag for mandatory theologian review.
• μεθ’ ὑμῶν εἰμι πάσας τὰς ἡμέρας (meth’ hymōn eimi pasas tas hēmeras) — “I am with you always” (28:20). Contextual theological meaning: a deliberate narrative bookend (inclusio) with Emmanuel (“God with us,” 1:23) — the Gospel opens and closes on the same promise of God’s abiding presence. French rendering: “je suis avec vous tous les jours.” Risk: Low lexically, but this is a valuable teaching cross-reference back to the Critical Emmanuel entry in Matthew 1 and should be flagged in curriculum materials as an intentional literary and theological frame for the entire Gospel.

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Summary of New-Term Coverage by Chapter

Chapters	New load-bearing terms introduced
1	Son of David, Immanuel, virgin, fulfillment formula
2	magi, worship (προσκυνέω)
3	kingdom of heaven, repentance, baptism
4	temptation, follow/disciple, gospel of the kingdom
5 (core)	blessed, poor in spirit, comfort/console (παρακαλέω context flag), meek, inherit, righteousness (Matthean nuance), merciful, pure in heart, peacemaker, sons of God (believers), persecuted, reward, prophets (reuse); plus 5:13-48: law/fulfill, antithesis formula, perfect
6	Lord’s Prayer debts, “the evil one,” hypocrite, mammon
7	judge, narrow gate, false prophet, authority (ἐξουσία)
8	Son of Man
9	forgive (ἀφίημι), compassion
10	life/soul (ψυχή)
11	yoke, Father-Son mutual knowledge
12	Sabbath/Lord of Sabbath, blasphemy against the Spirit, kingdom of God (rare form)
13	parable, mystery
14	no new terms; reuses compassion (9), worship/Son of God (2, 8:29, 14:33)
15	tradition, defile (κοινόω)
16	keys of the kingdom, bind/loose, take up cross
17	transfiguration
18	little ones, stumbling block
19	no new terms; reuses kingdom of God/heaven, providence, reward
20	ransom, slave/servant (δοῦλος/διάκονος)
21	Hosanna, cornerstone
22	love (ἀγάπη), neighbor
23	Pharisee/scribe (formal treatment)
24	parousia, abomination of desolation, generation (γενεά)
25	bridegroom, talents, eternal punishment/eternal life
26	words of institution (body/blood of the covenant)
27	crucify, Eli Eli lema sabachthani
28	make disciples, all nations (context-flag vs. “païens”), Trinitarian baptismal formula