Core Glossary
Core Glossary
translation_memory.json is the enforced glossary for every Phase 2 translation in this curriculum. This document summarizes its shape and the principles behind it; see the Glossary Risk Groups for the full per-term entries.
Composition
The glossary currently holds 47 terms spanning all four risk tiers, drawn from the doctrines identified in Doctrine Analysis and grounded in the cultural risks identified in Culture Analysis. Every term entry records:
- The approved French translation (and a transliteration/pronunciation field, mostly mirroring the translation since French uses Latin script)
- The doctrine risk tier (Critical/High/Medium/Low)
- Explicitly rejected alternatives, with reasons
- Notes explaining any non-obvious translation choice
Governing principles
- Established usage over invention — where Segond and the TOB already have a settled rendering (Dieu, Jésus, Seigneur, Esprit Saint), this glossary follows it rather than proposing an alternative.
- Explicit disambiguation, not silent avoidance — every Critical or High-risk term records why the ordinary French rendering is underspecified between Catholic and Reformed tradition, or between doctrinal and secular sense (see
alternatives_rejectedandnotes), so a translator or reviewer understands the reasoning rather than just following a rule. - Version-controlled and append-only in Phase 2 — if a new term is discovered during document translation, it is added to translation memory and the version number incremented, never silently improvised per-document.
Relationship to the Doctrine Risk Registry
Every glossary term’s doctrine field links back to an entry in doctrine_risk_registry.json, so a term’s risk tier is always traceable to the specific doctrine it protects — the glossary enforces vocabulary, the doctrine registry explains why that vocabulary matters.
Critical Risk Terms
Imputed Righteousness
Approved rendering: justice imputée
Transliteration: justice imputée
Doctrine: Justification by Faith
Rejected alternatives: justice méritée
CRITICAL: credited/attributed righteousness, not earned righteousness (‘justice méritée’, explicitly rejected). This is the same Trent-vs-Reformation forensic-vs-infused controversy underlying ‘justification’.
Justification
Approved rendering: justification
Transliteration: justification
Doctrine: Salvation
Rejected alternatives: sanctification (conflation), salut (too generic)
CRITICAL: the historic Reformation/Trent flashpoint. Catholic theology (Trent) ties justification to infused grace received through the sacraments and faith ‘formed by love’; Reformed/Segond tradition holds forensic justification by faith alone. The 1999 Lutheran-Catholic Joint Declaration narrowed but did not erase this gap. Render as a declared, not gradually achieved, status.
Son Of God
Approved rendering: Fils de Dieu
Transliteration: Fils de Dieu
Doctrine: Sonship of Christ
Rejected alternatives: envoyé de Dieu, homme divin
CRITICAL: full phrase required, conveying eternal, unique Sonship, not a divinely inspired man or messenger.
High Risk Terms
Church
Approved rendering: Église
Transliteration: Église
Doctrine: Church as God’s People
Rejected alternatives: temple (building only)
Capitalized ‘l’Église’ strongly denotes the institutional Catholic Church in ordinary usage. French Protestants historically call their building ‘un temple’, not ‘une église’. Must clarify the body-of-Christ sense distinct from the institution or building.
Election
Approved rendering: élection
Transliteration: élection
Doctrine: Effectual Calling
Rejected alternatives: chance, destin
HIGH RISK, distinctly French: ‘élection’ is the everyday word for political/democratic elections, risking a reading of God’s choice as competitive or merit-based rather than sovereign and gracious. Also relevant background: the Jansenist controversy within French Catholicism itself debated grace and predestination.
Grace
Approved rendering: grâce
Transliteration: grâce
Doctrine: Grace
Rejected alternatives: faveur, mérite
Same word used by Catholic and Protestant traditions, but the theology differs: Catholic catechesis ties grâce to sacramental mediation (‘état de grâce’ via confession); Reformed/Segond tradition insists on grâce apart from any ecclesial mediation. Must render as wholly unmerited, per Romans’ contrast with works.
Law
Approved rendering: loi
Transliteration: loi (la Loi)
Doctrine: Fulfillment of Prophecy
Capitalize as ‘la Loi’ for Torah/Mosaic law to distinguish from civil ‘loi’. Catholic natural-law theology (loi naturelle, Thomistic) carries different theological freight than a Reformed law-gospel emphasis; keep the referent narrowly Mosaic in this curriculum.
Lord
Approved rendering: Seigneur
Transliteration: Seigneur
Doctrine: Lordship of Christ
Rejected alternatives: maître, patron
Romans 10:9 ‘Jésus est Seigneur.’ ‘Seigneur’ carries feudal-historical resonance in French (‘le seigneur du château’), risking a distant, archaic-title reading rather than a living confession of exclusive Lordship.
Obedience Of Faith
Approved rendering: obéissance de la foi
Transliteration: obéissance de la foi
Doctrine: Obedience of Faith
Rejected alternatives: devoir religieux
Romans 1:5, 16:26. Obedience that flows from faith, not merit-earning duty. Catholic ‘foi qui agit par la charité’ (faith formed by love, per Trent/James) must not be read into this phrase as a works-condition for standing before God.
Righteousness
Approved rendering: justice
Transliteration: justice (de Dieu)
Doctrine: Salvation
Rejected alternatives: vertu, droiture
‘Justice de Dieu’ (Romans 1:17) must be read as God’s saving, gift-status righteousness, not human moral virtue. Secular French ‘justice’ primarily denotes the legal system, which risks a purely juridical, retributive reading if not clarified.
Saints
Approved rendering: saints
Transliteration: les saints
Doctrine: Sainthood
HIGH RISK: in everyday and Catholic French, ‘les saints’ overwhelmingly evokes canonized saints venerated as intercessors (feast days, statues, patronage), not Paul’s sense of every believer set apart. Must add a clarifying gloss (‘tous les croyants’) in teaching contexts.
Medium Risk Terms
Abba
Approved rendering: Abba
Transliteration: Abba
Doctrine: Adoption into God’s Family
Aramaic term of intimacy preserved as ‘Abba, Père’ across Segond, TOB, and Bible de Jérusalem (Romans 8:15).
Adoption
Approved rendering: adoption filiale
Transliteration: adoption filiale
Doctrine: Adoption into God’s Family
Rejected alternatives: adoption (bare, legal-procedural)
Bare ‘adoption’ reads as the modern legal-procedural process (child adoption agencies). Qualify with ‘filiale’ to keep the full-son-status, full-inheritance sense Paul intends.
Called
Approved rendering: appelé
Transliteration: appelé
Doctrine: Divine Calling
Rejected alternatives: invité
Context-sensitive: in 1:1 = called to apostleship; in 1:7 = called to be saints; in 8:28-30 = effectual calling to salvation. ‘Invité’ is too weak (mere invitation, not divine initiative).
Calling
Approved rendering: appel
Transliteration: appel
Doctrine: Divine Calling
Rejected alternatives: vocation (clergy-narrowing risk)
Use ‘appel’ for the general believer’s calling. Reserve ‘vocation’ with caution: in Catholic French culture it strongly connotes a call to priesthood or religious life, which would wrongly narrow Paul’s calling-of-all-believers language.
Covenant
Approved rendering: alliance
Transliteration: alliance
Doctrine: Davidic Covenant
Rejected alternatives: contrat
Relational covenant bond, more than a legal contract; ‘alliance’ also usefully evokes the wedding ring (l’alliance) in French, a helpful relational resonance.
Faith
Approved rendering: foi
Transliteration: foi
Doctrine: Faith
Rejected alternatives: croyance, religion
In secular French, ‘la foi’ can drift toward generic religiosity or ‘la religion’ as an institutional label. Must specify personal trust in Christ, not adherence to a religious system.
Father
Approved rendering: Père
Transliteration: Père
Doctrine: Adoption into God’s Family
God as personal Father; no competing deity-name risk in French as in Hindi.
Fellowship
Approved rendering: communion fraternelle
Transliteration: communion fraternelle
Doctrine: Christian Fellowship
Rejected alternatives: communion (bare)
Bare ‘communion’ is heard first as receiving the Eucharist (‘la communion’). Qualify with ‘fraternelle’ to convey koinonia/shared life rather than the sacrament.
Gentiles
Approved rendering: païens
Transliteration: païens
Doctrine: Unity of Jews and Gentiles
Rejected alternatives: étrangers
‘Païens’ carries a pejorative ‘uncivilized/irreligious’ connotation in modern French stronger than the neutral original sense. Prefer ‘les nations’ or ‘non-Juifs’ in mission-emphasis contexts.
Glory
Approved rendering: gloire
Transliteration: gloire
Doctrine: Deity of Christ
God’s radiant honor and presence. Secular ‘gloire’ (military, celebrity) risks a triumphalist, self-achieved reading rather than God’s own glory.
God
Approved rendering: Dieu
Transliteration: Dieu
Doctrine: Deity of Christ
Secularization risk: ‘Dieu’ is used as a casual interjection (‘Mon Dieu!’) and, in academic/philosophical French, can be treated as an abstract deist concept rather than the personal, triune God of Scripture.
Holy Spirit
Approved rendering: Esprit Saint
Transliteration: Esprit Saint
Doctrine: Sanctification
Segond tradition uses ‘Saint-Esprit’; ecumenical/modern translations (TOB, NBS) prefer ‘Esprit Saint’. Keep consistent within this curriculum; both refer to the same personal third Person of the Trinity.
Holy
Approved rendering: saint
Transliteration: saint
Doctrine: Sanctification
Rejected alternatives: pur
Set apart for God and morally pure; ‘pur’ alone loses the set-apart sense.
Incarnation
Approved rendering: incarnation
Transliteration: incarnation
Doctrine: Incarnation
Well-established doctrinal term (l’Incarnation, Christmas). Risk is secular flattening via ‘incarner’ meaning to play/embody a role (an actor ‘incarne un personnage’), which dilutes the metaphysical, once-for-all claim.
Intercession
Approved rendering: intercession
Transliteration: intercession
Doctrine: Prayer and Intercession
Catholic devotional practice of ‘intercession des saints’ is a major category in French Catholic piety; must distinguish the Spirit’s and Christ’s unique heavenly intercession (Romans 8:26-27, 34) from saint or Marian intercession.
Israel
Approved rendering: Israël
Transliteration: Israël
Doctrine: Unity of Jews and Gentiles
Contemporary Middle East politics and France’s significant Jewish community make it easy for readers to conflate biblical Israel (the covenant people) with the modern nation-state; keep the referent historical/theological in this curriculum.
Kingdom Of God
Approved rendering: Royaume de Dieu
Transliteration: Royaume de Dieu
Doctrine: Kingdom Mission
God’s sovereign reign; distinguish from any political kingdom association.
Messiah
Approved rendering: Messie
Transliteration: Messie
Doctrine: Messianic Promise
The Anointed One fulfilling OT promise, not one figure among several.
Mission
Approved rendering: mission
Transliteration: mission
Doctrine: Mission to the Nations
France’s colonial missionary history (missions catholiques coloniales) carries live postcolonial critique in contemporary French theological discourse; frame mission as gospel proclamation, not cultural conquest.
Power Of God
Approved rendering: puissance de Dieu
Transliteration: puissance de Dieu
Doctrine: Power of God for Salvation
Rejected alternatives: force
‘Puissance’ conveys sovereign capability; ‘force’ is too generic/physical.
Providence
Approved rendering: providence
Transliteration: providence
Doctrine: Providence
Rejected alternatives: destin, hasard
18th-century Enlightenment deism used ‘la Providence’ for an impersonal benevolent order; must render Romans 8:28’s providence as the personal, purposive care of a covenant God, not a deist abstraction.
Resurrection
Approved rendering: résurrection
Transliteration: résurrection
Doctrine: Resurrection of Christ
Rejected alternatives: renaissance
No competing reincarnation folk-concept in French as there is in Hindi; the real risk is secular naturalism flattening ‘résurrection’ into a metaphor (‘renaissance’, ‘rebond’) rather than a historical, bodily event.
Salvation
Approved rendering: salut
Transliteration: salut
Doctrine: Salvation
Rejected alternatives: délivrance
Stable shared term. Chief risk is Catholic sacramental-economy framing (salvation mediated through Church and sacraments) versus Protestant faith-alone framing; keep both traditions’ readers in view by grounding salvation explicitly in Christ’s work, not institutional membership.
Sanctification
Approved rendering: sanctification
Transliteration: sanctification
Doctrine: Sanctification
Rejected alternatives: purification
The Spirit’s ongoing work of making believers holy; ‘purification’ risks a ritual-cleansing reading.
Seed Of David
Approved rendering: descendance de David
Transliteration: descendance de David
Doctrine: Davidic Covenant
Rejected alternatives: semence de David (archaic)
Romans 1:3. Segond 1910’s literal ‘postérité de David’ is now archaic; modern translations prefer ‘descendance’ to avoid the crude clinical register ‘semence’ now carries in modern French.
Sin
Approved rendering: péché
Transliteration: péché
Doctrine: Universal Human Accountability
Secularization risk: colloquial French uses ‘péché’ loosely for minor indulgence (‘péché mignon’ = guilty pleasure), which can trivialize the weight of culpable rebellion against God that Romans 1-3 describes.
Spiritual Gifts
Approved rendering: dons spirituels
Transliteration: dons spirituels
Doctrine: Spiritual Gifts
Rejected alternatives: talents
Charismatic Catholic renewal (Renouveau charismatique) and Reformed cessationist-leaning traditions read gifts language differently; keep the phrase Spirit-attributed, not natural-talent language.
Low Risk Terms
Apostle
Approved rendering: apôtre
Transliteration: apôtre
Doctrine: Apostleship
Stable, shared term across all French Bible traditions.
David
Approved rendering: David
Transliteration: David
Doctrine: Davidic Covenant
Standard proper name form across all French Bible traditions.
Exhort
Approved rendering: exhorter
Transliteration: exhorter
Doctrine: Mutual Edification
Context-sensitive: use ‘supplier’ for beseeching; ‘exhorter/encourager’ for building up.
Gospel
Approved rendering: Évangile
Transliteration: Évangile
Doctrine: Gospel
Rejected alternatives: bonne nouvelle (informal only)
Shared, stable term across Catholic and Protestant French Bibles (Segond, TOB, Bible de Jérusalem). Low risk; ‘bonne nouvelle’ is acceptable as a plain-language gloss but not a substitute in doctrinal text.
Jesus
Approved rendering: Jésus
Transliteration: Jésus
Doctrine: Lordship of Christ
Stable across all French traditions; no live alternative-name controversy as in some other languages. Minor register note: ‘Jésus!’ is also used as a mild interjection in casual spoken French.
Peace
Approved rendering: paix
Transliteration: paix
Doctrine: Peace with God
In Romans 5:1, relational peace with God through justification, not merely psychological calm.
Prophecy
Approved rendering: prophétie
Transliteration: prophétie
Doctrine: Fulfillment of Prophecy
God-inspired declaration, not astrological prediction.
Prophet
Approved rendering: prophète
Transliteration: prophète
Doctrine: Inspiration of Scripture
Rejected alternatives: voyant
God’s spokesperson; avoid ‘voyant’ (fortune-teller connotation).
Thanksgiving
Approved rendering: action de grâce
Transliteration: action de grâce
Doctrine: Thanksgiving
Minor note: the phrase also names the Eucharistic ‘action de grâce’ in Catholic liturgy; context distinguishes general thanksgiving from the rite.
Referenced passages