Linguistic Gap Analysis — James (English → Greek)

Purpose and Scope

This analysis executes Phase 1 Step 8 for the James curriculum: a systematic mapping of where Modern Greek has (a) genuine vocabulary gaps requiring paraphrase or compounding, (b) crowded semantic neighborhoods where a single Greek word must carry multiple competing modern senses and therefore needs deliberate lexical “fencing,” and (c) transliteration-versus-paraphrase decision points. It builds directly on 08_core_glossary.md and bible_term_registry.json and must be read alongside the baseline translation_memory.json, which remains the controlling authority for every term already established in Romans/Galatians.

James presents a linguistic profile unlike Romans or Galatians for this Language Package. Where Romans/Galatians dealt mainly with doctrinal vocabulary (grace, justification, calling) vulnerable to secular bleaching or patristic accretion, James adds a second, more acute category unique to this letter: doctrinal-practice anchor terms — vocabulary that is not merely related to a Greek Orthodox sacrament or practice but is the literal historical source-text for it (anointing with oil / Ευχέλαιο at 5:14; confession to one another / εξομολόγηση at 5:16). No comparable case exists anywhere in Romans or Galatians. This elevates the stakes of Step 8 for James specifically: the gap here is not primarily between English and Greek, but between James’s own first-century congregational practice and the fully institutionalized, priest-mediated form the identical vocabulary has taken in the intervening two millennia of continuous Greek-language church life.

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1. Doctrine Vocabulary Matrix

For each of the nine curriculum doctrines: the available Greek term(s), their structural weaknesses, and the recommended translation strategy.

1.1 Faith and Works

Available Greek terms	Weaknesses	Recommended strategy
πίστη (faith) — baseline reuse	None lexically; the risk is entirely doctrinal-positional. James tests the same word Paul defends, and an unprepared reader may perceive contradiction rather than complementary questions.	Retain πίστη unchanged (baseline term). In the core-passage teaching material, insert a structural framing note at first occurrence in ch.2: James asks “is this faith genuine?” not “is faith plus works the ground of salvation?“
έργα (works)	Modern Greek έργα defaults overwhelmingly to construction/public-works (δημόσια έργα) or artistic/literary works. More seriously, it collides head-on with the baseline’s own έργα του νόμου (“works of the law”), a Critical-risk term Paul rejects as a justification-ground.	Retain έργα (no lexical substitute exists that would avoid the collision — the Koine word is identical in both authors). Mandatory translator’s note at every occurrence in James 2:14-26 distinguishing James’s ἔργα (faith’s necessary evidentiary fruit) from Paul’s ἔργα νόμου (Mosaic law-observance as justification-ground, rejected). This is a doctrinal-scoping problem, not a vocabulary gap.
δικαιώθηκε/δικαιώνεται (justified)	The single highest-stakes term in the letter. Modern colloquial δικαιώνομαι (“I was proven right/vindicated”) is closer to James’s demonstrative sense than to Paul’s forensic sense — an unusual case where secular drift accidentally helps James but could then mislead a reader back into Romans.	Retain δικαιώνω (baseline root). Do not introduce an alternate verb. Attach mandatory note at every occurrence (2:21, 24, 25) explaining the two distinct questions the identical verb answers in James versus Paul.
λογίστηκε (credited)	None — this is a verbatim LXX quotation identical to Paul’s own citation of Genesis 15:6. A rare zero-gap asset.	Retain exactly as baseline. Use 2:23 as the curriculum’s primary teaching bridge resolving the apparent Faith/Works tension, since James quotes the very verse Paul’s argument is built on.
νεκρή (dead, of faith)	Zero lexical gap, but strong temptation in teaching prose to soften “dead” into “weak” or “immature” to ease apparent tension with Paul.	Preserve the categorical force. Flag any drafted paraphrase using ασθενής (weak) or ανώριμη (immature) as a forbidden substitution for νεκρή in this context.

Missing vocabulary: none identified — every key term already exists as a living, stable Modern Greek word. The challenge is entirely conceptual disambiguation between two authors using identical vocabulary for different (complementary) questions, compounded by the fact this Language Package’s audience can read both authors’ Greek directly, side by side, without any translation buffer at all.

1.2 Trials and the Testing of Faith

Available Greek terms	Weaknesses	Recommended strategy
πειρασμός / δοκιμασία (trial/temptation)	The single Koine word πειρασμός covers both “trial” (positive testing, 1:2) and “temptation” (negative enticement, 1:13-14); James exploits this dual sense deliberately, but a translation that resolves the ambiguity too early (choosing one Greek word throughout) destroys the wordplay that carries James’s argument (God tests but does not tempt).	Use δοκιμασία at 1:2-3 (testing sense) and πειρασμός at 1:13-14 (enticement sense), with a mandatory translator’s note explaining that both English concepts trace to the same Koine word James is deliberately playing on.
υπομονή (endurance)	Colloquial “κάνε υπομονή” (be patient/hang in there) can flatten the theological weight of enduring trial into mundane patience-in-traffic register.	Anchor to the trial/testing context explicitly; distinguish sharply from μακροθυμία (ch.5) at first joint occurrence.
δίψυχος (double-minded)	Rare word, may be unfamiliar to some readers, but transparently decomposable (δις + ψυχή) — a genuine asset, not a gap.	Retain; brief gloss (“literally ‘two-souled’”) on first use is sufficient; no substitution needed.
επιθυμία (desire/lust)	Greek ascetic/Hesychast tradition has built a substantial technical theology of πάθη (the passions) around this semantic field, associated with monastic spiritual combat. A curriculum audience may default to that specialized register rather than James’s universally applicable, plain-register point.	Keep register deliberately plain and pastoral; avoid drawing explicit connections to πάθη-theology unless the curriculum specifically intends a bridge to that tradition.

Missing vocabulary: none. This doctrine’s difficulty is entirely about sequencing and disambiguation of one polysemous word, not absence of vocabulary.

1.3 Wisdom from Above

Available Greek terms	Weaknesses	Recommended strategy
σοφία (wisdom)	Greek’s own classical-philosophical heritage (Socrates, the Sophists, Aristotle’s σοφία as the highest intellectual virtue) is directly accessible to a Modern Greek reader — a genuinely native secular-intellectual resonance, not an imported foreign concept as in most other Language Packages. This is a crowded semantic neighborhood unique to Greek among nearly all destination languages in this pipeline.	Retain σοφία (no substitute exists or would be desirable). Explicit contrast-framing required at 1:5 and 3:13-18: James’s σοφία is asked for, given, and known by moral fruit — not an achievement of ταττικός reasoning or παιδεία (education).
η άνωθεν σοφία (wisdom from above)	ἄνωθεν itself is stable and, unusually, offers a positive cross-reference: the same word appears in John 3:3 (“born ἄνωθεν,” “from above/again”).	Exploit this as a deliberate teaching bridge if the curriculum wishes; no lexical risk.
επίγεια, ψυχική, δαιμονιώδης (earthly, unspiritual, demonic)	ψυχική risks confusion with the modern clinical/psychological sense of ψυχική υγεία (“mental health”); δαιμονιώδης shares the δαιμόνια “cleverness/wit” colloquial drift (see 2.19 note below).	Gloss ψυχική explicitly as “of the natural human soul, apart from the Spirit,” not “psychological.” Anchor δαιμονιώδης to serious moral indictment, not cunning admiration.

Missing vocabulary: none. Crowded neighborhood: σοφία is the most philosophically “occupied” word in this entire curriculum — a genuine linguistic asset for depth of engagement, but requiring the most active theological fencing of any term in this doctrine category.

1.4 Favoritism and the Poor

Available Greek terms	Weaknesses	Recommended strategy
προσωποληψία (favoritism)	Precise, transparent compound, but formal/legal register — common in judicial-impartiality contexts, rare in everyday speech. Risk is comprehension, not distortion.	Pair with plain-language gloss μεροληψία at first occurrence; retain the technical term thereafter for precision.
πτωχός / πλούσιος (poor/rich)	Stable; πτωχός is more formal than demotic φτωχός.	Use formal πτωχός consistently, matching the curriculum’s overall formal register.
βασιλικός νόμος (royal law)	βασιλικός carries a faint, dated political-monarchical resonance in a modern parliamentary republic that has not had a monarchy since 1974.	Brief anchoring note: God’s own kingship, not earthly/historical monarchy.
έλεος (mercy)	Deeply embedded in daily-repeated liturgy (Κύριε, ελέησον). This is overwhelmingly an asset, but extreme ritual familiarity carries a modest risk of the word registering as a fixed liturgical refrain rather than James’s call to concrete, costly compassion toward the poor.	Retain έλεος; pair at least once with a concrete-action gloss (πράξη σπλαχνικής βοήθειας) to reactivate the active, not merely liturgical, sense.
κρίση/κρίμα (judgment)	Modern κρίση overwhelmingly and primarily means “(economic) crisis” — an especially loaded association in recent Greek social history (the 2010s οικονομική κρίση). This is the most severe secular-bleaching risk in this doctrine category.	Use κρίμα preferentially where the eschatological/judicial sense must be unambiguous; where κρίση is used, always pair with an explanatory clause anchoring the judicial/eschatological sense.

Missing vocabulary: none. Crowded neighborhood: κρίση/κρίση-economic is the sharpest secular-bleaching collision in this doctrine.

1.5 Taming the Tongue

Available Greek terms	Weaknesses	Recommended strategy
γλώσσα (tongue)	Equally and very commonly means “language” (γλωσσολογία, ξένη γλώσσα). Context must always disambiguate the embodied moral-agency sense (the tongue as bodily member one must tame) from the abstract linguistic sense.	No substitute exists (γλώσσα is the only word for the physical organ). Rely on surrounding context (bridle/fire/small member imagery) to keep the embodied sense primary; avoid isolated glossary-style citations of γλώσσα without that context.
χαλιναγωγώ (bridle)	Vivid, stable, minimal drift; χαλινός (“bit/bridle”) remains a living word.	Retain as-is; genuine asset.
πυρ / γέεννα (fire/hell)	γέεννα has no competing secular sense, but risks under-translation of severity — a reader without the historical Valley-of-Hinnom referent may not register that James invokes the most extreme eschatological image available in Second Temple Jewish rhetoric.	Brief explanatory gloss at first occurrence (3:6) identifying γέεννα’s historical referent and its rhetorical extremity.
ζήλος / έριδα (jealousy/selfish ambition)	ζῆλος ranges from commendable zeal (cf. baseline “zealot,” Low risk, positive in Paul’s autobiography) to destructive envy; the negative sense here must not default to the baseline’s more neutral-to-positive Pauline association.	Confirm negative sense contextually via pairing with ἐριθεία; do not cross-reference the baseline “zealot” entry without a disambiguating note.

Missing vocabulary: none.

1.6 Worldliness versus Friendship with God

Available Greek terms	Weaknesses	Recommended strategy
φιλία με τον κόσμο (friendship with the world)	κόσμος must consistently mean the God-opposed value-system, not the created physical world or ordinary social engagement. Two-directional misreading risk: too broad (condemning all social life) or too soft (mild character flaw rather than “enmity with God”).	Explicit scoping note at 4:4 first occurrence; maintain consistent κόσμος-as-value-system handling established for Romans/Galatians “worldliness” contexts where applicable (no direct baseline entry exists for κόσμος itself, so this note is new to James).
μοιχαλίδες (adulteresses)	Old Testament prophetic covenant-unfaithfulness metaphor (Hosea, Jeremiah). Without a note, the vocative reads as a jarring, seemingly non-sequitur accusation of literal marital infidelity.	Mandatory explanatory note connecting to OT prophetic marriage-covenant imagery; do not render more gently (e.g. “unfaithful ones”) as this would lose the deliberately shocking, gendered prophetic register James is invoking.
χάρη (grace) — baseline reuse	Baseline Critical risk (personal charm / legal pardon secular senses) applies identically here; this is a direct LXX quotation (Proverbs 3:34) applied to humility rather than justification.	Retain exactly per baseline; note the LXX citation explicitly as a further zero-gap asset — the Greek reader can read Proverbs 3:34 LXX and James 4:6 in identical wording.
υπερήφανος / ταπεινός (proud/humble)	Modern υπερήφανος carries a strong positive secondary sense (legitimate self-respect/national pride — “είμαι υπερήφανος για…”), unlike the uniformly negative Koine ὑπερήφανος.	Anchor explicitly to the negative, God-opposing sense; note the divergence from the positive secular connotation so as not to imply James condemns healthy self-respect generally.
αντισταθείτε στον διάβολο (resist the devil)	διάβολος is lexically stable, but popular Greek folk usage sometimes flattens “the devil” into superstition-adjacent idiom (e.g. proverbial expressions) rather than a serious personal spiritual adversary.	Present as a genuinely personal, real spiritual being consistent with NT demonology; avoid metaphorical or folkloric framing in teaching prose.

Missing vocabulary: none. This doctrine’s central linguistic challenge is scope-fencing κόσμος and reactivating the seriousness of biblical demonology against folk-idiom flattening.

1.7 Prayer and Healing

Available Greek terms	Weaknesses	Recommended strategy
η ευχή/προσευχή της πίστης (prayer of faith)	εὐχή is the direct root of Ευχέλαιο (Holy Unction); this phrase sits at the center of the chapter’s doctrinal-practice anchor risk.	Teach the prayer-of-faith as the operative divine instrument (not the oil, nor priestly office, as mechanically effective in themselves) while affirming rather than dismissing the sacrament this verse historically grounds.
οι πρεσβύτεροι της εκκλησίας (elders of the church)	πρεσβύτερος is the actual, current, standard title for an ordained Orthodox parish priest — an unusually direct identity (not mere resemblance) between James’s term and contemporary clerical address.	Affirm this reading (calling one’s parish priest is a well-supported application) while framing James’s πρεσβύτεροι as the recognized congregational leaders generally, consistent with the baseline “church” (εκκλησία) entry — avoid either narrowing exclusively to modern clerical office or erasing the term’s direct applicability to it.
αλείψαντάς [τον] με λάδι (anointing with oil)	Doctrinal-practice anchor, Critical. This is not merely related vocabulary but the literal institution-text for Το Ευχέλαιο (εὐχή + ἔλαιον). No lexical gap exists; the entire risk is in scope — whether the curriculum treats the described action as identical to, merely inspiring, or independent of the fully developed liturgical sacrament.	Teach James’s own described action (elders’ prayer + anointing, expecting God’s healing response) on its own terms; neither require the formal liturgical rite as the only valid obedience to this verse, nor treat the historic sacrament as an illegitimate accretion. Mandatory theologian review, every occurrence.
δέησις δικαίου (prayer of a righteous person)	Stable, liturgically alive (Orthodox litany language); low drift.	Retain; genuine asset.
Ηλίας (Elijah)	None; strong cultural asset (common given name; nationwide mountaintop feast day, Προφήτης Ηλίας, July 20).	Retain the established Bible form; the curriculum may draw on the living feast-day association as a teaching bridge.

Missing vocabulary: none. Crowded neighborhood: εὐχή/ἔλαιον together form the single most institutionally “occupied” vocabulary cluster in the entire James curriculum.

1.8 Patience and the Lord’s Return

Available Greek terms	Weaknesses	Recommended strategy
μακροθυμήσατε (be patient)	Must be kept distinct from ὑπομονή (endurance under trial), occurring within a few verses of it in ch.5.	Explicit note at first joint occurrence distinguishing “patience toward what is awaited/others” from “endurance under pressure.”
παρουσία (coming/Parousia)	Severe secular-bleaching risk. The dominant, near-universal everyday Modern Greek sense is mundane “attendance/presence” (a school attendance register is literally a βιβλίο παρουσιών). Bare παρουσία in a theological text risks registering as trivially administrative.	Never use bare παρουσία. Use the fuller phrase “η Δευτέρα Παρουσία του Κυρίου” or minimally “η παρουσία του Κυρίου,” exploiting the major cultural/liturgical asset of Δευτέρα Παρουσία — a universally recognized fixed phrase depicted in monumental fresco form on the west wall of virtually every traditional Greek Orthodox church nationwide.
κριτής (judge)	Stable; comparatively resistant to the κρίση “economic crisis” drift affecting the abstract noun.	Retain as-is.
εάν θέλει ο Κύριος (if the Lord wills)	Baseline Κύριος (Critical) applies; the living popular idiom “άμα θέλει ο Θεός” is a genuine asset for resonance but risks the phrase being heard with casual-idiom flatness rather than full submission-to-sovereign-Lordship weight.	Retain the fuller Κύριος phrasing (not the colloquial Θεός-idiom substitute) to preserve the baseline’s mandatory Lordship weight while still being immediately recognizable to readers familiar with the everyday expression.
μη ομνύετε (do not swear)	Distinguish formal verifying oaths (legal/courtroom) from casual idiomatic invocations (“μα τον Θεό”) common in everyday speech.	Contextual note scoping the command to formal oath-taking as truthfulness-guarantee, not every idiomatic exclamation.

Missing vocabulary: none. Crowded/bleached neighborhood: παρουσία is the single most severely secular-bleached term newly introduced by James (more severe even than the baseline’s κλήση/εκλογή, because the everyday sense is not merely different but institutionally banal — a school register).

1.9 Confession and Restoration

Available Greek terms	Weaknesses	Recommended strategy
εξομολογείστε ο ένας στον άλλον τις αμαρτίες (confess your sins to one another)	Doctrinal-practice anchor, Critical — the single most sensitive rendering decision in the letter. Ἐξομολόγηση/εξομολογούμαι in living Modern Greek refers almost automatically and exclusively to the priest-heard Sacrament of Confession. James’s grammar (ἀλλήλοις, reciprocal, “to one another”) indicates mutual congregational practice, in real tension with the narrowed modern default.	Retain the verb (no substitute conveys the same weight), but the reciprocal ἀλλήλοις must be rendered and taught with its full grammatical force (“ο ένας στον άλλον,” “to one another,” not “στον ιερέα,” “to the priest”). Do not deny or minimize the value of sacramental confession; do not allow the plain reciprocal grammar to be silently overridden. Mandatory theologian review, every occurrence.
επιστρέψει έναν αμαρτωλό (turns back a sinner)	επιστρέφω is the standard word for both literal “return” and religious “conversion”; low drift, but the restorative within-community sense (an existing believer who has wandered) must be kept distinct from first-time evangelistic conversion.	Contextual note distinguishing restoration-of-the-straying-believer from initial conversion language elsewhere in the curriculum.
θα σώσει μια ψυχή από τον θάνατο (will save a soul from death)	Baseline σωτηρία root (Critical). ψυχή ranges colloquially from “soul” to “spirit/vitality” (e.g. “έχει ψυχή,” of a passionate performance).	Preserve full theological weight (eternal well-being), not colloquial “morale/vitality.”

Missing vocabulary: none. Crowded neighborhood: εξομολόγηση is, together with εὐχή/ἔλαιον (5:14), the most institutionally saturated vocabulary in the entire curriculum.

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2. Missing Vocabulary vs. Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods

A key structural finding of this Step 8 analysis, consistent with the baseline’s own framing for this Language Package: James introduces zero genuine vocabulary gaps. Every English source term maps onto a living, stable Modern Greek word — usually the identical Koine word the letter itself uses. This is expected, given Modern Greek’s status as the direct descendant of the NT’s own language, and is consistent with the pattern already documented for Romans and Galatians.

The entire linguistic-risk surface of James therefore consists of crowded semantic neighborhoods requiring active fencing. These divide into three distinct sub-types, a taxonomy not fully needed for Romans/Galatians but necessary here:

2.1 Secular-bleaching crowding (modern everyday usage crowds out the theological sense)

• παρουσία (5:7-8) — attendance register; most severe case in the letter.
• κρίση (2:12-13; 5:9) — economic crisis.
• δαιμόνιο/δαιμονιώδης (2:19; 3:15) — colloquial “cleverness/wit.”
• ψυχική (3:15) — clinical “mental health.”
• έργα (2:14-26) — construction/public-works.
• γλώσσα (3:1-12) — “language” rather than the bodily organ.
• υπερήφανος (4:6, 10) — legitimate pride, positively valenced in modern usage.
• αμαρτία (colloquial idiom, “what a shame”) — inherited baseline risk, present throughout.

2.2 Patristic/institutional-accretion crowding (a fully developed Orthodox institution or sacrament has grown directly out of, and now dominates, the same vocabulary)

• αλείψαντες ελαίω (5:14) → Ευχέλαιο (Holy Unction) — the most acute case in the entire James curriculum.
• εξομολογείστε … τις αμαρτίες (5:16) → η Εξομολόγηση (Sacred Confession) — comparably acute.
• πρεσβύτεροι (5:14) → the standard clerical title for an ordained priest.
• θρησκεία (1:26-27) → institutional/national religious identity.
• έλεος (2:13) → the fixed liturgical refrain Κύριε ελέησον.
• σοφία (1:5; 3:13-18) → the classical Greek philosophical tradition, native and directly accessible.

2.3 Cross-authorial doctrinal crowding (identical vocabulary is shared with, and doctrinally load-bearing in, the baseline Romans/Galatians package, creating risk of confusing two distinct arguments rather than confusing two eras of language)

• έργα vs. baseline ἔργα νόμου (works of the law) — different questions (evidentiary fruit vs. justification-ground).
• δικαιόω/δικαιώνεται vs. baseline δικαίωση (justification) — demonstrative vindication vs. forensic declaration.
• λογίστηκε — shared, non-conflicting; genuine confirming asset (both authors cite Genesis 15:6 identically).
• χάρη (4:6) vs. baseline χάρη (grace/justification contexts) — same word, same secular-drift risks, applied to humility rather than justification; low actual conflict, but must not be taught as introducing a “different grace.”
• καρπός δικαιοσύνης (3:18) vs. baseline δικαιοσύνη — ethical/practical outworking sense vs. forensic standing; complementary, not contradictory, but requires explicit note to prevent a reader inferring James redefines δικαιοσύνη away from Paul’s usage.

No sub-type 2.3 conflict exists anywhere in the baseline Galatians package to this degree — James is the first curriculum in this pipeline whose central doctrinal crux (2:14-26) depends on the reader correctly triangulating between two New Testament authors’ use of the same Greek words for different purposes, rather than between a modern and an ancient sense of one author’s word.

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3. Transliteration vs. Paraphrase Decisions

Term	Decision	Rationale
γέεννα (Gehenna, 3:6)	Retain transliteration (established NT form), with mandatory explanatory gloss at first occurrence.	No secular competing sense exists to fence against, unlike most terms in this analysis; the risk is under-translation of severity, not misdirection. A paraphrase (“hell”) would lose the specific historical referent (Valley of Hinnom) James’s original audience understood.
Σαβαώθ (Lord of Hosts, 5:4)	Retain transliteration, per baseline convention (cf. Αββά).	Already an established Language Package pattern; strong liturgical asset via the Sanctus. Do not translate as “στρατιών” (of armies), which would lose the recognizable liturgical form.
Ηλίας (Elijah, 5:17-18)	Use established Greek Bible form, no transliteration decision needed — it is already a native Greek name.	Zero gap; strong living cultural asset (given name, feast day).
παρουσία (5:7-8)	Paraphrase/expand, do not use bare transliteration-equivalent.	Bare παρουσία (already a native Greek word, not literally “transliterated” but functionally analogous to a loanword needing reactivation) is too secular-bleached; the expanded liturgical phrase “η Δευτέρα Παρουσία του Κυρίου” must be used to draw on the fresco/liturgical asset rather than the attendance-register default.
Ευχέλαιο / εξομολόγηση (institutional-name avoidance, 5:14, 16)	Deliberately avoid introducing the modern sacrament-names themselves into the translated Bible text. Render James’s own descriptive verbs and nouns (anointing with oil; confessing to one another) rather than substituting the later technical sacrament-titles.	The Bible text should read as James wrote it, preserving his own reciprocal/congregational grammar; the sacrament-name substitution would silently import the fully developed later institution into the primary translated text itself, foreclosing the very ambiguity the curriculum must instead teach explicitly in surrounding notes.
στοιχειώδη-type compound glosses (not present in James; contrast case)	N/A for James	Included for completeness: unlike Galatians’s στοιχεῖα τοῦ κόσμου, James has no comparably “forbidden confusion” transliteration trap requiring a structural workaround; James’s traps are all crowding traps on native words, not translation gaps.

General principle for this Language Package, confirmed again in James: transliteration is reserved for (a) proper names and (b) a small set of established liturgical set-phrases (Αββά, Σαβαώθ, γέεννα, Αμήν) where the Koine form itself, rather than a Modern Greek paraphrase, is the recognized register. James introduces no new candidates for this treatment beyond γέεννα and Σαβαώθ, both already covered by pre-existing baseline convention.

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4. Ranked List of Highest-Risk Ambiguities in James

Ranked by combined severity (doctrinal stakes) and likelihood (how easily a translator or reader could default to the wrong sense without deliberate intervention).

1. εξομολογείστε … τις αμαρτίες (5:16, “confess your sins to one another”) — Highest risk in the letter. The reciprocal, congregation-wide practice James commands is in direct grammatical tension with the near-total modern identification of the cognate word with priest-heard sacramental Confession. Silent override in either direction (denying the sacrament’s roots here, or erasing James’s ἀλλήλοις) is a live and easy failure mode. Mandatory theologian review, every occurrence.

2. αλείψαντες ελαίω (5:14, “anointing with oil”) — Comparable severity to #1: the literal institution-text for Ευχέλαιο. Risk of either flattening James into a symbolic non-practice or narrowing obedience to the fully developed later liturgical rite as the sole valid form. Mandatory theologian review, every occurrence.

3. δικαιόω/δικαιώνεται (2:21, 24, 25, “justified”) — The letter’s central cross-authorial crux. Same Greek verb as Paul’s forensic justification, doing categorically different argumentative work (vindication/demonstration vs. forensic declaration). The single highest-stakes moment for confusing two New Testament authors’ arguments rather than two eras of one language. Mandatory theologian review, every occurrence.

4. παρουσία (5:7-8, “the coming of the Lord”) — Severe secular bleaching (attendance-register banality) meeting a rich liturgical asset (Δευτέρα Παρουσία frescoes) that is easily under-exploited if bare παρουσία is used mechanically. High likelihood of accidental flattening if the fuller phrase is not deliberately chosen every time.

5. έργα (2:14-26, “works”) — Zero lexical gap but maximal collision with the baseline’s Critical-risk ἔργα νόμου; the core passage’s entire argument depends on readers not silently importing Paul’s rejected category into James’s affirmed one.

6. σοφία (1:5; 3:13-18, “wisdom”) — Unique in this pipeline for having a native, not imported, competing secular-intellectual register (classical Greek philosophy), directly accessible without any translation barrier, requiring active theological fencing at every occurrence in chs. 1 and 3.

7. πειρασμός/δοκιμασία (1:2-4, 12-14, “trial/temptation”) — The double-sense wordplay is doctrinally load-bearing (God tests, never tempts); collapsing it into a single Greek rendering throughout would destroy an argument James makes deliberately, not incidentally.

8. κρίση/κρίμα (2:12-13; 5:9, “judgment”) — Severe, high-frequency secular bleaching toward “economic crisis,” a phrase with heavy recent-history freight in Greek society; easy to under-anchor in casual teaching prose.

9. νόμος της ελευθερίας (1:25; 2:12, “law of liberty”) — Compounds two baseline high/critical-risk terms; ελευθερία’s maximal national-political resonance (the Greek motto and national anthem) risks overwhelming the phrase’s intended sense of gospel-shaped ethical freedom.

10. πρεσβύτεροι της εκκλησίας (5:14, “elders of the church”) — Lower doctrinal stakes than 1-3 but high practical-application stakes: the term’s identity with the modern parish-priest title will strongly and correctly shape how the passage is applied, and must be framed rather than resisted.

11. θρησκεία (1:26-27, “religion”) — Risk of James’s ethical redefinition sounding like an attack on institutional/liturgical religion as such, in a culture where θρησκεία primarily denotes national-religious institutional identity.

12. δαιμόνια/δαιμονιώδης (2:19; 3:15, “demons/demonic”) — Colloquial “cleverness/wit” drift risks undercutting the intended tone of serious moral-spiritual indictment, especially in ch.3’s escalating description of counterfeit wisdom.

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5. Summary and Handoff

James contributes no new missing-vocabulary problems to this Language Package but contributes two doctrinal-practice anchor terms (5:14, 5:16) of a severity and type not previously encountered in the Romans/Galatians baseline, and one cross-authorial doctrinal crux (δικαιόω, 2:21-25) requiring explicit triangulation between two biblical authors’ identical vocabulary rather than between ancient and modern registers of a single author’s word. These findings should be carried forward directly into 09_transliteration_strategy.md (if applicable) and 11_doctrine_analysis.md, and are already reflected in the risk tiers recorded in 08_core_glossary.md and bible_term_registry.json. All Critical and High-risk items identified here require mandatory human theologian review routing per the existing doctrine_risk_registry.json framework, extended for James in the accompanying Step 9-11 deliverables.