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 and linguistic realities identified in Culture Analysis and Linguistic Gap Analysis. Every term entry records:
- The approved Hebrew translation and transliteration
- The doctrine risk tier (Critical/High/Medium/Low)
- Explicitly rejected alternatives, with reasons — including, distinctively for Hebrew, Modern Hebrew forms that have drifted from the Biblical Hebrew sense
- Notes explaining any non-obvious translation choice
Governing principles
- Biblical Hebrew precision over Modern Hebrew convenience — where a word has drifted (tzedakah, kiddush, hashgachah), this glossary restores the Biblical Hebrew theological sense rather than defaulting to the more familiar contemporary usage.
- Engage the existing Jewish framework, don’t silently override it — every Critical-risk term records the specific Tanakh-based or Rabbinic content a reader will already supply, so a translator or reviewer understands what must be actively addressed rather than assumed away.
- 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 (see the AI Translation Requirements’ Translation Memory Load and Enforcement Instructions).
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, even where textually well-grounded, still requires deliberate theological framing for a Hebrew-speaking reader.
Critical Risk Terms
Church
Approved rendering: קהילה
Transliteration: kehilah
Doctrine: Church as God’s People
Rejected alternatives: עדה
CRITICAL: עדה (edah, ‘congregation’) is used in the Torah specifically for the assembled community of Israel (‘adat Yisrael’); using it, or framing kehilah loosely, risks implying the Church replaces Israel as God’s people - a supersessionist reading with a painful history. Romans 11’s grafting-in metaphor (not replacement) must govern how this term is taught.
God
Approved rendering: אלוהים
Transliteration: Elohim
Doctrine: Deity of Christ
CRITICAL: no viable alternative word; the risk is entirely in content. The Shema’s ‘Hashem Echad’ (the LORD is One) is arguably the single most central affirmation in Jewish identity, recited daily - Trinitarian language must be framed as compatible with, not a departure from, absolute divine unity, an intra-scriptural question rather than an interfaith one.
Holy Spirit
Approved rendering: רוח הקודש
Transliteration: Ruach HaKodesh
Doctrine: Sanctification
CRITICAL: a genuine, positive Tanakh phrase (God’s Spirit inspiring the prophets), but mainstream Rabbinic tradition holds two claims that must both be addressed: the Ruach HaKodesh functions as an impersonal divine influence rather than a distinct Person, and (per the Talmud, Yoma 9b) it ‘departed from Israel’ with the death of the last prophets. Romans 8’s permanent, personal, universal indwelling of believers must be taught against both defaults.
Imputed Righteousness
Approved rendering: נחשבת לו לצדקה
Transliteration: nechshevet lo li-tzedakah
Doctrine: Justification by Faith
Rejected alternatives: צדק מוענק
CRITICAL: deliberately echoes Genesis 15:6’s own Masoretic wording (‘vayachsheveha lo tzedakah,’ ‘and he reckoned it to him as righteousness’) - the very proof-text Romans 4 builds on. This is the one context where tzedakah (rather than tzedek, see the general ‘righteousness’ entry) is correct and required, precisely because it is a direct citation; translators must not ‘modernize’ it and must add a note distinguishing Genesis 15:6’s Biblical-Hebrew sense from Modern Hebrew’s narrowed ‘charity’ sense of the same word.
Incarnation
Approved rendering: התגלמות
Transliteration: hitgalmut
Doctrine: Incarnation
Rejected alternatives: הגשמה
CRITICAL: unlike languages with centuries of native Christian theological vocabulary, Modern Hebrew has no long-settled term - there was no continuous native-Hebrew-speaking Christian community between the apostolic era and Hebrew’s 19th-20th century revival. הגשמה (hagshamah) is common in everyday Modern Hebrew for ‘actualizing a dream/vision,’ which would trivialize the doctrine into self-actualization language. Delitzsch’s Hebrew NT precedent at John 1:14 (‘וְהַדָּבָר נִהְיָה בָשָׂר’ - the Word became flesh) should inform surrounding phrasing where the noun form alone feels underdetermined.
Israel
Approved rendering: ישראל
Transliteration: Yisra’el
Doctrine: Unity of Jews and Gentiles
CRITICAL: unlike other target languages, this is not merely politically live but names the reader’s own nation and central ethnic-religious-national identity. Romans 9-11’s argument about partial hardening, the remnant, and ‘all Israel will be saved’ (11:26) has a long and contested interpretive history and lands with maximum personal weight for a Hebrew-speaking reader specifically.
Jesus
Approved rendering: ישוע
Transliteration: Yeshua
Doctrine: Lordship of Christ
Rejected alternatives: ישו
CRITICAL: must always be spelled with the final ayin, ישוע. The truncated ישו (Yeshu) is understood by some to derive from a Talmudic-era acronym (‘yimach shemo vezikhro,’ may his name and memory be blotted out) and functions as a slur in some circles; using it, even unintentionally, is a serious error. Positively, Yeshua’s own name shares the root ישע with yeshu’ah (salvation) - Matthew 1:21’s naming explanation should be taught as a real etymological connection, not an incidental pun.
Justification
Approved rendering: ההצדקה
Transliteration: ha-hatzdakah
Doctrine: Salvation
CRITICAL: in ordinary Modern Hebrew, ‘hatzdakah’ commonly means justifying/rationalizing a decision (a secular excuse-making sense). Must always appear with the qualifying phrase ‘על ידי אמונה’ (by faith) so it reads as God’s forensic legal verdict, not a self-justifying rationale.
Law
Approved rendering: תורה
Transliteration: Torah
Doctrine: Fulfillment of Prophecy
CRITICAL: Torah is not, in Jewish self-understanding, a negative burden but the central, beloved gift of covenant relationship (Psalm 119; the holiday of Simchat Torah). Paul’s argument that no one is justified by works of Torah, and that Messiah is Torah’s ‘telos’ (Romans 10:4, better read as ‘goal/fulfillment’ than ‘termination’), must never be taught as an attack on Torah itself. No viable substitute word exists; the risk is entirely in framing, not vocabulary.
Lord
Approved rendering: אדון
Transliteration: Adon
Doctrine: Lordship of Christ
CRITICAL: אֲדֹנָי (Adonai) is the traditional spoken substitute for the unpronounced Tetragrammaton (YHWH) itself - the most sacred stand-in for God’s own personal name. Applying Adon-level lordship to Jesus in Romans 10:9 is doctrinally exact (echoing Joel 2:32’s YHWH-language quoted in 10:13) but requires care not to be heard as either overreaching into the sacred Name’s territory carelessly, or undershooting into the merely mundane ‘adoni, sir’ sense used for human masters throughout Tanakh.
Messiah
Approved rendering: משיח
Transliteration: mashiach
Doctrine: Messianic Promise
CRITICAL: the unavoidable and correct word, but Rabbinic Judaism holds a specific, developed messianic job description (Rambam, Mishneh Torah, Laws of Kings 11-12) - a Davidic king who rebuilds the Temple, ingathers all exiles, and establishes universal peace within his own reign. Since Jesus did not visibly accomplish these in the first century, the standard Christian answer (a completed first coming, a future second coming) is a genuinely novel interpretive move that must be taught explicitly, not assumed.
Resurrection
Approved rendering: תחיית המתים
Transliteration: techiyat hametim
Doctrine: Resurrection of Christ
CRITICAL: unlike other languages, Judaism itself affirms a future general resurrection (one of the 13 Principles of Faith, recited in the Amidah’s ‘mechayeh hametim’ blessing) - so the word is not the problem. The problem: mainstream Rabbinic expectation holds the Messiah completes his mission (rebuilt Temple, worldwide peace, ingathering of exiles) within one unbroken reign; a Messiah who dies and rises, to return later and finish the job, does not fit that template and must be taught as a distinct, two-comings pattern, not assumed as self-evident.
Righteousness
Approved rendering: צדק
Transliteration: tzedek
Doctrine: Salvation
Rejected alternatives: צדקה
CRITICAL: צְדָקָה (tzedakah) has narrowed in Modern Hebrew to mean specifically ‘charity’ (a tzedakah box is a charity box). Using it for ‘the righteousness of God’ risks being heard as ‘God’s charity’ rather than right standing. צֶדֶק retains the broader abstract sense and is required, except where Genesis 15:6 itself is being quoted (see imputed_righteousness).
Salvation
Approved rendering: ישועה
Transliteration: yeshu’ah
Doctrine: Salvation
Rejected alternatives: גאולה
CRITICAL: shares its root (י-ש-ע) with the name Yeshua itself (Matthew 1:21’s ‘he will save/yoshia his people’ - a real etymological pun worth teaching, not just a risk to manage). The risk: Jewish thought defaults yeshu’ah toward corporate/national deliverance (from exile, at the Messianic Age) rather than Paul’s individual, present, eternal deliverance from sin. גאולה (ge’ulah, redemption) names a related but distinct concept and is kept separate, not used interchangeably.
Son Of God
Approved rendering: בן האלוהים
Transliteration: ben ha-Elohim
Doctrine: Sonship of Christ
CRITICAL: the Tanakh itself already uses ‘sons of God’ for two established senses - angelic beings (Genesis 6:2, Job 1:6) and Israel corporately (Exodus 4:22, ‘Israel is my firstborn son’) - never for an individual person sharing God’s own essence. A reader’s existing scriptural categories must be explicitly set aside to introduce this third, ontological sense; it cannot be assumed to map automatically onto either prior usage.
High Risk Terms
Adoption
Approved rendering: אימוץ
Transliteration: imutz
Doctrine: Adoption into God’s Family
Standard modern legal-adoption word, no direct doctrinal collision, but Israel’s sonship in Jewish self-understanding is by birth-covenant (Deuteronomy 14:1), not adoption - risk that Gentile ‘adoption’ language reads as either redundant for Jewish believers or, if mishandled, as implying Israel’s natural sonship has been superseded. Romans 8’s full-inheritance sense must be taught alongside, not instead of, the covenant framework of chapters 9-11.
Called
Approved rendering: קרוא
Transliteration: karu
Doctrine: Divine Calling
Context-sensitive: in 1:1 = called to apostleship; in 1:7 = called to be saints; in 8:28-30 = effectual calling to salvation. Shares root ק-ר-א with Torah reading (keri’ah) - a positive, not competing, resonance.
Calling
Approved rendering: קריאה
Transliteration: keri’ah
Doctrine: Divine Calling
Noun form for the act/state of being called. God’s calling of individuals (Samuel, the prophets) is well-established biblical territory, lower collision risk than in other Language Packages, but still context-sensitive across its several NT senses.
Covenant
Approved rendering: ברית
Transliteration: brit
Doctrine: Davidic Covenant
Unlike most target languages, this concept is not absent but extremely present and specific (Brit Milah, the Sinai covenant) - so tightly bound to Torah-observance and circumcision in Jewish self-understanding that ‘new covenant’ (ברית חדשה, itself Jeremiah 31:31’s own phrase) extended to uncircumcised Gentiles apart from Torah observance is a live point of difficulty, not a foreign concept needing basic introduction.
Election
Approved rendering: בחירה
Transliteration: bechirah
Doctrine: Effectual Calling
Israel’s corporate chosenness (‘am hanivchar,’ the Chosen People) is a robust existing category - an asset here, not an absence. The risk is scope: Romans 9 moves toward individual and remnant election (9:6-8, ‘not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel’) alongside Gentile inclusion, which needs to be taught against the automatically-corporate default reading.
Faith
Approved rendering: אמונה
Transliteration: emunah
Doctrine: Faith
Rejected alternatives: ביטחון
Emunah (root א-מ-ן, same as ‘amen’) is generally understood in Jewish usage as faithfulness demonstrated through observance of mitzvot - praxis-oriented, not primarily propositional. Must be anchored as personal trust in Messiah’s finished work, not implicitly bundled with continued Torah-observance as its necessary expression.
Gentiles
Approved rendering: גויים
Transliteration: goyim
Doctrine: Unity of Jews and Gentiles
Rejected alternatives: עמים
Biblically neutral (even used of Israel itself, ‘goy kadosh,’ Exodus 19:6) but has acquired a mildly to strongly pejorative colloquial shade in everyday Modern Hebrew/Yiddish-inflected usage. Romans’ argument for full Jew-Gentile dignity and unity requires this term to be handled so its everyday connotation doesn’t undercut the text’s inclusive intent.
Intercession
Approved rendering: הפגעה
Transliteration: hafga’ah
Doctrine: Prayer and Intercession
Rooted directly in Isaiah 53:12’s ‘yafgia’ (‘and made intercession for the transgressors’) - a strong textual anchor, but the identity of Isaiah 53’s suffering, interceding servant is itself one of the most long-disputed points in Jewish-Christian exegesis; mainstream Rabbinic tradition since Rashi generally reads the servant as collective Israel rather than an individual Messiah.
Kingdom Of God
Approved rendering: מלכות האלוהים
Transliteration: malchut ha-Elohim
Doctrine: Kingdom Mission
‘Malchut Shamayim’ (Kingdom of Heaven) is a genuine Rabbinic category (recited with the Shema as ‘accepting the yoke of the kingdom of heaven’) but denotes present submission to the commandments, not the NT’s inaugurated-through-Messiah redemptive-historical reign. Also distinguish from Jewish national/political sovereignty expectations tied to the Land.
Obedience Of Faith
Approved rendering: ציות האמונה
Transliteration: tziyut ha-emunah
Doctrine: Obedience of Faith
Risk of being heard as ‘faithfully observing the commandments’ (mitzvot-observance as what faith produces or requires), rather than Paul’s point that faith issues in a transformed, obedient life without requiring the ceremonial boundary-markers of Torah (circumcision, food laws) for Gentile believers specifically.
Sanctification
Approved rendering: התקדשות
Transliteration: hitkadshut
Doctrine: Sanctification
Rejected alternatives: קידוש
קידוש (Kiddush) is overwhelmingly recognized as the specific Shabbat/holiday wine blessing ritual in everyday Jewish life; using it here would evoke that ceremony rather than the Spirit’s ongoing moral transformation. הִתְקַדְּשׁוּת, the process-noun form, avoids that narrow ritual reading.
Seed Of David
Approved rendering: זרע דוד
Transliteration: zera David
Doctrine: Davidic Covenant
Romans 1:3; resonates directly with Jeremiah 23:5’s promised righteous Branch (tzemach) from David’s line. See ‘david’ and ‘messiah’ for the fuller typological framing needed.
Sin
Approved rendering: חטא
Transliteration: chet
Doctrine: Universal Human Accountability
Correct and well-established (root ח-ט-א, ‘to miss the mark’). The risk is doctrinal framework, not vocabulary: mainstream Jewish anthropology holds two competing inclinations present from birth (yetzer hatov and yetzer hara) with real freedom to choose good through Torah observance, not an inherited corrupted nature from Adam. Romans 5:12-19’s federal-headship argument must be taught deliberately against this default.
Medium Risk Terms
Abba
Approved rendering: אבא
Transliteration: Abba
Doctrine: Adoption into God’s Family
Unlike other target languages, Abba is simply the ordinary, unremarkable Modern Hebrew word every Israeli child uses for ‘Dad.’ The risk runs opposite to usual: because the word carries no special foreign register in Hebrew, Paul’s radical point in Romans 8:15 - that all believers now use a small child’s own intimate address for God - can be under-appreciated precisely because it sounds completely everyday rather than exotic.
Apostle
Approved rendering: שליח
Transliteration: shaliach
Doctrine: Apostleship
A genuine asset: Jewish legal concept of shlichut (‘a person’s shaliach is as the person himself,’ Mishnah Berakhot) captures delegated apostolic authority well. Main risk is modern secular overlay - ‘shaliach’ is also the everyday term for a Jewish Agency emissary sent abroad; context must make the NT sense clear.
David
Approved rendering: דוד
Transliteration: David
Doctrine: Davidic Covenant
Beloved and entirely shared figure. The risk is not David himself but ensuring the specific typological connection to Jesus as the promised Davidic heir is taught, since Judaism affirms Davidic messianism robustly but applies it to a still-future, different figure.
Father
Approved rendering: אבינו
Transliteration: Avinu
Doctrine: Adoption into God’s Family
A genuine positive resource: ‘Avinu Malkeinu’ (‘Our Father, Our King’) is a cherished High Holy Day liturgical address. The risk is scope, not collision: Avinu in Jewish liturgy is corporate (the Father of the whole community of Israel), while Romans 8 develops an individualized, intimate filial cry - an emphasis-shift to teach, not a contradiction to resolve.
Glory
Approved rendering: כבוד
Transliteration: kavod
Doctrine: Deity of Christ
Strong existing resource (the kavod YHWH filling the tabernacle/temple). Must retain the weighty manifest-divine-presence sense rather than Modern Hebrew’s common colloquial usage of kavod as mere social ‘respect’ (as in ‘kol hakavod,’ well done).
Gospel
Approved rendering: הבשורה
Transliteration: ha-besorah
Doctrine: Gospel
Rejected alternatives: חדשות טובות
Besorah is generic Hebrew for ‘good news’ of any kind (a birth, a victory). Must be qualified as the specific proclamation of salvation through the Messiah, not left to stand alone as generic good tidings.
Grace
Approved rendering: חסד
Transliteration: chesed
Doctrine: Grace
Rejected alternatives: חן
חן (chen) has drifted in Modern Hebrew toward ‘charm/cuteness’ (a person or object can ‘have chen’), too thin for Paul’s weighty unmerited favor. חֶסֶד carries the fuller OT covenant-loyalty sense (Exodus 34:6), but must still be sharpened to convey favor given wholly apart from Torah observance, since chesed in Jewish usage does not by itself exclude covenant obligation.
Holy
Approved rendering: קדוש
Transliteration: kadosh
Doctrine: Sanctification
Deeply shared vocabulary (Kadosh Baruch Hu, ‘the Holy One, Blessed be He,’ a common Jewish name for God). Risk is scope: Jewish holiness is heavily tied to Torah-commanded ritual practice; Romans’ holiness is Spirit-wrought transformation not reducible to ritual observance.
Mission
Approved rendering: שליחות
Transliteration: shlichut
Doctrine: Mission to the Nations
Shares its root with shaliach/apostle. Modern Israeli usage also applies shlichut to Jewish Agency emissary work abroad; context should make clear this is gospel proclamation, not a secular-national program.
Peace
Approved rendering: שלום
Transliteration: shalom
Doctrine: Peace with God
Rich existing OT resource (wholeness, right-relationship) that maps well onto Romans 5:1 in principle. The risk is dilution through ubiquity: shalom is said dozens of times daily as a casual greeting, which can flatten the weight of ‘peace with God through justification’ into just another instance of the everyday word.
Power Of God
Approved rendering: כוח האלוהים
Transliteration: koach ha-Elohim
Doctrine: Power of God for Salvation
Rejected alternatives: גבורת האל
גבורה (gevurah) is one of the ten Kabbalistic sefirot (divine emanations); using it risks importing a mystical-emanationist framework for readers familiar with Kabbalah. כוח is the plain, non-mystical word for strength/power and is preferred.
Prophet
Approved rendering: נביא
Transliteration: navi
Doctrine: Inspiration of Scripture
Deuteronomy 18:15’s ‘a prophet like Moses’ (cited messianically in Acts 3:22) is itself a long-disputed prooftext in Jewish-Christian polemics; mainstream Rabbinic reading treats it as describing the ongoing succession of prophets, not one final eschatological figure. Calling Jesus navi is uncontroversial in itself but should not be treated as settling messianic identity.
Providence
Approved rendering: השגחה פרטית
Transliteration: hashgachah pratit
Doctrine: Providence
Rejected alternatives: השגחה
השגחה alone is most commonly encountered in everyday Israeli life as kosher supervision certification on food packaging. The fuller phrase ‘hashgachah pratit’ (individual/personal providence) is the established theological term and avoids that reading.
Saints
Approved rendering: קדושים
Transliteration: kedoshim
Doctrine: Sainthood
Echoes Leviticus 19’s ‘Kedoshim’ portion (‘You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy’) - strong positive OT resonance. Must not imply an elite class set apart by Torah-observant achievement; Romans 1:7 grounds sainthood in God’s calling, not merit.
Spiritual Gifts
Approved rendering: מתנות רוחניות
Transliteration: matanot ruchaniyot
Doctrine: Spiritual Gifts
Rejected alternatives: מתנות
מתנה (gift) alone is a neutral, secular word (birthday gifts, etc.); always retain רוחניות so the phrase is not read as ordinary talent.
Low Risk Terms
Exhort
Approved rendering: לעודד
Transliteration: le’oded
Doctrine: Mutual Edification
Context-sensitive: להוכיח (lehochiach, to admonish) for beseeching; לעודד (to encourage) for building up.
Fellowship
Approved rendering: שותפות
Transliteration: shutafut
Doctrine: Christian Fellowship
Rejected alternatives: קהילה
קהילה is reserved for ‘church’ in this glossary and should not double as ‘fellowship’ to avoid conflating the two distinct NT concepts. שותפות (partnership/sharing) conveys shared participation without that overlap.
Prophecy
Approved rendering: נבואה
Transliteration: nevu’ah
Doctrine: Fulfillment of Prophecy
Shares root with navi; low independent risk.
Thanksgiving
Approved rendering: הודיה
Transliteration: hodayah
Doctrine: Thanksgiving
Strong positive overlap with Jewish liturgy (the Hallel psalms’ ‘Hodu LaShem ki tov’). No significant risk.
Referenced passages