Glossary Term
Risk: Critical- Approved rendering
- התגלמות
- Transliteration
- hitgalmut
- Rejected alternatives
- הגשמה
Incarnation
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.