Semantic Analysis — 1 Corinthians (Original Koine Greek)

Part A — Core Passage Verse-by-Verse: 1 Corinthians 15:1-11

This is Paul’s earliest and most concentrated statement of the resurrection kerygma — the theological anchor of the whole curriculum. Every load-bearing term is treated below in verse order.

Verse 1 — Γνωρίζω δὲ ὑμῖν, ἀδελφοί, τὸ εὐαγγέλιον ὃ εὐηγγελισάμην ὑμῖν, ὃ καὶ παρελάβετε, ἐν ᾧ καὶ ἑστήκατε

εὐαγγέλιον (euangelion) — REUSED from baseline.

• Literal meaning: good news, good announcement.
• Semantic range: an authoritative royal/military announcement in secular Koine usage; in Paul, the specific saving proclamation about Christ.
• English variants: gospel, good news.
• Contextual theological meaning: Paul reminds the Corinthians of the fixed content of what he preached — not a vague sentiment but a defined body of facts (vv. 3-5).
• Rendering: 福音 (fukuin). Risk: Medium (per baseline) — blankness/biblical-illiteracy risk remains primary for secular readers, not competing meaning.

ἀδελφοί (adelphoi) — NEW term.

• Literal meaning: brothers (siblings from the same womb); in Paul’s letters, address to the whole congregation, male and female.
• Semantic range: biological siblings; fellow members of a covenant community; fictive kinship address.
• English variants: brothers, brothers and sisters, dear friends.
• Contextual theological meaning: Paul addresses the Corinthians as blood-close spiritual family before correcting them — familial warmth undergirding correction.
• Rendering: 兄弟たち (kyoudai-tachi). Risk: Low-Medium. Japanese 兄弟 defaults to literal male siblings; without explanatory framing it can read as excluding women. Teaching materials should clarify the address is to the whole congregation.

παρέλαβον / παρέδωκα pattern (introduced here, elaborated v.3) — NEW term (see v.3 below for full treatment).

ἑστήκατε (hestēkate, “you stand”) — NEW term, minor.

• Literal meaning: to stand, to have taken and hold a fixed position.
• Contextual theological meaning: the Corinthians’ present stability rests on this received gospel content, not on shifting opinion.
• Rendering: 立っている (tatte iru). Risk: Low.

Verse 2 — διʼ οὗ καὶ σώζεσθε, τίνι λόγῳ εὐηγγελισάμην ὑμῖν εἰ κατέχετε, ἐκτὸς εἰ μὴ μάτην ἐπιστεύσατε

σώζεσθε (sōzesthe, “you are being saved”) — root REUSED from baseline (σωτηρία / 救い).

• Literal meaning: present passive, ongoing rescue/deliverance.
• Semantic range: physical rescue from danger; in Paul, ongoing reconciliation with God grounded in a past completed event.
• Contextual theological meaning: salvation is an ongoing state that rests entirely on the fixed gospel facts about to be listed — not a single ecstatic past moment disconnected from content.
• Rendering: 救われている (sukuwarete iru), from 救い. Risk: Critical (per baseline salvation entry) — same forbidden-substitution rules apply (NEVER 解脱; extreme care with 極楽往生 bridge language).

ἐπιστεύσατε (episteusate, “you believed”) — root REUSED (πίστις / 信仰).

• Contextual theological meaning: belief with a real, checkable object — the facts of vv.3-5 — not generic religious sentiment.
• Rendering: 信じました (shinjimashita). Risk: High (per baseline faith entry).

Verse 3 — παρέδωκα γὰρ ὑμῖν ἐν πρώτοις, ὃ καὶ παρέλαβον, ὅτι Χριστὸς ἀπέθανεν ὑπὲρ τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν ἡμῶν κατὰ τὰς γραφάς

παραδίδωμι / παραλαμβάνω (paradidōmi / paralambanō, “deliver / receive”) — NEW term pair, doctrinally load-bearing.

• Literal meaning: to hand over/pass on; to take/receive what is handed over.
• Semantic range: technical rabbinic/Greco-Roman vocabulary for the formal transmission of authoritative tradition (teacher to disciple).
• English variants: deliver, pass on, hand down / receive.
• Contextual theological meaning: Paul is quoting a fixed, pre-existing creedal formula received from the earliest apostolic witnesses (likely within a few years of the resurrection) — this is formal, careful transmission of eyewitness testimony, not personal invention.
• Rendering: 伝えました / 受けました (tsutaemashita / ukemashita). Risk: High. Japan has its own well-known formal transmission-lineage culture — the iemoto (家元) system of tea ceremony, martial arts (budō menkyo), and traditional arts, where secret/authoritative teaching is passed master-to-disciple. This is a genuinely useful structural bridge for the concept of careful, guarded transmission, but teaching must clarify Paul is transmitting verifiable historical testimony about a public event, not an esoteric technique reserved for initiates.

Χριστός (Christos) — REUSED (キリスト).

• Contextual theological meaning: here in tightest connection with his death “for our sins” — the messianic title fused directly to the atoning act.
• Risk: Critical (per baseline messiah entry).

ἁμαρτία (hamartia, “sins”) — REUSED (罪 / tsumi).

• Contextual theological meaning: Christ’s death addresses actual moral guilt before God, not merely social shame or inconvenience to others (baseline note reaffirmed here).
• Risk: High (per baseline).

κατὰ τὰς γραφάς (kata tas graphas, “according to the Scriptures”) — NEW compound term.

• Literal meaning: “according to the writings.”
• Semantic range: the Old Testament as a unified, authoritative, prophetic corpus.
• English variants: as the Scriptures said, in fulfillment of Scripture.
• Contextual theological meaning: Christ’s death and resurrection are the planned fulfillment of a specific written prophetic record (e.g., Isaiah 53, Psalm 16), not a surprise reinterpreted after the fact.
• Rendering: 聖書に書いてあるとおり (Seisho ni kaite aru toori). Risk: High. Connects directly to the baseline “fulfillment_of_prophecy” doctrine risk: this must be taught as linear, one-time historical fulfillment, never as a fortune-telling prediction (占い) coming true by chance. Secular Japanese readers also generally lack any OT narrative literacy, compounding the risk with blankness.

Verse 4 — καὶ ὅτι ἐτάφη, καὶ ὅτι ἐγήγερται τῇ τρίτῃ ἡμέρᾳ κατὰ τὰς γραφάς

ἐτάφη (etaphē, “he was buried”) — NEW term.

• Literal meaning: passive aorist of θάπτω, “to bury.”
• Contextual theological meaning: establishes the reality and completeness of Christ’s death — a corpse was placed in a tomb — as the necessary premise for a genuinely bodily resurrection.
• Rendering: 埋葬されました (maisou saremashita). Risk: Low-Medium. Minor collision note: Japanese funerary custom is overwhelmingly cremation (火葬, kasō) rather than burial (土葬, dosō); teaching should clarify this is a first-century Jewish rock-tomb burial, a different physical practice from modern Japanese funeral custom, to avoid confusion about the empty-tomb narrative’s plausibility structure.

ἐγήγερται (egēgertai, “he has been raised”) — verb form of REUSED baseline concept (ἀνάστασις / 復活).

• Literal meaning: perfect passive of ἐγείρω, “to raise up” — grammatically stresses a past event with continuing present effect.
• Semantic range: waking from sleep; raising up what was down/dead; in Paul, the unique, bodily, historical reversal of death.
• English variants: raised, was raised, rose.
• Contextual theological meaning: the perfect tense is theologically significant — Christ’s resurrection is a settled, permanent, ongoing reality, not a temporary revival.
• Rendering: 復活しました / よみがえりました (fukkatsu shimashita / yomigaerimashita). Risk: Critical (per baseline resurrection entry) — NEVER 輪廻転生 (reincarnation cycle); actively restore doctrinal weight against 復活’s secular pop-culture “comeback” usage (band reunions, product relaunches). This is the single most load-bearing term in the core passage and the whole doctrine of “The Resurrection of Christ and Believers.”

τῇ τρίτῃ ἡμέρᾳ (tē tritē hēmera, “on the third day”) — NEW term.

• Literal meaning: on the third day (counting inclusively, per Jewish reckoning: day of death, following day, day of resurrection).
• Contextual theological meaning: precise, checkable, calendrical claim — again fulfilling specific OT pattern (cf. Hosea 6:2, Jonah 1:17) — not a vague “eventually.”
• Rendering: 三日目に (mikkame ni). Risk: Medium. Biblical-illiteracy risk: the inclusive counting convention (Friday-Saturday-Sunday counted as three days) is unfamiliar and can seem inconsistent to readers unfamiliar with ancient Jewish day-reckoning; a brief explanatory note is needed in teaching materials.

Verse 5 — καὶ ὅτι ὤφθη Κηφᾷ, εἶτα τοῖς δώδεκα

ὤφθη (ōphthē, “he appeared/was seen”) — NEW term, load-bearing throughout vv.5-8.

• Literal meaning: passive aorist of ὁράω, “to see” — “he was seen (by),” i.e., “he appeared to.”
• Semantic range: ordinary visual perception; in resurrection-appearance contexts, a technical formula for a genuine, objective post-resurrection encounter with the risen Christ (distinct from a vision, dream, or inward feeling).
• English variants: appeared, was seen by, showed himself to.
• Contextual theological meaning: Paul is listing a chain of named, checkable eyewitnesses — the resurrection is being defended as public, verifiable history.
• Rendering: 現れました (arawaremashita). Risk: High. The Japanese verb 現れる is used broadly for ghosts (幽霊が現れる), apparitions, and folk-spirit sightings in popular horror/ghost-story culture. Teaching must clarify this is a bodily, physical, repeatable-to-multiple-witnesses encounter with a resurrected human body, not a spectral apparition or 幽霊 sighting — directly parallel to the baseline’s holy_spirit caution about 霊 alone risking folk-spirit associations.

Κηφᾷ (Kēpha, “Cephas”) — proper name, NEW.

• Rendering: ケパ (Kepa), the Aramaic name Paul uses for Peter (Πέτρος/ペテロ elsewhere). Risk: Low, but teaching should note Κηφᾶς = Πέτρος = ペテロ to avoid the impression of two different figures.

οἱ δώδεκα (hoi dōdeka, “the Twelve”) — NEW term.

• Contextual theological meaning: the fixed, recognized apostolic college, a specific historical body distinct from “apostles” generally (v.7 uses the broader term).
• Rendering: 十二人 (Juuni-nin) or 十二弟子 (Juuni-deshi). Risk: Low.

Verse 6 — ἔπειτα ὤφθη ἐπάνω πεντακοσίοις ἀδελφοῖς ἐφάπαξ, ἐξ ὧν οἱ πλείονες μένουσιν ἕως ἄρτι, τινὲς δὲ ἐκοιμήθησαν

ἐφάπαξ (ephapax, “at one time”) — NEW term.

• Contextual theological meaning: emphasizes a single mass simultaneous sighting by over 500 people — the largest-scale, most falsifiable claim in the list (many witnesses were still alive and could be questioned when Paul wrote).
• Rendering: 一度に (ichido ni). Risk: Low.

ἐκοιμήθησαν (ekoimēthēsan, “have fallen asleep”) — NEW term, doctrinally significant.

• Literal meaning: to fall asleep; a common euphemism for death among believers, implying a temporary state pending resurrection (unlike a permanent extinguishing).
• Contextual theological meaning: connects forward to the resurrection-of-believers argument in vv.12-58 — death for the believer is sleep, not annihilation or an immediate final state.
• Rendering: 眠りにつきました (nemuri ni tsukimashita). Risk: Medium. Should not be confused with Buddhist concepts of a spirit’s temporary intermediate wandering state (中間存在, chūkan sonzai, or the 49-day post-death journey in some Japanese Buddhist funerary belief) — “sleep” here is a hope-filled euphemism anchored in bodily resurrection, not a description of an interim spirit-journey.

Verse 7 — ἔπειτα ὤφθη Ἰακώβῳ, εἶτα τοῖς ἀποστόλοις πᾶσιν

Ἰάκωβος (Iakōbos, “James”) — proper name, NEW. Rendering: ヤコブ (Yakobu). Risk: Low; note this is James the Lord’s brother, distinct from the apostle James son of Zebedee — a minor identity-tracking risk for biblically illiterate readers, worth a footnote.

ἀπόστολοι πᾶσιν (all the apostles) — ἀπόστολος REUSED (使徒).

• Contextual theological meaning: broader circle than “the Twelve” (v.5), showing the resurrection appearances extended beyond the inner group.
• Risk: Low (per baseline apostle entry).

Verse 8 — ἔσχατον δὲ πάντων ὡσπερεὶ τῷ ἐκτρώματι ὤφθη κἀμοί

ἔκτρωμα (ektrōma, “one untimely born”) — NEW term, unusual and striking.

• Literal meaning: a miscarried or prematurely/violently born fetus; a stillbirth.
• Semantic range: medical/obstetric term for an abnormal, out-of-due-season birth; used figuratively by Paul of himself as an unexpected, undeserving, “born out of proper order” recipient of a resurrection appearance (since he was not a companion of Jesus’s earthly ministry, and had been a persecutor).
• English variants: one born last of all, one untimely born, an abnormal birth.
• Contextual theological meaning: intensifies Paul’s self-deprecation directly before v.9’s “least of the apostles” — his apostleship is entirely a matter of undeserved grace, not natural sequence or merit.
• Rendering: 月足らずで生まれた者 (tsukitarazu de umareta mono, “one born before the full term”) or 妊娠中に死んで生まれた者. Risk: Medium-High. This is a deliberately jarring, self-abasing image; a bland or euphemistic Japanese rendering can lose Paul’s rhetorical shock. Teaching notes should preserve the harshness rather than smoothing it into a generic “unexpectedly.”

Verse 9 — ἐγὼ γὰρ εἰμι ὁ ἐλάχιστος τῶν ἀποστόλων, ὃς οὐκ εἰμὶ ἱκανὸς καλεῖσθαι ἀπόστολος, διότι ἐδίωξα τὴν ἐκκλησίαν τοῦ θεοῦ

ἐλάχιστος (elachistos, “least”) — NEW term, superlative.

• Rendering: 最も小さい者 (mottomo chiisai mono). Risk: Low.

ἐκκλησία τοῦ θεοῦ (the church of God) — ἐκκλησία REUSED (教会).

• Contextual theological meaning: Paul names his former persecution of the church as grounds for his self-assessment as “least” — grace operating precisely where merit is most absent.
• Risk: Medium (per baseline church entry).

Verse 10 — χάριτι δὲ θεοῦ εἰμι ὅ εἰμι, καὶ ἡ χάρις αὐτοῦ ἡ εἰς ἐμὲ οὐ κενὴ ἐγενήθη, ἀλλὰ περισσότερον αὐτῶν πάντων ἐκοπίασα, οὐχὶ δὲ ἐγὼ ἀλλὰ ἡ χάρις τοῦ θεοῦ [ἡ] σὺν ἐμοί

χάρις (charis, “grace”) — REUSED (恵み). This verse is the theological center of gravity for the doctrine “The Cross as Wisdom and Power” intersecting with grace: Paul’s very identity and all his subsequent labor are attributed entirely to unearned favor.

• Contextual theological meaning: threefold repetition of χάρις in one verse — grace made him what he is, grace was not wasted, grace worked with/through him. This is a direct, explicit anti-merit statement.
• Risk: Critical (per baseline). ESCALATION: this verse must be flagged for human theologian review per the baseline’s grace-versus-obligation rule — the Japanese rendering must make unmistakably clear that Paul’s subsequent hard labor (ἐκοπίασα) is grace’s fruit, not a repayment installment discharging an on (恩) debt incurred by receiving grace. This is a textbook site where on-giri reciprocity logic could quietly re-enter: “grace made me who I am, so I worked hard to pay it back” is the wrong reading; “grace made me who I am, and that same grace kept working, so labor happened” is the right one.

κοπιάω (kopiaō, “I labored”) — NEW term.

• Literal meaning: to grow weary through toil; hard, exhausting labor.
• Rendering: 労苦しました (roukushimashita). Risk: Medium, primarily because of the grace-versus-merit adjacency noted above.

Verse 11 — εἴτε οὖν ἐγὼ εἴτε ἐκεῖνοι, οὕτως κηρύσσομεν καὶ οὕτως ἐπιστεύσατε

κηρύσσω (kēryssō, “we proclaim/preach”) — NEW term.

• Literal meaning: to act as a herald, to publicly announce/proclaim with authority (from κῆρυξ, a town crier/herald).
• Semantic range: official public proclamation of a ruler’s decree; in the NT, authoritative gospel proclamation.
• English variants: preach, proclaim, announce, herald.
• Contextual theological meaning: unifies all the apostolic witnesses (Paul and “those” others) around one identical, non-negotiable proclaimed content — closing the loop back to v.1’s εὐαγγέλιον.
• Rendering: 宣べ伝える (nobetsutaeru). Risk: Medium. Distinguish from generic “spreading information” (広める) or door-to-door soft-sell marketing associations; this is authoritative heraldic announcement, not personal opinion-sharing.

ἐπιστεύσατε (episteusate) — see v.2 above; REUSED root, closes the inclusio of the passage (belief in the fixed, transmitted content).

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Part B — Chapter-by-Chapter Study of the Whole Book

Chapter 1 — Factionalism, Wisdom, and the Cross’s Foolishness (1:1-31)

• σχίσμα (schisma, “division”) — NEW. Literal: a tear, split, rip (of cloth). Semantic range: physical tearing; social/factional rupture. English variants: division, dissension, split. Contextual meaning: the Corinthians have torn the church into partisan camps around teacher-personalities (Paul, Apollos, Cephas, Christ-party, 1:12). Rendering: 分裂 (bunretsu). Risk: High. Japan’s own well-documented faction culture (派閥, habatsu — political-party factions, corporate in-groups, even denominational/sectarian splits within Japanese Buddhism and new religious movements) is a double-edged bridge: readers will recognize the social pattern instantly, but risk processing it as ordinary, tolerable organizational politics rather than as sin that fractures the body for which Christ died. Teaching must escalate the moral weight above “normal group politics.”
• σοφία (sophia, “wisdom”) — NEW. Literal: skill, wisdom, expertise. Semantic range: practical skill; philosophical wisdom (esp. Greco-Roman rhetorical sophistication, the specific target of Paul’s critique); divine wisdom. English variants: wisdom, cleverness, philosophy. Contextual meaning: Paul contrasts the “wisdom of the world,” prized in Corinth’s rhetoric-obsessed culture, with God’s wisdom displayed paradoxically in a crucified Messiah. Rendering: 知恵 (chie). Risk: High. Must be kept distinct from 智慧 (also “chie,” but written with different kanji), the standard Japanese Buddhist term for prajñā — the transcendent liberating insight attained through enlightenment/practice. Using 知恵 (the correct, secular-wisdom kanji) consistently, and never drifting toward 智慧, is essential; teaching should also explicitly state that God’s wisdom in the cross is given, not attained through spiritual practice — resisting the same earned-attainment collision flagged for 悟り (satori) in the baseline.
• μωρία (mōria, “foolishness”) — NEW. Literal: dullness, foolishness. Semantic range: intellectual foolishness; social absurdity; (Paul’s paradoxical usage) what appears foolish to worldly wisdom but is in fact God’s saving power. English variants: foolishness, folly. Contextual meaning: “the foolishness of the cross” (1:18-25) is Paul’s deliberately provocative label for the gospel as it appears to unbelieving sophistication. Rendering: 愚かさ (orokasa). Risk: Medium-High. The paradox itself (God’s “foolishness” is wiser than human wisdom) requires careful framing so Japanese readers do not read this as Christianity conceding actual intellectual inferiority; it is a rhetorical inversion, not an admission.
• σκάνδαλον (skandalon, “stumbling block”) — NEW, first of several occurrences (also 8:9, 10:32). Literal: the trigger-stick of a trap; that which causes one to stumble/fall. English variants: stumbling block, offense. Contextual meaning: the cross is a σκάνδαλον to Jews expecting a triumphant Messiah (1:23). Rendering: つまずき (tsumazuki). Risk: Medium.
• καύχησις/καυχάομαι (kauchēsis/kauchaomai, “boast/boasting”) — NEW. Literal: to boast, take pride in. Semantic range: sinful self-glorying; (redirected by Paul) legitimate boasting “in the Lord” alone (1:31, quoting Jeremiah 9:23-24). English variants: boast, take pride, glory in. Contextual meaning: Paul forbids boasting in human wisdom/status/teacher-affiliation and redirects all boasting to God alone. Rendering: 誇る (hokoru). Risk: High. Japan’s deeply held humility norm (謙遜, kenson) makes any positive treatment of “boasting” — even boasting redirected to God — culturally jarring; conversely, readers may too easily reduce “boast in the Lord” to a merely modest, self-effacing sentiment and miss Paul’s point that all human self-glorying (including subtle humility-as-virtue-signaling) is being confronted, not just crude arrogance.
• called/calling (κλητός/κλῆσις) — REUSED (召された/召し). 1:1-2, 1:9, 1:24, 1:26 apply the established Romans rendering to Paul’s own apostleship, the Corinthians’ calling to be saints, and effectual calling (“those whom he called”). Risk: High (per baseline).
• saints/holy (ἅγιοι/ἡγιασμένοις) — REUSED (聖徒/聖い). 1:2 “sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints.” Risk: High/High (per baseline).
• fellowship (κοινωνία) — REUSED (交わり). 1:9, “the fellowship of his Son.” Risk: Low (per baseline).

Chapter 2 — The Spirit, the Cross, and Hidden Wisdom (2:1-16)

• σοφία τοῦ κόσμου / σοφία τοῦ θεοῦ — extends Ch.1 wisdom terms. No new base term, but contextual expansion: worldly rhetorical persuasion (2:1-5) vs. Spirit-revealed wisdom (2:6-13). Risk carried over: High.
• πνεῦμα τοῦ κόσμου (pneuma tou kosmou, “the spirit of the world”) — NEW, and a genuinely delicate translation problem. Literal: the spirit of the world/age. Semantic range: the prevailing (non-divine) worldly outlook/disposition, contrasted with τὸ Πνεῦμα τὸ ἐκ τοῦ Θεοῦ (“the Spirit who is from God,” 2:12). English variants: spirit of the world, worldly spirit. Contextual meaning: Paul contrasts a merely human outlook with the Holy Spirit’s revelation. Rendering: この世の霊 (kono yo no rei). Risk: High. This is the one context in the whole curriculum where an unqualified “霊” is doctrinally correct — Paul is speaking of something other than the Holy Spirit — yet it sits immediately beside 聖霊 in the same passage (2:12-13). Translators must ensure readers do not conclude that “この世の霊” and 聖霊 are two members of the same animistic spirit-category differing only in degree; a clarifying phrase (e.g., “人間的なものの見方” — “a merely human way of seeing things” — as a gloss) is recommended alongside the literal rendering.
• holy_spirit (πνεῦμα ἅγιον / τὸ Πνεῦμα) — REUSED (聖霊). 2:10-14, central to the chapter’s argument that spiritual truth is Spirit-revealed, not humanly discovered. Risk: Critical (per baseline).
• μυστήριον (mystērion, “mystery”) — NEW. Literal: a secret; that which is hidden until revealed. Semantic range: Greco-Roman mystery-religion secret rites known only to initiates; in Paul, God’s redemptive plan, formerly hidden, now disclosed to all believers through the Spirit. English variants: mystery, secret, hidden wisdom. Contextual meaning: “we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God” (2:7) — not an esoteric technique for an elite few, but a plan now openly proclaimed. Rendering: 奥義 (ougi). Risk: High. 奥義 is the standard word for a martial art’s or traditional craft’s “secret technique,” attained only after long discipleship under a master (aikido, kendo, tea-ceremony ougi) — precisely the elite-initiation, effort-attained framing Paul is reversing. Teaching must clarify that this “mystery” is graciously disclosed to all believers through the Spirit, not mastered through years of disciplined practice.
• ψυχικὸς ἄνθρωπος (psychikos anthrōpos, “the natural person”) — NEW. Literal: the “soul-ish” person, i.e., one who operates by ordinary human faculties alone. Semantic range: contrasted with πνευματικός (“spiritual,” Spirit-indwelt). English variants: the natural man, the unspiritual person, the person without the Spirit. Contextual meaning: 2:14 — such a person “does not accept the things of the Spirit of God … they are folly to him.” Rendering: 生まれながらの人 (umarenagara no hito, “a person as born,” i.e., unregenerate). Risk: Medium-High; needs explicit contrast-pairing with 御霊を持つ人 (“the spiritual person,” 2:15) in teaching materials so the binary is clear.

Chapter 3 — Fleshly Divisions, the Church as God’s Temple, Fire (3:1-23)

• σαρκικός (sarkikos, “fleshly/carnal”) — NEW. Literal: made of flesh; belonging to the flesh. Semantic range: physical/bodily; (Pauline moral usage) governed by sinful human nature rather than the Spirit. English variants: carnal, fleshly, worldly. Contextual meaning: 3:1-3, the Corinthians’ factionalism is diagnosed as evidence of ongoing “fleshliness” despite their profession of faith. Rendering: 肉的な (nikuteki na). Risk: Medium — connects directly to the baseline’s sin/罪 entry (guilt before God, not mere social friction); factional jealousy is named a moral, not merely social, failure.
• θεμέλιος (themelios, “foundation”) and οἰκοδομέω (oikodomeō, “to build”) — NEW. Literal: a foundation stone; to build a house. Contextual meaning: 3:10-11, Christ alone is the one foundation; all ministry is building work tested by fire. Rendering: 土台 (dodai) / 建てる (tateru). Risk: Low-Medium.
• πῦρ (pyr, “fire”) as eschatological testing — NEW. Literal: fire. Semantic range: literal combustion; refining/testing fire; judicial/purgative fire. Contextual meaning: 3:13-15, ministry work will be tested by fire at judgment; the worker may be saved even if the work burns up. Rendering: 火 (hi). Risk: Medium. Minor bridge/collision note: Japanese religious culture includes purificatory fire rituals (護摩木, gomagi, Buddhist fire offerings; 火渡り, hiwatari, fire-walking purification rites) — teaching should clarify this is a one-time eschatological testing of work, not a repeatable ritual purification of the person, whose salvation (3:15) is not at stake in the fire.
• ναός (naos, “temple, sanctuary”) — NEW, first occurrence (also 6:19). Literal: the inner sanctuary of a temple, the dwelling place of a god. Semantic range: the Jerusalem Temple’s inner shrine; by extension, any consecrated dwelling of deity. English variants: temple, sanctuary, shrine. Contextual theological meaning: 3:16-17, “you [plural, the congregation] are God’s temple, and God’s Spirit dwells among/in you.” Rendering: 神殿 (shinden). Risk: High. This is a genuinely delicate term for Japanese: 神殿 is also the standard architectural term for the sacred inner hall of a Shinto shrine (where a kami is believed to dwell), and the whole conceptual shape — “a deity’s Spirit dwelling within/among a consecrated space/people” — is structurally similar to Shinto’s understanding of a shrine as the dwelling-place of a kami. This can function as a useful bridge concept (a sacred, indwelt space is not itself an alien idea to Japanese readers) but must be firmly anchored: it is the covenant community (and, in ch.6, the individual believer’s body) that is God’s dwelling by the one Holy Spirit — never a physical building, and never one kami-dwelling among many. Human theologian review recommended.

Chapter 4 — Apostolic Stewardship and Servant-Judgment (4:1-21)

• οἰκονόμος (oikonomos, “steward, manager”) — NEW. Literal: a household manager, often a trusted slave or freedman managing an estate on the owner’s behalf. Semantic range: household administrator; financial manager; (Pauline) one entrusted with God’s mysteries/gospel. English variants: steward, manager, servant-administrator. Contextual meaning: 4:1-2, apostles are “servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God” — accountable, not autonomous. Rendering: 管理者 (kanrisha). Risk: Medium.
• μυστήριον (mystērion) — see Ch.2. Reapplied in 4:1 to the content entrusted to apostolic stewards. Risk: High (see Ch.2 note on 奥義’s martial-arts/secret-technique collision).
• κρίνω (krinō, “to judge”) — NEW, first occurrence (recurs 5:3,12-13; 6:1-6). Literal: to judge, evaluate, decide. Semantic range: courtroom judgment; personal evaluation/criticism; final divine judgment. English variants: judge, evaluate, condemn. Contextual meaning: 4:3-5, Paul refuses human judgment of his ministry, reserving final evaluation for the Lord’s return. Rendering: 裁く (sabaku). Risk: Medium; sets up the more doctrinally weighted uses in Chs.5-6.

Chapter 5 — Church Discipline: Removing the Leaven (5:1-13)

• πορνεία (porneia, “sexual immorality”) — NEW, recurs throughout (also 6:9,13,18; 7:2; 10:8). Literal: prostitution; broadly, any sexual immorality outside the bounds God established for marriage. Semantic range: prostitution; fornication; incest (the specific case in 5:1); adultery; broadly all sexual sin. English variants: sexual immorality, fornication, sexual sin. Contextual meaning: 5:1, a case of incest tolerated by the congregation, prompting Paul’s discipline instructions. Rendering: 淫らな行い (midara na okonai). Risk: High. Contemporary secular Japanese sexual ethics (widespread acceptance of premarital cohabitation, a large and normalized commercial “love hotel” industry, generally low social stigma around casual sexual relationships outside explicitly religious or traditionalist subcultures) sit at real distance from the biblical sexual ethic Paul assumes as obvious common ground with his readers. Teaching materials must establish the theological basis for the ethic (the body as temple, ch.6; one-flesh union) rather than assume shared moral intuition, while avoiding a moralizing tone that reduces this to mere legalistic rule-keeping.
• ζύμη (zymē, “leaven, yeast”) — NEW. Literal: yeast/leaven used in baking. Semantic range: a small amount that permeates and transforms the whole; in Jewish Passover practice, leaven symbolizes corruption to be purged before the festival. English variants: leaven, yeast. Contextual meaning: 5:6-8, “a little leaven leavens the whole lump” — tolerated sin corrupts the whole congregation; believers are to be “unleavened,” as at Passover, because “Christ our Passover lamb has been sacrificed.” Rendering: パン種 (pan-dane). Risk: Medium; primarily biblical-illiteracy (Passover/leaven symbolism has zero cultural resonance for secular Japanese readers without OT background teaching), not doctrinal collision.
• κρίνω / ἐξαίρω (judging insiders, “removing” the offender) — extends Ch.4’s term. 5:12-13, “purge the evil person from among you” — a formal act of congregational discipline, distinguished from judging outsiders (which Paul explicitly disclaims). Rendering: 取り除く (torinozoku). Risk: Medium-High; must be taught as restorative church discipline aimed at repentance and the church’s holiness/witness, not as harsh ostracism divorced from redemptive purpose — connects to the baseline’s “separation_unto_gods_service” doctrine entry.

Chapter 6 — Lawsuits, the Body as Temple, Bought with a Price (6:1-20)

• κρίνω (krinō) — extends Chs.4-5. 6:1-6, believers taking each other to secular courts instead of resolving disputes within the church. Rendering: 裁く (sabaku) / 訴える (uttaeru, “to sue”). Risk: Medium. Contextual cultural note: Japan’s comparatively low per-capita civil litigation rate and strong cultural preference for mediated, non-adversarial dispute resolution (示談, jidan, out-of-court settlement; a broader cultural aversion to public confrontation) could make Paul’s rebuke seem obviously agreeable to Japanese readers on cultural instinct alone — risking a shallow, “yes, of course, harmony is good” reading that misses Paul’s deeper point: public lawsuits between believers shame the gospel witness before unbelievers regardless of the outcome’s fairness.
• ναός (naos, “temple”) — reapplied to the individual body, 6:19: “your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit.” See Ch.3 note. Risk: High, same collision profile with Shinto shrine architecture, now individualized (each believer’s body, not only the corporate church, houses God’s Spirit) — a more intimate and potentially more startling claim for readers to absorb. Human theologian review recommended.
• ἀγοράζω (agorazō, “to buy, purchase”) — NEW. Literal: to buy in the marketplace (ἀγορά). Semantic range: ordinary commercial purchase; in redemption contexts, purchase out of slavery (manumission price) or purchase into new ownership. English variants: bought, purchased, redeemed. Contextual meaning: 6:20, “you were bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body.” Rendering: 買い取られました (kaitoraremashita). Risk: High. This echoes the baseline’s covenant/契約 dilution caution: 買い取る’s default modern sense is an ordinary commercial transaction (buying real estate, buying out a contract), risking a flattened reading of “God purchased me” as a business transaction rather than a costly, gracious act of rescue from slavery to sin. There is no vivid cultural memory of chattel-slave manumission-by-purchase in modern Japan to draw on as a ready-made image, so this requires active explanatory teaching, not just correct word choice — paralleling the baseline’s treatment of “adoption” and “covenant.”
• kingdom_of_god (βασιλεία θεοῦ) — REUSED (神の国). 6:9-10, vice list and exclusion from the kingdom. Risk: High (per baseline) — retain the Romans 14:17 anchoring discipline; avoid unwanted resonance with pre-1945 State Shinto ultranationalist “神国日本” rhetoric.
• holy_spirit (πνεῦμα ἅγιον) — REUSED (聖霊). 6:11,19. Risk: Critical.

Chapter 7 — Marriage, Singleness, and the Gift (7:1-40)

• γάμος (gamos, “marriage”) — NEW. Literal: marriage, wedding. Contextual meaning: 7:1-16, Paul’s extended teaching on marriage as a good, God-ordained estate. Rendering: 結婚 (kekkon). Risk: Low-Medium.
• ἄγαμος (agamos, “unmarried”) and the broader theme of singleness as calling — NEW. Literal: without marriage. Semantic range: unmarried, widowed, or (Paul’s own stated preference for himself and others, 7:7-8) intentionally single for undivided devotion to the Lord. English variants: unmarried, single, celibate. Contextual meaning: 7:7, Paul explicitly calls his own singleness a χάρισμα (“gift,” see below) — a legitimate, even in some respects preferable, calling, not a deficient or incomplete state. Rendering: 独身 (dokushin). Risk: Medium-High. Contemporary Japan has a pronounced, widely-discussed demographic trend toward marriage-avoidance (非婚化, hikonka) and a rising lifetime unmarried rate (生涯未婚率); Paul’s teaching that singleness can be a Spirit-given calling for undivided devotion to Christ risks being misapplied as scriptural endorsement of purely secular marriage-avoidance (career priority, relationship-avoidance culture, “herbivore men”/草食系男子 discourse) rather than being understood as a specific vocational calling oriented toward gospel service. Teaching must distinguish the two clearly.
• χάρισμα (charisma) applied to singleness/marriage — REUSED base term (賜物, spiritual_gifts) but applied here in an unusual extended sense: a state of life, not a ministry ability. Risk: Medium; flag for consistency — teaching should note this is the same word rendered 賜物 elsewhere for ministry gifts (ch.12), now applied to a life-calling, to avoid readers concluding these are two unrelated Japanese words.
• παρθένος (parthenos, “virgin”) — NEW. Literal: a virgin (of either implied gender in context, though typically female here). Contextual meaning: 7:25-38, counsel to the unmarried/betrothed. Rendering: 処女 (shojo). Risk: Low-Medium.
• χωρίζω (chōrizō, “to separate”) — NEW. Literal: to separate, divide. Contextual meaning: 7:10-15, instructions on separation/divorce, including the “Pauline privilege” regarding an unbelieving spouse who departs. Rendering: 離れる (hanareru) / 離婚 (rikon, divorce). Risk: Medium.
• ἁγιάζω (hagiazō, “to sanctify”) — root REUSED (聖化/聖い family). 7:14, the unusual statement that an unbelieving spouse or children are “sanctified” through the believing spouse/parent — a relational, not salvific, sanctity. Risk: High (per baseline sanctification entry); requires careful teaching to avoid implying automatic salvation of unbelieving family members.

Chapter 8 — Idol Meat, Knowledge, Conscience, and Love (8:1-13)

• εἴδωλον (eidōlon, “idol”) — NEW, foundational for the whole “Christian Liberty and Idol Meat” doctrine (recurs chs.8-10, 12:2). Literal: an image, likeness; a cult image/statue representing a false god. English variants: idol, image. Contextual meaning: 8:4, “there is no idol/God but one” — the theological premise underlying the ethical discussion. Rendering: 偶像 (guuzou). Risk: High. Distinct collision profile from the Corinthian original context: Corinth’s idols were public temple-cult statues eaten before as part of pagan sacrificial worship, a live, socially loaded practice. In Japan, physical religious images and offerings are extremely common in ordinary, largely secular household and civic life — the butsudan (仏壇, Buddhist household altar with an ancestor tablet and sometimes a Buddha image) and the kamidana (神棚, Shinto household shrine shelf) are present in many homes, including those of people who do not consider themselves religious, and involve regular small food/drink offerings (お供え, osonae) to ancestors or kami. This creates a double risk: (a) readers may fail to see any personal relevance, assuming “idols” describes only exotic ancient statue-worship irrelevant to modern secular life; or (b) if the connection to household ancestor veneration is drawn too directly, it risks giving unnecessary offense by implying family piety toward deceased parents/grandparents is equivalent to pagan temple worship. Careful, pastorally sensitive contextual framing is required; human theologian review recommended.
• εἰδωλόθυτον (eidōlothyton, “food sacrificed to idols”) — NEW. Literal: that which has been sacrificed to an idol. Contextual meaning: 8:1,4,7,10, meat sold in Corinth’s market after being used in pagan temple sacrifices — the specific practical question the chapter addresses. Rendering: 偶像に献げられた肉 (guuzou ni sasagerareta niku). Risk: High, same profile as εἴδωλον above, intensified by the direct parallel to Japanese food-offering practice (お供え物, osonaemono — rice, sake, and other food regularly offered at kamidana/butsudan and later often consumed by the family, a practice with real structural similarity to the Corinthian custom of eating sacrificial meat afterward).
• γνῶσις (gnōsis, “knowledge”) — NEW. Literal: knowledge. Semantic range: correct theological information; (Paul’s critique) a knowledge that “puffs up” without love. English variants: knowledge, understanding. Contextual meaning: 8:1-2, “knowledge puffs up, but love builds up” — correct doctrine without love is spiritually destructive. Rendering: 知識 (chishiki). Risk: Medium.
• συνείδησις (syneidēsis, “conscience”) — NEW, recurs chs.8, 10. Literal: co-perception, self-awareness of moral standing. Semantic range: the inner faculty of moral self-judgment. English variants: conscience. Contextual meaning: 8:7-12, believers with a “weak conscience” may be caused to stumble by another’s exercise of liberty. Rendering: 良心 (ryoushin). Risk: Medium-High. Connects directly to the baseline’s sin/罪 note on Japan’s shame-orientation (Ruth Benedict’s shame/guilt framework): 良心 in ordinary Japanese usage risks defaulting toward social propriety-sensing (avoiding causing 迷惑 or public disharmony) rather than an internal moral compass answerable to God regardless of social consequence. Teaching must anchor conscience as a God-oriented faculty, distinct from social-harmony sensitivity.
• σκάνδαλον/πρόσκομμα (stumbling block) — extends Ch.1’s σκάνδαλον. 8:9,13, “take care that this right of yours does not become a stumbling block to the weak.” Risk: Medium (per Ch.1).
• οἰκοδομέω (oikodomeō, “build up”) — extends Ch.3’s term, now applied relationally: love, not knowledge, builds up others. Risk: Low; reinforces baseline “mutual_edification” doctrine.

Chapter 9 — Apostolic Rights and the Race of Ministry (9:1-27)

• ἐξουσία (exousia, “right, authority”) — NEW, central to “Christian Liberty” (recurs 8:9 as “right,” 10:23). Literal: authority, permission, right to act. English variants: right, authority, freedom to act. Contextual meaning: 9:4-18, Paul defends his apostolic right to material support, then voluntarily forgoes it for the gospel’s sake. Rendering: 権利 (kenri). Risk: Medium-High. Japan’s group-harmony culture (和, wa) tends to mute individual “rights”-assertion language in favor of role-appropriate deference; teaching must convey that Paul is not weak on his rights (he argues them forcefully) but voluntarily surrenders a genuine right for love’s sake — a free renunciation, not an absence of standing to claim it.
• ἀγών / τρέχω / βραβεῖον / στέφανος (athletic race, run, prize, crown) — NEW cluster. Literal: a contest/games; to run; the prize; a wreath/crown (the perishable victor’s laurel of the Isthmian Games held near Corinth). Semantic range: literal athletic competition (a live local reference for Corinthian readers, given Corinth’s famous biennial games); figuratively, disciplined ministry effort toward an imperishable reward. English variants: race, run, prize, crown. Contextual meaning: 9:24-27, Paul disciplines himself like an athlete, “so that after preaching to others I myself will not be disqualified.” Rendering: 競技 (kyougi) / 走る (hashiru) / 冠 (kan, “crown”). Risk: High. This cluster sits directly on the baseline’s flagged collision zone under “election” (Japan’s intensely competitive, merit-based exam and hiring “selection” culture, 受験, 選抜): Paul’s athletic-discipline metaphor for ministry risks being absorbed into Japan’s achievement/effort-merit framework (ganbaru 頑張る culture) and read as “working hard earns your reward/salvation,” directly contradicting grace-based assurance. Teaching must clarify this is disciplined stewardship of a gift already graciously given (echoing 15:10’s grace-then-labor pattern), not merit accumulation toward a prize that could be lost through insufficient effort in the justification sense — while still preserving the passage’s real exhortation to serious self-discipline in service.
• gospel (εὐαγγέλιον) — REUSED (福音). 9:12-23, “for the sake of the gospel” repeated refrain; also introduces mission adaptability (“I have become all things to all people,” 9:19-22) — connects to baseline “mission” (宣教) and “mission_to_nations” doctrine entries. Risk: Medium (per baseline).

Chapter 10 — Idolatry Warnings and the Table of the Lord vs. Demons (10:1-33)

• δαιμόνιον (daimonion, “demon”) — NEW, and doctrinally significant in its own right (recurs 12:2 by implication, and underlies the whole idol-food discussion). Literal: a minor deity/spirit in classical Greek usage (morally neutral); in the NT, a malevolent spiritual being in rebellion against God. Semantic range: classical Greek “divine being”; NT “unclean/evil spirit,” subordinate to Satan, active behind pagan idol worship. English variants: demon, evil spirit. Contextual meaning: 10:20-21, “what pagans sacrifice, they offer to demons, not to God… you cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons.” Rendering: 悪霊 (akuryou). Risk: Critical. This word already exists in ordinary Japanese as a term for a malevolent spirit, well-established in folk religion, horror cinema/manga, and exorcism-adjacent popular culture (e.g., depictions of possession, or お祓い/oharai exorcism-purification rites for troublesome spirits). This existing cultural furniture is a double-edged resource: it gives 悪霊 an immediately intelligible “scary evil spirit” sense, but risks the reader filing biblical demons alongside folk yūrei/yōkai as one more category within an animistic spirit-world taxonomy, rather than understanding them as personal, morally culpable beings actively opposing the one true God specifically. This must be taught with the same rigor the baseline applies to distinguishing 聖霊 from generic 霊 — demons are real personal agents in a cosmic conflict with God, not simply frightening folklore figures. Human theologian review recommended for all occurrences.
• τράπεζα κυρίου / τράπεζα δαιμονίων (table of the Lord / table of demons) — NEW compound, anticipates ch.11’s Lord’s Supper material. Rendering: 主の食卓 (Shu no shokutaku) / 悪霊の食卓 (akuryou no shokutaku). Risk: High; direct thematic and terminological bridge to the Lord’s Supper (ch.11) — the two “tables” must be kept sharply distinct in translation and teaching, since sharing a table with a spiritual power was understood in the ancient world (and remains structurally intelligible in Japan’s own custom of offering food to kami/ancestors) as entering into fellowship/communion with that power.
• liberty slogan “πάντα μοι ἔξεστιν” (“all things are lawful for me”) — extends ch.6/9’s ἐξουσία/ἐλευθερία theme; 10:23. Rendering: すべてのことが許されている (subete no koto ga yurusarete iru). Risk: Medium; must be paired with Paul’s immediate qualification (“but not all things build up”) to avoid reading as unqualified libertinism.
• Israel according to the flesh (ch.10:1-13, wilderness-generation typology) — reuses baseline israel (イスラエル) proper name and extends baseline “law”/OT-narrative literacy concerns. Risk: Medium; heavy biblical-illiteracy risk since the wilderness/exodus narrative background is unfamiliar to secular Japanese readers without prior OT teaching.

Chapter 11 — Head Coverings, Headship, and the Lord’s Supper (11:1-34)

• κεφαλή (kephalē, “head”) — NEW, load-bearing for the Order in Worship doctrine. Literal: the physical head. Semantic range: physical head; (figurative, contested in scholarship) source/origin, or authority/preeminence, within a relational ordering — 11:3, “the head of Christ is God, the head of the man is Christ, the head of the woman is the man.” English variants: head, source, authority-over. Contextual theological meaning: establishes a relational order invoked to ground the head-covering practice discussed in the chapter. Rendering: かしら (kashira). Risk: High. This term sits directly on Japan’s traditional patriarchal household-authority structure (家長, kachou, already flagged in the baseline’s “father” entry) — there is a real risk that かしら is absorbed into a hierarchical-dominance reading reinforcing traditional gender-authority structures beyond what the text intends, or conversely dismissed as culturally regressive and thus quietly softened in translation. Teaching materials must present the functional, relational sense (echoing the Father-Son relation within the Trinity, 11:3) without either overstating hierarchical dominance or flattening the text’s genuine ordering language. Human theologian review recommended.
• κυριακὸν δεῖπνον (kyriakon deipnon, “the Lord’s Supper”) — NEW, central term for the sacramental doctrine of the same name. Literal: the Lord’s dinner/supper. Contextual meaning: 11:20, naming the corporate meal being abused by the Corinthians’ factional, self-indulgent practice. Rendering: 主の晩餐 (Shu no Bansan). Risk: High. Care is needed to distinguish this from Japan’s well-established Buddhist memorial-meal tradition (法事, hōji — a ritual meal held on death anniversaries in memory of the deceased, often including a shared meal after a priest’s reading) and from Obon ancestor food-offerings; while the Lord’s Supper does involve remembrance (ἀνάμνησις, below) of a death, it must be taught as participatory communion in Christ’s ongoing life and a proclamation of his return (11:26), not a memorial rite for one who remains among the departed dead.
• ἀνάμνησις (anamnēsis, “remembrance”) — NEW. Literal: a calling to mind, remembrance. Contextual meaning: 11:24-25, “do this in remembrance of me,” quoting the institution words also found in the Gospels. Rendering: 記念 (kinen). Risk: High, same collision noted above with Buddhist/Shinto memorial-observance vocabulary (記念, tsuitou 追悼) for the deceased; teaching should clarify this remembrance is of a death that has been reversed by resurrection (connecting directly back to the core passage, 15:3-4), not remembrance of someone who remains in a departed state.
• σῶμα (sōma, “body”) — NEW in this specific sacramental sense (recurs with different senses in chs.6, 12, 15). 11:24,27,29, “this is my body… discerning the body.” Rendering: 体/からだ (karada). Risk: High; this chapter introduces the first of at least four distinct theological senses of σῶμα in 1 Corinthians (sacrificial body given in the Supper; the individual believer’s body as temple, ch.6; the corporate body of Christ, ch.12; the resurrection body, ch.15) — translators must track which sense is active in each passage and ensure teaching materials make the shifts explicit rather than assuming Japanese readers will intuit the metaphorical range.
• διακρίνω τὸ σῶμα (discerning the body) and ἀναξίως (unworthily) — NEW. Contextual meaning: 11:27-29, warning against partaking in an unworthy manner, without properly recognizing/discerning the body (the church community and/or Christ’s sacrificial body — a genuinely debated exegetical point). Rendering: からだを見分けずに (karada wo miwakezu ni) — “without discerning the body.” Risk: High; ambiguity noted (per baseline ambiguity-handling protocol) — flag for native speaker/theologian review given the exegetical uncertainty over whether “the body” here refers to Christ’s sacrificial body, the gathered church body, or both.

Chapter 12 — Spiritual Gifts and the Body of Christ (12:1-31)

• χάρισμα / πνευματικά (spiritual gifts) — REUSED (賜物). 12:1,4,9,28,31; central term for “Spiritual Gifts and the Body of Christ” doctrine. Risk: Medium (per baseline), reinforced note: always qualify as 御霊の賜物 (“Spirit-given gifts”) in context, never bare 賜物 in doctrinally weighty statements, to avoid drift toward generic “talent.”
• σῶμα Χριστοῦ (body of Christ) — extends Ch.11’s σῶμα in its most theologically important sense here: the corporate church as one organic body with many members. Rendering: キリストの体 (Kirisuto no karada). Risk: High; must be clearly distinguished in teaching from the sacramental “body” of ch.11 and the resurrection “body” of ch.15, even though the same Japanese word (体/からだ) necessarily recurs.
• μέλη (melē, “members, limbs”) — NEW. Literal: bodily limbs/organs. Contextual meaning: 12:12-27, the extended body metaphor — hand, foot, eye, ear as interdependent members of one body, none dispensable. Rendering: 肢体 (shitai). Risk: Low-Medium.
• φανέρωσις τοῦ Πνεύματος (the manifestation of the Spirit) — NEW. Contextual meaning: 12:7, “to each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good” — gifts exist for corporate benefit, not individual status. Rendering: 御霊の現れ (mitama no araware) or 御霊の働き (mitama no hataraki, “the Spirit’s working”). Risk: Medium.
• γλῶσσαι (glōssai, “tongues”) — NEW, first occurrence (central again in ch.14). Literal: tongues, languages. Semantic range: ordinary human languages; the specific Spirit-given gift of ecstatic/other-language speech addressed at Pentecost (Acts 2) and in Corinthian worship. English variants: tongues, languages, glossolalia. Contextual meaning: 12:10,28,30, one gift among many, not superior to others. Rendering: 異言 (igen). Risk: High. Risk of collision with Japan’s own trance/spirit-mediumship folk-religious phenomena — e.g., the itako (イタコ) oracular mediums of the Tohoku region who channel the words of the dead in an altered vocal state, or broader shamanistic/channeling associations in Japanese folk religion and new religious movements. Teaching must clearly distinguish Spirit-given tongues as intelligible-to-God, edifying, orderly (ch.14) prayer/praise speech under the speaker’s control and God’s authorship, from trance-mediumship or spirit-possession phenomena where the medium’s agency is displaced by another entity.
• ἴασις / ἐνεργήματα δυνάμεων (healings / workings of miracles) — NEW. Contextual meaning: 12:9-10,28, gifts of healing and miracles listed among the Spirit’s gifts. Rendering: 癒しの力 (iyashi no chikara) / 力あるわざ (chikara aru waza). Risk: Medium; note the baseline’s caution on 癒し (iyashi) as heavily marketed in Japan’s secular wellness/relaxation industry (per baseline “peace” entry) — here the risk is inverted: 癒し must be elevated to convey genuine supernatural healing, not diluted to spa-marketing “healing.”

Chapter 13 — Love as the Greater Way (13:1-13)

• ἀγάπη (agapē, “love”) — NEW, the central term of the “Love as the Greater Way” doctrine, arguably the most theologically loaded new term in the whole epistle after resurrection. Literal: love, in its most self-giving, unconditional sense (distinguished in Greek from ἔρως, romantic/passionate love, and φιλία, friendship-affection, though not always sharply in every NT usage). Semantic range: God’s self-giving love toward humanity; the love commanded of believers toward one another, defined by action rather than feeling (13:4-7’s list of verbs: patient, kind, does not envy, etc.). English variants: love, charity (older translations). Contextual theological meaning: 13:1-3, without love, even the most impressive spiritual gifts (tongues, prophecy, knowledge, faith, sacrificial giving) are worthless; 13:13, love is greater than faith and hope, and permanent when they will have accomplished their purpose. Rendering: 愛 (ai). Risk: High. This is a documented historical Japanese Bible-translation challenge: 愛 was itself substantially elevated and re-shaped in meaning by 19th-century missionary Bible translation to carry the weight of agapē, since the word’s pre-Christian connotations in Japanese leaned toward romantic attachment or even (in some older/Buddhist usage) a negatively-viewed clinging attachment (愛着, aichaku, and Buddhist 愛 as one of the twelve links of dependent origination associated with craving/attachment that causes suffering). In contemporary secular Japanese usage, 愛 defaults overwhelmingly to romantic love (愛してる, “I love you,” used exclusively between romantic partners) — a real risk that 13’s famous “love chapter,” often read at weddings even by non-Christians, is absorbed purely as romantic-relationship advice rather than as a description of God’s own self-giving character and the church’s corporate ethic. Teaching materials must actively work against the wedding-reading-only association and restore the passage’s ecclesial, cruciform, non-romantic force. Human theologian review recommended.

Chapter 14 — Order in Worship: Tongues, Prophecy, and Edification (14:1-40)

• γλῶσσαι / ἑρμηνεία (tongues / interpretation) — extends Ch.12’s 異言; adds NEW term ἑρμηνεία (hermēneia, “interpretation”). Literal: interpretation, translation. Contextual meaning: 14:5,13,27-28, tongues without interpretation do not edify the gathered church and should be limited in public worship; Paul prefers intelligible prophecy for corporate edification. Rendering: 解き明かし (tokiakashi). Risk: Medium-High (inherits ch.12’s igen collision risk; adds the specific concern that untranslated/uninterpreted “spiritual speech” could otherwise be indistinguishable, to an outside observer, from trance-mediumship phenomena described above).
• τάξις (taxis, “order”) — NEW. Literal: order, arrangement, sequence. Contextual meaning: 14:40, “let all things be done decently and in order” — the chapter’s summary principle for corporate worship. Rendering: 秩序 (chitsujo). Risk: Low. Minor cultural note: Japan’s strong cultural value on order and proper procedure (regulated group behavior, precise social ritual/etiquette) makes this concept unusually intuitive and low-risk — one of the few genuinely easy bridge concepts in the epistle.
• οἰκοδομέω (build up / edify) — reuses Ch.3/8’s term and the baseline’s “mutual_edification” doctrine (互いの徳を高めること); 14:3-5,12,26, the chapter’s controlling standard for evaluating all worship practices. Risk: Low (per baseline mutual_edification entry).
• No further new theological vocabulary beyond the above; the chapter otherwise reuses established terms (prophecy 預言, church 教会, holy_spirit 聖霊).

Chapter 15 — The Resurrection of Christ and Believers (15:1-58)

Verses 1-11 receive full verse-by-verse treatment in Part A above. The chapter continues (15:12-58) with the extended argument for the future bodily resurrection of believers, introducing the following additional load-bearing terms:

• ἀπαρχή (aparchē, “firstfruits”) — NEW. Literal: the first portion of a harvest, offered to God per OT Feast of Firstfruits law, guaranteeing and representing the whole harvest to follow. Semantic range: agricultural/cultic OT offering; (Pauline) Christ’s resurrection as the guarantee and first installment of all believers’ future resurrection. English variants: firstfruits, first portion. Contextual meaning: 15:20,23, “Christ is the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.” Rendering: 初穂 (hatsuho). Risk: Medium; biblical-illiteracy risk (the OT agricultural-festal background is unfamiliar) rather than doctrinal collision — requires explanatory teaching of the OT firstfruits offering concept from scratch.
• the Adam/last-Adam typology (15:21-22, 45-49) — NEW conceptual structure, not a single lexical term but load-bearing: Ἀδάμ (Adam) as head of humanity in death, Christ as “the last Adam” and head of resurrection-life. Rendering: 最後のアダム (Saigo no Adamu). Risk: High; requires substantial OT (Genesis) background teaching for readers with no prior exposure to the Adam narrative — a biblical-illiteracy risk compounding the doctrinal weight of the typology.
• σῶμα πνευματικόν (sōma pneumatikon, “spiritual body”) — NEW, and Critical for correctly closing the resurrection doctrine. Literal: a body characterized/animated by the Spirit (not “made of spirit” / immaterial). Semantic range: contrasted with σῶμα ψυχικόν (“natural body,” 15:44) — Paul’s point is a transformation of the same body, not its replacement by a disembodied spirit-existence. English variants: spiritual body. Contextual theological meaning: 15:42-44, the resurrection body is imperishable, glorious, powerful, and Spirit-animated, but still genuinely bodily — continuous with, not a discarding of, the physical body sown in death. Rendering: 御霊のからだ (mitama no karada). Risk: Critical. This is one of the most theologically delicate renderings in the entire book. Japanese folk-religious and Buddhist afterlife conceptions widely available to secular readers (becoming an ancestral spirit/hotoke 仏 venerated at the butsudan; the wandering, ethereal 霊/魂 that returns during Obon; broader popular ghost-story culture) all tend toward a disembodied spirit-existence after death. “Spiritual body” must be taught as emphatically the opposite of this — a genuinely physical, tangible, transformed body, continuous with the body that died, not an ethereal spirit-form replacing a discarded body. This directly parallels and reinforces the baseline resurrection entry’s warning against 輪廻転生 and must receive the same human-theologian-review priority.
• φθαρτός / ἄφθαρτος (phthartos / aphthartos, “perishable / imperishable”) — NEW. Literal: subject to decay/corruption / not subject to decay. Contextual meaning: 15:42,50,53-54, the resurrection body’s essential quality contrasted with the present mortal body. Rendering: 朽ちる (kuchiru) / 朽ちない (kuchinai). Risk: Medium.
• νῖκος / κέντρον (nikos / kentron, “victory / sting”) — NEW. Literal: victory (in contest) / a sting or goad (as of a scorpion, or the goad used to drive an animal). Contextual meaning: 15:54-57, the triumphant climax quoting Hosea/Isaiah: “Death is swallowed up in victory… where, O death, is your sting?” Rendering: 勝利 (shouri) / とげ (toge). Risk: Low-Medium; primarily rhetorical/poetic force to preserve in translation rather than a doctrinal collision risk.
• kingdom_of_god (βασιλεία θεοῦ) — REUSED (神の国). 15:50, “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.” Risk: High (per baseline); retain Romans 14:17 anchoring discipline.

Chapter 16 — The Collection, Final Greetings, and Maranatha (16:1-24)

• λογεία (logeia, “collection”) — NEW. Literal: a collection (of money), a levy. Contextual meaning: 16:1-4, the collection for the Jerusalem church, an act of cross-congregational Christian generosity/unity. Rendering: 献金 (kenkin). Risk: Medium; brief note recommended distinguishing this voluntary, gospel-unity-motivated congregational collection from Buddhist temple donation practice (お布施, ofuse, a customary offering to a priest, often for funeral/memorial rites), which operates under a different social-obligation logic closer to a fee-for-ritual-service expectation than 16:1-4’s model of free, joyful, cross-congregational giving.
• μαράνα θά (marana tha, “Our Lord, come!”) — NEW, transliterated proper Aramaic liturgical formula, preserved untranslated in the Greek text itself. Rendering: マラナ・タ (Marana ta), retained as transliteration per the baseline’s convention for preserving Aramaic terms of devotional intensity (cf. アバ, Abba). Risk: Low; brief explanatory gloss recommended (“主よ、来てください,” “Lord, come”) alongside the transliteration on first occurrence.
• φίλημα ἅγιον (philēma hagion, “holy kiss”) — NEW. Literal: a holy/sacred kiss, the customary greeting of the early church (16:20). Rendering: 聖なる口づけ (seinaru kuchizuke). Risk: Low, primarily a cultural-practice note rather than a doctrinal risk: physical kissing is not a customary Japanese greeting gesture in any context (religious or secular), so teaching materials should explain this as an ancient cultural expression of the same warm, affectionate Christian greeting Japanese readers might express through a bow, handshake, or verbal greeting today, rather than prescribing literal kissing practice.
• No other new theological vocabulary in this chapter; greetings and personal names (Timothy, Apollos, etc.) follow established Shinkaiyaku proper-name transliteration conventions and carry no doctrinal risk.

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This document extends, and does not contradict, the baseline Romans Language Package. All terms marked REUSED must be rendered exactly as recorded in translation_memory.json. See analysis/08_core_glossary.md for the consolidated per-term glossary table covering both reused and newly introduced terms.