Core Glossary
Core Glossary — 1 John (English–Japanese)
Table 1 — Terms Reused Exactly from the Baseline Romans Package
| Term | Greek (translit) | Japanese | Risk | Doctrine (this curriculum) | Occurs in chapters | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| God | θεός (theos) | 神 (Kami) | Critical | God is Light and God is Love | 1-5 (throughout) | MUST carry 唯一のまことの神 qualifier at first occurrence and at every doctrinal thesis statement, esp. “God is love” (4:8, 16) and “God is light” (1:5). |
| Jesus | Ἰησοῦς (Iēsous) | イエス (Iesu) | Critical | Incarnation and Antichrist; Assurance | 1-5 | Reuse baseline form exactly. |
| Christ | Χριστός (Christos) | キリスト (Kirisuto) | High | Incarnation and Antichrist; Assurance | 1-5 | Central to the letter’s confessional test (“Jesus is the Christ,” 2:22; 5:1). |
| Son of God | υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ (huios tou theou) | 神の子 (Kami no Ko) | Critical | Incarnation and Antichrist; Assurance of Salvation | 1:3(implied);2:22-23;3:8,23;4:9,10,14,15;5:5,9,10,11,12,13,20 | Must be kept lexically distinct from the new believer-focused term “children of God” (神の子どもたち) — see Table 2. |
| Holy Spirit | πνεῦμα (ἅγιον) (pneuma [hagion]) | 聖霊 (Seirei) | Critical | Fellowship with God; Testing the Spirits | 3:24; 4:2,13; 5:6,8 | CRITICAL TRANSLATION-DECISION NOTE: 1 John’s Greek frequently omits the explicit ἅγιον (“holy”) qualifier even when referring to the Holy Spirit specifically (3:24; 4:13) — 聖霊 must still be supplied per baseline rule. This must be sharply distinguished from the plural, mixed-referent πνεύματα (“spirits,” including false ones) of 4:1, which must NOT be rendered 聖霊 — see Table 2, “test the spirits.” |
| faith | πίστις (pistis) | 信仰 (shinkou) | High | Overcoming the World; Assurance of Salvation | 5:1,4,5,10,13 | Reuse baseline exactly; in 1 John, faith is specifically identified as the means of overcoming the world (5:4-5). |
| sin | ἁμαρτία (hamartia) | 罪 (tsumi) | High | Confession and Forgiveness of Sin | 1:7-10; 2:1-2,12; 3:4-9; 4:10; 5:16-18 | Reuse baseline exactly, including the guilt-before-a-personal-God vs. shame/meiwaku distinguishing note. |
| righteousness / righteous | δικαιοσύνη / δίκαιος (dikaiosynē/dikaios) | 義 (gi) | Critical | Love for the Brethren as Evidence of New Birth | 1:9; 2:1,29; 3:7,10,12 | Reuse baseline exactly, including the Bushido-virtue distinguishing note; here used of Christ (“Jesus Christ the righteous,” 2:1) and as ethical evidence of new birth (3:7,10). |
| fellowship | κοινωνία (koinōnia) | 交わり (majiwari) | Low→Medium (context-elevated) | Fellowship with God and One Another | 1:3,6,7 | Baseline rates Low for Romans’ general sense; in 1 John this is doctrinally load-bearing (fellowship with God himself), warranting elevated native-speaker review attention per the vertical-dimension risk noted in 07_semantic_analysis.md. |
| incarnation (doctrine label) | — (cf. σάρξ, “flesh,” ἐν σαρκὶ ἐληλυθότα) | 受肉 (juniku) | Critical | The Incarnation and Antichrist | 4:2-3; cf. 1:1-3 | Reuse baseline doctrine term exactly for the theological category; the specific Greek word rendered in running text is σάρξ (“flesh,” 肉) — see Table 2. |
| salvation (doctrine label) | σωτηρία-family (cf. σωτήρ, 4:14) | 救い (sukui) | Critical | Assurance of Salvation and Eternal Life | 4:14; general | Reuse baseline exactly; connects to new term “savior” (救い主) in Table 2. |
Table 2 — New Terms Introduced by 1 John (Proposed for Translation Memory Intake)
| Term | Greek (translit) | Japanese (translit) | Risk | Doctrine | Occurs in chapters | Rejected alternatives | Risk rationale (summary) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| love (noun/verb) | ἀγάπη / ἀγαπάω (agapē/agapaō) | 愛 (ai) | Critical | God is Light and God is Love | 1-5, esp. 4:7-21 (core), 2:5,10,15; 3:1,10-18,23; 5:1-3 | 恋 (koi, romantic love — rejected: too narrow/erotic); 好き (suki, “like” — rejected: too weak); 慈悲 (jihi, Buddhist compassion — rejected: different doctrinal shape, not God’s essential identity) | Double collision risk: (1) secular/pop-culture 愛 defaults to romantic/emotional attachment; (2) in inherited Buddhist vocabulary, 愛 names craving/attachment, a cause of suffering to be extinguished — the opposite valence of 1 John’s “God IS love.” Requires explicit doctrinal teaching at every occurrence in the core passage. |
| light | φῶς (phōs) | 光 (hikari) | Critical | God is Light and God is Love | 1:5,7; 2:8-10 | None viable — 光 is the only natural Japanese word | Collides with Amaterasu solar-imperial mythology (arahitogami complex, already Critical in baseline for “Son of God”) and with Amida Buddha’s “Immeasurable Light” Pure Land devotion. Requires immediate doctrinal anchoring at first occurrence, parallel to baseline’s 神の国 handling. |
| darkness | σκοτία / σκότος (skotia/skotos) | 闇 (yami) | Medium | God is Light and God is Love | 1:5-6; 2:8-11 | 悪 (aku, “evil” — rejected: too abstract, loses the light/darkness metaphor pairing) | Lower risk than 光; mainly requires consistent pairing with 光 as the letter’s governing moral-metaphor duality. |
| walk (conduct) | περιπατέω (peripateō) | 歩む (ayumu) | Low | God is Light and God is Love | 1:6-7; 2:6,11 | 生きる (ikiru, “live” — acceptable secondary option) | Established Japanese Bible idiom; low risk. |
| confess (sin) | ὁμολογέω (homologeō) | 告白する (kokuhaku suru) | Medium | Confession and Forgiveness of Sin | 1:9 | 認める (mitomeru, “admit” — weaker, lacks the verbal/relational force) | Everyday Japanese associates 告白 primarily with romantic confession of feelings; requires explicit reframing for readers, especially younger ones. |
| confess (Christ) | ὁμολογέω (homologeō) | 告白する (kokuhaku suru) | High | Incarnation and Antichrist; Assurance | 2:23; 4:2-3,15; 5:1 | Same verb as above; distinguish by object/context, not by different Japanese word | Same verb, doctrinally higher-stakes object (Christ’s identity/incarnation) — must be flagged for theologian review whenever the object is Christological, not sin-confession. |
| forgive / forgiveness | ἀφίημι / ἄφεσις (aphiēmi/aphesis) | 赦す (yurusu) / 赦し (yurushi) | High | Confession and Forgiveness of Sin | 1:9 | 許す (kanben suru/general interpersonal pardon — rejected as primary: lacks forensic, God-ward dimension) | Must retain the sense of an actual, forensic removal of guilt by God, not merely interpersonal “letting go.” |
| cleanse | καθαρίζω (katharizō) | きよめる (kiyomeru) | Medium | Confession and Forgiveness of Sin | 1:7,9 | 禊をする (misogi o suru, Shinto purification rite — rejected: ritual pollution-removal, not moral cleansing by Christ’s blood) | Distinguish from Shinto ritual purification (禊, お祓い), which addresses ceremonial impurity, not moral guilt before a holy God — parallels the baseline’s note on 聖い vs. 清らか. |
| advocate | παράκλητος (paraklētos) | 弁護者 (bengosha) | High | Confession and Forgiveness of Sin | 2:1 | 助け主 (tasukenushi, used for the Spirit’s paraclete role in John’s Gospel — reserved for that referent to avoid confusing the two paraclete figures) | Legal-advocate sense for Christ’s intercession before the Father when a believer sins; must not be confused with the Spirit’s separate paraclete role. |
| propitiation | ἱλασμός (hilasmos) | なだめの供え物 (nadame no sonaemono) | Critical | Confession and Forgiveness of Sin; Assurance | 2:2; 4:10 | 生け贄 (ikenie, “sacrificial victim” — rejected: lacks the specific appeasement/atonement sense); 供え物のみ (offering alone, without なだめ — rejected: loses the propitiatory function entirely) | なだめる (“appease/placate”) is the live verb used for placating vengeful spirits (祟り, tatari) in Japanese folk religion/horror media; risks picturing God as reluctantly appeased by a third party rather than himself the loving initiator of the propitiating sacrifice (4:10). Must always be taught together with the “God so loved us that HE sent” framing. |
| commandment | ἐντολή (entolē) | 命令 (meirei) | Medium | Love for the Brethren as Evidence of New Birth | 2:3,4,7,8; 3:22-24; 4:21; 5:2-3 | 戒め (imashime, “precept/admonition” — viable alternative, more devotional register) | Risk of collapsing into Japan’s general social-harmony conformity expectation rather than being heard as a specific, authoritative divine charge. |
| brother(s) | ἀδελφός (adelphos) | 兄弟 (kyoudai) | Low | Love for the Brethren as Evidence of New Birth | 2:9-11; 3:10-17; 4:20-21 | 仲間 (nakama, “companion/in-group peer” — rejected as primary: too close to baseline’s flagged 仲間意識 in-group-harmony risk) | Clarify as inclusive “brothers and sisters” of the household of faith, not literal biological siblings only, nor generic in-group peers. |
| world (moral-system sense) | κόσμος (kosmos) | 世 (yo) | High | Overcoming the World | 2:15-17; 3:1,13; 4:1,3-5,9,14,17; 5:4-5,19 | 世界 (sekai, “world” more geographically/globally — acceptable secondary rendering); 現世 (gense, Buddhist “this present transient world” — rejected as primary due to impermanence/detachment framing mismatch) | Must be taught as a moral-spiritual system in active rebellion against God, requiring active resistance/overcoming through faith — not a metaphysically illusory or impermanent realm to be transcended through ascetic detachment. |
| antichrist | ἀντίχριστος (antichristos) | 反キリスト (han-Kirisuto) | High | The Incarnation and Antichrist | 2:18,22; 4:3 | None viable as substitute | Primarily a biblical-illiteracy risk (known in Japan mainly via Western apocalyptic pop culture as a villain trope); must be anchored to 1 John’s own definition — denial that Jesus is the Christ come in the flesh (2:22; 4:2-3) — not left as a generic apocalyptic monster. |
| anointing | χρῖσμα (chrisma) | 油そそぎ (abura-sosogi) | Medium | Testing the Spirits | 2:20,27 | 聖油 (seiyu, “holy oil,” object rather than act — acceptable secondary term for the oil itself) | Requires OT background teaching (anointing of priests/kings/prophets); minimal syncretism risk, primarily biblical illiteracy. |
| abide / remain | μένω (menō) | とどまる (todomaru) | Medium | Fellowship with God and One Another | 2:6,10,14,17,19,24,27,28; 3:6,9,14,15,17,24; 4:12-16 | 住む (sumu, “reside” — too static/physical, loses relational-communion sense) | Core Johannine relational verb; must be taught cumulatively across the whole letter to build full mutual-indwelling sense, not treated as a fresh disconnected metaphor each time. |
| children of God | τέκνα θεοῦ (tekna theou) | 神の子どもたち (Kami no kodomotachi) | High | Love for the Brethren as Evidence of New Birth; Assurance | 3:1-2,10; 5:2 | 神の子 alone (rejected: would collide with the baseline’s Critical, Christ-exclusive “Son of God” term) | Must remain lexically distinct from 神の子 (reserved for Christ). Complements, without contradicting, the baseline’s separate Romans “adoption” (子とされること) legal-heir metaphor — 1 John uses a birth metaphor instead. |
| born of God | γεννάω ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ (gennaō ek tou theou) | 神から生まれる (Kami kara umareru) | Critical | Love for the Brethren as Evidence of New Birth; Overcoming the World | 2:29; 3:9; 4:7; 5:1,4,18 | 生まれ変わる (umarekawaru, “to be reborn” — rejected: too closely echoes the isekai reincarnation-fantasy genre and Buddhist 輪廻転生 reincarnation); 覚醒する (kakusei suru, “to awaken” — rejected: echoes Buddhist enlightenment/awakening, already forbidden pattern in baseline) | Must be taught as a unique, non-repeatable, Spirit-wrought new birth into permanent new identity — explicitly not a cyclical reincarnation, isekai-style “reborn into a new world,” or self-improvement narrative. |
| seed (of God) | σπέρμα (sperma) | 種 (tane) | Low | Love for the Brethren as Evidence of New Birth | 3:9 | — | Minor risk of over-literalizing a figurative agricultural metaphor. |
| devil | διάβολος (diabolos) | 悪魔 (akuma) | Medium | The Incarnation and Antichrist; Overcoming the World | 3:8,10 | — | Anime/manga/gaming pop-culture dilution risk (fictional villain trope), parallel to baseline’s note on 復活’s “comeback” dilution; correct word, but doctrinal weight (real, personal, cosmic evil) must be actively restored in teaching. |
| Cain | Κάϊν (Kain) | カイン (Kain) | Low | Love for the Brethren as Evidence of New Birth | 3:12 | — | Proper name; requires brief OT narrative background given near-zero OT literacy assumption. |
| practice sin / practice righteousness | ἁμαρτίαν ποιεῖ / δικαιοσύνην ποιῶν | 罪を行う／義を行う | Medium | Love for the Brethren as Evidence of New Birth | 3:4,7-10 | — | Describes settled character/life-direction, not sinless perfection; must not appear to contradict 1:8-10’s admission that believers still sin. |
| confidence / boldness | παρρησία (parrēsia) | 確信 (kakushin) | Medium | Assurance of Salvation and Eternal Life | 3:21; 4:17; 5:14 | 大胆さ (daitansa, “boldness” — viable alternative, more emphatic register) | Must be tied to the objective basis of Christ’s finished work and God’s love, not mere self-confidence or optimism. |
| test the spirits | δοκιμάζετε τὰ πνεύματα (dokimazete ta pneumata) | 霊を試す (rei o tamesu) | Critical | Testing the Spirits | 4:1 | 聖霊を試す (rejected: doctrinally wrong — the referent here is explicitly plural and includes false spirits, so 聖霊 must NOT be used) | The one place in the letter where bare 霊 (without 聖) is the doctrinally correct choice — but this risks reinforcing Japan’s vivid animistic folk-spirit worldview (ancestral spirits, yōkai, itako mediums) rather than the letter’s own binary doctrinal test (confession about Christ’s incarnation, 4:2-3). Requires the confessional test to be taught explicitly alongside the phrase. |
| spirit of truth / spirit of error | πνεῦμα τῆς ἀληθείας / τῆς πλάνης | 真理の霊／迷わしの霊 | High | Testing the Spirits | 4:6 | 聖霊 alone for “spirit of truth” (rejected: this is a category label for a type of spiritual source to be discerned, not simply a bare restatement of the Holy Spirit’s identity) | Discernment criterion is doctrinal content (right confession about Christ), not religious feeling/experience. |
| confess Christ come in the flesh | ὁμολογεῖ Ἰησοῦν Χριστὸν ἐν σαρκὶ ἐληλυθότα | イエス・キリストが肉をとって来られたことを告白する | Critical | The Incarnation and Antichrist | 4:2-3 | 化身として来られた (rejected — forbidden per baseline: implies a provisional, repeatable manifestation, not a permanent incarnation) | 1 John’s own textual basis for the Incarnation/Antichrist doctrine pairing: denying the reality of Christ’s flesh is, in this letter’s definition, the antichrist spirit itself (4:3). |
| savior | σωτήρ (sōtēr) | 救い主 (Sukuinushi) | Critical | Assurance of Salvation and Eternal Life | 4:14 | ヒーロー (rejected: pop-culture “hero” framing, loses the exclusive, personal-Redeemer sense) | Connects to baseline’s 救い; must retain exclusive, personal-Redeemer sense. |
| only begotten / unique Son | μονογενής (monogenēs) | ひとり子 (hitorigo) | Critical | The Incarnation and Antichrist | 4:9 | 独り子 (dokushi, same meaning, alternate kanji — acceptable variant spelling); 長男 (chounan, “eldest/firstborn son” — rejected: implies birth order among siblings, contradicting absolute uniqueness) | Must be kept conceptually and lexically distinct from 神の子どもたち (believers, plural, by new birth) to preserve Christ’s absolutely unique Sonship. |
| Word of Life | ὁ λόγος τῆς ζωῆς (ho logos tēs zōēs) | いのちの言葉 (inochi no kotoba) | Medium | Assurance of Salvation and Eternal Life | 1:1 | — | Risk of being absorbed into generic Japanese self-help/inspirational-quote culture; must be anchored to the person of the incarnate Christ (1:1-3), not left as a motivational phrase. |
| joy | χαρά (chara) | 喜び (yorokobi) | Low | Fellowship with God and One Another | 1:4 | — | Standard term; minimal risk. |
| eternal life | ζωὴ αἰώνιος (zōē aiōnios) | 永遠のいのち (eien no inochi) | Critical | Assurance of Salvation and Eternal Life | 1:2; 2:25; 3:15; 5:11-13,20 | 極楽往生 (gokuraku oujou, Pure Land rebirth — use with same extreme caution as baseline’s “salvation” entry; never as equivalent) | Present possession through the Son (5:11-12), not a future merit-reward or a blessed-afterlife-realm entered; states the letter’s own explicit purpose (5:13). |
| overcome / victory | νικάω / νίκη (nikaō/nikē) | 勝つ／打ち勝つ／勝利 (katsu/uchikatsu/shouri) | High | Overcoming the World | 2:13-14; 4:4; 5:4-5 | — | Risk of framing as a competitive, effort-earned achievement (exam/career-competition culture, same risk flagged for baseline’s “election”) rather than a Spirit-enabled outcome of faith. |
| testimony / witness | μαρτυρία / μαρτυρέω (martyria/martyreō) | 証し／証言する (shoushi/shougen suru) | Medium | Assurance of Salvation and Eternal Life | 1:2; 4:14; 5:6-11 | — | Note the courtroom-witness/personal-testimony double sense; context should clarify eyewitness historical testimony (1:1-3; 4:14) vs. God’s own testimony (5:9-11). |
| water and blood | ὕδωρ καὶ αἷμα (hydōr kai haima) | 水と血 | Medium | Assurance of Salvation and Eternal Life | 5:6,8 | — | Genuine interpretive ambiguity in the source text; present leading options without forcing a single resolution; must not permit any reading denying the physical reality of Christ’s death. |
| sin unto death | ἁμαρτία πρὸς θάνατον (hamartia pros thanaton) | 死に至る罪 (shi ni itaru tsumi) | High | Confession and Forgiveness of Sin | 5:16-17 | — | Avoid over-systematizing into later “mortal sin” categories or karmic-consequence determinism; keep the passage’s own emphasis on confident intercessory prayer. |
| idols | εἴδωλα (eidōla) | 偶像 (guuzou) | High | Overcoming the World; Testing the Spirits | 5:21 | — | Unusually concrete practical relevance given common household butsudan/kamidana/omamori/ofuda in Japan; requires pastorally careful, non-inflammatory teaching distinguishing idolatry from ordinary family/cultural objects. |
| liar | ψεύστης (psēustēs) | 偽り者 (itsuwarimono) | Low | Confession and Forgiveness of Sin; Love for the Brethren | 1:10; 2:4,22; 4:20 | — | Standard diagnostic label for false profession; low risk. |
| little children (address) | τεκνία / παιδία (teknia/paidia) | 子どもたちよ | Low | Fellowship with God and One Another | 2:1,12,13,14,18,28; 3:7,18; 4:4; 5:21 | — | Pastoral term of endearment; keep distinct from doctrinal “children of God.” |
| know (relational vs. factual) | γινώσκω / οἶδα (ginōskō/oida) | 知る／わかる (shiru/wakaru) | Medium | Fellowship with God and One Another; Assurance | throughout, esp. 2:3-5,29; 3:1,16,19-20,24; 4:2,6-8,13,16; 5:2,13,15,18-20 | — | Japanese lacks a clean structural parallel to this recurring Johannine word-pair distinguishing relational/experiential knowing from settled factual knowing; requires consistent translator notes at key occurrences. |
Table 3 — Doctrine-to-Term Cross-Reference (per curriculum’s eight named doctrines)
| Curriculum Doctrine | Primary Greek terms | Primary Japanese renderings | Overall risk |
|---|---|---|---|
| God is Light and God is Love | ἀγάπη, φῶς, σκοτία, θεός | 愛, 光, 闇, 神 | Critical |
| Fellowship with God and One Another | κοινωνία, μένω, γινώσκω | 交わり, とどまる, 知る | Medium-High |
| Confession and Forgiveness of Sin | ἁμαρτία, ὁμολογέω, ἀφίημι, καθαρίζω, ἱλασμός, παράκλητος | 罪, 告白する, 赦す, きよめる, なだめの供え物, 弁護者 | Critical |
| Love for the Brethren as Evidence of New Birth | ἀγάπη, ἀδελφός, τέκνα θεοῦ, γεννάω ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ, δικαιοσύνη | 愛, 兄弟, 神の子どもたち, 神から生まれる, 義 | Critical |
| The Incarnation and Antichrist | σάρξ (ἐν σαρκὶ ἐληλυθότα), ἀντίχριστος, υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ, μονογενής | 肉／受肉, 反キリスト, 神の子, ひとり子 | Critical |
| Assurance of Salvation and Eternal Life | ζωὴ αἰώνιος, παρρησία, σωτήρ, μαρτυρία | 永遠のいのち, 確信, 救い主, 証し | Critical |
| Overcoming the World | κόσμος, νικάω, πίστις | 世, 勝つ／勝利, 信仰 | High |
| Testing the Spirits | πνεῦμα/πνεύματα, δοκιμάζω, πλάνη | 霊（聖霊と区別）, 試す, 迷わしの霊 | Critical |
Risk Summary
| Risk Tier | Count (new terms, Table 2) | Count (reused baseline terms, Table 1) |
|---|---|---|
| Critical | 11 | 5 |
| High | 8 | 2 |
| Medium | 11 | 2 |
| Low | 6 | 0 |
Note: All Critical and High risk terms in Table 2 require human theologian review upon first translation-memory intake, per the baseline’s escalation rules. Medium risk terms require native speaker review. This glossary must be merged into an updated translation_memory.json (version increment) and doctrine_risk_registry.json (new doctrine entries for the eight named 1 John doctrines) before Phase 2 segment translation of the 1 John curriculum begins.
Critical Risk Terms
God
Approved rendering: 神
Transliteration: Kami
Doctrine: Deity of Christ
Rejected alternatives: 八百万の神の一柱としての神, 神様
Original: θεός / אֱלֹהִים
Category: God
CRITICAL: this is the single highest-risk term in the Japanese package. 神 (kami) is the generic Japanese word for the countless Shinto deities and spirits. Using 神 without qualification risks being heard as ‘a kami’ among many. REQUIRES persistent qualifying language 唯一のまことの神 (‘the one and only true God’) at first occurrence and in doctrinally weighty passages. 神様 acceptable in casual narrative only, never alone in doctrinal statements. [Inherited from Romans package. In 1 John, treat EACH of the letter’s two essence-thesis statements — ‘God is light’ (1:5) and ‘God is love’ (4:8,16) — as its own mandatory first-occurrence event for this qualifier, since both are identity claims about God’s nature, not merely descriptive statements.]
Jesus
Approved rendering: イエス
Transliteration: Iesu
Doctrine: Lordship of Christ
Rejected alternatives: ゼズス
Original: Ἰησοῦς
Category: Christology
イエス is the modern Protestant/ecumenical standard. Modern curriculum materials should use イエス exclusively. [Inherited from Romans package. In 1 John, this name must remain textually identical across all occurrences of the letter’s confessional formula (‘Jesus is the Christ,’ ‘Jesus is the Son of God,’ 2:22-23; 4:15; 5:1) for diagnostic consistency.]
Son Of God
Approved rendering: 神の子
Transliteration: Kami no Ko
Doctrine: Sonship of Christ
Rejected alternatives: 現人神, 神の化身
Original: υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ
Category: Christology
CRITICAL: NEVER use 現人神 (arahitogami, the pre-1946 State Shinto imperial-divinity doctrine). NEVER use 神の化身. Christ’s Sonship is eternal, unique, and not a semi-divine imperial-lineage office. [Inherited from Romans package. In 1 John this term MUST additionally be kept lexically and conceptually distinct from the new believer-plural term 神の子どもたち (‘children of God,’ see Section B) — a second, opposite-direction dilution risk not present in Romans, where believers’ status is described only via the separate ‘adoption’ (子とされること) metaphor rather than a competing ‘son/child of God’ phrase.]
Holy Spirit
Approved rendering: 聖霊
Transliteration: Seirei
Doctrine: Sanctification
Rejected alternatives: 霊, 幽霊
Original: πνεῦμα (ἅγιον)
Category: God
CRITICAL: always use the compound 聖霊; NEVER use 霊 (rei) alone. Japan’s animistic spirit-world remains culturally vivid; without the 聖 qualifier, 霊 risks being heard as one more folk-spirit entity rather than the third Person of the Trinity. [Inherited from Romans package. In 1 John, 3:24 and 4:13 omit the Greek ἅγιον qualifier in the source text itself, yet 聖霊 must still be supplied per this rule. CRITICAL EXCEPTION SPECIFIC TO 1 JOHN: at 4:1, πνεύματα is deliberately plural and includes false spirits — see Section B, ‘test_the_spirits’ — where bare 霊 is the doctrinally CORRECT rendering. This is the one context in the entire Language Package (Romans + 1 John) where the ‘always supply 聖霊’ rule does not apply; it must never be generalized beyond 4:1.
Righteousness
Approved rendering: 義
Transliteration: gi
Doctrine: Salvation
Rejected alternatives: 道徳, 正義感
Original: δικαιοσύνη / δίκαιος
Category: Salvation
CRITICAL: 義 is a core Bushido virtue (rectitude/moral courage per Nitobe’s Bushido). Biblical righteousness is right standing before God received through faith, not a cultivated personal virtue. Always flag with a distinguishing note in justification contexts. [Inherited from Romans package. In 1 John, 義 is additionally used as visible ETHICAL EVIDENCE of new birth (2:29; 3:7,10), a behavioral register that sits closer to the competing Bushido-virtue sense than Romans’ primarily forensic usage — the distinguishing note must be reinforced, not merely inherited, at every behavioral occurrence in chapter 3.]
Incarnation
Approved rendering: 受肉
Transliteration: juniku
Doctrine: Incarnation
Rejected alternatives: 化身, 権化
Original: — (cf. σάρξ, ἐν σαρκὶ ἐληλυθότα, 4:2-3)
Category: Christology
CRITICAL: NEVER use 化身 (keshin) or 権化 (gonge) — both describe a provisional, repeatable manifestation per honji suijaku theology. The incarnation is the eternal Son permanently and uniquely taking human nature. [Inherited from Romans package. In 1 John the stakes are raised further: denying the incarnation IS the letter’s own explicit definition of the antichrist spirit (4:3) — see Section B, ‘confess_christ_come_in_flesh’ — so any drift toward a ‘manifestation’ framing does not merely dilute doctrine but imports the letter’s own named heresy.]
Salvation
Approved rendering: 救い
Transliteration: sukui
Doctrine: Salvation
Rejected alternatives: 解脱, 極楽往生
Original: σωτηρία-family (cf. σωτήρ, 4:14)
Category: Salvation
CRITICAL: NEVER use 解脱 (gedatsu, Buddhist liberation from samsara). Use caution with 極楽往生 (Pure Land rebirth) — a helpful teaching bridge but never presented as equivalent. [Inherited from Romans package. In 1 John, 救い is tightly linked to eternal life as a PRESENT possession (5:11-13) and to Christ’s title ‘Savior of the world’ (4:14, see Section B ‘savior’) — this sharpens the baseline’s Pure Land caution: 1 John explicitly ties possession of salvation to having the Son NOW, a personal-relational fact, not entry into a future paradise realm.]
Love
Approved rendering: 愛
Transliteration: ai
Doctrine: God is Light and God is Love
Rejected alternatives: 恋, 好き, 慈悲
Original: ἀγάπη / ἀγαπάω
Category: Love
NEW TERM. Double collision risk unmatched elsewhere in the package: (1) secular/pop-culture 愛 defaults to romantic attraction (恋愛) or idol-fandom devotion; (2) in inherited Buddhist vocabulary, 愛 names craving/attachment (cf. 愛着), a root cause of suffering to be extinguished — the doctrinal INVERSE of 1 John’s claim that love IS God’s own essential, highest nature (4:8,16). The core passage (4:7-21) uses this word 25+ times in 15 verses; requires explicit doctrinal correction at EVERY occurrence in the core passage, not only at first occurrence. Rejected 慈悲 (Buddhist compassion) as it names a cultivated virtue, not an essential divine identity.
Light
Approved rendering: 光
Transliteration: hikari
Doctrine: God is Light and God is Love
Original: φῶς
Category: God
NEW TERM. No viable Japanese alternative exists, but 光 carries unusually dense competing religious associations: (1) Amaterasu, the Shinto sun goddess and mythological source of the imperial line (the same arahitogami complex flagged Critical for ‘Son of God’); (2) Amida Buddha’s ‘Immeasurable Light,’ central to Jōdo Shū Pure Land devotion. ‘God is light’ (1:5) risks absorption into either framework unless immediately and explicitly anchored, parallel to the baseline’s 神の国 handling method.
Propitiation
Approved rendering: なだめの供え物
Transliteration: nadame no sonaemono
Doctrine: Propitiation and Advocacy of Christ
Rejected alternatives: 生け贄, 供え物のみ
Original: ἱλασμός
Category: Salvation
CRITICAL NEW TERM. なだめる (‘to placate/appease’) is the live verb used in Japanese folk religion and popular horror media to appease an angry or vengeful spirit (祟り, tatari) through offerings. Rendered carelessly, this risks picturing God as reluctantly appeased by a third party against his will. MUST ALWAYS be presented together with 4:10’s framing: God himself, out of his own prior love, sent the propitiating sacrifice — never present the noun in isolation (e.g., in a summary slide or short devotional excerpt without this framing).
Born Of God
Approved rendering: 神から生まれる
Transliteration: Kami kara umareru
Doctrine: New Birth (Born of God)
Rejected alternatives: 生まれ変わる, 覚醒する
Original: γεννάω ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ
Category: Salvation
CRITICAL NEW TERM. NEVER use 生まれ変わる (‘to be reborn’) — the standard idiom of Japan’s hugely popular isekai reincarnation-fantasy genre, and adjacent to 輪廻転生 (samsaric reincarnation, already forbidden in the baseline for ‘resurrection’). NEVER use 覚醒する (‘to awaken’) — echoes Buddhist enlightenment. ‘Born of God’ (2:29; 3:9; 4:7; 5:1,4,18) must be taught as a unique, non-repeatable, Spirit-wrought new birth into permanent identity. The doctrinally safe rendering (神から生まれる) is deliberately LESS fluent than the contaminated alternative — natural editorial instinct toward smoother prose runs directly against doctrinal safety here; guard against ‘improvement’ back toward 生まれ変わる during later editing passes.
Test The Spirits
Approved rendering: 霊を試す
Transliteration: rei o tamesu
Doctrine: Testing the Spirits
Rejected alternatives: 聖霊を試す
Original: δοκιμάζετε τὰ πνεύματα
Category: Pneumatology
CRITICAL NEW TERM AND STRUCTURAL EXCEPTION. This is the ONE place in the entire Language Package (Romans + 1 John) where bare 霊, without the mandatory 聖 qualifier, is the doctrinally CORRECT rendering (4:1), since πνεύματα is deliberately plural and explicitly includes false, deceptive spirits — 聖霊 would be doctrinally WRONG here. The severe risk runs opposite to every other Spirit-related entry: bare 霊, in a culture with a vivid animistic worldview (ancestral spirits, yōkai, itako folk mediums), risks reinforcing folk-discernment intuition rather than the letter’s own binary doctrinal test (4:2-3). MUST always be paired with that confessional test in the same teaching unit. A reviewer applying the general ‘always supply 聖霊’ rule mechanically will incorrectly ‘correct’ this and destroy the verse’s meaning — flag explicitly for both translators and automated QA to prevent this specific correction.
Confess Christ Come In Flesh
Approved rendering: イエス・キリストが肉をとって来られたことを告白する
Transliteration: Iesu Kirisuto ga niku o totte korareta koto o kokuhaku suru
Doctrine: The Incarnation and Antichrist
Rejected alternatives: 化身として来られた
Original: ὁμολογεῖ Ἰησοῦν Χριστὸν ἐν σαρκὶ ἐληλυθότα
Category: Christology
CRITICAL NEW TERM. σάρξ (‘flesh,’ 肉) here must retain the same force as the baseline’s 受肉 doctrine term: a real, permanent, unique assumption of human nature. NEVER render with 化身として来られた or any phrase implying a provisional, repeatable manifestation. This is 1 John’s own textual basis for the Incarnation/Antichrist doctrine pairing: denying the reality of Christ’s flesh IS, by this letter’s own definition, the antichrist spirit (4:2-3).
Savior
Approved rendering: 救い主
Transliteration: Sukuinushi
Doctrine: Assurance of Salvation and Eternal Life
Rejected alternatives: ヒーロー
Original: σωτήρ
Category: Salvation
CRITICAL NEW TERM. Connects directly to the baseline’s 救い; must retain the exclusive, personal-Redeemer sense of 4:14 and never soften toward a generic ‘helper/rescuer’ figure or pop-culture ‘hero’ framing (ヒーロー), which loses the title’s exclusivity.
Only Begotten
Approved rendering: ひとり子
Transliteration: hitorigo
Doctrine: The Incarnation and Antichrist
Rejected alternatives: 長男, 独り子 (acceptable variant spelling)
Original: μονογενής
Category: Christology
CRITICAL NEW TERM. Must be kept conceptually and lexically distinct from 神の子どもたち (believers, plural, by new birth) to preserve Christ’s absolutely unique Sonship (4:9). Avoid 長男 (chounan, ‘eldest son’), which wrongly implies birth order among siblings. Guards the same doctrinal boundary the baseline flags against 現人神 but from the opposite direction — against dilution into ‘one son among many’ rather than deification of a human ruler.
Eternal Life
Approved rendering: 永遠のいのち
Transliteration: eien no inochi
Doctrine: Assurance of Salvation and Eternal Life
Rejected alternatives: 極楽往生 (caution only, never equivalence)
Original: ζωὴ αἰώνιος
Category: Eschatology
CRITICAL NEW TERM. Must be taught as a present possession received through the Son NOW (5:11-12), not a future reward for accumulated merit, and distinguished from Buddhist/folk notions of a blessed afterlife realm such as 極楽往生 (already flagged with caution in the baseline for ‘salvation’). This is the letter’s own explicitly stated purpose for writing (5:13).
High Risk Terms
Messiah
Approved rendering: キリスト
Transliteration: Kirisuto
Doctrine: Messianic Promise
Rejected alternatives: 救世主
キリスト is the standard term. The risk here is not syncretism but biblical illiteracy: most secular Japanese know ‘Kirisuto’ only as a foreign cultural reference point with no connection to the messianic-fulfillment concept the term carries. [Inherited from Romans package. In 1 John, the confession ‘Jesus is the Christ’ (2:22; 5:1) is the letter’s own dividing line between true faith and antichrist deception — biblical illiteracy here has more direct doctrinal consequence than in Romans and requires heavier explanatory teaching at every confessional occurrence.]
Faith
Approved rendering: 信仰
Transliteration: shinkou
Doctrine: Faith
Rejected alternatives: 信心, 宗教心
Original: πίστις
Category: Faith
Personal trust in Christ specifically; must be distinguished from generic 宗教心 (religious sentiment) common in Japan’s syncretistic ‘do both’ religious practice. [Inherited from Romans package. In 1 John, faith is specifically identified as the very means by which the believer overcomes the world (5:4-5) — this sharpens the baseline’s syncretism risk with a secondary competitive-achievement risk: Japan’s exam/career ‘victory’ culture could reframe faith as the effort producing the win, rather than trust receiving a victory already secured by being ‘born of God’ (5:1,4).]
Sin
Approved rendering: 罪
Transliteration: tsumi
Doctrine: Universal Human Accountability
Rejected alternatives: 恥, 迷惑をかけること
Original: ἁμαρτία
Category: Sin
Japan’s shame-oriented culture risks 罪 being processed as causing 迷惑 (trouble to others) or public shame rather than moral guilt before a holy God. [Inherited from Romans package. In 1 John this risk is intensified by pairing 罪 repeatedly with 告白する (‘confess’), a verb whose dominant everyday association is a romantic confession of feelings — see Section B, ‘confess_sin’ — compounding the guilt-before-God vs. social-embarrassment risk.]
Confess Christ
Approved rendering: 告白する
Transliteration: kokuhaku suru
Doctrine: The Incarnation and Antichrist
Rejected alternatives: 認める
Original: ὁμολογέω (with ‘Jesus is the Son of God/Christ come in the flesh’ as object)
Category: Christology
NEW TERM. Same Japanese verb and romantic-confession association as ‘confess_sin,’ but here the object is doctrinally load-bearing — Christ’s deity/incarnation (2:23; 4:2-3,15; 5:1) — this is 1 John’s own version of Romans 10:9’s salvation confession. Must be flagged for theologian review whenever the object is Christological, distinct from the sin-confession sense which may not always require the same escalation.
Forgiveness
Approved rendering: 赦す／赦し
Transliteration: yurusu / yurushi
Doctrine: Confession and Forgiveness of Sin
Rejected alternatives: 許す
Original: ἀφίημι / ἄφεσις
Category: Salvation
NEW TERM. Japanese Bible tradition uses 赦す specifically for God’s forensic, God-ward removal of guilt, distinct from the homophonous but differently-kanji’d 許す (kanben suru, ordinary interpersonal pardon). Must not collapse into a merely social ‘letting it go’ without the forensic, blood-of-Christ-grounded dimension (1:7,9).
Advocate
Approved rendering: 弁護者
Transliteration: bengosha
Doctrine: Propitiation and Advocacy of Christ
Rejected alternatives: 助け主
Original: παράκλητος
Category: Salvation
NEW TERM. Proposed as 弁護者 (legal-advocate sense) rather than 助け主, which is reserved elsewhere in Johannine literature (John 14-16) for the Holy Spirit’s separate paraclete role. The same Greek word (παράκλητος) serves two distinct referents across John’s writings; translators must not confuse Christ’s role here (2:1) with the Spirit’s role there.
World
Approved rendering: 世
Transliteration: yo
Doctrine: Overcoming the World
Rejected alternatives: 現世
Original: κόσμος
Category: Ethics
NEW TERM. Standard Japanese religious/literary vocabulary already carries a rich competing concept of ‘this world’ as a transient realm (現世, gense; 無常, mujou, Buddhist impermanence) to be transcended through detachment. 1 John’s κόσμος is a morally corrupted system in active rebellion against a personal God, to be actively resisted through faith while remaining engaged in it (2:17), not a realm to escape via ascetic withdrawal. 世界 (sekai) is an acceptable secondary rendering in non-moral senses; 現世 is rejected as a primary rendering due to the impermanence/detachment framing mismatch.
Antichrist
Approved rendering: 反キリスト
Transliteration: han-Kirisuto
Doctrine: The Incarnation and Antichrist
Original: ἀντίχριστος
Category: Christology
NEW TERM. A transliteration-based compound with no Japanese folk-religious analogue, so the primary risk is biblical illiteracy: the term is known in Japan mainly through Western horror/apocalyptic pop culture as a stock villain trope. Teaching must establish the letter’s own doctrinal definition (denial that Jesus is the Christ come in the flesh, 2:22; 4:3) rather than assume the pop-culture apocalyptic-monster image.
Children Of God
Approved rendering: 神の子どもたち
Transliteration: Kami no kodomotachi
Doctrine: Love for the Brethren as Evidence of New Birth
Rejected alternatives: 神の子 alone
Original: τέκνα θεοῦ
Category: Salvation
NEW TERM. Must remain lexically distinct from 神の子 (reserved exclusively for Christ’s unique Sonship) to avoid implying believers share Christ’s eternal Sonship rather than a derivative, birth-metaphor family status (3:1-2,10; 5:2). Complements without contradicting the baseline’s separate Romans ‘adoption’ (子とされること) legal-heir metaphor — 1 John instead uses a birth metaphor; teaching should note both describe the same reality from different angles.
Spirit Of Truth And Error
Approved rendering: 真理の霊／迷わしの霊
Transliteration: shinri no rei / madowashi no rei
Doctrine: Testing the Spirits
Rejected alternatives: 聖霊 alone for spirit of truth
Original: πνεῦμα τῆς ἀληθείας / πνεῦμα τῆς πλάνης
Category: Pneumatology
NEW TERM. Must NOT be mechanically substituted with 聖霊 despite the ‘truth’ association — ‘spirit of truth’ here (4:6) is a category label for a TYPE of spiritual source discerned by doctrinal content (confession about Christ), not a bare restatement of the Holy Spirit’s personal identity as at 3:24/4:13.
Overcome
Approved rendering: 勝つ／打ち勝つ／勝利
Transliteration: katsu / uchikatsu / shouri
Doctrine: Overcoming the World
Original: νικάω / νίκη
Category: Faith
NEW TERM. Japan’s intensely competitive, merit-based examination and career-advancement culture (受験, 選抜 — already flagged for ‘election’ in the baseline) risks framing this ‘overcoming’ as an achievement earned through personal effort, when the text identifies the overcoming agent as faith itself, a gift consequent on being ‘born of God’ (5:1,4-5), not a self-generated competitive victory.
Sin Unto Death
Approved rendering: 死に至る罪
Transliteration: shi ni itaru tsumi
Doctrine: Sin unto Death and Intercessory Prayer
Original: ἁμαρτία πρὸς θάνατον
Category: Sin
NEW TERM. Avoid forcing this exegetically difficult phrase (5:16-17) into full alignment with later systematic-theology categories (e.g., ‘mortal sin’) not native to the text, and avoid collision with karma-consequence determinism (an act inevitably producing a fixed cosmic result); the passage’s own emphasis remains on confident intercessory prayer (5:14-16), not deterministic outcome.
Idols
Approved rendering: 偶像
Transliteration: guuzou
Doctrine: Overcoming the World
Original: εἴδωλα
Category: Sin
NEW TERM. Unusually concrete practical relevance for Japanese readers: household Buddhist altars (butsudan) with ancestor tablets, Shinto household shrines (kamidana), protective amulets (omamori), and paper talismans (ofuda) are common, often unremarked-upon features of daily and extended-family life, including for many believers’ own relatives. The letter’s closing exhortation (5:21) requires pastorally careful, non-inflammatory teaching that distinguishes idolatrous worship from ordinary cultural/family objects, not a blanket, culturally tone-deaf condemnation.
Medium Risk Terms
Darkness
Approved rendering: 闇
Transliteration: yami
Doctrine: God is Light and God is Love
Rejected alternatives: 悪
Original: σκοτία / σκότος
Category: God
NEW TERM. Lower risk than 光; the main requirement is consistent pairing with 光 (1:5-7; 2:8-11) to preserve the letter’s governing light/darkness ethical dualism, rather than collapsing into generic 悪 (‘evil’), which loses the paired metaphor.
Confess Sin
Approved rendering: 告白する
Transliteration: kokuhaku suru
Doctrine: Confession and Forgiveness of Sin
Rejected alternatives: 認める
Original: ὁμολογέω (with ἁμαρτίας, ‘sins,’ as object)
Category: Salvation
NEW TERM. In everyday Japanese, 告白 (kokuhaku) is most commonly a romantic confession of feelings, a stock scene in Japanese school-life dramas/anime. Teaching materials must clarify this is confession of wrongdoing to God (1:9), not a romantic disclosure, especially for younger or pop-culture-immersed readers. Same Japanese verb as ‘confess_christ’ below but a lower-stakes object; must not receive uniform review treatment simply because the lexical form is identical.
Cleanse
Approved rendering: きよめる
Transliteration: kiyomeru
Doctrine: Confession and Forgiveness of Sin
Rejected alternatives: 禊をする
Original: καθαρίζω
Category: Salvation
NEW TERM. Must be distinguished from Shinto ritual purification (禊, misogi; お祓い, o-harai), which removes ceremonial pollution (穢れ) through ritual action performed by the worshiper — parallels the baseline’s 聖い vs. 清らか distinction. Biblical cleansing (1:7,9) is moral cleansing granted by God through Christ’s blood, not self-performed ritual purification.
Commandment
Approved rendering: 命令
Transliteration: meirei
Doctrine: Obedience to God’s Commandments
Rejected alternatives: 戒め
Original: ἐντολή
Category: Ethics
NEW TERM. Risk of collapsing into Japan’s general social-harmony conformity expectation (空気を読む, already flagged in the baseline under 律法/law) rather than being heard as a specific, authoritative divine charge received ‘from him’ (4:21), not from social custom.
Anointing
Approved rendering: 油そそぎ
Transliteration: abura-sosogi
Doctrine: Testing the Spirits
Original: χρῖσμα
Category: Pneumatology
NEW TERM. Biblical-illiteracy risk primarily — anointing with oil has no equivalent ritual currency in contemporary secular Japanese life, requiring background explanation of OT anointing of priests, kings, and prophets (2:20,27). 聖油 (seiyu, ‘holy oil’) is an acceptable secondary term for the oil itself as an object rather than the act.
Abide
Approved rendering: とどまる
Transliteration: todomaru
Doctrine: Fellowship with God and One Another
Rejected alternatives: 住む
Original: μένω
Category: Church
NEW TERM. The verb’s core sense in ordinary Japanese is physical/spatial (‘to stay at a place’); consistent, cumulative teaching across the whole letter (2:6,10,14,17,19,24,27,28; 3:6,9,14-15,17,24; 4:12-16) is needed to build its full relational-communion, mutual-indwelling sense rather than treating each occurrence as a fresh, disconnected metaphor.
Devil
Approved rendering: 悪魔
Transliteration: akuma
Doctrine: The Incarnation and Antichrist
Original: διάβολος
Category: Sin
NEW TERM. 悪魔 is extremely common in Japanese anime, manga, and gaming culture as a fictional villain/monster archetype, risking a ‘comeback’-style dilution parallel to the baseline’s note on 復活’s pop-culture overuse. The correct word is supplied but its real, personal, cosmic-evil weight (3:8,10) must be actively restored in teaching.
Practice Sin And Righteousness
Approved rendering: 罪を行う／義を行う
Transliteration: tsumi o okonau / gi o okonau
Doctrine: Love for the Brethren as Evidence of New Birth
Original: ἁμαρτίαν ποιεῖ / δικαιοσύνην ποιῶν
Category: Sin
NEW TERM. Describes a characteristic, ongoing pattern of life (3:4,7-10), not an isolated act or sinless perfection; must not appear to contradict 1:8-10’s admission that believers do still sin. Retains the baseline’s Bushido-virtue distinguishing note for 義.
Confidence
Approved rendering: 確信
Transliteration: kakushin
Doctrine: Assurance of Salvation and Eternal Life
Rejected alternatives: 大胆さ
Original: παρρησία
Category: Salvation
NEW TERM. Must be tied to the objective basis of Christ’s finished work and God’s prior love (3:21; 4:17; 5:14), not mere self-confidence or generic secular optimism common in Japanese self-help/motivational vocabulary.
Word Of Life
Approved rendering: いのちの言葉
Transliteration: inochi no kotoba
Doctrine: Assurance of Salvation and Eternal Life
Original: ὁ λόγος τῆς ζωῆς
Category: Christology
NEW TERM. Secular Japanese self-help/inspirational culture uses similar-sounding phrases (心に響く言葉, ‘words that resonate with the heart’) for generic motivational quotes; must be anchored explicitly to the person of the incarnate Christ (1:1-3), not left as an inspirational catchphrase.
Testimony
Approved rendering: 証し／証言する
Transliteration: shoushi / shougen suru
Doctrine: Assurance of Salvation and Eternal Life
Original: μαρτυρία / μαρτυρέω
Category: Salvation
NEW TERM. Note the double sense of 証 — courtroom-style legal witness vs. subjective personal impression. Context should clarify this is eyewitness historical testimony (1:1-3; 4:14) and God’s own testimony (5:9-11), not mere personal opinion or feeling.
Water And Blood
Approved rendering: 水と血
Transliteration: mizu to chi
Doctrine: Assurance of Salvation and Eternal Life
Original: ὕδωρ καὶ αἷμα
Category: Christology
NEW TERM. Genuine interpretive ambiguity exists among commentators regarding the referents (5:6,8); present leading options without dogmatically resolving a debate the source text itself leaves open, while resisting any reading that denies the physical reality of Christ’s death. Note the Comma Johanneum textual-variant issue at 5:7-8 (a later Trinitarian gloss absent from the earliest Greek manuscripts) — follow the earliest-attested text and note the variant rather than silently harmonizing.
Know
Approved rendering: 知る／わかる
Transliteration: shiru / wakaru
Doctrine: Fellowship with God and One Another
Original: γινώσκω / οἶδα
Category: Faith
NEW TERM. Japanese lacks a clean structural parallel to the Greek γινώσκω/οἶδα distinction (relational/experiential vs. settled/factual knowing), used heavily throughout the letter especially in its closing ‘we know’ assurance statements (5:13,15,18-20). Requires consistent translator notes at key clustered occurrences (2:3-5,29; 3:19-24; 4:2-8,13-16) to preserve the intended rhetorical certainty and relational depth.
Unrighteousness
Approved rendering: 不義
Transliteration: fugi
Doctrine: Confession and Forgiveness of Sin
Original: ἀδικία
Category: Sin
NEW TERM. Reuses the 義-family baseline term as its base (1:9); retains the Bushido-virtue distinguishing note already required for 義/righteousness, since unrighteousness here is strictly the opposite of forensic/ethical right-standing before God, not a breach of a samurai-style honor code.
Low Risk Terms
Fellowship
Approved rendering: 交わり
Transliteration: majiwari
Doctrine: Christian Fellowship
Rejected alternatives: 仲間意識
Original: κοινωνία
Category: Church
Shared participation in Christ. Avoid 仲間意識 (generic in-group solidarity/harmony feeling), which describes social cohesion without necessarily any gospel content. [Inherited from Romans package with a CONTEXT-ELEVATION FLAG: this doctrine_risk value (Low) reflects Romans’ general church-fellowship usage and is retained here unchanged per the language-authority mandate, but in 1 John this term is doctrinally load-bearing as fellowship WITH GOD HIMSELF (1:3,6-7), not merely with other believers — see doctrine_risk_registry.json’s 1 John-specific entry, which rates the doctrine ‘Fellowship with God and One Another’ as High. Translators must treat every occurrence in 1 John 1:3,6-7 and 4:12-16 with the elevated scrutiny of the doctrine registry, not the lower scrutiny this term-level entry alone would suggest.]
Walk
Approved rendering: 歩む
Transliteration: ayumu
Doctrine: Walking in Light versus Darkness
Rejected alternatives: 生きる
Original: περιπατέω
Category: Ethics
NEW TERM. Established Japanese Bible idiom for conduct/manner of life (1:6-7; 2:6,11). Minimal risk beyond keeping it tied to the light/darkness metaphor rather than a generic self-improvement ‘good life’ framing.
Brother
Approved rendering: 兄弟
Transliteration: kyoudai
Doctrine: Love for the Brethren as Evidence of New Birth
Rejected alternatives: 仲間
Original: ἀδελφός
Category: Church
NEW TERM. 兄弟 skews toward literal biological/family relationship in ordinary Japanese usage; brief clarification that this means ‘brothers and sisters’ of the household of faith avoids under-including women or over-restricting to literal siblings. Avoid substituting 仲間 (nakama), which risks the 仲間意識 in-group-harmony collapse flagged in the baseline.
Seed
Approved rendering: 種
Transliteration: tane
Doctrine: New Birth (Born of God)
Original: σπέρμα
Category: Salvation
NEW TERM. Straightforward agricultural metaphor for God’s generative, abiding principle in the believer (3:9); minor risk of over-literalizing into a biological claim rather than a figurative one.
Cain
Approved rendering: カイン
Transliteration: Kain
Doctrine: Love for the Brethren as Evidence of New Birth
Original: Κάϊν
Category: Sin
NEW TERM. Standard transliteration for the OT figure (Genesis 4) cited as the negative counter-example to brotherly love (3:12); requires brief OT narrative background given near-zero assumed OT literacy.
Joy
Approved rendering: 喜び
Transliteration: yorokobi
Doctrine: Fellowship with God and One Another
Original: χαρά
Category: Church
NEW TERM. Standard term (1:4), stated as the apostolic purpose for writing; minimal risk beyond keeping it tied contextually to fellowship with God and other believers rather than generic secular happiness.
Liar
Approved rendering: 偽り者
Transliteration: itsuwarimono
Doctrine: Confession and Forgiveness of Sin
Original: ψεύστης
Category: Sin
NEW TERM. The letter’s characteristic diagnostic label for false profession without corresponding love or right confession (1:6,10; 2:4,22; 4:20); standard term, low risk, functions as a recurring rhetorical marker.
Little Children Address
Approved rendering: 子どもたちよ
Transliteration: kodomotachi yo
Doctrine: Fellowship with God and One Another
Original: τεκνία / παιδία
Category: Church
NEW TERM. The author’s affectionate pastoral address to his readers throughout the letter (2:1,12,13,14,18,28; 3:7,18; 4:4; 5:21); should not be confused with the doctrinal term 神の子どもたち (‘children of God’), though related in imagery — primarily a matter of consistent, warm register.
Referenced passages