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 (the yaoyorozu no kami, ‘eight million kami’ — nature spirits, ancestor spirits enshrined after death, even deified historical humans). Using 神 without qualification risks being heard as ‘a kami,’ one spirit-being among many, not the singular transcendent Creator. This package retains 神 as the settled Bible-translation choice (no viable alternative exists) but REQUIRES persistent qualifying language at first occurrence and in doctrinally weighty passages: 唯一のまことの神 (‘the one and only true God’). 神様 (kamisama, the everyday reverential-but-vague form) is acceptable in casual narrative but must not stand alone in doctrinal statements about God’s uniqueness.