Core Glossary
Core Glossary — Gospel of John (English → Kashmiri)
Baseline Terms Reused Without Change
| Term | Kashmiri | Transliteration | Risk | Doctrine | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| God | خُدا | Khudā | Critical | Deity of Christ / God | [BASELINE REUSE] |
| Jesus | یِسوع | Yisū’ | Critical | Lordship of Christ | [BASELINE REUSE] |
| Lord | خُداوند | Khudāwand | Critical | Lordship of Christ | [BASELINE REUSE] |
| Son of God | خُدایہ ہند پُتر | Khudāya hind putr | Critical | Sonship/Deity of Christ | [BASELINE REUSE] |
| Holy Spirit | پاک روح | pāk rūḥ | Critical | Holy Spirit | [BASELINE REUSE] |
| Father | باپت | bāpath | Critical | Adoption / Deity | [BASELINE REUSE] |
| Incarnation | خُدا منش رُوپ منز آمت | Khudā manūsh rūp manz āmat | Critical | Incarnation | [BASELINE REUSE] |
| Resurrection | مُردٕن پؠٹھ زندٕ تھِیُن | murdan pyeṭh zinda thyun | Critical | Resurrection of Christ | [BASELINE REUSE] |
| Grace | فضل | faz’l | Critical | Grace | [BASELINE REUSE] |
| Faith | ایمان | īmān | High | Faith | [BASELINE REUSE] |
| Righteousness | راستبازی | rāstbāzī | Critical | Salvation | [BASELINE REUSE] |
| Justification | راستباز ٹھہرایہ گیہ | rāstbāz ṭharāyi gyi | Critical | Salvation | [BASELINE REUSE] |
| Salvation | نجات | najāt | Critical | Salvation | [BASELINE REUSE] |
| Sin | گناہ | gunāh | High | Universal Human Accountability | [BASELINE REUSE] |
| Glory | جلال | jalāl | High | Deity of Christ | [BASELINE REUSE] |
| Holy | پاک | pāk | High | Sanctification | [BASELINE REUSE] |
| Sanctification | پاکیزگی | pākīzagī | High | Sanctification | [BASELINE REUSE] |
| Adoption | خدا ہند فرزند بنٲوُن | Khudā hind farzand banāwun | High | Adoption | [BASELINE REUSE] |
| Peace | امن | amn | Medium | Peace with God | [BASELINE REUSE] |
| Kingdom of God | خُدایُک بادشاہت | Khudāyuk bādshāhat | Medium | Kingdom Mission | [BASELINE REUSE] |
| Messiah | مسیح | Masīḥ | Critical | Messianic Promise | [BASELINE REUSE] |
| Israel | اسرائیل | Isrā’īl | Medium | Covenant | [BASELINE REUSE] |
| Election | خُدایُک چُنٲوُن | Khudāyuk chunāwun | High | Effectual Calling | [BASELINE REUSE] |
| Apostle | رسول | rasūl | Critical | Apostleship | [BASELINE REUSE] |
| Church | کلیسیا | kalīsiyā | Medium | Church as God’s People | [BASELINE REUSE] |
New Terms Required for John
| Term | Category | Risk | Original (Greek) | Transliteration | Definition | Kashmiri Term | Translation Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Word / Logos | Christology | Critical | λόγος | logos | The eternal, personal, divine Word who was with God, was God, and became flesh (John 1:1, 14) | کلام | kalām risks direct conflation with the Islamic theological category of Kalām Allāh (debated eternal/created divine Speech, identified with the Quran); must be explicitly distinguished — John’s Logos is a personal divine being who becomes incarnate, which mainstream Islamic theology denies as shirk. |
| Only Begotten | Christology | Critical | μονογενής | monogenēs | Christ’s utterly unique, unshared Sonship (John 1:14, 1:18, 3:16, 3:18) | خُدایہ ہند یگانہ پُتر | Direct flashpoint with Quran 112 (“He begets not, nor is He begotten”); built on baseline son_of_god term with یگانہ (unique) added; teach eternal uniqueness, not biological begetting. |
| Light | Christology / Revelation | Critical | φῶς | phōs | Divine self-revelation and moral illumination; “I am the light of the world” (1:4-9, 8:12, 9:5, 12:35-36) | نور | Collides with (1) Sufi Nūr-e-Muḥammadī, the belief in Muhammad’s pre-existent primordial light, and (2) Kashmir Shaivism’s Prakāśa, the technical impersonal metaphysical category of self-luminous consciousness. Both must be named and distinguished explicitly; no viable alternative word exists. |
| Darkness | Revelation | Medium | σκοτία / σκότος | skotia / skotos | Moral and spiritual rebellion/blindness, not mere physical absence of light (1:5, 3:19) | تٲریکی | Lower risk than “light” itself; must be read as culpable rebellion, not neutral ignorance. |
| New Birth / Born Again(-from-Above) | Salvation | Critical | γεννηθῇ ἄνωθεν | gennēthē anōthen | Spirit-given spiritual regeneration, deliberately ambiguous in Greek between “again” and “from above” (3:3, 3:7) | اُپرٕ پؠٹھ پؠدا تھِیُن / دوبارٕ پؠدا تھِیُن | Both senses must be taught together with an explicit note on the Greek wordplay; no equivalent in Islamic deeds-based soteriology or Trika’s self-recognition (pratyabhijna) framework — ground-up teaching required, as with baseline’s “justification.” |
| Eternal Life | Salvation / Eschatology | Critical | ζωὴ αἰώνιος | zōē aiōnios | Present-possessed, God-given divine life received through faith (3:15-16, 3:36, 5:24, 17:3) | ہمیشہ ہنٛز زندگی | Must be taught as a present possession by faith, not a future deeds-earned reward (Islamic paradise-entry) nor an epistemic self-recognition of one’s own eternal nature (Trika). |
| World | Cosmology / Missiology | High | κόσμος | kosmos | (1) the created universe, (2) humanity as the object of God’s love, (3) the organized system in rebellion against God, personified with its own “ruler” (3:16-17, 7:7, 12:31, 16:33) | دُنیا | One word covers three distinct senses; context must disambiguate. Do not let “the world” always sound uniformly hostile, which would undercut 3:16’s point that God loves precisely this world. |
| Believe (verb) | Faith | Critical | πιστεύω (εἰς) | pisteuō (eis) | Personal, relational trust directed at Jesus specifically, the Gospel’s central recurring verb (3:12-18, 20:31 and throughout) | ایمان آنُن | Built on baseline noun ایمان; object must always be made explicit (trust IN Jesus), not left as generic confessional assent to a system. |
| Truth | Revelation / Christology | Critical | ἀλήθεια | alētheia | Ultimate reality as it is, personified in Christ himself (14:6) and the Spirit (14:17); something one “does” (3:21) | حق | حق/al-Ḥaqq is a traditional divine attribute-name in Islamic theology (impersonal); John’s claim that a specific person IS the truth (14:6) must be distinguished explicitly, especially at first major use (3:21) and decisively at 14:6. |
| Love (agapē) | Theology Proper / Ethics | High | ἀγάπη / ἀγαπάω | agapē / agapaō | God’s self-giving, prior, sacrificial love toward a hostile world (3:16); the new command to love one another (13:34) | محبت | Must be distinguished from عشق (Sufi mystical love, soul’s ascent toward God); John 3:16 reverses the direction — God’s love descends toward a still-hostile world. |
| I Am (Ego Eimi) | Christology | Critical | ἐγώ εἰμι | egō eimi | Christ’s seven predicate self-revelations (bread, light, door, shepherd, resurrection/life, way/truth/life, vine) plus absolute divine-name-echoing uses (8:58, 18:5-6) | بہٕ چھُس | Every occurrence needs a standing translator’s note distinguishing the seven metaphorical predicate statements from the absolute uses that most directly echo Exodus 3:14’s divine self-naming; render identically across all occurrences for cross-document consistency. |
| Wrath of God | Theology Proper | Critical | ὀργή (τοῦ θεοῦ) | orgē (tou theou) | God’s settled, righteous, judicial opposition to sin, presently remaining on unbelief (3:36) | خُدایُک قہر | Genuine point of contact with Islamic qahr/wrath theology, but Islam has no substitutionary resolution; must be read together with 3:14/3:16’s atonement solution and with baseline’s sin/universal_human_accountability entries for Trika-shaped readers. |
| Flesh | Anthropology | High | σάρξ | sarx | Physical human nature, and (theologically) unaided, self-reliant human capability contrasted with the Spirit (3:6, 6:53-56) | جسم / بشری طاقت | Distinguish ordinary biological sense from the theological sense of merely human effort/capacity, whether deeds-based piety or ascetic self-discipline, which cannot produce the new birth. |
| Spirit/Wind Wordplay | Pneumatology | High | πνεῦμα | pneuma | Single Greek word spanning both “wind” and “Spirit,” used deliberately in 3:8 to teach the Spirit’s sovereign, uncontrollable work | ہوا (wind) / روح (within پاک روح) | Kashmiri likely lacks one word for both senses; requires an explicit translator’s note rather than relying on lexical accident to carry the wordplay. |
| Judgment / Condemn | Eschatology / Soteriology | High | κρίσις / κρίνω / κατακρίνω | krisis / krinō / katakrinō | The verdict of condemnation contrasted with justification; God’s primary purpose is saving, not condemning (3:17-19, 5:29, 16:8) | عدالت (judgment) / گنہگار ٹھہراونہ (condemn) | Condemn constructed in deliberate parallel to baseline’s راستباز ٹھہرایہ گیہ (justification) so the two appear as structural opposites in Kashmiri, as in Greek. |
| Perish | Soteriology | Medium | ἀπόλλυμι | apollymi | Ruinous, final loss/separation from God, not annihilation in a philosophical sense (3:16) | ہلاک تھِیُن | Reasonably well-attested via Quranic-narrative halāk vocabulary; teach as the negative pole of eternal life, not merely a this-worldly ruin. |
| Sign | Christology / Revelation | Medium | σημεῖον | sēmeion | A miracle that points beyond itself to Jesus’s identity (2:11, 3:2, and throughout) | نِشانی | Distinguish from کرامت (karāmat), the Sufi wali’s miraculous charism in the Rishi tradition; John’s signs point to Christ’s unique identity, not to a saint’s holiness. |
| Witness / Testimony | Revelation / Apologetics | Medium | μαρτυρία / μαρτυρέω | martyria / martyreō | Forensic, evidentiary testimony to facts about Jesus’s identity and mission (3:11, 5:31-39, 21:24) | گواہی | Must not be conflated with شہادت (the Islamic creedal confession formula); this is evidentiary testimony, not a recitation formula. |
| Lamb of God | Christology / Atonement | Critical | ὁ ἀμνὸς τοῦ θεοῦ | ho amnos tou theou | Sacrificial-substitution title drawing on Passover and Isaiah 53 typology (1:29, 1:36, 19:36) | خُدایُک دُنبہٕ | Presupposes largely absent Old Testament sacrificial background; must be taught ground-up, since mainstream Islamic theology has no atonement/substitution framework at all. |
| It Is Finished | Atonement | Critical | τετέλεσται | tetelestai | Christ’s declaration of fully accomplished, completed redemptive work at the cross (19:30) | پُورہ گیہ | Constructed in deliberate grammatical parallel to baseline’s justification phrase; a triumphant declaration, not a cry of defeat; presupposes the historicity of the crucifixion, directly contested by mainstream Sunni reading of Quran 4:157. |
| Equal with God | Christology | Critical | ἴσον ἑαυτὸν ποιῶν τῷ θεῷ | ison heauton poiōn tō theō | Jesus’s direct claim to full deity, correctly understood as such by his hostile hearers (5:18) | خُدا برابر | Must be preserved with full clarity; the original audience’s hostile reaction confirms this was heard as a genuine deity claim, not honorific exaggeration. |
| Unity of Father and Son (“One”) | Christology / Trinity | Critical | ἕν ἐσμεν | hen esmen | Ontological unity of the Father and the Son, “one reality” though two distinct persons (10:30) | اکہ | Anchor doctrine for “Unity of the Father and the Son”; must be distinguished from the derivative, non-ontological unity later asked of believers (17:11, 17:21-22). |
| Blasphemy | Polemics / Christology | High | βλασφημία | blasphēmia | The (false) accusation brought against Jesus’s deity-claims (10:33) | کُفر | کُفر is itself a major live Islamic theological category (unbelief/denial of Tawhid); using it here risks Muslim-background readers concluding the accusation was actually correct unless the curriculum explicitly frames it as false and gives full weight to Jesus’s own defense (10:34-38). |
| Counselor / Paraclete | Pneumatology | Critical | παράκλητος | paraklētos | The Holy Spirit as Helper, Advocate, Comforter, sent by the Father and the Son (14:16, 14:26, 15:26, 16:7) | مددگار (always paired with پاک روح) | Must directly and specifically address the well-known Islamic apologetic argument (via a purported παράκλητος/περικλυτός–Aḥmad connection, cf. Quran 61:6) reading this promise as a prophecy of Muhammad; this is distinct from, and in addition to, the baseline’s general Ruh al-Qudus/Gabriel caution. |
| Abide / Remain | Discipleship | Medium | μένω | menō | Ongoing, vital, relational union with Christ as the source of spiritual fruitfulness (15:4-10) | قایم رہُن | Must convey durable relational union, not mere institutional/geographic continuity; shares a root with μονή (“dwelling place,” 14:2). |
| Friend (vs. Servant/Slave) | Discipleship | Medium | φίλος (vs. δοῦλος) | philos (vs. doulos) | Corporate elevation of all disciples to friend-status based on what Christ has revealed to them (15:14-15) | دوست (vs. غلام) | Point of contact with Abraham as Khalīlullāh (“Friend of God”) and Sufi wali; distinctive Johannine move is extending this corporately to ordinary disciples, not one exceptional figure or elite few. |
| Convict / Expose | Pneumatology / Ethics | Medium | ἐλέγχω | elenchō | Forensic exposure of wrongdoing, by light (3:20) and by the Spirit (16:8) | ظاہر کرُن | Render consistently across both occurrences so the reader connects light’s exposing work with the Spirit’s convicting work. |
| Overcome / Conquer the World | Eschatology | Medium-High | νικάω | nikaō | Christ’s spiritual (not political/military) victory over sin, suffering, and Satan’s dominion (16:33) | فتح کرُن | Risk of importing Islamic historical/military-conquest connotations (e.g., Fatḥ Makkah); must be clarified as victory through suffering, not territorial conquest. |
| Know (relationally) | Epistemology / Salvation | Medium | γινώσκω | ginōskō | Relational, experiential knowledge of the Father and Son, defining eternal life itself (17:3) | پہچانُن | Must be distinguished from Kashmir Shaivism’s jñāna/pratyabhijna, an epistemic self-recognition of one’s own pre-existing divine identity; John 17:3 presupposes two genuinely distinct persons in relationship. |
| Ruler of This World | Cosmology / Spiritual Warfare | Medium | ὁ ἄρχων τοῦ κόσμου τούτου | ho archōn tou kosmou toutou | Satan’s now-defeated authority over the fallen world-system (12:31, 14:30, 16:11) | اِس دُنیایُک حاکم | Reuses κόσμος in its hostile-system sense; should be read together across all three occurrences. |
| Life (psychē, distinct from zōē) | Atonement | High | ψυχή | psychē | Christ’s own natural human life/soul, voluntarily and authoritatively laid down (10:11-18) | جان | Distinct from زندگی (zōē, divine/eternal life); direct textual basis for substitutionary death, affirming both real voluntary human death and Christ’s sovereign authority over it. |
| Eat Flesh / Drink Blood | Atonement / Sacrament | High | φάγητε τὴν σάρκα… πίητε… τὸ αἷμα | phagēte tēn sarka… piēte… to haima | Figurative language for receiving Christ’s atoning death by faith, echoed sacramentally in the Lord’s Supper (6:53-56) | جسم کھِیُن / خون چاناوُن | Requires explicit figurative-language framing; literal blood-consumption carries serious independent cultural/religious prohibition weight in Islamic dietary law (Quran 5:3, 6:145). |
| Son of Man | Christology | Critical | ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου | ho huios tou anthrōpou | Jesus’s characteristic self-designation, echoing Daniel 7:13’s exalted judgment-bearing figure while affirming full humanity (3:13-14, 1:51, 5:27) | مانَوی پُتر | Must carry both the pre-existence/heavenly-origin claim (3:13) and genuine humanity together; do not flatten into a purely honorific human title. |
| Lifted Up / Exalted | Atonement / Christology | Critical | ὑψόω | hypsoō | Deliberately double-sense verb: physically lifted up on the cross and simultaneously exalted/glorified (3:14, 8:28, 12:32-34) | صلیبہٕ پؠٹھ چڑھاونہٕ تہٕ سربلند کرنہٕ | Necessity (δεῖ) of the cross presupposes the historicity of the crucifixion, directly denied by mainstream Sunni reading of Quran 4:157; must be stated plainly. |
| Only Begotten Son + God So Loved | Soteriology (compound anchor verse) | Critical | οὕτως γὰρ ἠγάπησεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν κόσμον, ὥστε τὸν υἱὸν τὸν μονογενῆ ἔδωκεν | houtōs gar ēgapēsen ho theos ton kosmon | John 3:16, the Gospel’s summary verse | خُدا تہٕ چھُ دُنیا سٟتی اَتھ درجہٕ محبت کٔرمُت زِ تِمہٕ پننہٕ یگانہٕ پُترس دِتُک | Must be rendered identically across all documents using this curriculum, per the same cross-document consistency principle the baseline applies to Romans 1:16-17, 8:28, and 10:9-10. |
| My Lord and My God | Christology (anchor verse) | Critical | Ὁ κύριός μου καὶ ὁ θεός μου | ho kyrios mou kai ho theos mou | Thomas’s direct worship-confession of Jesus’s full deity (20:28) | میٚ چھُم خُداوند تہٕ میٚ چھُم خُدا | Must never be softened into a mere astonishment-exclamation; the climactic deity confession of the entire Gospel, reusing both خُداوند and خُدا directly of Jesus. |
| Purpose Statement (Believe and Have Life) | Soteriology (anchor verse) | Critical | ἵνα πιστεύσητε… ζωὴν ἔχητε ἐν τῷ ὀνόματι αὐτοῦ | hina pisteusēte… zōēn echēte en tō onomati autou | The Gospel’s own stated purpose (20:31) | یعنی توہِہٕ ایمان آنِو… تہٕ تِس ہٕنٛدِس نٲوَس منز زندگی حٲصِل کریو | Anchor verse for cross-document consistency; combines Critical “believe” and “eternal life” terms. |
Risk Summary for New John Terms
| Risk Tier | Count | Review Routing |
|---|---|---|
| Critical | 18 | Human theologian (mandatory) |
| High | 8 | Human theologian (mandatory) |
| Medium | 12 | Native speaker review |
| Low / Low-Medium | 3 | Native speaker or automated review |
Notes for Phase 1 Step 2 (Doctrine Risk Registry Extension)
This glossary must be merged into an updated bible_term_registry.json and doctrine_risk_registry.json in the next Phase 1 step, preserving every baseline Romans entry unchanged and adding the “New Terms Required for John” table above as new registry entries, each tagged to its corresponding doctrine from the curriculum parameters: The Deity and Pre-existence of Christ (the Word); The New Birth and Regeneration by the Spirit; Eternal Life through Faith in Christ; God’s Love for the World; Judgment and Belief/Unbelief; The Seven “I Am” Statements; The Holy Spirit as Counselor; Christ’s Substitutionary Death and Resurrection; Unity of the Father and the Son.
Critical Risk Terms
Jesus
Approved rendering: یِسوع
Transliteration: Yisū’
Doctrine: Lordship of Christ
Rejected alternatives: عیسیٰ (the Quranic Arabic/Perso-Arabic form, reserve only for explicit interfaith-dialogue contexts)
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE] یِسوع must be used consistently throughout John; never عیسیٰ, which would suggest the Quranic Isa (whom mainstream Islamic theology denies was crucified or divine) is simply interchangeable with John’s subject.
Lord
Approved rendering: خُداوند
Transliteration: Khudāwand
Doctrine: Lordship of Christ
Rejected alternatives: مالِک (owner/master, reserve for ordinary human authority contexts)
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE] Must convey exclusive, supreme Lordship. JOHN-SPECIFIC: climactic use at 20:28 (‘My Lord and my God!’) is the Gospel’s most explicit deity-confession and must never be softened into astonishment-exclamation.
Son Of God
Approved rendering: خُدایہ ہند پُتر
Transliteration: Khudāya hind putr
Doctrine: Sonship of Christ
Rejected alternatives: نبی (a great prophet, an explicit downgrade and mainstream Islamic reading of Isa’s status, rejected)
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE] Full phrase required; direct Quran 112 flashpoint. JOHN-SPECIFIC: intensified further via μονογενής (see only_begotten), 5:18’s ‘equal with God’, and 10:30’s ‘I and the Father are one’ — all mutually reinforcing within a single book and requiring a coordinated teaching strategy.
Holy Spirit
Approved rendering: پاک روح
Transliteration: pāk rūḥ
Doctrine: Sanctification / Holy Spirit as Counselor
Rejected alternatives: روح القدس (Ruh al-Qudus, an Arabic Quranic phrase mainstream Islamic exegesis commonly identifies with the angel Gabriel, not a divine Person; never use interchangeably without explicit distinction)
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE] Must always be used in full. JOHN-SPECIFIC: additionally named ὁ παράκλητος (the Paraclete, 14:16-17,26; 15:26; 16:7), which triggers a distinct, textually specific regional Islamic apologetic argument (see paraclete entry) beyond the baseline’s generic Ruh al-Qudus/Gabriel caution.
Father
Approved rendering: باپت
Transliteration: bāpath
Doctrine: Adoption into God’s Family / Unity of the Father and the Son
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE] A term requiring care in a Muslim-majority context. JOHN-SPECIFIC: Father-Son unity language (5:19-23, 10:30, 14:9-11, 17:11,21-22) makes باپت load-bearing far beyond Romans’s adoption context; must consistently be read as the eternal, personal First Person of the Trinity, distinct from the unfamiliar-in-Islam idea of God having offspring.
Incarnation
Approved rendering: خُدا منش رُوپ منز آمت
Transliteration: Khudā manūsh rūp manz āmat
Doctrine: Incarnation
Rejected alternatives: اوتار (avatar, a Vaishnava-style deity-descent familiar to some Kashmiri Pandit readers, never use)
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE] JOHN-SPECIFIC: John 1:14 is this clause’s own biblical source text (‘the Word became flesh’); teach explicitly against both mainstream Islamic shirk objection and Trika’s impersonal spanda self-manifestation misreading.
Resurrection
Approved rendering: مُردٕن پؠٹھ زندٕ تھِیُن
Transliteration: murdan pyeṭh zinda thyun
Doctrine: Christ’s Substitutionary Death and Resurrection
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE] Mainstream Sunni interpretation of Quran 4:157 denies the crucifixion occurred. JOHN-SPECIFIC: chapter 20 is the direct historical-narrative payload of this doctrine; also used as a Christological title at 11:25 (‘I am the resurrection and the life’) — an escalation beyond Romans, where resurrection is an event, not Christ’s own predicated identity.
Grace
Approved rendering: فضل
Transliteration: faz’l
Doctrine: Grace
Rejected alternatives: شکتی پات (Shaktipat, the Kashmir Shaivite descent of divine power/grace, never use as a substitute), رحم (mercy in the general Islamic sense, use only as supporting synonym)
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE] JOHN-SPECIFIC: occurs at 1:14,16-17 (‘full of grace and truth… grace upon grace’), paired there with truth/حق — apply both the baseline’s shaktipat/deeds-weighing cautions and the حق caution simultaneously.
Righteousness
Approved rendering: راستبازی
Transliteration: rāstbāzī
Doctrine: Salvation
Rejected alternatives: تقویٰ (piety/God-consciousness, an Islamic virtue achieved through disciplined practice, too works-oriented)
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE] JOHN-SPECIFIC: appears at 16:8-10 as part of the Spirit’s threefold conviction of the world (sin, righteousness, judgment) — must retain forensic sense, not works-oriented piety.
Justification
Approved rendering: راستباز ٹھہرایہ گیہ
Transliteration: rāstbāz ṭharāyi gyi
Doctrine: Salvation
Rejected alternatives: معافی (forgiveness alone, too narrow)
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE] JOHN-SPECIFIC: not itself a distinct John term, but its grammatical pattern (declared-passive compound) is deliberately echoed in this curriculum’s renderings of 19:30 (‘It is finished’, see it_is_finished) and of condemnation-language (see judgment_condemn) to preserve structural parallelism in Kashmiri.
Salvation
Approved rendering: نجات
Transliteration: najāt
Doctrine: Salvation
Rejected alternatives: جنت (paradise as a destination, never a stand-alone gloss), موکش (moksha-style liberation, never use for Kashmir Shaivite readers), پرتیبھِجنا (pratyabhijna, self-recognition of one’s own innate divinity, never use as a substitute)
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE] JOHN-SPECIFIC: 3:17, 4:22, 12:47 use the cognate verb σῴζω; apply the same dual caution now anchored additionally to John’s realized-eschatology emphasis (life possessed now, cf. eternal_life).
Messiah
Approved rendering: مسیح
Transliteration: Masīḥ
Doctrine: Messianic Promise
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE] JOHN-SPECIFIC: 1:41, 4:25-26, 11:27, 20:31 all use this term; John’s Gospel is explicitly structured (20:31) around proving Jesus is this Messiah — shared Quranic vocabulary (al-Masih) must not be mistaken for shared content.
Apostle
Approved rendering: رسول
Transliteration: rasūl
Doctrine: Apostleship
Rejected alternatives: پیغمبر (prophet, a distinct office, avoid conflating)
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE] JOHN-SPECIFIC: John rarely uses the noun but repeatedly uses the verbal root ἀποστέλλω for the Father sending the Son; keep رسول reserved for the human apostolic office, distinct from Muhammad’s Rasūlullāh title.
Word Logos
Approved rendering: کلام
Transliteration: kalām
Doctrine: The Deity and Pre-existence of Christ (the Word)
Rejected alternatives: a coined neologism avoiding کلام entirely (rejected: would be unrecognizable to Kashmiri readers and would still require identical explanatory scaffolding, at the added cost of unfamiliarity)
NEW TERM. کلام directly collides with Islamic scholastic theology’s Kalām Allāh, a centuries-debated eternal/created divine-Speech category identified with the Quran (ʿIlm al-Kalām) — strikingly parallel in shape to John’s claim that the Logos ‘was with God and was God,’ yet opposite in content: John’s Logos is a personal, distinct divine Person who becomes incarnate (1:14), which mainstream Islamic theology denies as shirk. Must be taught into this collision explicitly at first use (1:1), exactly as the baseline models for grace, gospel, and messiah.
Only Begotten
Approved rendering: خُدایہ ہند یگانہ پُتر
Transliteration: Khudāya hind yagāna putr
Doctrine: Sonship of Christ and Equality with God
Rejected alternatives: plain خُدایہ ہند پُتر without یگانہ (rejected: loses the emphasis on Christ’s unshared, unique Sonship that μονογενής specifically carries)
NEW TERM, built on baseline son_of_god with یگانہ (‘unique/only’) added. Direct flashpoint with Quran 112 (‘He begets not, nor is He begotten’); occurs at 1:14, 1:18, 3:16, 3:18. Teach as naming eternal, unshared uniqueness within the Godhead, not a biological begetting claim, without softening the doctrine to avoid the objection.
Light
Approved rendering: نور
Transliteration: nūr
Doctrine: Light and Darkness / Spiritual Revelation
NEW TERM. No viable alternative word exists. نور carries very heavy pre-existing theological freight along two separate lines that must both be addressed directly at first occurrence (1:4-9): (1) Nūr-e-Muḥammadī, the widely held Rishi Sufi belief that Muhammad’s spiritual essence was created first as a primordial light; (2) Kashmir Shaivism’s Prakāśa, a technical, impersonal metaphysical category for the self-luminous nature of Shiva-consciousness itself. Neither association is inherently hostile, but both must be named and distinguished so the doctrinal weight is carried by explanatory framing, not the word alone.
New Birth
Approved rendering: اُپرٕ پؠٹھ پؠدا تھِیُن / دوبارٕ پؠدا تھِیُن
Transliteration: upar pyeth paida thiyun / dobārah paida thiyun
Doctrine: The New Birth and Regeneration by the Spirit
Rejected alternatives: a single Kashmiri word resolving only one sense of ἄνωθεν (rejected: Greek’s deliberate ‘again’/‘from above’ double sense would be lost entirely)
NEW TERM, the doctrinal anchor of this doctrine. Both compounds must be taught together with an explicit translator’s note on the Greek wordplay (3:3, 3:7) since Kashmiri lacks a single word carrying both senses. No ready equivalent exists in mainstream Islamic soteriology (deeds/submission only, no regeneration category) or Kashmir Shaivism (pratyabhijna, self-recognition of already-present divinity, not a birth given from outside); requires ground-up teaching exactly as the baseline models for justification.
Eternal Life
Approved rendering: ہمیشہ ہنٛز زندگی
Transliteration: hamesha hanz zindagī
Doctrine: Eternal Life through Faith in Christ
NEW TERM, doctrinal anchor of this doctrine. Must be taught explicitly as a present possession by faith (3:15-16, 3:36, 5:24, 6:47, 10:28, 11:25-26, 17:3, 20:31 — John’s realized eschatology), not a future deeds-earned reward (mainstream Islamic paradise-entry weighed against deeds) nor an epistemic self-recognition of one’s own already-eternal nature (Kashmir Shaivite pratyabhijna). Distinguish from جان (life_psyche, ordinary human life/soul).
Believe
Approved rendering: تِہٕ سٟتی ایمان آنُن
Transliteration: tihi sāti īmān ānun
Doctrine: Eternal Life through Faith in Christ
Rejected alternatives: bare ایمان آنُن without an explicit object (rejected: defaults toward the baseline’s already-flagged generic-confessional-assent-to-a-system sense rather than personal trust in Jesus specifically)
NEW TERM, built on baseline noun ایمان; John’s central recurring verb (3:12-18, throughout, 20:31). The object must always be made explicit — trust IN Jesus — never left implicit, sharpening the same caution the baseline already raised generally for ایمان.
Truth
Approved rendering: حق
Transliteration: ḥaqq
Doctrine: Judgment and Belief/Unbelief (and Deity of Christ via 14:6)
NEW TERM. حق/al-Ḥaqq is a traditional divine attribute-name in Islamic theology (impersonal reality-attribute of Allah, one of the ninety-nine names). John’s claim that a specific historical person personally IS the truth (14:6) must be distinguished explicitly from that impersonal-attribute sense, especially at first major theological use (3:21) and decisively at 14:6.
I Am
Approved rendering: بہٕ چھُس
Transliteration: buh chhus
Doctrine: The Seven “I Am” Statements
Rejected alternatives: stylistic variation across occurrences (rejected: cross-document doctrinal consistency requires identical rendering every time, per the baseline’s own precedent for Romans 1:16-17, 8:28, 10:9-10)
NEW TERM. Used for all seven metaphorical predicate statements (6:35 bread of life; 8:12 light of the world; 10:7 the door; 10:11 the good shepherd; 11:25 the resurrection and the life; 14:6 the way/truth/life; 15:1 the true vine) AND the absolute divine-name-echoing uses (8:58, 13:19, 18:5-6), echoing the Septuagint’s ἐγώ εἰμι ὁ ὤν (Exodus 3:14). Every occurrence requires a standing translator’s note distinguishing the two categories; must never be diluted into an ordinary temporal-priority claim at 8:58 or 18:5-6.
Wrath Of God
Approved rendering: خُدایُک قہر
Transliteration: Khudāyuk qahr
Doctrine: Judgment and Belief/Unbelief
NEW TERM. قہر is a genuine point of contact with live Islamic wrath-of-God theology (Quranic theology also affirms real divine anger at sin), but Islamic theology has no substitutionary-atonement resolution to that wrath. Must be read together with 3:14’s atonement and 3:16’s love as one coherent solution; for Trika-shaped readers requires the more basic point that a real, personal, offended God distinct from the self is presupposed (John 3:36).
Lamb Of God
Approved rendering: خُدایُک دُنبہٕ
Transliteration: Khudāyuk dumba
Doctrine: Christ’s Substitutionary Death and Resurrection
NEW TERM. Draws on Passover (Exodus 12) and Isaiah 53 suffering-servant typology (1:29, 1:36, 19:36). Presupposes an Old Testament sacrificial-substitution background almost entirely absent from Kashmiri readers regardless of tradition; mainstream Islamic theology has no atonement/substitution framework at all (sin addressed through repentance and deeds weighed against mercy directly), requiring ground-up explanation exactly as the baseline models for justification and imputed_righteousness.
It Is Finished
Approved rendering: پُورہ گیہ
Transliteration: pūrah gyi
Doctrine: Christ’s Substitutionary Death and Resurrection
Rejected alternatives: a rendering closer to ‘it has stopped/ended’ or sounding like exhaustion or defeat (rejected: must read as a triumphant declaration of fully accomplished, completed redemptive work)
NEW TERM, constructed in deliberate grammatical parallel to the baseline’s راستباز ٹھہرایہ گیہ so Kashmiri readers recognize the same pattern marking a decisive, completed divine act (19:30). Presupposes the historicity of the crucifixion, directly denied by mainstream Sunni interpretation of Quran 4:157 — if the crucifixion did not occur, this statement has no referent at all.
Equal With God
Approved rendering: خُدا برابر
Transliteration: Khudā barābar
Doctrine: Sonship of Christ and Equality with God
Rejected alternatives: a softened rendering implying honorific exaggeration only (rejected: the Jewish leaders’ own hostile reaction at 5:18 confirms they understood it correctly as a full deity claim)
NEW TERM. Among the most direct deity-of-Christ claims in the entire Gospel (5:18, ‘making himself equal with God… seeking all the more to kill him’). Must be preserved with equal clarity in Kashmiri and taught directly against the Tawhid objection.
Unity Father Son
Approved rendering: اکہ
Transliteration: akh
Doctrine: Unity of the Father and the Son
Rejected alternatives: framing as ‘two beings in agreement’ (rejected: would itself be misread as a form of polytheism against Tawhid; the correct doctrinal frame is one Being, two Persons)
NEW TERM, doctrinal anchor for this doctrine (10:30, ‘I and the Father are one’). Provokes the crowd’s blasphemy charge (10:33, see blasphemy entry) precisely because it was understood correctly as a full deity claim. Must be distinguished from the derivative, non-ontological relational unity later asked of believers (17:11, 17:21-22) — not the same kind of unity.
Paraclete
Approved rendering: پاک روح، مددگار
Transliteration: pāk rūḥ, madadgār
Doctrine: The Holy Spirit as Counselor
Rejected alternatives: مددگار standing alone without پاک روح in apposition (rejected: loses the identification with the divine Person and weakens the required response to the Aḥmad/Muhammad apologetic reading)
NEW TERM, the doctrinal anchor of this doctrine (14:16-17, 14:26, 15:26, 16:7). Must directly and specifically rebut the well-documented regional Islamic apologetic argument, drawing on a purported παράκλητος/περικλυτός (‘renowned one,’ rendered Aḥmad) confusion tied to Quran 61:6, which reads this promise as a prophecy of Muhammad rather than the Holy Spirit. This is distinct from, and required in addition to, the baseline’s general Ruh al-Qudus/Gabriel caution, since 14:26 explicitly identifies the Paraclete as πνεῦμα ἅγιον.
Son Of Man
Approved rendering: مانَوی پُتر
Transliteration: mānawī putr
Doctrine: The Deity and Pre-existence of Christ (the Word)
NEW TERM. Jesus’s characteristic self-designation, echoing Daniel 7:13’s exalted judgment-bearing figure while affirming full humanity (1:51, 3:13-14, 5:27, 6:27, 12:23, 12:34). Must carry both the pre-existence/heavenly-origin claim (3:13, ‘has ascended into heaven… who descended from heaven’) and genuine humanity together; do not flatten into a purely honorific human title, and do not let Trika-shaped readers reinterpret the descent as impersonal spanda self-manifestation rather than the eternal Son’s unique, personal descent.
Lifted Up Exalted
Approved rendering: صلیبہٕ پؠٹھ چڑھاونہٕ تہٕ سربلند کرنہٕ
Transliteration: ṣalība pyeṭh chaṛhāwunu tuh sarbuland karnu
Doctrine: Christ’s Substitutionary Death and Resurrection
Rejected alternatives: a single verb attempting to carry both the literal-lifting and honorific-exalting senses at once (rejected: no Kashmiri verb naturally carries both simultaneously as the Greek ὑψόω does; both halves must be stated explicitly)
NEW TERM. Deliberately double-sense across 3:14, 8:28, 12:32-34: physically lifted up on the cross and simultaneously exalted/glorified. The necessity (δεῖ) of the cross at 3:14 presupposes the historicity of the crucifixion, directly denied by mainstream Sunni interpretation of Quran 4:157 (‘it was made to appear so to them’); must be stated as plainly as the baseline requires for the resurrection, given the identical historical stakes. This is the core passage’s (John 3:1-21) single highest-stakes term.
John 3 16 Anchor
Approved rendering: خُدا تہٕ چھُ دُنیا سٟتی اَتھ درجہٕ محبت کٔرمُت زِ تِمہٕ پننہٕ یگانہٕ پُترس دِتُک
Transliteration: compound anchor verse — John 3:16
Doctrine: God’s Love for the World / Eternal Life through Faith in Christ
Rejected alternatives: any paraphrase varying between documents (rejected: this is a cross-document consistency anchor verse and must be rendered identically everywhere it is quoted, per the same principle the baseline applies to Romans 1:16-17, 8:28, 10:9-10)
NEW ANCHOR TERM. Combines love_agape, world, only_begotten, believe, perish, and eternal_life in a single verse — the Gospel’s summary statement. Must be rendered identically across every document using this curriculum.
My Lord And My God Anchor
Approved rendering: میٚ چھُم خُداوند تہٕ میٚ چھُم خُدا
Transliteration: compound anchor verse — John 20:28
Doctrine: Sonship of Christ and Equality with God
Rejected alternatives: rendering as an astonishment-exclamation rather than a direct worship-confession (rejected: this is the Gospel’s climactic deity confession and must never be softened)
NEW ANCHOR TERM. Thomas’s direct worship-confession of Jesus’s full deity, reusing both خُداوند and خُدا directly and personally applied to Jesus by name — the fulfillment of every deity_of_christ and sonship_of_christ caution documented across this curriculum and the baseline.
Purpose Statement 20 31 Anchor
Approved rendering: یعنی توہِہٕ ایمان آنِو… تہٕ تِس ہٕنٛدِس نٲوَس منز زندگی حٲصِل کریو
Transliteration: compound anchor verse — John 20:31
Doctrine: Eternal Life through Faith in Christ
NEW ANCHOR TERM. The Gospel’s own stated purpose: written that readers may believe and, believing, have life in Jesus’s name. Combines believe and eternal_life, John’s two most central recurring theological terms; treated as a summary anchor-verse for cross-document consistency, on the same level as Romans 1:16-17, 8:28, 10:9-10.
High Risk Terms
God
Approved rendering: خُدا
Transliteration: Khudā
Doctrine: Deity of Christ / God
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE] خُدا is the universal term for God across both Muslim and Christian Kashmiri speakers. JOHN-SPECIFIC INTENSIFICATION: John applies this term directly and repeatedly to Jesus himself (1:1 ‘the Word was God’, 5:18, 10:33-36, 20:28), a far sharper and more sustained Tawhid flashpoint than anything in Romans; each such application must be flagged for theologian review even though the base term itself carries the baseline’s own High tier.
Faith
Approved rendering: ایمان
Transliteration: īmān
Doctrine: Faith
Rejected alternatives: یقین (certainty/conviction, too intellectual/impersonal alone)
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE] Object of faith must be made explicit. JOHN-SPECIFIC: John overwhelmingly prefers the verb πιστεύω (see believe entry below), which must always carry an explicit object (Jesus), sharpening this same caution.
Sin
Approved rendering: گناہ
Transliteration: gunāh
Doctrine: Universal Human Accountability
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE] JOHN-SPECIFIC: 9:2-3 corrects a direct suffering-equals-personal-sin equation (relevant against any karma-adjacent inference a Trika-shaped reader might supply); 16:8-9 makes unbelief in Christ itself the specific sin the Spirit convicts the world of.
Glory
Approved rendering: جلال
Transliteration: jalāl
Doctrine: Deity of Christ
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE] JOHN-SPECIFIC: anchored to Christ’s pre-existent glory (17:5, ‘the glory I had with you before the world existed’) and to the cross as the moment of glorification (12:23, 13:31) — must be read as Christ’s own self-existent glory, not a detachable divine attribute.
Holy
Approved rendering: پاک
Transliteration: pāk
Doctrine: Sanctification
Rejected alternatives: صاف (physically clean, ritual-ablution sense, avoid as a substitute)
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE] JOHN-SPECIFIC: applied directly to Christ’s own person at 6:69 (‘the Holy One of God’), reinforcing Deity of Christ beyond Romans’s more general sanctification usage.
Sanctification
Approved rendering: پاکیزگی
Transliteration: pākīzagī
Doctrine: Sanctification
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE] JOHN-SPECIFIC: 17:17-19 (‘sanctify them in the truth… I sanctify myself’) pairs this term directly with truth/حق; distinct from ritual ablution (wuzu) and Trika self-purification disciplines.
Adoption
Approved rendering: خدا ہند فرزند بنٲوُن
Transliteration: Khudā hind farzand banāwun
Doctrine: Adoption into God’s Family
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE] JOHN-SPECIFIC: John’s own preferred phrase is τέκνα θεοῦ, ‘children of God’ (1:12); runs against Islamic law’s narrow, guardianship-only (kafala) adoption model and must be taught explicitly.
Election
Approved rendering: خُدایُک چُنٲوُن
Transliteration: Khudāyuk chunāwun
Doctrine: Effectual Calling
Rejected alternatives: قسمت (fate, tied to taqdir, use with caution)
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE] JOHN-SPECIFIC: 6:37,6:44,6:65, 15:16,15:19 (‘I chose you’) all use this concept; must be read alongside this term, not قسمت (fate/taqdir).
Law
Approved rendering: شریعت
Transliteration: sharī’at
Doctrine: Fulfillment of Prophecy
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE] JOHN-SPECIFIC: John repeatedly references ‘the Law of Moses’ (1:17, 1:45, 7:19,7:23, 8:5,8:17, 10:34); distinguish the Mosaic Law’s specific redemptive-historical role from a comprehensive Sharia-style life-code.
World
Approved rendering: دُنیا
Transliteration: duniyā
Doctrine: God’s Love for the World
NEW TERM. One word covers at least three distinct Johannine senses: (1) the created universe (1:10a), (2) humanity as the object of God’s love (3:16-17), (3) the organized system in active rebellion against God, personified with its own ‘ruler’ (12:31, 14:30, 16:11). Context must disambiguate; do not let ‘the world’ always sound uniformly hostile, which would undercut 3:16’s point that God loves precisely this rebellious world.
Love Agape
Approved rendering: محبت
Transliteration: muhabbat
Doctrine: God’s Love for the World
Rejected alternatives: عشق (Sufi mystical love, rejected as primary term — describes the soul’s yearning ascent toward union with the Divine in Rishi devotional poetry, e.g. Lal Ded, Nund Rishi, and reverses the direction of God’s own initiative in John 3:16)
NEW TERM. John 3:16 describes God’s own prior, unearned initiative descending toward a hostile world; must be taught explicitly against عشق’s opposite direction (soul ascending toward God), not assumed to transfer automatically through the shared category of ‘love.’ Also used of the new command to love one another (13:34-35).
Flesh
Approved rendering: جسم / بشری طاقت
Transliteration: jism / bashrī tāqat
Doctrine: The New Birth and Regeneration by the Spirit
NEW TERM. Distinguish the ordinary biological sense (جسم) from the theological sense of merely human effort/capacity (بشری طاقت), whether deeds-based piety or ascetic self-discipline, which cannot itself produce the new birth (3:6). Also relevant to 6:53-56 (eat flesh/drink blood) and the incarnation (1:14, ‘the Word became flesh’).
Spirit Wind Wordplay
Approved rendering: ہوا / روح
Transliteration: hawā / rūḥ
Doctrine: The New Birth and Regeneration by the Spirit
Rejected alternatives: relying on lexical accident to preserve the wordplay without a note (rejected: Kashmiri, unlike Greek/Hebrew, does not appear to share one word spanning both wind and Spirit senses)
NEW TERM. John 3:8 exploits πνεῦμα’s double sense (wind/Spirit) to teach the Spirit’s sovereign, uncontrollable work. Kashmiri requires two separate words (ہوا for wind, روح within پاک روح for Spirit); an explicit translator’s note is required or the central illustrative image of this doctrine is lost.
Judgment Condemn
Approved rendering: عدالت کرنہٕ / گنہگار ٹھہراونہ
Transliteration: adālat karnu / gunahgār ṭharāwunu
Doctrine: Judgment and Belief/Unbelief
Rejected alternatives: a softened rendering closer to mere disapproval (rejected: 3:17’s rhetorical point depends on the condemnatory force being real and strong as precisely what is NOT God’s primary intent)
NEW TERM. گنہگار ٹھہراونہ is deliberately constructed as the grammatical mirror-opposite of the baseline’s راستباز ٹھہرایہ گیہ (justification, ‘declared righteous’), so condemnation and justification appear as structural opposites in Kashmiri, as in Greek (3:17-19, 5:29, 16:8-11).
Blasphemy
Approved rendering: کُفر
Transliteration: kufr
Doctrine: Unity of the Father and the Son / Sonship of Christ
NEW TERM. کُفر is itself a major, live Islamic theological category (unbelief/blasphemous denial of Tawhid, the direct opposite of īmān). Using it to translate the crowd’s (false) accusation against Jesus (10:33) risks Muslim-background readers concluding the accusation was actually correct unless the surrounding curriculum explicitly frames it as a false charge and gives full weight to Jesus’s own defense (10:34-38, appealing to Psalm 82).
Life Psyche
Approved rendering: جان
Transliteration: jān
Doctrine: Christ’s Substitutionary Death and Resurrection
NEW TERM. Distinct from زندگی (zōē, divine/eternal life). Christ’s own natural human life/soul, voluntarily and authoritatively laid down (10:11, 10:15, 10:17-18, ‘no one takes it from me… I have authority’); affirms both a real, voluntary human death (against the Quran 4:157 denial) and Christ’s sovereign divine authority over that death simultaneously.
Eat Flesh Drink Blood
Approved rendering: جسم کھِیُن / خون چاناوُن
Transliteration: jism khyun / khūn chānāwun
Doctrine: Christ’s Substitutionary Death and Resurrection (supporting — sacramental)
Rejected alternatives: leaving the language unexplained as apparently literal instruction (rejected: risks an immediate, reflexive cultural rejection under Islamic dietary law before any doctrinal content is engaged)
NEW TERM. Figurative language for receiving Christ’s atoning death by faith, later echoed sacramentally in the Lord’s Supper (6:53-56). Requires explicit figurative-language framing sequenced BEFORE the passage is taught, given the serious, independent cultural/religious prohibition on blood consumption in Islamic dietary law (Quran 5:3, 6:145).
Living Water
Approved rendering: زندٕ پانہٕ
Transliteration: zandi pāni
Doctrine: The Holy Spirit as Counselor (supporting — pneumatology)
NEW TERM. Flowing, life-giving water metaphor for the Spirit’s satisfaction of the soul (4:10-14), distinct from any merely religious or ritual source of refreshment. Must be explicitly cross-referenced with John’s own gloss at 7:37-39 identifying it as the Holy Spirit, not left as a detachable generic-refreshment image.
Worship Spirit Truth
Approved rendering: پاک روح تہٕ حقہ منز عبادت کرنہ
Transliteration: pāk rūḥ tuh ḥaqqa manz ‘ibādat karnu
Doctrine: supporting — True Worship
NEW TERM. عبادت is the unavoidable and appropriate base word for worship, already central to daily Islamic devotional vocabulary. This verse’s specific point (4:23-24, worship no longer bound to a particular sacred site) requires care given how central sacred-place devotion (mosque, dargah/shrine, temple) is across both destination communities; reuses پاک روح and حق.
Water And Spirit
Approved rendering: آب تہٕ پاک روح
Transliteration: āb tuh pāk rūḥ
Doctrine: The New Birth and Regeneration by the Spirit
Rejected alternatives: teaching water alone as sufficient for the new birth (rejected: risks a wuzu/ritual-ablution misreading in which ritual washing itself accomplishes what only the Spirit accomplishes)
NEW TERM. The dual instrumentality of water and Spirit in the new birth (3:5) is one of the core passage’s highest-risk clauses. Must not be taught as if ritual ablution before Islamic prayer accomplishes regeneration; always pair آب with پاک روح so water is never presented as sufficient alone.
Medium Risk Terms
Peace
Approved rendering: امن
Transliteration: amn
Doctrine: Peace with God
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE] JOHN-SPECIFIC: 14:27’s ‘Peace I leave with you… not as the world gives’ must be handled with the region’s conflict-history sensitivity already flagged in the baseline, while stressing this peace is Christ’s own uniquely given peace.
Kingdom Of God
Approved rendering: خُدایُک بادشاہت
Transliteration: Khudāyuk bādshāhat
Doctrine: Kingdom Mission
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE] JOHN-SPECIFIC: 3:3,3:5 (must be born again to see/enter it) and 18:36 (‘my kingdom is not of this world’) both require the non-territorial framing the baseline mandates, with special added sensitivity given Kashmir’s contested-sovereignty history.
Israel
Approved rendering: اسرائیل
Transliteration: Isrā’īl
Doctrine: Unity of Jews and Gentiles
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE] JOHN-SPECIFIC: 1:31,1:49, 3:10 (‘the teacher of Israel’) use the covenant-historical sense; keep unambiguous versus the modern nation-state.
Church
Approved rendering: کلیسیا
Transliteration: kalīsiyā
Doctrine: Church as God’s People
Rejected alternatives: مسجد (mosque, never use), مندر (temple, never use)
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE] JOHN-SPECIFIC: John’s own preferred images are the flock (10:1-16) and the vine (15:1-8), not this noun directly; kept for cross-document consistency and must remain distinct from مسجد and مندر.
Prophet
Approved rendering: پیغمبر
Transliteration: paighambar
Doctrine: Inspiration of Scripture
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE] JOHN-SPECIFIC: care that readers do not assume Old Testament prophets fit a Quranic prophetology (each superseding the last with a new revealed book) rather than a unified, progressively unfolding covenant history culminating in Christ (cf. fulfillment_of_prophecy_in_john).
Prophecy
Approved rendering: پیشن گوئی
Transliteration: pēshan go’ī
Doctrine: Fulfillment of Prophecy
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE] JOHN-SPECIFIC: relevant at 1:23, 1:45, 12:14-16, 12:38-40, 19:24, 19:36-37 — requires linear, historical fulfillment framing, not the Quranic prophetology model.
Covenant
Approved rendering: عہد
Transliteration: ‘ahd
Doctrine: Davidic Covenant
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE] JOHN-SPECIFIC: background category for the Davidic and Mosaic covenant material John presupposes; not itself heavily thematized as a standalone term in John but necessary background vocabulary.
Mission
Approved rendering: انجیلہ ہنٛز منادی
Transliteration: Injīla hanz munādī
Doctrine: Mission to the Nations
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE] JOHN-SPECIFIC: relevant to the Father-sends-the-Son / Son-sends-the-apostles pattern (20:21); frame as gentle proclamation and witness, not confrontation, given regional sensitivity.
Gentiles
Approved rendering: غیر-قوم
Transliteration: ghair-qaum
Doctrine: Unity of Jews and Gentiles
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE] JOHN-SPECIFIC: loosely relevant to 12:20’s ‘Greeks’ who seek Jesus and to the universal-scope-of-the-gospel theme John shares with Romans; less thematically central in John than in Romans but retained for cross-document consistency.
Darkness
Approved rendering: تٲریکی
Transliteration: tārikī
Doctrine: Light and Darkness / Judgment and Belief/Unbelief
NEW TERM. Lower risk than light itself since no rival technical term claims تٲریکی in either destination tradition; must still be read as culpable moral/spiritual rebellion (3:19), not neutral ignorance.
Perish
Approved rendering: ہلاک تھِیُن
Transliteration: halāk thiyun
Doctrine: Eternal Life through Faith in Christ
NEW TERM. ہلاک is reasonably well-attested via existing Quranic-narrative destroyed-peoples vocabulary. Teach as the negative pole of eternal life (3:16), ruinous final separation from God, not merely a this-worldly ruin or philosophical annihilation.
Sign
Approved rendering: نِشانی
Transliteration: nishānī
Doctrine: Deity and Pre-existence of Christ (evidentiary)
Rejected alternatives: کرامت (a Sufi wali’s miraculous charism in the Rishi tradition, rejected: John’s signs point to Christ’s unique identity, not a saint’s personal holiness)
NEW TERM. Occurs at 2:11, 2:23, 3:2, 4:48, 6:2, 6:14, 12:37, 20:30-31. Must be distinguished from کرامت, already flagged in the baseline’s spiritual_gifts entry for a related risk.
Witness Testimony
Approved rendering: گواہی
Transliteration: gawāhī
Doctrine: Testimony and Witness to Christ
Rejected alternatives: شہادت (the Islamic creedal confession formula, rejected: John’s μαρτυρία is evidentiary testimony to observed facts, not a fixed recitation formula)
NEW TERM. Occurs at 1:7-8, 1:19-34, 3:11, 5:31-39, 8:14-18, 15:26-27, 19:35, 21:24 — the Baptist’s, the Father’s, the works’, the Spirit’s, and the apostles’ witness. Never used interchangeably with شہادت.
Abide Remain
Approved rendering: قایم رہُن
Transliteration: qāyam rahun
Doctrine: Eternal Life through Faith in Christ (supporting — discipleship)
NEW TERM. Must convey ongoing, vital, relational union with Christ as the source of spiritual fruitfulness (15:4-10, ‘apart from me you can do nothing’), not mere geographic or institutional continuity such as continuing to attend کلیسیا. Shares a root sense with μονή, ‘dwelling place’ (14:2).
Friend Vs Servant
Approved rendering: دوست
Transliteration: dost
Doctrine: supporting — Discipleship
NEW TERM. A genuine point of contact with Abraham as Khalīlullāh (‘Friend of God,’ Quran 4:125) and with wali (‘friend/protégé of God’) in Sufi usage; the distinctive Johannine move (15:14-15) is extending friend-status corporately to all ordinary disciples, not one exceptional patriarch or a small mystical elite — parallel to the baseline’s saints-vs-wali distinction.
Servant Slave
Approved rendering: غلام
Transliteration: ghulām
Doctrine: supporting — Discipleship
NEW TERM. Carries a point of contact with Islamic anthropology’s positive self-designation ʿabd Allāh (‘slave/servant of God’); in John 8:34’s specific context (slave TO SIN, a negative condition Christ’s truth liberates from), the sense is negative and must not import that positive ʿabd Allāh association. Contrasted with friend-status at 15:14-15.
Convict Expose
Approved rendering: ظاہر کرنہٕ
Transliteration: ẓāhir karnu
Doctrine: The Holy Spirit as Counselor (supporting)
NEW TERM. Forensic exposure of wrongdoing, by light (3:20) and by the Spirit (16:8). Render consistently across both occurrences so the reader connects light’s exposing work with the Spirit’s convicting work.
Overcome World
Approved rendering: فتح کرُن
Transliteration: fatḥ karun
Doctrine: supporting — Judgment/Assurance
NEW TERM. فتح carries resonance with Islamic historical/military-conquest vocabulary (e.g., Fatḥ Makkah). Must clarify Christ’s ‘overcoming the world’ (16:33) as a spiritual victory achieved through his own suffering and death, not political or territorial conquest, to avoid unintended holy-war connotations.
Know Relationally
Approved rendering: پہچانُن
Transliteration: pahchānun
Doctrine: Eternal Life through Faith in Christ (supporting)
NEW TERM. Must be distinguished from Kashmir Shaivism’s jñāna/pratyabhijna, an epistemic self-recognition of one’s own pre-existing divine identity; John 17:3 (‘this is eternal life, that they may know you’) presupposes two genuinely distinct persons — the believer and the personal God — in relationship, not a self-realization.
Ruler Of This World
Approved rendering: اِس دُنیایُک حاکم
Transliteration: is duniyāyuk ḥākim
Doctrine: supporting — Judgment/Spiritual Warfare
NEW TERM. Reuses کوسموس/دُنیا in its hostile-system sense (12:31, 14:30, 16:11); Satan’s now-defeated authority over the fallen world-system. Read consistently across all three occurrences as one connected motif.
Sabbath
Approved rendering: سبت
Transliteration: sabt
Doctrine: supporting — Fulfillment of Prophecy / narrative background
NEW TERM. Islamic practice centers weekly worship on Friday (Jumuʿah) rather than a Sabbath-rest day, so this term (5:9-18, 9:14) will read as historically/culturally foreign covenant background and should be taught as such, not conflated with Jumuʿah.
Pharisee
Approved rendering: فریسی
Transliteration: Farīsī
Doctrine: supporting — narrative/covenant background
Rejected alternatives: a generic descriptive gloss such as ‘religious scholar/mullah’ (rejected: collapses a specific historical Second-Temple party into a contemporary Islamic clerical category)
NEW TERM, transliterated. Represents Israel’s religious establishment and its inadequacy apart from the Spirit (3:1 and throughout); must be kept as a specific historical proper-party name.
Amen Amen
Approved rendering: بہٕ سچمُچ چھُس تہٕ وننٲن
Transliteration: buh sachmuch chhus tuh wanān
Doctrine: The Seven “I Am” Statements (supporting — revelation formula)
Rejected alternatives: bare transliterated ‘Amen, amen’ without the fuller phrase (rejected: undersells the rhetorical weight of John’s authoritative-pronouncement marker, distinct from the liturgical ‘Amen’ readers already know from prayer contexts)
NEW TERM. A solemn double asseveration unique to John, used 25 times (e.g., 3:3, 3:5, 3:11), marking authoritative revelation. Must retain its weight as an authoritative pronouncement introducing a solemn divine claim; render consistently across all occurrences.
Temple Body
Approved rendering: ہَیکل
Transliteration: haikal
Doctrine: The Deity and Pre-existence of Christ (supporting)
NEW TERM. Jesus reapplies ναός (the inner sanctuary) to his own body (2:19-21, ‘destroy this temple… he was speaking of the temple of his body’); this self-referential move should not be flattened into a purely literal building-reference. A translator’s note is recommended at 2:21.
Hour Appointed Time
Approved rendering: وقت / گھڑی
Transliteration: waqt / ghaṛi
Doctrine: supporting — Providence / Christology
NEW TERM. A recurring Johannine motif marking the divinely appointed, sovereignly timed moment of Jesus’s death and glorification (2:4, 7:6, 7:30, 8:20, 12:23, 12:27, 13:1, 17:1). Should be rendered consistently across all recurrences so readers can track this motif, distinct from ordinary clock-time references.
Devil Father Of Lies
Approved rendering: اِبلیس / شیطان
Transliteration: iblīs / shaitān
Doctrine: supporting — Judgment/Spiritual Warfare
NEW TERM. Well-attested and shared with Islamic vocabulary via the Quran’s Iblis narrative — a genuine point of contact. John’s specific point (8:44, that some people’s actual spiritual paternity is satanic rather than divine) is a strong statement requiring pastoral care in delivery.
Betrayed Handed Over
Approved rendering: حوالہ کرُن
Transliteration: ḥawāla karun
Doctrine: supporting — narrative/Atonement
NEW TERM. Judas’s deliberate, culpable act of handing Jesus over (13:2, 13:21, 18:2, 18:5); must be rendered so the deliberate, culpable act is clear, distinct from a neutral transfer of custody.
King Of The Jews
Approved rendering: یہودیَن ہٕنٛد بادشاہ
Transliteration: Yahūdyan hind bādshāh
Doctrine: supporting — Christology/narrative
NEW TERM. The politically loaded charge and mocking title through the Passion narrative (18:33, 18:39, ch. 19), ironically true. Should be taught with its original irony intact without importing unrelated contemporary political sensitivities around ‘the Jews’ as a category, per the baseline’s israel entry caution.
Breathe New Creation
Approved rendering: پھوٚک دِنہ
Transliteration: phūk dinah
Doctrine: The New Birth and Regeneration by the Spirit (supporting — narrative fulfillment)
NEW TERM. Jesus breathing on the disciples, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit’ (20:22), deliberately echoing Genesis 2:7 and Ezekiel 37 as a new-creation motif. Should be cross-referenced explicitly with the New Birth doctrine (ch. 3) as its narrative fulfillment/enactment.
Persecution
Approved rendering: ظُلم
Transliteration: ẓulm
Doctrine: supporting — Discipleship/World’s Hostility
NEW TERM. ظُلم is an Arabic-derived term already carrying strong moral-injustice weight in Islamic ethical vocabulary — a genuine point of contact, since ẓulm is a serious sin category there as well (15:20).
Low Risk Terms
David
Approved rendering: داؤد
Transliteration: Dā’ūd
Doctrine: Davidic Covenant
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE] JOHN-SPECIFIC: relevant to 7:42’s implicit ‘son of David’ question; the biblical covenant narrative differs from the Quranic Dawud narrative and should be explained rather than assumed shared.
Thanksgiving
Approved rendering: شکر
Transliteration: shukur
Doctrine: Thanksgiving
[INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE] JOHN-SPECIFIC: appears at 6:11, 6:23, 11:41 (Jesus gives thanks before the multiplication of loaves and at Lazarus’s tomb); no significant doctrinal risk.
Rabbi Teacher
Approved rendering: ربی
Transliteration: Rabī
Doctrine: supporting — Christology / narrative
Rejected alternatives: پیر (a Sufi master title carrying devotional/mystical authority foreign to this simple honorific address, rejected)
NEW TERM, transliterated. Honorific address used of Jesus (1:38, 1:49, 3:2, 20:16); a straightforward, low-risk proper-address transliteration.
Bridegroom Friend
Approved rendering: زٲماتر / زٲماترس ہٕنٛد دوست
Transliteration: zāmatur / zāmaturas hind dost
Doctrine: supporting — Testimony/Ecclesiology
NEW TERM. A self-effacing image for John the Baptist’s ministry relative to Christ’s (3:29-30); no significant collision with either destination tradition.
Follow Me
Approved rendering: میٚ پؠٹھٕ چل
Transliteration: myey pyeṭh chal
Doctrine: supporting — Restoration and Pastoral Calling
NEW TERM. Standard discipleship-call language (21:19, 21:22); low doctrinal risk.
Referenced passages