Semantic Analysis

Semantic Analysis: Book of James (Koine Greek → Maithili)

How to Read This Document

Every load-bearing term is analyzed with: Original word (Greek), Transliteration, Literal meaning, Semantic range, English variants (major EN translation choices), Contextual theological meaning (as used in James), and Destination-language rendering risk (Maithili). Where a term already exists in the baseline Romans translation_memory.json, this is marked [BASELINE REUSE — locked] and the recorded rendering is applied without modification, per the hard rule that established terms must be reused exactly. New terms proposed for this curriculum are marked [NEW TERM — James Language Package] and carry full risk reasoning for downstream inclusion in an extended translation memory.

James, more than any other NT book, sits at the fault line between “faith” and “works” — precisely the terrain Mithila’s karma-merit worldview already occupies with total confidence. This document treats that collision as the central interpretive task of the whole curriculum, not an incidental risk among others.

PART 1 — CORE PASSAGE VERSE-BY-VERSE: James 2:14-26

James 2:14

Greek: Τί τὸ ὄφελος, ἀδελφοί μου, ἐὰν πίστιν λέγῃ τις ἔχειν ἔργα δὲ μὴ ἔχῃ; μὴ δύναται ἡ πίστις σῶσαι αὐτόν;

ὄφελος (ophelos) — literal: profit, benefit, use. Semantic range: practical advantage, gain. EN variants: “profit” (KJV), “good” (NIV), “use” (NASB). Contextual meaning: rhetorical question — a faith producing no action yields no saving benefit. Maithili: लाभ (lābh). [NEW TERM] Risk: Low. Straightforward economic/practical metaphor; no collision.
ἀδελφοί μου (adelphoi mou) — literal: my brothers. Contextual meaning: covenant-family address to fellow believers, not biological or caste kin. Maithili: हे भाइ सभ (he bhāi sabh). [NEW TERM] Risk: Low. Note: must not be softened toward jāti/caste-community address; this is spiritual family across social lines — echoes baseline’s unity_of_jews_and_gentiles risk note.
πίστις (pistis) — [BASELINE REUSE — locked: विश्वास / biswas, High risk]. Contextual meaning: here James interrogates a merely verbal, inert claim to trust in Christ — “faith” that is professed but produces no visible fruit. Reusing विश्वास (never भक्ति) keeps the anchor on personal trust in Christ, exactly as Romans established, which is essential: James is not describing a different kind of faith than Paul, but a counterfeit, fruitless claim to the same faith.
ἔργα (erga) — literal: deeds, actions, works. Semantic range: any performed act; in NT usage ranges from ritual “works of the law” (Romans/Galatians sense) to concrete acts of obedience and love (James’s sense). EN variants: “works” (nearly universal), “deeds,” “actions.” Contextual theological meaning: in James, ἔργα are the observable, concrete acts of love and obedience that necessarily accompany and evidence genuine faith (cf. 2:15-16’s food-and-clothing example) — NOT a separate meritorious currency earning standing before God. Maithili: कर्म (karma). [NEW TERM] Risk: CRITICAL. This is the single highest-stakes lexical decision in the entire James curriculum. कर्म is the established North Indian Bible-translation rendering for “works” and is instantly intelligible — but it is also the proper name of the entire Hindu doctrine of karma: actions whose moral residue (कर्मफल) determines merit, demerit, and rebirth-status across lifetimes. Baseline already rejected कर्मफल outright for “grace” for exactly this reason (translation_memory.json, “grace” entry). Retaining कर्म for ἔργα is necessary (no viable native alternative carries the same transparency, and काज/कारज read as merely “chores,” too thin for the theological weight James places on it) but it must never appear without disambiguating context: James’s कर्म are the observable fruit of a faith already trusting Christ, not currency accumulated toward a future birth or toward divine favor. Every occurrence in Phase 2 requires a translator note per the escalation rules, and reviewers must confirm no sentence in the output could be read as “a person’s कर्म earns them उद्धार [salvation]” — that would collapse Romans’ forensic धर्मी घोषित कएल जाएब (justification by faith) into exactly the merit-transaction theology the baseline was built to resist.
σῶσαι (sōsai, infinitive of σῴζω) — [BASELINE REUSE — locked concept: उद्धार / uddhār, Critical risk]. Contextual meaning: here, “save” refers to eschatological/soteriological deliverance — can such an inert, workless “faith” actually deliver a person? Maithili: use उद्धार करब (to save/deliver), never मुक्ति/मोक्ष. Risk: Critical (reused). Note: James 2:14 and 5:15/5:20 both use σῴζω but with different referents (soteriological vs. physical-healing) — see Chapter 5 analysis for the healing-sense treatment; the rendering must be selected per-occurrence, not mechanically identical.

James 2:15-16

Greek: ἐὰν ἀδελφὸς ἢ ἀδελφὴ γυμνοὶ ὑπάρχωσιν καὶ λειπόμενοι τῆς ἐφημέρου τροφῆς, εἴπῃ δέ τις αὐτοῖς ἐξ ὑμῶν, Ὑπάγετε ἐν εἰρήνῃ, θερμαίνεσθε καὶ χορτάζεσθε, μὴ δῶτε δὲ αὐτοῖς τὰ ἐπιτήδεια τοῦ σώματος, τί τὸ ὄφελος;

γυμνός (gymnos) — literal: naked. Semantic range: stripped bare, or, idiomatically, poorly/inadequately clothed. Contextual meaning: concrete material need, not literal nudity. Maithili: नंगा / बिन कपड़ाक (naṅgā / bin kapaṛāk — “without clothing”). [NEW TERM] Risk: Low.
ἐφήμερος τροφή (ephēmeros trophē) — literal: daily/day-by-day food. Maithili: रोजक भोजन (rojak bhojan). Risk: Low.
εἰρήνη — [BASELINE REUSE — locked: शान्ति / śānti, Medium risk]. Used here ironically — “Go in peace” as an empty pious formula unaccompanied by material help. Translator note required: this is NOT the relational “peace with God” sense of Romans 5:1; it is a hollow social blessing exposed as hollow precisely because it substitutes words for ἔργα.
ἐπιτήδεια τοῦ σώματος (epitēdeia tou sōmatos) — literal: the necessities of the body. Maithili: शरीरक जरूरत (śarīrak jarūrat). Risk: Low.

James 2:17

Greek: οὕτως καὶ ἡ πίστις, ἐὰν μὴ ἔχῃ ἔργα, νεκρά ἐστιν καθ᾿ ἑαυτήν.

νεκρός/νεκρά (nekros/nekra) — literal: dead, lifeless corpse. Semantic range: physical death; metaphorically, inert/ineffective. EN variants: “dead” (all major versions). Contextual meaning: faith without works is not merely weak or incomplete — it is as lifeless as a corpse; the metaphor anticipates 2:26. Maithili: मृत / निर्जीव (mṛt / nirjīv). [NEW TERM] Risk: High. Reasoning: this is the verse most likely to be quoted standalone in teaching and preaching, and a soft rendering (“weak faith,” “incomplete faith”) would blunt James’s deliberately shocking claim. Must render with full force — “dead,” not “lacking” or “insufficient.” Recommend मृत (clinical/corpse-like “dead”) over निर्जीव (“lifeless,” softer) to preserve rhetorical force, matching 2:26’s body/corpse image.
καθ᾿ ἑαυτήν (kath’ heautēn) — “by itself, in itself.” Maithili: अपने आप मे (apane āp me). Risk: Low.

James 2:18

Greek: Ἀλλ᾿ ἐρεῖ τις, Σὺ πίστιν ἔχεις, κἀγὼ ἔργα ἔχω· δεῖξόν μοι τὴν πίστιν σου χωρὶς τῶν ἔργων, κἀγώ σοι δείξω ἐκ τῶν ἔργων μου τὴν πίστιν.

δεῖξον / δείξω (deixon/deixō, from δείκνυμι) — literal: show, demonstrate, display evidence of. Semantic range: to make visible/provable, not to create or manufacture. Contextual meaning: works are the demonstration/evidence of faith already present, not its source. Maithili: देखाएब (dekhāeb — “to show/demonstrate”). [NEW TERM] Risk: High. Reasoning: the verb choice must not accidentally suggest works produce or generate faith (a causal/meritorious reading); देखाएब (show/reveal what already exists) correctly frames works as evidentiary, not generative. Reject a causative-sounding verb like बनाएब (to make/produce).
χωρίς (chōris) — “apart from, without.” Maithili: बिना (binā). Risk: Low.

James 2:19

Greek: σὺ πιστεύεις ὅτι εἷς ἐστιν ὁ θεός· καλῶς ποιεῖς· καὶ τὰ δαιμόνια πιστεύουσιν καὶ φρίσσουσιν.

εἷς ὁ θεός (heis ho theos) — “God is one.” Maithili: परमेश्वर एक छथि (parameśvar ek chathi), using the honorific verb छथि per the requirements document’s mandatory honorific register for God. [BASELINE REUSE for परमेश्वर, Critical]. Risk: Low for the phrase itself (monotheism is uncontested doctrinally across Hindu, Muslim, and Christian audiences in North India, though popular Hindu practice is often functionally polytheistic/henotheistic — a catechetical point but not a translation risk).
δαιμόνια (daimonia) — literal: demons, evil spirits. Semantic range: malevolent supernatural beings in active rebellion against God; NT usage is uniformly negative (unlike classical Greek δαίμων, a neutral spirit-being). EN variants: “demons” (most versions), “devils” (KJV). Contextual meaning: even malevolent spiritual beings hold correct theological belief (monotheism) — proving mere intellectual assent is not saving faith. Maithili: दुष्टात्मा (duṣṭātmā — “evil spirit”). [NEW TERM] Risk: Medium-High. Reasoning: must be distinguished from (a) भूत-प्रेत, the region’s folk category of restless ancestral/ghost-spirits, which are not fallen angelic beings and carry a completely different cosmology (death-ritual and ancestor-appeasement practices), and (b) the Puranic असुर/राक्षस (asura/rakshasa) race of divine combatants defeated by the gods in cosmic myth. दुष्टात्मा (evil-spirit) is a compound already used in North Indian Christian usage for unclean spirits in the Gospels and keeps the category properly theological (created beings in moral rebellion against the one God) rather than folkloric or mythological.
φρίσσω (phrissō) — literal: to shudder, bristle (with fear/dread), as hair standing on end. Maithili: कांपब / थर्राएब (kāmpab/tharrāeb — “to tremble/shudder”). [NEW TERM] Risk: Low.

James 2:20

Greek: Θέλεις δὲ γνῶναι, ὦ ἄνθρωπε κενέ, ὅτι ἡ πίστις χωρὶς τῶν ἔργων ἀργή ἐστιν;

κενός (kenos) — literal: empty, hollow, void of content. EN variants: “foolish” (NIV, ESV), “vain” (KJV). Contextual meaning: a direct rebuke — the interlocutor’s objection is empty-headed. Maithili: मूर्ख / खाली (mūrkh/khālī). [NEW TERM] Risk: Low. Prefer मूर्ख for rhetorical force (matches “foolish” in modern EN versions) over the more literal खाली (empty), which sounds flat in Maithili.
ἀργή (argē) — literal: idle, inactive, unproductive (a-ergos, “without work” — note the wordplay with ἔργα itself in Greek). Textual note: some manuscripts read νεκρά (dead) here instead, harmonizing with 2:17/2:26. Maithili: निष्फल / बेकार (niṣphal/bekār — “fruitless/useless”). [NEW TERM] Risk: Medium. Reasoning: whichever manuscript tradition is followed, the rendering must stay consistent with 2:17’s “dead” register rather than introduce a milder “merely unproductive” reading that would soften James’s argument.

James 2:21

Greek: Ἀβραὰμ ὁ πατὴρ ἡμῶν οὐκ ἐξ ἔργων ἐδικαιώθη, ἀνενέγκας Ἰσαὰκ τὸν υἱὸν αὐτοῦ ἐπὶ τὸ θυσιαστήριον;

Ἀβραάμ — proper name. [BASELINE-ALIGNED FORM: अब्राहम] per the requirements document’s established transliteration list. Risk: Low.
Ἰσαάκ — proper name. [NEW TERM] Maithili: इसहाक (established North Indian Bible-translation form). Risk: Low.
ἐδικαιώθη (edikaiōthē, aorist passive of δικαιόω) — [BASELINE REUSE — locked concept term: धर्मी घोषित कएल जाएब / dharmī ghoṣit kael jaeb, Critical risk]. Literal: was declared/shown righteous. THE central doctrinal crux of the passage. Full treatment:
- Baseline’s Romans-derived rendering names δικαιόω as God’s forensic declaration of righteous standing received by faith alone, explicitly built to resist any works-merit reading (see baseline notes on “justification” and “imputed_righteousness”).
- James here appears, on the surface, to contradict this: Abraham “was justified (ἐδικαιώθη) BY WORKS” (ἐξ ἔργων), offering Isaac.
- This is not a doctrinal contradiction but a different sense of the same verb, and this distinction must be preserved in the Maithili rendering and flagged for mandatory theologian review at every occurrence:
  - Romans’ δικαιόω = God’s initial forensic declaration of right standing, received by faith, credited apart from works (cf. Romans 4:1-5, discussing this same Abraham).
  - James’s δικαιόω (2:21, 2:24, 2:25) = the vindication/demonstration/confirmation before others (and before God’s own inspection) that a person’s faith is the real, living kind — proven by its fruit, not a second, separate means of earning standing.
- Maithili handling: reuse धर्मी घोषित कएल जाएब exactly (per hard rule on established terms), but EVERY occurrence in James 2:21-25 requires an attached translator note: “[अनुवादक टिप्पणी: एतय ‘धर्मी घोषित कएल जाएब’ अब्राहमक विश्वासक प्रामाणिकता कर्म द्वारा देखाओल जाएबाक अर्थमे अछि, ने कि विश्वासक अतिरिक्त कोनो दोसर मार्गसँ धर्मी बनबाक — रोमी 4 मे वर्णित प्रारंभिक, विश्वास-द्वारा-प्राप्त घोषणासँ भिन्न ने अछि, बल्कि ओकर प्रमाण अछि।]” (“Here ‘declared righteous’ means Abraham’s faith being shown genuine through works, not being made righteous by some additional means beside faith — this is not different from the initial faith-received declaration in Romans 4, but its proof.”)
- Risk: CRITICAL. This is the doctrine most likely to be misunderstood by a Maithili audience already fluent in merit-based karma theology, who may read James 2:21 as confirming exactly what they already believe (that righteous deeds secure divine favor) unless the vindication-sense is made explicit.
ἀναφέρω (anapherō) — “to offer up, bring up.” Maithili: चढ़ाएब (caṛhāeb — “to offer up,” a term also used of Hindu ritual offerings; acceptable here since Genesis 22’s Aqedah narrative is itself a sacrificial-offering scene, and the term’s overlap with sacrificial vocabulary is appropriate, not a collision). Risk: Low.
θυσιαστήριον (thysiastērion) — “altar.” Maithili: वेदी (vedī). [NEW TERM] Risk: Low-Medium. Note: वेदी is also the term for a Hindu ritual/sacrificial altar (e.g., a havan/yajna vedi) — this overlap is acceptable and even useful here since the referent (Genesis 22’s altar) is itself a literal sacrificial structure; no doctrinal distortion results.

James 2:22

Greek: βλέπεις ὅτι ἡ πίστις συνήργει τοῖς ἔργοις αὐτοῦ, καὶ ἐκ τῶν ἔργων ἡ πίστις ἐτελειώθη,

συνήργει (synērgei, from συνεργέω) — literal: worked together with, cooperated with. Contextual meaning: faith and works are not competitors but partners — faith is active, working itself out through concrete action. Maithili: संगे काज कएलक (saṅge kāj kaelak — “worked together”). [NEW TERM] Risk: Medium. Note: must not imply works and faith are two independent, equally-weighted contributing causes of salvation (a synergistic-merit reading); the point is that living faith is inherently active, not passive.
ἐτελειώθη (eteleiōthē, from τελειόω) — literal: was made complete, brought to maturity/completion, perfected. Semantic range: reaching full, intended expression — NOT “was made sinlessly perfect.” EN variants: “was made perfect” (KJV), “was completed” (ESV/NASB), “was made complete” (NIV). Contextual meaning: Abraham’s faith reached its mature, intended expression through his obedient action. Maithili: पूर्ण भ’ गेल (pūrṇ bha’ gel — “became complete/whole”). [NEW TERM] Risk: High. Reasoning: avoid सिद्ध (siddha) at all costs as a rendering for τελειόω/τέλειος throughout James (1:4, 1:17, 1:25, 2:22, 3:2) — सिद्ध/सिद्ध पुरुष names a yogic/tantric adept who has attained supernatural perfection or liberation through ascetic practice, a live and honored category in North Indian Nath-yogi and tantric traditions. Using सिद्ध for “made perfect/complete” would suggest Abraham’s faith attained a yogic-siddha-style perfection through his own spiritual achievement — precisely inverting James’s point. पूर्ण (whole/complete) avoids this entirely.

James 2:23

Greek: καὶ ἐπληρώθη ἡ γραφὴ ἡ λέγουσα, Ἐπίστευσεν δὲ Ἀβραὰμ τῷ θεῷ, καὶ ἐλογίσθη αὐτῷ εἰς δικαιοσύνην, καὶ φίλος θεοῦ ἐκλήθη.

γραφή (graphē) — “scripture, the written [sacred] text.” Maithili: शास्त्र / पवित्र शास्त्र (śāstra/pavitra śāstra). [NEW TERM] Risk: Medium. Note: शास्त्र is the general North Indian word for any authoritative sacred/technical text (including Hindu शास्त्र such as धर्मशास्त्र, याज्ञवल्क्य-स्मृति, etc.) — qualify with पवित्र (holy) consistently, echoing baseline’s inspiration_of_scripture doctrine note distinguishing God-breathed Scripture from Mithila’s revered Puranic/Vidyapati literary tradition.
ἐλογίσθη … εἰς δικαιοσύνην (elogisthē … eis dikaiosynēn) — [BASELINE REUSE — locked: आरोपित धार्मिकता / āropit dhārmiktā, Critical risk], quoting Genesis 15:6, the identical verse Paul cites in Romans 4:3. Contextual meaning: this is not James contradicting Romans 4 but James CITING the same Genesis text Paul cites, in support of the point that Abraham’s faith (already present, already credited as righteousness at Genesis 15:6, years before the Isaac offering of Genesis 22) is the kind of faith that goes on to produce obedient action. Reviewers must confirm the Maithili rendering makes clear this credited-righteousness happened at the point of Abraham’s belief (Genesis 15:6), not at the point of his obedience (Genesis 22) — the works in 2:21-22 vindicate a righteousness already imputed, they do not cause it. Risk: Critical (reused, with James-specific sequencing note attached).
φίλος θεοῦ (philos theou) — literal: friend of God. Semantic range: a relationship of trusted intimacy and loyalty, distinct from a servant/subject relationship. EN variants: “friend of God” (universal). Contextual meaning: Abraham’s faith resulted in God calling him into relational intimacy, not merely servile obedience. Maithili: परमेश्वरक मित्र (parameśvarak mitra). [NEW TERM] Risk: High. Reasoning: this phrase has an intriguing and double-edged resonance in Mithila’s Vaishnava bhakti tradition, which recognizes सख्य भाव (sakhya bhāva) — “friendship-mode” devotion — as one of the five classical relational postures toward the divine (alongside servant, parent, child, and beloved postures), exemplified by Krishna’s friendships with Arjuna and Sudama. This can be a genuine bridge for communicating relational intimacy with God, but it must be handled carefully: sakhya bhāva in bhakti tradition is one emotional register among several devotees may cultivate toward a chosen deity, whereas Abraham’s “friend of God” status in James is the specific, historical, covenantal outcome of his faith being credited as righteousness — not a devotional technique or emotional cultivation practice available to any devotee toward any chosen deity. A translator note distinguishing these should accompany this verse’s first appearance in teaching materials.

James 2:24

Greek: ὁρᾶτε ὅτι ἐξ ἔργων δικαιοῦται ἄνθρωπος, καὶ οὐκ ἐκ πίστεως μόνον.

δικαιοῦται (dikaioutai, present passive) — [BASELINE REUSE — locked: धर्मी घोषित कएल जाएब, Critical]. This is the verse most vulnerable to a merit-theology misreading if translated woodenly. See full treatment under 2:21 above — same vindication/demonstration sense applies. Mandatory theologian review flag on this verse in every translated document, no exceptions.
μόνον (monon) — “alone, only.” Contextual meaning: James is not saying “faith alone” as a category is insufficient for salvation; he is saying a bare, workless, solitary profession — faith with nothing else ever accompanying it, the “faith” of 2:14-19 — cannot justify, because such a “faith” is not real faith at all (cf. 2:17, 2:26). Maithili: मात्र / केवल (mātra/keval). Risk: Low for the word itself, but the surrounding sentence requires the same Critical-risk handling as ἐδικαιώθη above.

James 2:25

Greek: ὁμοίως δὲ καὶ Ῥαὰβ ἡ πόρνη οὐκ ἐξ ἔργων ἐδικαιώθη, ὑποδεξαμένη τοὺς ἀγγέλους καὶ ἑτέρᾳ ὁδῷ ἐκβαλοῦσα;

Ῥαάβ — proper name. [NEW TERM] Maithili: राहाब (established North Indian Bible-translation form). Risk: Low.
πόρνη (pornē) — “prostitute.” Maithili: वेश्या (veśyā). [NEW TERM] Risk: Low-Medium. Note: retain the term plainly; James’s rhetorical point (a Gentile prostitute, socially and morally as far outside covenant respectability as one could be, is named alongside Abraham the patriarch) depends on the term’s full social force. Softening it (e.g., to a euphemism) blunts the deliberately shocking pairing.
ὑποδέχομαι (hypodechomai) — “to receive, welcome, host.” Maithili: स्वागत करब / आश्रय देब (svāgat karab/āśray deb). Risk: Low.
ἄγγελος (angelos) — here, “messenger” (the human spies of Joshua 2), not the technical NT sense of “angel.” Maithili: दूत (dūt — “messenger”), not देवदूत (angel/divine messenger), to correctly signal these are human spies. [NEW TERM] Risk: Medium. Important disambiguation: baseline’s apostle entry rejected दूत as too weak for apostolic authority, but here दूत (plain messenger) is exactly the correct, lower-register word for Joshua’s human spies — context determines register, illustrating why glossary terms must remain sense-specific rather than mechanically fixed across every occurrence of a Greek root.

James 2:26

Greek: ὥσπερ γὰρ τὸ σῶμα χωρὶς πνεύματος νεκρόν ἐστιν, οὕτως καὶ ἡ πίστις χωρὶς ἔργων νεκρά ἐστιν.

σῶμα (sōma) — “body.” Maithili: शरीर (śarīr). Risk: Low.
πνεῦμα (pneuma) — literal: breath, wind, spirit. Semantic range: here, the human life-breath/life-principle whose departure constitutes physical death (cf. Genesis 2:7; Ecclesiastes 12:7) — an anthropological sense, NOT the divine Holy Spirit. Maithili: प्राण (prāṇ — “life-breath/vital spirit”), explicitly NOT पवित्र आत्मा. [NEW TERM] Risk: High. Reasoning: this is a critical disambiguation point. Baseline reserves पवित्र आत्मा exclusively and absolutely for the third Person of the Trinity (Critical risk in baseline). If πνεῦμα here were rendered with आत्मा alone, or worse with पवित्र आत्मा, a reader could conclude the verse teaches that the Holy Spirit’s departure from a body causes physical death — a serious theological confusion. प्राण (life-breath, vital principle) is the correct anthropological term, consistent with Hindi Bible tradition’s handling of Genesis 2:7’s “breath of life” (जीवनक श्वास/प्राण). This closes the loop on the passage’s central image: exactly as a body without its life-breath is a corpse, faith without its natural fruit (works) is equally a corpe — a symmetrical double simile that must land with equal force in Maithili as मृत on both sides (echoing 2:17’s νεκρά rendering exactly, for structural consistency).

PART 2 — CHAPTER-BY-CHAPTER STUDY OF THE WHOLE BOOK

Chapter 1 — Trials, Wisdom, and the Word Received

δοῦλος (doulos) — “servant, bondservant, slave” (1:1, James’s self-designation). Maithili: दास (dās). Risk: Low. Standard, humble self-designating title used consistently in North Indian Bible tradition for Paul, Peter, James, etc.; no significant caste-servitude collision noted for this specific devotional usage.

πειρασμός (peirasmos) — “trial, testing” (1:2, 1:12-14, dual sense of external trial and internal temptation). Literal: a putting-to-the-test. EN variants: “trials” (1:2), “temptation” (1:12-14, same Greek word, different nuance — external circumstance vs. internal enticement to sin). Contextual meaning: God-permitted, faith-refining circumstances (1:2-4) versus self-generated desire leading to sin (1:13-14) — James is careful that God tests but does not tempt toward evil (1:13). Maithili: परीक्षा (parīkṣā). [NEW TERM] Risk: High. Reasoning: must be clearly distinguished from तपस्या/तप (tapasyā/tapa), the Hindu ascetic discipline of self-imposed austerity understood to generate spiritual merit or power through voluntary suffering. James’s πειρασμός is unsought, God-permitted circumstance that proves (not produces) genuine faith already present — the opposite direction of causation from tapasya’s self-directed merit-accumulation model. Never render as तप-साधना.

δοκίμιον (dokimion) — “the testing/proving [that produces genuine character]” (1:3). Maithili: परखल जाएब (parakhal jāeb — “being tested/proven,” a passive construction paralleling baseline’s native-Maithili passive convention used for “justification”). Risk: Medium.

ὑπομονή (hypomonē) — “steadfast endurance, patient perseverance under pressure” (1:3-4, 1:12; recurs 5:11). Maithili: धैर्य (dhairya). [NEW TERM] Risk: High. Reasoning: this endurance must be shown as an active, hope-anchored perseverance rooted in trust in a personal, promise-keeping God — not passive, fatalistic resignation to one’s प्रारब्ध (predetermined destiny/fate), the same fatalism baseline’s providence entry flags as a live risk in everyday Maithili religious idiom. Distinguish from a stoic or karma-accepting endurance that merely absorbs suffering without expectation of a personal divine outcome.

τέλειος (teleios) — “complete, mature, whole” (1:4, 1:17, 1:25; recurs 3:2). Maithili: पूर्ण (pūrṇ). [NEW TERM] Risk: High. See full reasoning under James 2:22 above — never सिद्ध, due to the yogic/tantric siddha-adept association.

σοφία (sophia) — “wisdom” (1:5; the whole of ch. 3 develops this). Literal: skill in living rightly, practical and moral insight. EN variants: “wisdom” (universal). Contextual meaning: a gift graciously given by God to those who ask in faith (1:5-6), not a possession attained through ascetic or contemplative achievement. Maithili: बुद्धि (buddhi). [NEW TERM] Risk: High. Reasoning: reject ज्ञान (jñāna), which in Mithila’s strongly Vedantic devotional environment specifically names ज्ञान-मार्ग, the “path of [liberating] knowledge” — one of the three classical margas (along with karma-marga and bhakti-marga) toward moksha, attained through contemplative self-realization of one’s identity with Brahman. Also reject प्रज्ञा (prajñā), which carries a specific technical charge in Buddhist meditative-insight contexts unfamiliar and potentially confusing to this audience. बुद्धि (practical discernment/understanding) is the standard, lower-register North Indian Bible-translation choice (also used in Hindi Proverbs) and avoids both the moksha-path and Buddhist-technical associations.

δίψυχος (dipsychos) — “double-souled, double-minded, wavering” (1:8; recurs 4:8). Maithili: दुमनुका / दू मनक (dumanukā/dū manak — “of two minds”). [NEW TERM] Risk: Medium.

ταπείνωσις / ταπεινός (tapeinōsis/tapeinos) — “humiliation, low estate” / “lowly, humble” (1:9-10; recurs 4:6, 4:10). Maithili: दीनता for the social-economic “low estate” sense (1:9-10), नम्रता for the moral virtue of humility (4:6, 4:10). [NEW TERM] Risk: Medium. Reasoning: keep these two senses lexically distinct in Maithili even though English uses “humble/lowly” for both, so that the moral virtue of humility (नम्रता, which every believer is commanded to cultivate) is not confused with socioeconomic poverty (दीनता, a circumstance James addresses pastorally rather than commanding).

ἐπιθυμία → ἁμαρτία → θάνατος (epithymia → hamartia → thanatos) — “desire → sin → death” (1:14-15), James’s chain of temptation’s progress. ἁμαρτία [BASELINE REUSE — locked: पाप, High risk]. ἐπιθυμία (desire, illicit craving) — Maithili: कुइच्छा / लालसा (kuicchā/lālasā — “evil desire/craving”). [NEW TERM] Risk: Medium. θάνατος (death) — Maithili: मृत्यु. Risk: Low. Note: this causal chain must not be assimilated to an impersonal karmic cause-and-effect mechanism (action inevitably ripening into consequence across lifetimes); it is a description of one person’s individual moral unraveling before a personal God who “gives good gifts” (1:17) and “tempts no one” (1:13) — the opposite of impersonal cosmic law.

δώρημα / δόσις (dōrēma/dosis) — “gift, endowment” (1:17, “every good gift and every perfect [τέλειον] gift is from above”). Maithili: वरदान / दान — flag: baseline already restricts वरदान to compound आत्मिक वरदान (spiritual gifts) specifically to avoid the Puranic sense of a boon granted for austerity/devotion. Here, propose उपहार (uphār — “gift,” a warmer, non-technical Sanskrit-Hindi word without the boon-for-merit connotation) for James 1:17’s general “good gift.” [NEW TERM] Risk: Medium.

λόγος ἀληθείας / ἔμφυτος λόγος (logos alētheias / emphytos logos) — “word of truth” (1:18) / “implanted word” (1:21). Maithili: सत्यक वचन / रोपल गेल वचन (using वचन, the established North Indian Bible term for “word,” e.g. John 1:1). [NEW TERM] Risk: Medium. The “implanted” agricultural metaphor (a word planted like seed, able to save souls) should render naturally in Maithili’s agrarian register without difficulty, but must retain the sense of the word as a living, active, God-given implant, not a teaching to be intellectually mastered like a शास्त्र (scripture/treatise) is studied.

ψυχή (psychē, 1:21, “able to save your souls”) — Maithili: प्राण (prāṇ), not आत्मा, to avoid confusion with the Holy Spirit vocabulary reserved elsewhere. [NEW TERM] Risk: Medium.

ποιητὴς λόγου (poiētēs logou) — “doer of the word” (1:22-25), contrasted with mere “hearer.” Maithili: वचनक पालन करएवाला (vacanak pālan kareavālā). Risk: Low. This phrase anticipates the entire ch. 2 faith-and-works argument and should be rendered so the two passages read as one continuous argument in Maithili, not two disconnected teachings.

νόμος τέλειος, ὁ τῆς ἐλευθερίας (nomos teleios, ho tēs eleutherias) — “the perfect law, the law of liberty/freedom” (1:25). νόμος [BASELINE REUSE — locked: व्यवस्था, High risk]. Maithili: स्वतंत्रताक पूर्ण व्यवस्था (the perfect law of liberty). [NEW TERM combination] Risk: High. Reasoning: baseline already flags व्यवस्था as High risk with the instruction “never धर्म.” Here the added qualifier “of liberty/freedom” must be preserved clearly, since James is describing a law that liberates rather than constrains — precisely the opposite of how “law/dharma” functions in the region’s dominant duty-bound religious imagination (cf. baseline’s obedience_of_faith doctrine note on कर्तव्य पालन). This is not a new legal burden but Christ’s fulfilled, freeing instruction.

θρησκεία (thrēskeia) — “religion, [outward] religious practice/observance” (1:26-27). Maithili: धार्मिक आचरण (dhārmik ācaraṇ — “religious conduct/observance”). [NEW TERM] Risk: High. Reasoning: this term must avoid both धर्म (rejected throughout baseline for its cosmic-duty/dharma connotation) and भक्ति (rejected in baseline specifically for “faith,” to avoid Vaishnava/Shaiva devotional-reverence conflation). A neutral descriptive compound emphasizing observable conduct/practice (rather than duty or devotional emotion) best captures James’s point: “pure and undefiled θρησκεία before God” is visiting orphans and widows and keeping oneself unstained by the world (1:27) — ethical action, not ritual, dharmic duty, or devotional feeling.

ὀρφανός, χήρα (orphanos, chēra) — “orphans, widows” (1:27). Maithili: अनाथ, विधवा (anāth, vidhavā). Risk: Low, though note: widow-care is a live and sensitive social-justice topic in North Indian society (property/inheritance vulnerability), giving this verse practical, not merely translational, weight for teaching.

ἄσπιλος (aspilos) — “unstained, spotless” (1:27). Maithili: निष्कलंक / दाग-रहित (niṣkalaṅk/dāg-rahit). Risk: Low.

Chapter 2 — Favoritism (2:1-13); Faith and Works (2:14-26, treated fully in Part 1 above)

προσωπολημψία (prosōpolēmpsia) — “favoritism, partiality, respect of persons” (2:1, 2:9). Literal: receiving/judging by the face (outward appearance/status). Maithili: पक्षपात (pakṣapāt). [NEW TERM] Risk: High. Reasoning: directly parallels baseline’s flagged doctrine unity_of_jews_and_gentiles and universal_scope_of_gospel — in Mithila specifically, the risk is not abstract but concrete: the Panjikaran genealogical registry system, administered by Maithil Brahmin pandits to verify caste-lineage purity for marriage, makes status-based social sorting an active, everyday institutional practice, not a historical memory. James 2:1-4’s rich-visitor/poor-visitor scenario should be taught with explicit awareness that “the man with gold rings and fine clothes” (2:2) maps uncomfortably well onto caste/class-marked seating and deference customs still practiced in many Mithila congregational and social settings.

δόξα (doxa, 2:1, “the Lord of glory”) — [BASELINE REUSE — locked: महिमा, High risk].

πτωχός (ptōchos) — “poor” (2:2-6, throughout). Maithili: गरीब (garīb). [NEW TERM] Risk: High. Reasoning: must be actively guarded against a folk-theological reading (widespread, though not doctrinally “official,” in North Indian popular Hinduism) that a person’s poverty reflects the moral consequence of बुरा कर्म (bad karma) in a past life, which would make God’s evident favor toward “the poor” in this passage (2:5, “has not God chosen the poor… to be rich in faith”) appear arbitrary or even morally troubling rather than a deliberate reversal of merit-based status logic — precisely James’s point, and one that should be taught explicitly rather than left implicit.

πλούσιος (plousios) — “rich” (2:5-7; recurs 1:10-11, 5:1-6). Maithili: धनी (dhanī). Risk: Medium.

κληρονόμος / βασιλεία (klēronomos / basileia) — “heir” / “kingdom” (2:5, “heirs of the kingdom he promised”). Maithili: वारिस (vāris) / [BASELINE REUSE — locked, related: परमेश्वरक राज्य, kingdom_of_god, Medium risk]. Risk: Medium.

νόμος βασιλικός (nomos basilikos) — “royal law” (2:8, “love your neighbor as yourself”). Maithili: राजकीय व्यवस्था (rājkīya vyavasthā), reusing baseline’s locked व्यवस्था. Risk: High (same reasoning as 1:25’s “law of liberty” above — this is Christ’s kingly, not Mosaic-legalistic, instruction).

πλησίον (plēsion) — “neighbor” (2:8). Maithili: पड़ोसी (paṛosī). Risk: Low.

κρίσις / ἔλεος (krisis/eleos) — “judgment” / “mercy” (2:12-13, “mercy triumphs over judgment”). Maithili: न्याय (nyāy) / दया (dayā). [NEW TERM] Risk: Medium. Note: baseline’s grace entry permits दया for ordinary compassion in non-salvific contexts — here ἔλεος (mercy shown by/toward humans in the ethical-relational sense of 2:13) fits that permitted non-salvific usage; keep अनुग्रह reserved exclusively for the specific soteriological “grace” concept per baseline, and use दया here.

Chapter 3 — The Tongue and Wisdom from Above

γλῶσσα (glōssa) — “tongue” (3:1-12, the chapter’s central image). Maithili: जिह्वा / जीभ (jihvā/jībh). Risk: Low. No significant collision; the tongue-taming theme resonates naturally with existing Maithili/Vidyapati-tradition proverbial wisdom about speech, which can be used as a positive cultural bridge (with care, per the requirements document’s caution against reaching for Sita-Ram/Ramayana-narrative idiom specifically for doctrinal illustration — general regional proverb-wisdom about speech is not restricted the same way).

χαλιναγωγέω (chalinagōgeō) — “to bridle, put a bit in the mouth of” (3:2-3). Maithili: लगाम देब (lagām deb — “to put a bridle on”). Risk: Low. The horse-and-bridle and ship-and-rudder images (3:3-4) translate transparently.

γέεννα (geenna) — “Gehenna, hell” (3:6, “set on fire by hell”). Maithili: नरक (narak). [NEW TERM] Risk: Medium-High. Reasoning: नरक is the standard North Indian word for a place of post-mortem punishment and is used across Hindu, Muslim, and Christian usage, but Hindu नरक is one temporary stage within an ongoing rebirth cycle (a soul suffers karmic consequence in a नरक-realm before eventual rebirth), not a NT-style final, eternal destiny. A brief distinguishing note is warranted wherever this term first occurs in James curriculum materials, consistent with baseline’s general caution about afterlife-adjacent vocabulary intersecting the rebirth-cycle worldview.

φύσις (physis) — “nature, species, kind” (3:7, “every species/kind of animal has been tamed”). Maithili: प्रकृति / जाति (prakṛti/jāti — here in the biological “kind/species” sense). Risk: Medium. Caution: avoid जाति here if it could be misheard in its caste-lineage sense (a live, heavily loaded sense in Mithila per baseline’s gentiles entry); prefer प्रकार (prakār — “kind/type”) to sidestep the ambiguity entirely.

ὁμοίωσις (homoiōsis) — “likeness” (3:9, humans “made in the likeness of God”). Maithili: स्वरूप / समानता (svarūp/samāntā). Risk: Medium. This creation-in-God’s-likeness doctrine (undergirding James’s argument that cursing a human made in God’s likeness is inconsistent with blessing God) has no equivalent load-bearing weight in the region’s dominant traditions and should be taught with its full dignity-of-every-person implication, directly reinforcing the anti-favoritism argument of ch. 2.

σοφία ἄνωθεν (sophia anōthen) — “wisdom from above” (3:17), the chapter’s climactic positive term, contrasted with σοφία … ἐπίγειος, ψυχική, δαιμονιώδης (earthly, unspiritual/soulish, demonic wisdom, 3:15). Maithili: ऊपरसँ प्राप्त बुद्धि (ūparasã̃ prāpt buddhi — “wisdom received from above”), reusing बुद्धि established in ch. 1. [NEW TERM] Risk: High. This is the doctrinal anchor term for the curriculum’s “Wisdom from Above” unit; must be clearly a received gift (matching 1:5’s “ask and it will be given”), never an attained state — the same caution against सिद्ध-style attainment applies here as with τέλειος.

ψυχική (psychikē) — “soulish, natural, unspiritual” (3:15). Maithili: सांसारिक (sāṅsārik) — Risk: Medium, or मानवीय/स्वाभाविक (merely human/natural) as an alternative avoiding संसार’s rebirth-cycle overtone (see ch. 4’s treatment of κόσμος below for full reasoning on this word family).
δαιμονιώδης (daimoniōdēs) — “demonic” (3:15). Maithili: दुष्टात्मिक / दानवी — reuse दुष्टात्मा root established at 2:19. Risk: Medium.
The wisdom-from-above virtue list (3:17): ἁγνή (pure) → पवित्र (reuse baseline’s holy-family term with a moral-purity nuance note, avoiding शुद्ध/निर्मल per baseline’s existing rejection of both for ritual-purity reasons); εἰρηνική (peaceable) → reuse शान्तिप्रिय, built on baseline’s locked शान्ति; ἐπιεικής (gentle/reasonable) → कोमल; εὐπειθής (open to reason, compliant) → मानने वाला; μεστὴ ἐλέους (full of mercy) → दयासँ भरल; ἀνυπόκριτος (without hypocrisy) → निष्कपट. Risk for the cluster: Medium, standard virtue vocabulary, no major collision individually, but the cluster’s overall claim — that this is a gift received rather than a character achieved through discipline — is the High-risk element and must govern how the whole list is framed.

ζῆλος πικρός / ἐριθεία (zēlos pikros / eritheia) — “bitter jealousy” / “selfish ambition” (3:14, 3:16). Maithili: कड़ुआ डाह (kaṛuā ḍāh) / स्वार्थ (svārth). Risk: Low-Medium.

καρπὸς δικαιοσύνης (karpos dikaiosynēs) — “fruit of righteousness” (3:18). [BASELINE REUSE — locked: धार्मिकता for δικαιοσύνη, Critical risk]. Maithili: धार्मिकताक फल. Risk: Critical (reused). Note: this fruit-of-righteousness image, sown “in peace by those who make peace,” directly connects James 3 back to the faith-and-works argument of ch. 2 — righteousness here is again the outcome/fruit of a right relationship with God worked out practically, not duty performed to attain divine favor.

Chapter 4 — Worldliness, Friendship with God, and Humility

πόλεμος / μάχη (polemos/machē) — “wars, fightings/quarrels” (4:1). Maithili: लड़ाई-झगड़ा (laṛāī-jhagṛā). Risk: Low.

ἡδονή (hēdonē) — “pleasure, desire for gratification” (4:1, 4:3, “your passions/pleasures at war within you”). Maithili: सुख-भोगक इच्छा (sukh-bhogak icchā). Risk: Medium.

φιλία τοῦ κόσμου / κόσμος (philia tou kosmou / kosmos) — “friendship with the world” / “the world” (4:4), the doctrinal anchor of the “Worldliness versus Friendship with God” unit. Literal κόσμος: the ordered, created universe; by NT moral extension, the organized human value-system in rebellion against God. EN variants: “world” (universal). Contextual meaning: the world here is a rival value-system and rival loyalty, personified as a suitor competing with God for the believer’s devotion — “whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.” Maithili: जगत (jagat), recommended over the more common North Indian Bible-translation default संसार (saṅsār). [NEW TERM] Risk: CRITICAL. Full reasoning: संसार is indeed the established rendering for κόσμος across most Hindi Bible tradition (e.g., John 3:16’s “परमेश्वर ने संसार से ऐसा प्रेम रखा” is universally familiar). However, संसार in the dominant regional religious vocabulary is the specific technical name for the entire cycle of phenomenal, karma-bound existence — birth, death, and rebirth — from which मोक्ष (moksha) is liberation, and it is also used colloquially for “worldly/domestic life” (गृहस्थ संसार). Using संसार for James 4:4’s “friendship with the world” risks two compounding misreadings specific to this audience: (a) that the remedy James prescribes is a moksha-style renunciation of material/phenomenal existence itself (leading toward an ascetic-withdrawal reading of Christian discipleship rather than James’s actual point, which is about rival loyalty/allegiance, not material existence per se), and (b) blurred continuity with James 1:27’s call to remain “unstained” while still actively caring for orphans and widows — i.e., engaged, not withdrawn, holiness. जगत (a more neutral Sanskrit-derived word for “the world/creation,” used with less specific rebirth-cycle technical loading) is recommended as the primary rendering for this specific doctrinal unit, with a mandatory translator note at first occurrence clarifying that “जगत” here names humanity’s organized rebellion against God as a rival object of love and loyalty — not the created order itself (which believers are still called to inhabit and serve, per 1:27), and not the karmic cycle from which one seeks release.

φιλία / φίλος (philia/philos) — “friendship, love of friendship” (4:4; cf. 2:23’s φίλος θεοῦ). Maithili: मित्रता. Risk: High (same sakhya-bhāva bridge-and-caution noted at 2:23 applies in reverse here: friendship with “the world” is the illegitimate parallel to friendship with God, and this parallel structure — two possible “friendships,” mutually exclusive — should be preserved clearly in translation, since it mirrors the mutually-exclusive-devotion logic already present in bhakti tradition regarding devotion to a single chosen deity, ईष्टदेव, which can be a genuine positive bridge for teaching exclusive loyalty to God).

ἔχθρα τοῦ θεοῦ (echthra tou theou) — “enmity/hostility with God” (4:4). Maithili: परमेश्वरक सङ्ग शत्रुता (parameśvarak saṅg śatrutā). Risk: Medium.

φθόνος (phthonos) — “envy” (4:5, in the disputed verse about “the spirit he caused to dwell in us”). Maithili: डाह/ईर्ष्या. Risk: Medium. Note on the surrounding verse (πνεῦμα, 4:5): this is one of the NT’s most exegetically disputed verses — the “spirit” (πνεῦμα) may refer either to the human spirit’s inherent envious tendency or to the (Holy) Spirit’s jealous love/longing for believers. [NEW TERM — flagged ambiguous] Risk: High. Recommend rendering with आत्मा left deliberately unqualified by पवित्र (avoiding a premature commitment to the Holy-Spirit reading) unless further translator/theologian review resolves the referent, with a mandatory ambiguity flag per the requirements document’s ambiguity-handling protocol.

χάρις (charis, 4:6, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble”) — [BASELINE REUSE — locked: अनुग्रह, High risk]. Directly parallel to baseline’s flagged Romans passages contrasting grace with merit (3:24, 5:2, 11:5-6) — same Critical escalation rule applies (grace-versus-merit contrast must trigger mandatory theologian review) and the same caution against illustrating this grace through Sita’s self-sacrificial virtue applies with equal force here.

ὑπερήφανος / ταπεινός (hyperēphanos/tapeinos) — “proud” / “humble” (4:6, 4:10). Maithili: घमंडी / नम्र (ghamaṇḍī/namra), reusing नम्रता established at ch. 1. Risk: Medium.

ἀντιτάσσομαι / ὑποτάσσω / ἀνθίστημι (antitassomai/hypotassō/anthistēmi) — “opposes” / “submit” / “resist” (4:6-7). Maithili: विरोध करब / समर्पण करब / प्रतिरोध करब. Risk: Low.

διάβολος (diabolos) — “the devil” (4:7, “resist the devil and he will flee from you”). Maithili: शैतान (śaitān), the established North Indian Bible/Quranic-tradition transliteration. [NEW TERM] Risk: Medium. Reasoning: must be kept distinct from folk categories of malevolent spirits (भूत-प्रेत) and from the Puranic असुर/राक्षस race — शैतान names a specific, singular, personal spiritual adversary in active opposition to God, already a familiar figure across North Indian Muslim and Christian religious vocabulary, with comparatively lower collision risk than दुष्टात्मा (used for the plural “demons” of 2:19).

ταπεινόω (tapeinoō) — “humble yourselves” (4:10). Maithili: आफूकेँ नम्र करब. Risk: Low.

καταλαλέω / κριτής / νομοθέτης (katalaleō/kritēs/nomothetēs) — “speak against/slander” / “judge” / “lawgiver” (4:11-12). Maithili: निन्दा करब / न्यायकर्ता / व्यवस्था-दाता (reusing locked व्यवस्था). Risk: Medium. Note: “there is one Lawgiver and Judge” (4:12) is a significant monotheistic-authority claim worth teaching alongside baseline’s law doctrine notes.

ἀτμίς / θέλημα τοῦ κυρίου (atmis / thelēma tou kyriou) — “mist/vapor” (4:14, human life’s brevity) / “the will of the Lord” (4:15, “if the Lord wills”). Maithili: भाप/कुहेस (bhāp/kuhes) / प्रभुक इच्छा (reusing locked प्रभु). Risk: Low-Medium. Note: “if the Lord wills” (a phrase of humble submission to a personal God’s purposes) must be distinguished from a fatalistic acceptance of प्रारब्ध (predetermined karmic destiny) — the difference is a personal will being humbly deferred to, versus an impersonal mechanism being passively endured, echoing baseline’s providence doctrine caution.

Chapter 5 — The Rich, Patience, the Lord’s Return, and Prayer

πλούσιος / ταλαιπωρία (plousios/talaipōria) — “rich” (reuse ch. 2 term) / “miseries” (5:1). Maithili: धनी / कष्ट-दुख (kaṣṭ-dukh). Risk: Low-Medium.

σής / ἰός / μισθός (sēs/ios/misthos) — “moth” / “rust/corrosion” / “wages” (5:2-4). Maithili: कीड़ा / जंग / मजदूरी (kīṛā/jaṅg/majdūrī). Risk: Low. Note: 5:4’s withheld wages of the harvesters “crying out” is a strong social-justice text; the term मजदूरी (day-laborer’s wage) should carry its full weight as an economic-justice indictment, relevant to ongoing agrarian-labor conditions in the Mithila region.

Κύριος Σαβαώθ (Kyrios Sabaōth) — “Lord of Sabaoth / Lord of Hosts” (5:4). Maithili: सेनाओंक प्रभु (senāõk prabhu — “Lord of the armies/hosts”), reusing locked प्रभु. [NEW TERM] Risk: Medium. This military-sovereignty title for God, while rare elsewhere in James, should not be softened; it underscores that the cries of exploited laborers reach an all-powerful divine Judge, not merely a sympathetic deity.

δίκαιος (dikaios) — “the righteous [one]” (5:6, “you have condemned and murdered the righteous person”). [BASELINE REUSE — related to locked धार्मिकता family, High/Critical risk]. Maithili: धर्मी (dharmī, the adjectival/nominal form already embedded in baseline’s justification phrase धर्मी घोषित कएल जाएब). Risk: High. Consistency note: keep धर्मी as the noun/adjective form throughout James wherever δίκαιος describes a person’s righteous status or character (also 5:16, “the prayer of a righteous person”), so the whole book’s righteousness-vocabulary family stays visibly unified with the baseline Romans rendering.

μακροθυμέω / ὑπομονή (makrothymeō/hypomonē) — “be patient/longsuffering” (5:7-8, 5:10) / “endurance” (5:11, reusing ch. 1’s term). Maithili: धीरज धरब (dhīraj dharab) for μακροθυμέω, reusing धैर्य (established ch. 1) for ὑπομονή. [NEW TERM] Risk: High. Same providence/fatalism caution as ch. 1: this patience is expectant, hope-filled waiting for a specific, promised, personal event (the Lord’s return) — not passive endurance of an impersonal cosmic order.

παρουσία τοῦ κυρίου (parousia tou kyriou) — “the coming/arrival/presence of the Lord” (5:7-8), the doctrinal anchor for “Patience and the Lord’s Return.” Literal: arrival, presence, official visit (used in the ancient world of a king’s or dignitary’s formal visitation). EN variants: “coming” (most versions), “presence” (more literal/formal renderings). Contextual meaning: Christ’s promised, singular, final, bodily return to consummate history and judge/vindicate — the object of the farmer-like patience James commends. Maithili: प्रभु यीशुक पुनरागमन (prabhu Yīśuk punarāgaman — “the Lord Jesus’s return/coming again”), reusing locked प्रभु and यीशु. [NEW TERM] Risk: CRITICAL. Reasoning: this is a second maximally sensitive term (alongside κόσμος in ch. 4) precisely because of Mithila’s specific religious geography and devotional tradition. Vaishnava eschatology includes the expectation of Kalki, a final future avatar of Vishnu, who will descend at the close of the current Kali Yuga to destroy evil and restore dharma — a structurally similar “awaited future divine coming to set right a corrupt world” narrative already deeply resident in this audience’s religious imagination, and Mithila’s devotional life is historically saturated with avatar-narrative (Ram, Krishna) via the Vidyapati tradition. Christ’s parousia must be clearly taught and, wherever space allows, footnoted as categorically different from a Kalki-style cyclical avatar-descent: (a) it is the return of the same, once-incarnate (देहधारण, per baseline), already-crucified-and-resurrected (पुनरुत्थान, per baseline) Christ — not a new deity’s first descent; (b) it is a single, final, non-repeating event terminating history, not one restoration within an ongoing cycle of ages (yugas) that will eventually require another future avatar; (c) the noun चोसen for “coming” must never be अवतरण (a direct cognate of avatar) — आगमन/पुनरागमन (arrival/return) is a safer, non-avatar-specific Sanskrit-derived word, though even this requires the explanatory footnote above at first occurrence in any James teaching material.

γεωργός / ὑετός πρώϊμος καὶ ὄψιμος (geōrgos / hyetos proïmos kai opsimos) — “farmer” / “early and latter rain” (5:7). Maithili: किसान / पहिल आ पछिला बरखा. Risk: Low. This agrarian patience-metaphor should land naturally and warmly in Mithila’s own agricultural context.

στηρίζω / στενάζω (stērizō/stenazō) — “establish, strengthen” / “groan, grumble” (5:8-9). Maithili: दृढ़ करब / कराहब. Risk: Low.

κριτὴς πρὸ τῶν θυρῶν (kritēs pro tōn thyrōn) — “the judge standing at the door” (5:9). Maithili: न्यायकर्ता द्वार पर ठाढ़ छथि (using the honorific verb छथि, since this refers to Christ). Risk: Medium.

ὑπόδειγμα / προφήτης (hypodeigma/prophētēs) — “example” (5:10) / [BASELINE REUSE — locked: भविष्यद्वक्ता, Low risk] (5:10, prophets as examples of patient suffering).

Ἰώβ (Iōb) — proper name. [NEW TERM] Maithili: अय्यूब (established North Indian Bible-translation form). Risk: Low.

πολύσπλαγχνος καὶ οἰκτίρμων (polysplagchnos kai oiktirmōn) — “very compassionate and merciful” (5:11, describing God’s character revealed through Job’s story). Maithili: अति दयालु आ करुणामय (ati dayālu ā karuṇāmay). Risk: Low-Medium. This is a rich opportunity to teach God’s compassionate character as personal and covenantal (demonstrated in Job’s specific, historical restoration), distinct from an impersonal cosmic balancing-out of merit and suffering.

ὄμνυμι (omnymi) — “to swear [an oath]” (5:12). Maithili: कसम खाएब (kasam khāeb). Risk: Low.

κάμνω / ἀσθενέω (kamnō/astheneō) — “be sick/weary” (5:13-14) — synonyms for illness. Maithili: बीमार (bīmār). Risk: Low.

εὐθυμέω / ψάλλω (euthymeō/psallō) — “be cheerful” / “sing praise” (5:13). Maithili: खुश रहब / गीत गाएब/भजन गाएब. Risk: Low-Medium. Note: भजन (bhajan) is the standard North Indian word for devotional song but is also the specific technical genre-name for Hindu devotional singing (esp. in Vaishnava/Shaiva bhakti practice); acceptable here in its generic “song of praise” sense, similar to how baseline permits shared Sanskrit-tatsama vocabulary where the theological weight is low.

πρεσβύτεροι τῆς ἐκκλησίας (presbyteroi tēs ekklēsias) — “elders of the church” (5:14). [BASELINE REUSE — locked ἐκκλησία term: मण्डली, Medium risk]. Maithili: मण्डलीक प्राचीन (maṇḍalīk prācīn). [NEW TERM for “elder”] Risk: Medium. Reasoning: must be distinguished from the customary village पंचायत (panchayat) elder/council role and from a Hindu religious guru-figure’s authority; this is a specific office within the local congregation (मण्डली, per baseline), with a defined ministry of prayer for the sick, not a general community-elder or spiritual-guide role.

ἀλείφω ἐλαίῳ (aleiphō elaiō) — “anoint with oil” (5:14). Maithili: तेल लगाएब (tel lagāeb — plain, descriptive “to apply oil”). [NEW TERM] Risk: CRITICAL. Reasoning: must never be rendered with अभिषेक (abhiṣek), the specific, weighty Hindu ritual term for the ceremonial anointing/consecration of a deity’s image (particularly prominent in Shaiva practice — Shivling abhishek with water, milk, honey, oil — a central and frequently performed devotional rite across Mithila’s Shiva temples) or of a king at coronation. Using अभिषेक for James 5:14 would suggest the elders are performing a consecration-ritual upon the sick person analogous to deity-worship or royal installation, rather than the plain, simple, faith-expressing act of applying oil while praying that James actually describes. तेल लगाएब, a deliberately unglamorous descriptive phrase, correctly keeps this a simple accompanying action to prayer, not a sacral ritual act with independent spiritual power.

εὐχὴ τῆς πίστεως / σῴζω τὸν κάμνοντα (euchē tēs pisteōs / sōzō ton kamnonta) — “the prayer of faith” / “will save/restore the one who is sick” (5:15). Maithili: विश्वासक प्रार्थना (reusing locked विश्वास) / बीमारकेँ चंगा करत (bīmārkeṅ caṅgā karat — “will heal the sick person”). [NEW TERM for this occurrence of σῴζω] Risk: High. Reasoning: this is σῴζω used in its physical-healing sense, requiring a DIFFERENT rendering from the soteriological उद्धार used at 2:14 and 5:20 — using उद्धार here would incorrectly suggest physical healing is guaranteed as an automatic entitlement of faith (a prosperity-gospel-adjacent misreading with its own troubling resonance alongside the karma-merit expectation that righteous action or ritual purity should reliably produce favorable material outcomes). चंगा करब (to heal/restore to health) keeps the physical-restoration sense primary while James’s own wordplay (the same Greek root spanning both physical and spiritual restoration across 5:14-20) can be noted for teaching purposes without collapsing the two senses into one Maithili word.

ἐγείρω (egeirō) — “raise up” (5:15, “the Lord will raise him up” — of physical recovery from sickness, not of resurrection). Maithili: उठाएब / ठीक करब (uṭhāeb/ṭhīk karab). [NEW TERM] Risk: Medium. Important disambiguation: must not be confused with baseline’s locked पुनरुत्थान (resurrection, Critical risk) — this is ordinary physical recovery from illness, not Christ’s or the believer’s future bodily resurrection.

ἐξομολογέομαι / ἰάομαι (exomologeomai/iaomai) — “confess” / “heal” (5:16, “confess your sins to one another… that you may be healed”), the doctrinal anchor for “Confession and Restoration.” Maithili: स्वीकार करब (svīkār karab — “to acknowledge/confess”). [NEW TERM] Risk: High. Reasoning: must be clearly distinguished from प्रायश्चित्त (prāyaścitta), the Hindu ritual-penance concept whereby prescribed acts (fasting, pilgrimage, ritual bathing, donation) expiate accumulated sin/karmic demerit through the penitent’s own compensatory effort. James’s mutual confession is relational and communal — believers verbally acknowledging specific sins to one another (and implicitly to God) within the fellowship (सङ्गति, per baseline) for the sake of mutual healing/restoration, resting on grace already received, not a ritual technique for self-generated expiation. This connects directly to the “Faith and Works” tension-point of the whole book: confession here is a fruit/practice of grace-based community life, not a merit-earning ritual.

δέησις δικαίου ἐνεργουμένη (deēsis dikaiou energoumenē) — “the prayer of a righteous person, being at work / accomplishing much” (5:16). Maithili: धर्मी मनुक्खक प्रार्थना बड़ शक्तिशाली होइत अछि — Note: avoid शक्ति here per baseline’s power_of_god caution (Shakta-goddess association); prefer सामर्थ्यवान/प्रभावशाली (sāmarthyavān/prabhāvśālī), reusing baseline’s locked सामर्थ्य root. Risk: Medium-High given the शक्ति-avoidance requirement carrying over from baseline.

Ἠλίας (Ēlias) — proper name. [NEW TERM] Maithili: एलिय्याह (established North Indian Bible-translation form). Risk: Low.

ὁμοιοπαθής (homoiopathēs) — “of like nature/passions [as us]” (5:17, “Elijah was a man with a nature like ours”). Maithili: हमरे नाइं मनुख (हमरा सभ नाइं साधारण मनुष्य). Risk: Low. Useful teaching point: Elijah’s powerful prayer flowed from ordinary humanity, not from a special siddha-like spiritual attainment — reinforcing the same anti-merit logic running through the whole book.

πλανάω / ἐπιστρέφω (planaō/epistrephō) — “wander, go astray” / “turn back, be converted/restored” (5:19-20). Maithili: भटकब (bhaṭakab) / फिरब/मुड़ब (phirab/muṛab). Risk: Low-Medium.

σῴζει ψυχὴν ἐκ θανάτου (sōzei psychēn ek thanatou) — “will save a soul from death” (5:20), the book’s closing statement. Maithili: प्राणकेँ मृत्युसँ बचाओत/उद्धार करत (using उद्धार here, reusing the soteriological sense established at 2:14, since this is a final, spiritual/eternal death in view, in contrast to 5:15’s physical-healing sense). [BASELINE REUSE for उद्धार, Critical]. Risk: Critical. This closing verse must echo the book’s opening argument (2:14, “can faith without works save him?”) — the restored, works-evidencing faith of a wandering brother brought back is precisely what “saves” in the full, eternal sense.

καλύπτω πλῆθος ἁμαρτιῶν (kalyptō plēthos hamartiōn) — “will cover a multitude of sins” (5:20). [BASELINE REUSE — locked ἁμαρτία term: पाप, High risk]. Maithili: बहुत पापकेँ ढ़ाकि देत (bahut pāpkeṅ ḍhāki det). Risk: High. Note: “covering sin” here (the sin of the wandering brother being addressed through loving restoration) must not be confused with a merit-offsetting mechanism (good deeds numerically canceling out bad karma, a common North Indian folk-arithmetic understanding of moral accounting) — it describes the relational, forgiving covering that follows genuine repentance and restoration to fellowship, not a ledger-balancing transaction.

Summary: Cross-Chapter Doctrinal Load-Bearing Term Recap

Term family	First occurrence	Recurs	Baseline status
πίστις / faith	1:3	throughout, esp. ch. 2	Locked (विश्वास)
ἔργα / works	1:25	ch. 2 (core), 2:14-26, 3:13	New — Critical
δικαιόω / justified	2:21	2:21-25	Locked concept, James-specific vindication-sense note required
σοφία / wisdom	1:5	ch. 3	New — High
πειρασμός / trial	1:2	1:12-14	New — High
κόσμος / world	1:27 (implicit)	4:4 (core)	New — Critical
παρουσία / Lord’s return	—	5:7-8	New — Critical
ἐξομολογέομαι / confession	—	5:16	New — High
ἀλείφω ἐλαίῳ / anoint	—	5:14	New — Critical
προσωπολημψία / favoritism	2:1	2:1-13	New — High
πτωχός/πλούσιος / poor-rich	1:9-11	2:1-6, ch. 5	New — High/Medium

No chapter of James is without new load-bearing theological vocabulary; unlike some epistles, every chapter contributes materially to this glossary.

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