Core Glossary
Core Glossary: 1 John (English–Marathi)
This glossary consolidates every load-bearing theological term identified in analysis/07_semantic_analysis.md, chapters 1-5 of 1 John, including the core passage (4:7-21). Terms already established in the Romans baseline translation_memory.json are marked [BASELINE REUSE] and MUST be rendered exactly as recorded there — no alternative spelling, synonym, or paraphrase is permitted. Terms new to 1 John are marked [NEW] and are proposed here for formal registration in Phase 1 Step 2 (translation memory / term registry extension).
Risk tiers follow the baseline’s four-tier framework: Critical (human theologian review, every occurrence), High (human theologian review), Medium (native speaker review), Low (automated review sufficient).
Table 1: Baseline Terms Reused Exactly (No Change)
| English term | Marathi | Transliteration | Risk | Doctrine(s) in 1 John | 1 John occurrences |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| God | परमेश्वर | Parameśvar | Critical | God is Light and God is Love; all doctrines | Throughout |
| Jesus | येशू | Yeśū | Critical | Incarnation and Antichrist; Assurance | 1:3; 2:1,22; 4:2,15; 5:1,5,20 |
| Son of God | देवाचा पुत्र | devācā putra | Critical | Incarnation and Antichrist; Assurance of Salvation | 3:8; 4:9-10,15; 5:5,9-13,20 |
| Holy Spirit / Spirit | पवित्र आत्मा | Pavitra Ātmā | Critical | Fellowship with God; Testing the Spirits | 3:24; 4:2,6,13; 5:6-8 |
| Father | पिता | Pitā | Critical | Fellowship with God and One Another | 1:2-3; 2:1,15-16,22-24; 3:1; 4:14 |
| Salvation (root) | तारण | tāraṇ | Critical | Assurance of Salvation and Eternal Life | Underlies “Savior of the world,” 4:14 |
| Faith / believe | विश्वास | viśvāsa | High | Testing the Spirits; Overcoming the World; Assurance | 3:23; 4:1,16; 5:1,4-5,10,13 |
| Sin | पाप | pāp | High | Confession and Forgiveness of Sin | 1:7-2:2, 8-10; 3:4-9; 5:16-17 |
| Holy | पवित्र | pavitra | High | God is Light and God is Love (holiness dimension) | 2:20 (“the Holy One”) |
| Law (root) | नियमशास्त्र | niyamśāstra | High | Love for the Brethren (sin defined as lawlessness) | Underlies 3:4 |
| Adoption | दत्तक पुत्रत्व | dattak putratva | High | Love for the Brethren as Evidence of New Birth (background doctrine) | Cross-referenced at 3:1 |
| Called (participle) | बोलावलेले | bolāvlele | High | Love for the Brethren as Evidence of New Birth | 3:1 (“that we should be called children of God”) |
| Fellowship | सहभागिता | sahabhāgitā | Low | Fellowship with God and One Another | 1:3, 6-7 |
| Apostle (root, background) | प्रेषित | preṣit | Medium | Inspiration/testimony background | Background only; author’s implicit apostolic authority |
| Intercession (root) | मध्यस्थी | madhyasthī | Medium | background for “advocate” (paraklētos, 2:1) | Root shared with new term मध्यस्थ |
| Righteousness (root) | नीतिमत्त्व | nītimattva | Critical | Love for the Brethren (righteous practice as evidence) | 2:29; 3:7,10 |
Table 2: New Terms Introduced by 1 John (Proposed for Registration)
| English term | Greek | Marathi | Transliteration | Risk | Doctrine | Alternatives rejected | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| love (agapē) | ἀγάπη / ἀγαπάω | प्रीती | prīti | Critical | God is Light and God is Love | प्रेम (romantic/erotic popular connotation), भक्ती/भक्तिप्रेम (devotee-initiated devotional reverence, e.g. toward Vitthal), करुणा (Buddhist cultivated compassion) | God’s own self-giving essential nature (4:8,16), prior to and the ground of all human love (4:10,19); never a human-cultivated or human-initiated virtue. Central term of the whole book — must be fixed before any Phase 2 translation begins. |
| propitiation | ἱλασμός | प्रायश्चित्त | prāyaścitta | Critical | Confession and Forgiveness of Sin; Incarnation and Antichrist (atoning work) | none directly comparable in the target language; risk lies in the word’s existing cultural sense | Everyday Marathi/Hindu sense = self-performed penance/expiatory ritual. 1 John’s sense = God-given, Christ-accomplished satisfaction of his own righteous requirement. Requires standing translator note or qualifying phrase at every occurrence (2:2; 4:10). Escalate to human theologian review at every occurrence, matching the Romans baseline’s Romans 3:25 escalation rule. |
| light (of God) | φῶς | प्रकाश | prakāś | Critical | God is Light and God is Love | तेज/प्रकाश-only imagery already cautioned against in baseline (glory entry) | God’s own moral perfection and self-revealing truthfulness (1:5), paired definitionally with “God is love” (4:8,16). Must not merge with Warkari darshan-light imagery or Buddhist bodhi/enlightenment associations. |
| idols | εἴδωλα | मूर्ती | mūrtī | Critical | Assurance of Salvation and Eternal Life (closing exhortation); God is Light and God is Love (undivided devotion) | none viable — मूर्ती is the only accurate, unavoidable Marathi term | Directly names the sacred images (Ganpati, Vitthal at Pandharpur) central to popular Hindu devotional practice in Maharashtra. Cannot be substituted; requires human theologian review at 5:21 and a study note framing this as the letter’s climactic call to undivided devotion to “the true God,” continuous with — not contradictory to — the Ambedkarite Buddhist community’s own historical rejection of murti-worship. |
| born of God / new birth | γεννάω ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ | देवापासून जन्मलेला | devāpāsūn janmalelā | Critical | Love for the Brethren as Evidence of New Birth | पुनर्जन्म (Hindu reincarnation), पुनर्भव (Buddhist technical rebirth-of-aggregates, already forbidden in the Romans baseline for “resurrection”) | A completed, once-for-all, Spirit-wrought spiritual begetting (2:29; 3:9; 4:7; 5:1,4,18) evidenced by love, righteousness, and freedom from habitual sin — not a cyclical rebirth. This is 1 John’s single most collision-prone term given the baseline’s existing resurrection/reincarnation caution; extend the same forbidden-substitution rule to this phrase explicitly. |
| eternal life | ζωὴ αἰώνιος | सार्वकालिक जीवन | sārvakālik jīvan | Critical | Assurance of Salvation and Eternal Life | मोक्ष, मुक्ती (Warkari-Hindu liberation from rebirth cycle), निर्वाण (Buddhist cessation of craving/suffering) | A present-possessed, relational, everlasting life in fellowship with God (5:11-13, 20), known now with assurance — not a state attained after death or across cycles of rebirth, nor an impersonal cessation. Extends the Romans baseline’s “salvation” forbidden-substitution list to this closely related term. |
| only-begotten Son | ὁ υἱὸς ὁ μονογενής | एकुलता एक पुत्र | ekulatā ek putra | Critical | Incarnation and Antichrist; God is Light and God is Love | अवतार-adjacent phrasing implying one of several divine descents; Bodhisattva-adjacent phrasing implying one of many enlightened beings | Christ’s unique, unrepeatable, non-derivative Sonship (4:9) — extends baseline देवाचा पुत्र with the specific “one-of-a-kind” nuance of μονογενής, absent from the Romans corpus. |
| confess (Christ) | ὁμολογέω | कबूल करणे | kabūl karṇe | High | Testing the Spirits; Incarnation and Antichrist; Confession and Forgiveness of Sin | — | Two distinct objects require careful contextual handling: (1) confessing one’s own sin to God (1:9, private, direct, no human mediator), and (2) confessing Jesus as the Son of God / as come in the flesh (4:2,15, public, doctrinal). Both senses are High risk; the second parallels the Romans baseline’s Romans 10:9 “Jesus is Lord” escalation rule and should be rendered without qualification. |
| antichrist | ἀντίχριστος | ख्रिस्तविरोधी | khristavirodhī | High | The Incarnation and Antichrist | — | Both a specific eschatological figure and a present spiritual tendency/false teaching already active “in the last hour” (2:18-19; 4:3). Must not be assimilated to a culturally available cosmic-adversary or yuga-decline narrative. |
| world (kosmos) | κόσμος | जग | jag | High | Overcoming the World | — | Context-sensitive across three senses (physical order / humanity / God-opposing value-system); the God-opposing-system sense dominates in 1 John (2:15-17; 4:4-5; 5:4-5,19) and must be flagged per occurrence, similarly to the baseline’s handling of “called.” |
| abide / remain | μένω | राहणे / वास करणे | rāhṇe / vās karṇe | High | Fellowship with God and One Another; Assurance of Salvation | — | Recurs constantly (2:6,10,14,24,27-28; 3:6,9,14,17,24; 4:12-16). Must convey personal, Trinitarian, mutual indwelling, not pantheistic immanence (Brahman-atman) or poetic Warkari “Vitthal dwelling in the heart” imagery understood devotionally rather than literally/relationally. First occurrence (2:6) is the anchor point for fixing the rendering. |
| overcome | νικάω | जिंकणे / मात करणे | jiṅkṇe / māt karṇe | High | Overcoming the World | — | Victory grounded explicitly in the indwelling Spirit (4:4) and in faith (5:4-5) — never in self-effort, disciplined practice, or tapasya-style spiritual conquest. |
| confidence / boldness (parrēsia) | παρρησία | धैर्य / निर्भय भरवसा | dhairya / nirbhaya bharavasā | High | Assurance of Salvation and Eternal Life | — | Grounded in Christ’s finished work and God’s declared verdict (cf. baseline नीतिमान ठरवणे), not self-generated courage or accumulated merit. Occurs at 2:28; 3:21; 4:17; 5:14. |
| advocate (paraklētos, of Christ) | παράκλητος | मध्यस्थ | madhyastha | High | Confession and Forgiveness of Sin | गुरू/संत-style intercessory figure | Christ’s own legal-defense role before the Father (2:1), grounded in his propitiatory death — distinct from a devotional intercessor-saint role. Shares root with baseline मध्यस्थी. |
| anointing | χρῖσμα | अभिषेक | abhiṣek | High | Testing the Spirits | — | The Holy Spirit’s inward teaching ministry given to every believer (2:20,27), not a repeatable external ritual act performed on a sacred object/person (cf. Shiva-abhisheka). |
| cleanse | καθαρίζω | शुद्ध करणे | śuddha karṇe | High | Confession and Forgiveness of Sin | — | Christ’s blood accomplishes real moral cleansing, once for all (1:7,9) — must be distinguished via translator note from ritual/ceremonial purification requiring repetition. |
| lawlessness (sin defined) | ἀνομία | नियमशास्त्राचे उल्लंघन | niyamśāstrāce ullaṅghan | High | Love for the Brethren as Evidence of New Birth | अधर्म (explicitly rejected in the Romans baseline for the related term ἁμαρτία; rejection extends here) | 3:4’s definition of sin; built on baseline नियमशास्त्र root rather than the rejected caste-linked अधर्म. |
| compassion / bowels of compassion | σπλάγχνα | करुणा / कनवाळू अंतःकरण | karuṇā / kanavāḷū antaḥkaraṇ | High | Love for the Brethren as Evidence of New Birth | करुणा alone, unqualified | करुणा is the central term of Buddhist ethical cultivation (a brahmavihāra); prefer कनवाळू अंतःकरण (a compassionate heart) as primary rendering, or qualify करुणा with “ख्रिस्ती” (Christ-shaped) to avoid a self-cultivated-virtue reading. |
| children of God | τέκνα θεοῦ | देवाची मुले | devācī mule | High | Love for the Brethren as Evidence of New Birth | — | Related to but distinct from baseline दत्तक पुत्रत्व (formal legal adoption/inheritance, Romans’ emphasis); 1 John emphasizes the given, relational, loving character of the status (3:1). Cross-reference both terms in translation memory. |
| word of life | ὁ λόγος τῆς ζωῆς | जीवनाचे वचन | jīvanāce vacan | High | The Incarnation and Antichrist | — | The eternal, uncreated Word/Son made tangibly, historically manifest (1:1-3); connects directly to baseline देहधारण. |
| seed (of God) | σπέρμα | बीज | bīj | Medium-High | Love for the Brethren as Evidence of New Birth | — | The God-implanted new nature received at new birth (3:9) — not an innate universal potential/Buddha-nature awaiting self-realization. |
| sin unto death / not unto death | ἁμαρτία πρὸς θάνατον | मरणास कारण होणारे पाप / न होणारे पाप | maraṇās kāraṇ hoṇāre pāp / na hoṇāre pāp | High | Confession and Forgiveness of Sin; Assurance of Salvation | — | A specific pastoral-theological distinction (5:16-17), not a karmic-mechanism claim; requires standing study note on the interpretive debate. |
| savior of the world | σωτὴρ τοῦ κόσμου | जगाचा तारणारा | jagācā tāraṇārā | Critical | Assurance of Salvation and Eternal Life | — | Built on baseline तारण root; universal scope of the sent Son’s mission (4:14), continuous with the Romans baseline’s universal_scope_of_gospel doctrine. |
| liar | ψεύστης | खोटारडा | khoṭāraḍā | Medium | Love for the Brethren as Evidence of New Birth | — | Blunt moral judgment on false profession of love (4:20); must not be softened. |
| brother (fellow believer) | ἀδελφός | बंधू | bandhū | Medium-High | Love for the Brethren as Evidence of New Birth | — | Fellow-believer kinship transcending caste/community boundary; parallels baseline unity_of_jews_and_gentiles sensitivity. |
| understanding (given) | διάνοια | समज | samaj | Medium | Assurance of Salvation and Eternal Life | — | A given capacity to know God (5:20), not self-attained meditative insight. |
| fear (of judgment) | φόβος | भीती | bhītī | Medium | Assurance of Salvation and Eternal Life | — | Servile dread of punishment, removed by perfected love (4:18); distinct from reverent “fear of the Lord” elsewhere in Scripture. |
| punishment/torment | κόλασις | शिक्षा / दंड | śikṣā / daṇḍ | Medium-High | Assurance of Salvation and Eternal Life | — | Personal, judicial punishment from a personal God, resolved in Christ — not an impersonal karmic-retribution mechanism. |
| true (God) | ἀληθινός | खरा | kharā | High | Assurance of Salvation and Eternal Life | — | Paired with baseline परमेश्वर at 5:20; retains contrastive force against “idols” (5:21). |
| light-darkness pairing | φῶς / σκότος | प्रकाश / अंधकार | prakāś / andhakār | Critical / Medium | God is Light and God is Love | — | See प्रकाश above; अंधकार itself is lower risk as a standard moral-metaphor term once प्रकाश is correctly anchored. |
| perfected/completed (love) | τελειόω | पूर्ण झाली / पूर्ण प्रीती | pūrṇa jhālī / pūrṇa prīti | Medium-High | God is Light and God is Love; Assurance of Salvation | — | Love reaching its designed goal/expression through believers, not human effort perfecting God’s love by merit. |
| walk (in light/darkness) | περιπατέω | चालणे / जीवन जगणे | cālṇe / jīvan jagṇe | Medium | God is Light and God is Love (practical outworking) | — | Whole manner-of-life orientation, not a single act. |
| faithful and just | πιστὸς καὶ δίκαιος | विश्वासू आणि न्यायी | viśvāsū āṇi nyāyī | Medium-High | Confession and Forgiveness of Sin | — | Both covenant faithfulness and judicial righteousness must be retained, not collapsed to a generic “good.” |
| blood (of Jesus) | αἷμα | रक्त | rakta | Medium-High | Confession and Forgiveness of Sin | — | Christ’s specific atoning death; avoid assimilation to generalized yajna sacrificial-blood concepts where a worshiper offers blood/life for merit. |
| commandment | ἐντολή | आज्ञा | āgnā | Medium | Love for the Brethren; Fellowship with God and One Another | — | Twin commands of faith and love (3:23), and the singular love-command (4:21); shares root with baseline विश्वासाचे आज्ञापालन. |
| testify / testimony | μαρτυρέω / μαρτυρία | साक्ष देणे / साक्ष | sākṣa deṇe / sākṣa | Medium-High | The Incarnation and Antichrist; Assurance of Salvation | — | Apostolic eyewitness testimony (4:14) and God’s own threefold testimony (5:6-11); not private mystical insight offered to disciples. |
| water and blood (witnesses) | ὕδωρ καὶ αἷμα | पाणी आणि रक्त | pāṇī āṇi rakta | High | The Incarnation and Antichrist; Assurance of Salvation | — | Historically anchored (baptism, crucifixion) corroborating testimony; recommend accompanying study note given interpretive complexity. |
| keep oneself / kept by God | τηρέω (ἑαυτόν) | स्वतःला राखणे / देव राखतो | svataḥlā rākhṇe / dev rākhto | Medium-High | Assurance of Salvation and Eternal Life | — | Ultimate agency is Christ’s keeping power (5:18), not self-discipline alone. |
| test the spirits | δοκιμάζετε τὰ πνεύματα | आत्म्यांची परीक्षा घेणे | ātmyāncī parīkṣā gheṇe | High | Testing the Spirits | — | A doctrinal test of teaching content, not a folk-religious ritual test for spirit-possession (bhūt-pret discernment). |
| last hour | ἐσχάτη ὥρα | शेवटची घटका / अंतिम काळ | śevaṭcī ghaṭkā / antim kāḷ | Medium-High | The Incarnation and Antichrist | — | Linear, historical eschatological time, not a cyclical cosmic age. |
| little children (address) | τεκνία / παιδία | लाडक्या मुलांनो / मुलांनो | lāḍakyā mulānno / mulānno | Low | pastoral address (all doctrines) | — | Term of affection, not a doctrinal status claim; distinct from τέκνα θεοῦ. |
| lust of flesh/eyes; pride of life | ἐπιθυμία τῆς σαρκός κ.τ.λ. | देहवासना, डोळ्यांची वासना, जीवनाचा गर्व | dehavāsanā, ḍoḷyāncī vāsanā, jīvanācā garva | Medium | Overcoming the World | — | Defines “the world” practically as disordered desire; standard moral vocabulary. |
Risk Summary for 1 John Extension
| Risk tier | Count (new terms, Table 2) | Review routing |
|---|---|---|
| Critical | 8 (प्रीती, प्रायश्चित्त, प्रकाश, मूर्ती, देवापासून जन्मलेला, सार्वकालिक जीवन, एकुलता एक पुत्र, जगाचा तारणारा) | Human theologian, every occurrence |
| High | 20 | Human theologian |
| Medium / Medium-High | 12 | Native speaker review (theologian consultation recommended where noted) |
| Low | 2 | Automated review |
Note on full-book coverage: All five chapters of 1 John have been analyzed. No chapter was found to introduce zero new theological vocabulary — each of chapters 1, 2, 3, and 5 contributes distinct load-bearing terms beyond the core passage (chapter 4), and chapter 4 itself divides cleanly into its introductory Testing the Spirits section (4:1-6) and the core passage proper (4:7-21). This glossary and its companion semantic analysis together constitute complete Phase 1 Step 1 coverage of 1 John.
Critical Risk Terms
God
Approved rendering: परमेश्वर
Transliteration: Parameśvar
Doctrine: Deity of Christ
Rejected alternatives: देव, भगवान
Original: θεός
Category: God
Inherited from Romans package. CRITICAL: देव is the everyday Marathi word for any deity at all (Ganpati, Vitthal, a village deity), so it flattens monotheistic exclusivity if used alone. परमेश्वर is preferred for doctrinal precision. In 1 John the stakes are especially high because the letter closes (5:20-21) by contrasting ‘the true God’ (खरा परमेश्वर) directly against मूर्ती (idols) — a Marathi reader must be in no doubt that परमेश्वर names the one exclusive God, not one devotional option among the region’s many (Vitthal, Ganpati, family/village deities). Also underlies both of 1 John’s definitional statements: देव प्रकाश आहे (1:5) and देव प्रीती आहे (4:8,16).
Jesus
Approved rendering: येशू
Transliteration: Yeśū
Doctrine: Lordship of Christ
Rejected alternatives: ईसा
Original: Ἰησοῦς
Category: Christology
Inherited from Romans package. येशू is the Marathi Christian standard; ईसा is associated with Muslim/Urdu usage. In 1 John, येशू is the subject of the letter’s central confessional test: येशू ख्रिस्त देहधारी होऊन आला (4:2-3) and येशू देवाचा पुत्र आहे (4:15; 5:1,5).
Son Of God
Approved rendering: देवाचा पुत्र
Transliteration: devācā putra
Doctrine: Sonship of Christ
Rejected alternatives: देवपुरुष, अवतारी पुरुष
Original: υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ
Category: Christology
Inherited from Romans package. Full phrase required; never ‘godly man’ or ‘one of the avatar-figures.’ In 1 John this confession (4:15; 5:5,9-13,20) functions exactly as Romans 10:9’s ‘Jesus is Lord’ does — a non-negotiable, unqualified salvation-marking confession. Render 4:15 as येशू देवाचा पुत्र आहे हे जो कबूल करतो without softening. Extended in 1 John 4:9 with the new qualifier एकुलता एक (see only_begotten_son below) to capture μονογενής’s uniqueness nuance not present in the Romans corpus.
Holy Spirit
Approved rendering: पवित्र आत्मा
Transliteration: Pavitra Ātmā
Doctrine: Sanctification
Rejected alternatives: परमात्मा, ब्रह्म
Original: πνεῦμα ἅγιον / τὸ πνεῦμα
Category: God
Inherited from Romans package. CRITICAL: never परमात्मा (Hindu Universal Self) or ब्रह्म (Brahman). In 1 John this grounds assurance (3:24; 4:13), anointing (2:20,27), and doctrinal discernment (4:1-6). In 4:13 (‘he has given us of his Spirit’) avoid any partitive phrasing suggesting a divisible portion of an impersonal divine substance (a possible Brahman-emanation misreading); the whole, personal, undivided Spirit is given.
Father
Approved rendering: पिता
Transliteration: Pitā
Doctrine: Adoption into God’s Family
Rejected alternatives: निर्माता
Original: πατήρ
Category: God
Inherited from Romans package. God as personal Father; avoid abstract creator-titles that lack relational warmth. In 1 John this grounds the believer’s fellowship (1:3) and the given status of ‘children of God’ (3:1, the emphatic exclamation about the Father’s love).
Salvation
Approved rendering: तारण
Transliteration: tāraṇ
Doctrine: Salvation
Rejected alternatives: मोक्ष, मुक्ती, निर्वाण
Original: σωτηρία (root); σωτήρ (Savior, 4:14)
Category: Salvation
Inherited from Romans package. CRITICAL: NEVER मोक्ष, मुक्ती, or निर्वाण. In 1 John this root underlies the new compound जगाचा तारणारा (Savior of the world, 4:14) and grounds the closely related new term सार्वकालिक जीवन (eternal life).
Righteousness
Approved rendering: नीतिमत्त्व
Transliteration: nītimattva
Doctrine: Salvation
Rejected alternatives: धर्म, पुण्य
Original: δικαιοσύνη
Category: Sanctification
Inherited from Romans package. CRITICAL: never धर्म. In 1 John this root is chiefly used for righteous practice as evidence of new birth (2:29; 3:7,10) — an ethical/evidentiary sense distinct from Romans’ primary forensic-declaration sense. A translator note is required at 3:7,10 (see practice_righteousness, below) distinguishing 1 John’s usage from Romans’ usage of the same Marathi root, to prevent Phase 2 confusion between these two related but distinct senses.
Love
Approved rendering: प्रीती
Transliteration: prīti
Doctrine: God is Light and God is Love
Rejected alternatives: प्रेम, भक्ती, भक्तिप्रेम, करुणा
Original: ἀγάπη / ἀγαπάω
Category: Love
NEW TERM (1 John). Use प्रीती consistently for ἀγάπη/ἀγαπάω, never प्रेम (romantic/erotic popular connotation in Marathi film and literature) and never भक्ती/भक्तिप्रेम (devotee-initiated devotional reverence toward a chosen deity such as Vitthal, flowing from the worshiper outward rather than originating in God toward the unworthy). Also distinguish from करुणा (the Buddhist cultivated virtue of compassion developed through the Eightfold Path) — agapē in 1 John is God’s own essential, uncultivated nature (4:8,16), given as gift, prior to and the ground of any human response (4:10,19). This is the single most load-bearing term in the entire curriculum (core passage 4:7-21) and must be fixed before Phase 2 translation begins. Render देव प्रीती आहे verbatim at every occurrence of the definitional claim (4:8,16).
Propitiation
Approved rendering: प्रायश्चित्त
Transliteration: prāyaścitta
Doctrine: Confession and Forgiveness of Sin
Rejected alternatives: स्वतः केलेले प्रायश्चित्त (unqualified self-performed-penance sense)
Original: ἱλασμός
Category: Salvation
NEW TERM (1 John). प्रायश्चित्त is the standard Marathi Bible-tradition rendering for ἱλασμός, but its everyday Hindu-cultural sense is a self-performed penance/expiatory ritual (vrata-style) undertaken BY the guilty party. 1 John’s point is the exact reverse: God himself gives and Christ himself accomplishes the propitiation (2:2; 4:10). Every occurrence requires a qualifying phrase (e.g., देवाने स्वतः दिलेले प्रायश्चित्त) or a standing translator note, and must be escalated to human theologian review at every occurrence, on par with the Romans baseline’s Romans 3:25 atonement escalation rule.
Light
Approved rendering: प्रकाश
Transliteration: prakāś
Doctrine: God is Light and God is Love
Rejected alternatives: तेज
Original: φῶς
Category: God
NEW TERM (1 John). φῶς — ‘God is light, and in him is no darkness at all’ (1:5), paired definitionally with ‘God is love’ (4:8,16). Must be distinguished from (1) Warkari devotional darshan-light imagery (the radiant vision of Vitthal’s मूर्ती granted to a devotee) and (2) the Buddhist association of light with bodhi (enlightenment attained through the Eightfold Path). Here light names an unchanging attribute of God’s own nature, not an experience granted to or attained by a practitioner. Reinforces the baseline’s caution on गौरव (glory) avoiding light-only imagery. Render देव प्रकाश आहे verbatim at 1:5.
Idols
Approved rendering: मूर्ती
Transliteration: mūrtī
Doctrine: Assurance of Salvation and Eternal Life
Original: εἴδωλα
Category: Worship
NEW TERM (1 John). εἴδωλα — the letter’s closing exhortation (5:21). मूर्ती is the exact, everyday Marathi word for the sacred images actively worshiped throughout Maharashtra (Ganpati मूर्ती immersed at visarjan; the Vitthal मूर्ती enshrined at Pandharpur, the devotional center of Warkari bhakti). No substitute is viable — मूर्ती is the necessary and correct rendering — but every occurrence requires human theologian review and a study note framing 5:21 not as an isolated ethical appendix but as the letter’s climactic call to undivided devotion to ‘the true God’ (5:20). Lands with unusual directness for Hindu-background readers and resonates with continuity for Ambedkarite Buddhist-background readers who historically renounced murti-worship.
Born Of God
Approved rendering: देवापासून जन्मलेला
Transliteration: devāpāsūn janmalelā
Doctrine: Love for the Brethren as Evidence of New Birth
Rejected alternatives: पुनर्जन्म, पुनर्भव
Original: γεννάω ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ / γεγέννηται
Category: New Birth
NEW TERM (1 John). γεννάω ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ / γεγέννηται — a completed, once-for-all, Spirit-wrought spiritual begetting (2:29; 3:9; 4:7; 5:1,4,18), evidenced by love, righteous practice, and freedom from habitual sin. MUST NEVER be rendered with पुनर्जन्म (Hindu reincarnation/rebirth into a new bodily existence) or the Buddhist technical पुनर्भव (arising of a new configuration of aggregates, explicitly not a continuous self) — both already forbidden in the Romans baseline for ‘resurrection,’ and the collision risk here is even greater since ‘born of God’ recurs as 1 John’s central structural marker of genuine faith. The single most collision-prone new term in the book; requires positive teaching, not merely a rejected-word list.
Eternal Life
Approved rendering: सार्वकालिक जीवन
Transliteration: sārvakālik jīvan
Doctrine: Assurance of Salvation and Eternal Life
Rejected alternatives: मोक्ष, मुक्ती, निर्वाण
Original: ζωὴ αἰώνιος
Category: Eschatology
NEW TERM (1 John). ζωὴ αἰώνιος — a present-possessed, qualitatively new, relational life in fellowship with God, known now with assurance and consummated forever (1:2; 2:25; 5:11-13,20). Must never be assimilated to मोक्ष/मुक्ती (Warkari-Hindu liberation from the rebirth-cycle) or निर्वाण (Buddhist cessation of craving/suffering, an impersonal extinguishing). 5:13’s ‘that you may know that you have eternal life’ makes this a presently-known, assured possession — a positive doctrinal claim requiring explicit teaching, not merely a rejected-word list.
Only Begotten Son
Approved rendering: एकुलता एक पुत्र
Transliteration: ekulatā ek putra
Doctrine: The Incarnation and Antichrist
Rejected alternatives: अवतार-सदृश वर्णन, बोधिसत्त्व-सदृश वर्णन
Original: ὁ υἱὸς ὁ μονογενής
Category: Christology
NEW TERM (1 John), extending baseline देवाचा पुत्र. ὁ υἱὸς ὁ μονογενής — Christ’s unique, unrepeatable, non-derivative Sonship (4:9). Must never be softened to suggest Christ is one honored son among many, nor assimilated to Vaishnav avatar theology (Vitthal/Krishna as one of several divine descents), nor to a Bodhisattva-type figure understood as one of many enlightened beings across cosmic time. Always pair with देवाचा पुत्र; never used alone.
Savior Of The World
Approved rendering: जगाचा तारणारा
Transliteration: jagācā tāraṇārā
Doctrine: Assurance of Salvation and Eternal Life
Rejected alternatives: जगाचा मुक्तिदाता (मोक्ष/मुक्ती-adjacent)
Original: σωτὴρ τοῦ κόσμου
Category: Salvation
NEW TERM (1 John) built on baseline तारण root. σωτὴρ τοῦ κόσμου — Christ’s saving mission extending to the whole world without ethnic or social restriction (4:14). जगाचा तारणारा (‘the deliverer of the world’) keeps the personal, relational sense of a deliverer, not an abstract liberating principle; inherits the Critical risk of the baseline salvation entry — never मोक्ष/मुक्ती/निर्वाण-adjacent vocabulary.
High Risk Terms
Faith
Approved rendering: विश्वास
Transliteration: viśvāsa
Doctrine: Faith
Rejected alternatives: श्रद्धा, भक्ति
Original: πίστις / πιστεύω
Category: Faith
Inherited from Romans package. Personal trust in a specific object (Christ); श्रद्धा and भक्ति both carry devotional-reverence connotations. In 1 John, faith is the explicit instrument of victory over the world (5:4-5) and of the saving confession (5:1,10,13) — must foreclose any self-effort or path-discipline misreading.
Sin
Approved rendering: पाप
Transliteration: pāp
Doctrine: Universal Human Accountability
Rejected alternatives: अधर्म
Original: ἁμαρτία
Category: Sin
Inherited from Romans package. Never अधर्म. In 1 John’s claim that ‘if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves’ (1:8), the same caution applies as in Romans: universal moral accountability before a personal God, never phrased to echo the caste-Hindu birth-karma framework Ambedkarite Buddhist communities in Maharashtra explicitly rejected. Also underlies the new compound नियमशास्त्राचे उल्लंघन (sin as lawlessness, 3:4) and मरणास कारण होणारे पाप (sin unto death, 5:16-17).
Holy
Approved rendering: पवित्र
Transliteration: pavitra
Doctrine: Sanctification
Rejected alternatives: शुद्ध
Original: ἅγιος (ὁ Ἅγιος, “the Holy One,” 2:20)
Category: Sanctification
Inherited from Romans package. Set apart for God and morally pure; शुद्ध leans toward ritual purity. In 1 John 2:20, ‘the Holy One’ (title for Christ) must read as a designation of Christ’s own holy character, not a generic honorific comparable to titles given to Warkari sant-poets.
Law
Approved rendering: नियमशास्त्र
Transliteration: niyamśāstra
Doctrine: Fulfillment of Prophecy
Rejected alternatives: धर्म, धम्म
Original: νόμος (implied root of ἀνομία)
Category: Sin
Inherited from Romans package. NEVER धर्म or धम्म. In 1 John this root serves as the base of the new compound नियमशास्त्राचे उल्लंघन for ἀνομία (lawlessness, 3:4), deliberately avoiding the baseline-rejected अधर्म that the Romans package already excluded for the related term ἁμαρτία.
Adoption
Approved rendering: दत्तक पुत्रत्व
Transliteration: dattak putratva
Doctrine: Adoption into God’s Family
Rejected alternatives: दत्तक घेणे
Original: υἱοθεσία (background; cf. τέκνα θεοῦ, 3:1)
Category: Salvation
Inherited from Romans package. Emphasizes full son-status and inheritance (Romans’ primary legal/forensic sense). Cross-reference with the new 1 John term देवाची मुले (children of God, 3:1) — keep both distinct in translation memory: 1 John emphasizes the given, relational, loving dimension of the status rather than Romans’ formal legal-inheritance framing; do not collapse the two terms into one.
Called
Approved rendering: बोलावलेले
Transliteration: bolāvlele
Doctrine: Divine Calling
Rejected alternatives: आमंत्रित
Original: κληθῶμεν (from καλέω)
Category: Salvation
Inherited from Romans package. In 1 John 3:1, used in ‘that we should be called children of God’ — the granting of a relational status by the Father’s own initiative, not human achievement.
Confess
Approved rendering: कबूल करणे
Transliteration: kabūl karṇe
Doctrine: Testing the Spirits
Original: ὁμολογέω
Category: Faith
NEW TERM (1 John). ὁμολογέω covers two distinct objects requiring careful contextual handling: (1) confessing one’s own sin directly to God (1:9), with no human/ritual mediator — distinct from prāyaścitta-style self-administered penance; and (2) confessing Jesus as the Son of God / as come in the flesh (4:2,15) — a public, doctrinal, salvation-marking confession that parallels the Romans baseline’s Romans 10:9 escalation rule and must be rendered without qualification: येशू देवाचा पुत्र आहे हे जो कबूल करतो.
Antichrist
Approved rendering: ख्रिस्तविरोधी
Transliteration: khristavirodhī
Doctrine: The Incarnation and Antichrist
Original: ἀντίχριστος
Category: Christology
NEW TERM (1 John). ἀντίχριστος — a false-Christ figure or spirit opposing/replacing the true Christ, marked specifically by denial that Jesus is the Christ come in the flesh (2:18-23; 4:3). Must not be assimilated to an existing culturally available cosmic-adversary figure (e.g., a Kali Yuga degeneration narrative) or a messianic-reversal figure from another tradition; names specifically the denial of the apostolic confession, already active in John’s own day (2:19), not exclusively a single future world-ruler.
World
Approved rendering: जग
Transliteration: jag
Doctrine: Overcoming the World
Original: κόσμος
Category: Ethics
NEW TERM (1 John). κόσμος is context-sensitive across three senses: the created order, humanity in general, and (the dominant sense in 1 John) the organized, God-opposing system of values and desires (2:15-17; 4:4-5; 5:4-5,19). Requires per-occurrence sense-flagging, similar to the Romans baseline’s handling of ‘called.’ Overcoming ‘the world’ must not be conflated with Buddhist teaching on overcoming worldly attachment/craving (taṇhā) through self-disciplined Eightfold Path practice — 1 John grounds victory explicitly in faith in the Son of God (5:4-5), a gift received, not a state attained by effort.
Abide
Approved rendering: राहणे / वास करणे
Transliteration: rāhṇe / vās karṇe
Doctrine: Fellowship with God and One Another
Original: μένω
Category: Fellowship
NEW TERM (1 John). μένω — to dwell continuously in a fixed, mutual relational state; the recurring Johannine term for mutual indwelling between God and the believer (2:6,10,14,24,27-28; 3:6,9,14,17,24; 4:12-16). Risks assimilation to pantheistic divine immanence (Hindu Brahman-atman teaching) or to Warkari devotional imagery of Vitthal ‘residing in the devotee’s heart’ understood poetically rather than literally/relationally. A standing translator note distinguishing personal Trinitarian indwelling from pantheistic immanence is required at first occurrence (2:6) and reinforced at 4:12-16.
Overcome
Approved rendering: जिंकणे / मात करणे
Transliteration: jiṅkṇe / māt karṇe
Doctrine: Overcoming the World
Original: νικάω
Category: Ethics
NEW TERM (1 John). νικάω — to conquer/prevail over an opposing spiritual force, grounded explicitly in the indwelling Spirit (4:4) and in faith (5:4-5), recurring at 2:13-14. Must be grounded explicitly in indwelling divine power and faith, not self-effort or disciplined practice along a path — the central distinction from both Hindu spiritual-conquest (tapasya) ideals and the Buddhist Eightfold Path’s self-cultivated overcoming of craving.
Confidence
Approved rendering: धैर्य / निर्भय भरवसा
Transliteration: dhairya / nirbhaya bharavasā
Doctrine: Assurance of Salvation and Eternal Life
Original: παρρησία
Category: Assurance
NEW TERM (1 John). παρρησία — confident, unashamed standing before God, especially at the final judgment (2:28; 3:21; 4:17) and in prayer (5:14). Must convey a confidence grounded in Christ’s finished work and God’s declared verdict (cf. baseline नीतिमान ठरवणे, justification), not self-generated courage or confidence earned by accumulated merit/good karma.
Advocate
Approved rendering: मध्यस्थ
Transliteration: madhyastha
Doctrine: Christ as Advocate
Rejected alternatives: गुरू/संत-शैलीतील मध्यस्थ भूमिका
Original: παράκλητος
Category: Salvation
NEW TERM (1 John) built on the root shared with baseline मध्यस्थी (intercession). παράκλητος — Christ’s own legal-defense role before the Father when sin is committed (2:1), grounded in his propitiatory death. Must be clearly Christ’s own unique role, not a generic mediating guru/saint figure interceding on a devotee’s behalf, a role filled by various sant-figures in Warkari devotional practice.
Anointing
Approved rendering: अभिषेक
Transliteration: abhiṣek
Doctrine: Testing the Spirits
Original: χρῖσμα
Category: Pneumatology
NEW TERM (1 John). χρῖσμα — the Holy Spirit’s inward teaching ministry given to every believer, not only spiritual specialists (2:20,27). अभिषेक is a live, active ritual term in Hindu practice (ceremonial anointing of a deity’s मूर्ती with milk, water, honey — e.g., Shiva-abhisheka). A translator note is required clarifying this is the Spirit’s inward teaching ministry given to every believer at conversion, countering incipient Gnostic elitism, not a repeatable external ritual act performed on a sacred object or person.
Cleanse
Approved rendering: शुद्ध करणे
Transliteration: śuddha karṇe
Doctrine: Confession and Forgiveness of Sin
Original: καθαρίζω
Category: Sin
NEW TERM (1 John). καθαρίζω — real moral cleansing from sin’s guilt and defilement, effected once for all by Christ’s blood (1:7,9). शुद्ध was already flagged in the Romans baseline (rejected for ‘holy’) as leaning toward ritual purity; a translator note is required distinguishing this once-for-all moral cleansing through Christ’s atoning blood from repeatable ritual/ceremonial purification (snana, purificatory rites) self- or priest-administered.
Lawlessness
Approved rendering: नियमशास्त्राचे उल्लंघन
Transliteration: niyamśāstrāce ullaṅghan
Doctrine: Love for the Brethren as Evidence of New Birth
Rejected alternatives: अधर्म
Original: ἀνομία
Category: Sin
NEW TERM (1 John) built on baseline नियमशास्त्र root. ἀνομία — 3:4’s definition of sin as lawlessness. The Romans baseline explicitly rejected अधर्म for the general term ἁμαρτία due to caste-Hindu resonance; that rejection applies with equal or greater force here since ἀνομία is even more literally ‘lawless-ness.’ नियमशास्त्राचे उल्लंघन avoids the rejected word entirely.
Compassion
Approved rendering: करुणा / कनवाळू अंतःकरण
Transliteration: karuṇā / kanavāḷū antaḥkaraṇ
Doctrine: Love for the Brethren as Evidence of New Birth
Rejected alternatives: करुणा (unqualified, standalone)
Original: σπλάγχνα
Category: Love
NEW TERM (1 John). σπλάγχνα — compassionate response evidenced concretely in material generosity toward a brother in need (3:17), the practical test of love in deed and truth (3:18). करुणा is the central term of Buddhist ethical cultivation (a brahmavihāra developed through meditative practice); using it unqualified risks readers assimilating this compassion to a self-cultivated virtue rather than the spontaneous fruit of a heart transformed by new birth. Prefer कनवाळू अंतःकरण as primary rendering, or qualify करुणा with ख्रिस्ती (Christ-shaped) when used.
Children Of God
Approved rendering: देवाची मुले
Transliteration: devācī mule
Doctrine: Love for the Brethren as Evidence of New Birth
Original: τέκνα θεοῦ
Category: New Birth
NEW TERM (1 John), related to but distinct from baseline दत्तक पुत्रत्व (adoption, Romans’ formal legal/inheritance emphasis). τέκνα θεοῦ — believers’ new, given, relational identity, granted by the Father’s love, not achieved (3:1-2; 5:2). Cross-reference both terms in translation memory so Phase 2 translators recognize doctrinal continuity without collapsing the two Greek terms into one.
Word Of Life
Approved rendering: जीवनाचे वचन
Transliteration: jīvanāce vacan
Doctrine: The Incarnation and Antichrist
Original: ὁ λόγος τῆς ζωῆς
Category: Christology
NEW TERM (1 John), connecting directly to baseline देहधारण (incarnation). ὁ λόγος τῆς ζωῆς — Christ himself as the eternal, self-revealing Word, made tangible and historical (1:1, ‘heard…seen…looked upon…touched’). Must convey that this Word is the same eternal, uncreated Son now made physically manifest and touchable — not a repeatable or partial disclosure comparable to periodic avatar-appearances.
Manifested
Approved rendering: प्रकट झाले / प्रकट झाला
Transliteration: prakaṭ jhāle / prakaṭ jhālā
Doctrine: The Incarnation and Antichrist
Original: φανερόω
Category: Christology
NEW TERM (1 John). φανερόω — to make visible/known what was previously hidden; God’s love (4:9) and Christ himself (1:2; 3:5,8) were manifested historically. Must convey a one-time, historical disclosure, not a recurring theophany or periodic avatar-appearance.
Sin Unto Death
Approved rendering: मरणास कारण होणारे पाप / मरणास कारण न होणारे पाप
Transliteration: maraṇās kāraṇ hoṇāre pāp / maraṇās kāraṇ na hoṇāre pāp
Doctrine: Confession and Forgiveness of Sin
Original: ἁμαρτία πρὸς θάνατον / οὐ πρὸς θάνατον
Category: Sin
NEW TERM (1 John). ἁμαρτία πρὸς θάνατον / οὐ πρὸς θάνατον — a pastoral distinction (5:16-17) between sin leading to a specific divine judgment (likely persistent apostasy) and ordinary sin for which intercession is fruitful. Risks being read through a karma-consequence lens (sin mechanically causing death as cosmic retribution). A standing translator/study note flagging the interpretive debate and explicitly warning against a karmic-mechanism reading is required.
Test The Spirits
Approved rendering: आत्म्यांची परीक्षा घेणे
Transliteration: ātmyāncī parīkṣā gheṇe
Doctrine: Testing the Spirits
Original: δοκιμάζετε τὰ πνεύματα
Category: Testing the Spirits
NEW TERM (1 John). δοκιμάζετε τὰ πνεύματα — to evaluate/discern the authenticity of a claimed spiritual source through an objective, doctrinal criterion, not subjective feeling (4:1-3). In rural and urban Maharashtra alike, this phrase carries strong folk-religious resonance (bhagat/māntrik practices identifying possessing spirits, bhūt-pret exorcism rituals). A translator note is essential clarifying that 1 John’s test is doctrinal — does the teaching confess the true incarnate Christ? — not a ritual test for spirit-possession or an occult discernment practice.
Spirit Of Error
Approved rendering: भ्रमाचा आत्मा
Transliteration: bhramācā ātmā
Doctrine: Testing the Spirits
Original: πνεῦμα τῆς πλάνης
Category: Testing the Spirits
NEW TERM (1 John). πνεῦμα τῆς πλάνης — the false teaching-source distinguished from the Spirit of God by its confession about Christ’s incarnation (4:6). Must be clearly presented as a doctrinal category — a false teaching-source — not a literal possessing entity in the folk-exorcism sense.
Water And Blood
Approved rendering: पाणी आणि रक्त
Transliteration: pāṇī āṇi rakta
Doctrine: The Incarnation and Antichrist
Original: τὸ ὕδωρ καὶ τὸ αἷμα (καὶ τὸ πνεῦμα)
Category: Christology
NEW TERM (1 John). τὸ ὕδωρ καὶ τὸ αἷμα (καὶ τὸ πνεῦμα) — three witnesses corroborating the reality of Jesus Christ: his baptism, his atoning death, and the Spirit’s testimony (5:6-8). High risk primarily due to interpretive complexity rather than a cultural-collision risk; recommend a translator/study note explaining the historical referents rather than a purely literal, decontextualized rendering, against a docetic denial of Christ’s real humanity and real atoning death.
True God
Approved rendering: खरा परमेश्वर
Transliteration: kharā Parameśvar
Doctrine: Assurance of Salvation and Eternal Life
Original: ὁ ἀληθινὸς θεός
Category: God
NEW TERM (1 John), paired with baseline परमेश्वर. ὁ ἀληθινὸς θεός — ‘This is the true God and eternal life’ (5:20), the letter’s final identification of the object of saving knowledge, over against idols (5:21). Must retain its full contrastive force against everything the letter has just termed मूर्ती — the climax of the letter’s exclusivity claim.
Seed Of God
Approved rendering: बीज
Transliteration: bīj
Doctrine: Love for the Brethren as Evidence of New Birth
Original: σπέρμα (αὐτοῦ)
Category: New Birth
NEW TERM (1 John). σπέρμα (αὐτοῦ) — the divine, generative principle/nature implanted in the believer at new birth (3:9), enabling a settled orientation away from habitual sin. Must not be assimilated to a Hindu/Buddhist notion of an inherent divine spark or Buddha-nature already present in all beings awaiting self-realization; 1 John presents this as implanted at the specific, decisive event of new birth, not an innate universal potential.
Testify
Approved rendering: साक्ष देणे / साक्ष
Transliteration: sākṣa deṇe / sākṣa
Doctrine: The Incarnation and Antichrist
Original: μαρτυρέω / μαρτυρία
Category: Christology
NEW TERM (1 John). μαρτυρέω/μαρτυρία — authoritative eyewitness testimony to a historical event: the Father’s sending of the Son (4:14) and God’s own threefold testimony (5:6-11). Must be clearly public, corroborated, apostolic testimony about a historical event, not comparable to a guru’s or teacher’s personally attained spiritual insight offered privately to disciples.
Medium Risk Terms
Apostle
Approved rendering: प्रेषित
Transliteration: preṣit
Doctrine: Apostleship
Rejected alternatives: गुरू, संदेशवाहक
Original: ἀπόστολος (root; background to the author’s implicit authority)
Category: Church
Inherited from Romans package. Avoid गुरू. In 1 John this is background vocabulary only, underlying the author’s implicit apostolic authority and eyewitness claim (1:1-4; 4:14, ‘we have seen and testify’).
Intercession
Approved rendering: मध्यस्थी
Transliteration: madhyasthī
Doctrine: Prayer and Intercession
Original: root shared with παράκλητος (paraklētos)
Category: Faith
Inherited from Romans package. Prayer on behalf of others. In 1 John this root is shared with the new compound मध्यस्थ (advocate, 2:1) and with intercessory prayer for a brother’s sin (5:16); keep both consistent in Phase 2 usage.
Darkness
Approved rendering: अंधकार
Transliteration: andhakār
Doctrine: God is Light and God is Love
Original: σκότος / σκοτία
Category: God
NEW TERM (1 John). σκότος/σκοτία — moral corruption, falsehood, alienation from God (1:5-7; 2:8-11). Standard moral-metaphor term with low ambiguity once प्रकाश is correctly anchored as God’s essential nature rather than a devotional-light experience.
Faithful And Just
Approved rendering: विश्वासू आणि न्यायी
Transliteration: viśvāsū āṇi nyāyī
Doctrine: Confession and Forgiveness of Sin
Original: πιστὸς καὶ δίκαιος
Category: God
NEW TERM (1 John), built on baseline नीतिमत्त्व-family vocabulary for δίκαιος. πιστὸς καὶ δίκαιος — God’s reliable, covenant-keeping character and his righteous consistency in forgiving on the basis of Christ’s finished work (1:9). Keep both attributes (covenant faithfulness AND judicial righteousness) rather than collapsing into a single generic ‘good.‘
Blood Of Jesus
Approved rendering: रक्त
Transliteration: rakta
Doctrine: Confession and Forgiveness of Sin
Original: αἷμα (Ἰησοῦ)
Category: Salvation
NEW TERM (1 John). αἷμα (Ἰησοῦ) — the objective, historical basis of cleansing from sin: Christ’s own atoning death (1:7). Ensure the phrase consistently reads येशूचे रक्त (the blood of Jesus specifically), avoiding assimilation to generalized yajna sacrificial-blood concepts where a worshiper offers blood/life to a deity for merit; here God himself provides the sacrifice.
Devil
Approved rendering: सैतान
Transliteration: saitān
Doctrine: Love for the Brethren as Evidence of New Birth
Original: διάβολος
Category: Sin
NEW TERM (1 John). διάβολος — the personal, malevolent spiritual being who is the ultimate source/originator of sin (3:8). सैतान is the standard, established Marathi Christian term; grounds the moral seriousness of sin in personal spiritual conflict, not impersonal cosmic imbalance.
Lay Down Life
Approved rendering: आपला जीव अर्पण करणे
Transliteration: āpalā jīv arpaṇ karṇe
Doctrine: Love for the Brethren as Evidence of New Birth
Original: τίθημι τὴν ψυχήν
Category: Love
NEW TERM (1 John). τίθημι τὴν ψυχήν — sacrificial self-giving modeled on Christ’s own death (3:16), extended as the pattern for love of the brethren. Standard sacrificial-language phrase with low ambiguity once Christ’s death is clearly the pattern being invoked.
Last Hour
Approved rendering: शेवटची घटका / अंतिम काळ
Transliteration: śevaṭcī ghaṭkā / antim kāḷ
Doctrine: The Incarnation and Antichrist
Original: ἐσχάτη ὥρα
Category: Eschatology
NEW TERM (1 John). ἐσχάτη ὥρα — the final period of redemptive history, inaugurated by Christ’s first coming and marked by the rise of antichrists (2:18). Must be linear, historical eschatology, not a cyclical cosmic-age framework (cf. baseline’s fulfillment_of_prophecy notes on Hindu yuga cycles).
Worldly Desire
Approved rendering: देहवासना, डोळ्यांची वासना, जीवनाचा गर्व
Transliteration: dehavāsanā, ḍoḷyāncī vāsanā, jīvanācā garva
Doctrine: Overcoming the World
Original: ἐπιθυμία τῆς σαρκός, ἐπιθυμία τῶν ὀφθαλμῶν, ἀλαζονεία τοῦ βίου
Category: Ethics
NEW TERM (1 John). The threefold catalog of worldly desire opposed to the Father’s love (2:16), defining ‘the world’ practically. Standard moral vocabulary with low ambiguity once जग is correctly anchored.
Liar
Approved rendering: खोटारडा
Transliteration: khoṭāraḍā
Doctrine: Love for the Brethren as Evidence of New Birth
Original: ψεύστης
Category: Ethics
NEW TERM (1 John). ψεύστης — one who speaks falsehood, specifically a false professor of love for God who hates his brother (4:20). Retain the bluntness of the original, not softened to ‘mistaken’ or ‘confused.‘
Brother
Approved rendering: बंधू
Transliteration: bandhū
Doctrine: Love for the Brethren as Evidence of New Birth
Original: ἀδελφός
Category: Church
NEW TERM (1 John). ἀδελφός — fellow believer, spiritual kinship language transcending biological or social-community boundaries (2:9-11; 3:10-17; 4:20-21). Must be read as fellow-believer kinship transcending caste/community boundary, paralleling the Romans baseline’s unity_of_jews_and_gentiles sensitivity in the Maharashtra context.
Understanding
Approved rendering: समज
Transliteration: samaj
Doctrine: Assurance of Salvation and Eternal Life
Original: διάνοια
Category: Assurance
NEW TERM (1 John). διάνοια — the capacity to truly know God, given by the Son (5:20). Must be presented as a divine gift (‘he has given us understanding’) rather than an insight attained through meditative self-cultivation.
Fear Of Judgment
Approved rendering: भीती
Transliteration: bhītī
Doctrine: Assurance of Salvation and Eternal Life
Original: φόβος
Category: Assurance
NEW TERM (1 John). φόβος — servile dread of divine punishment/judgment, which perfected love removes (4:18). Must be distinguished from reverent ‘fear of the Lord’ (a positive biblical category elsewhere) — here it specifically names dread of punishment.
Punishment
Approved rendering: शिक्षा / दंड
Transliteration: śikṣā / daṇḍ
Doctrine: Assurance of Salvation and Eternal Life
Original: κόλασις
Category: Assurance
NEW TERM (1 John). κόλασις — penal, judicial suffering, the specific object of the fear that perfected love casts out (4:18). Must not be phrased to suggest an impersonal karmic retribution mechanism operating automatically; this is a personal God’s judicial punishment, removed for believers through Christ.
Perfected Love
Approved rendering: पूर्ण झाली / पूर्ण प्रीती
Transliteration: pūrṇa jhālī / pūrṇa prīti
Doctrine: God is Light and God is Love
Original: τελειόω (τετελειωμένη, τελεία ἀγάπη)
Category: Love
NEW TERM (1 John). τελειόω (τετελειωμένη, τελεία ἀγάπη) — love reaching its intended, mature, completed expression through believers (4:12,17-18). Must not be read as human effort perfecting/completing God’s love by merit; love reaches its designed goal when expressed through believers as its intended channel.
Keep Oneself
Approved rendering: स्वतःला राखणे / देव राखतो
Transliteration: svataḥlā rākhṇe / dev rākhto
Doctrine: Assurance of Salvation and Eternal Life
Original: τηρέω (ἑαυτόν)
Category: Assurance
NEW TERM (1 John). τηρέω (ἑαυτόν) — protective vigilance maintained by the one born of God, with Christ himself as the ultimate keeper (5:18, ‘he who was born of God keeps him’). Must keep the ultimate agency as Christ’s keeping power, not merely human self-discipline, to avoid a self-effort/self-protection misreading.
Practice Righteousness
Approved rendering: नीतिमत्त्वाचे आचरण करणे
Transliteration: nītimattvāce ācaraṇ karṇe
Doctrine: Love for the Brethren as Evidence of New Birth
Original: ποιέω τὴν δικαιοσύνην
Category: Sanctification
NEW TERM (1 John), built on baseline नीतिमत्त्व root. ποιέω τὴν δικαιοσύνην — habitual righteous conduct as evidence (not the ground) of new birth (3:7,10). A translator note is recommended clarifying that here the emphasis is righteous practice as fruit/evidence of new birth, distinct from Romans’ forensic-declaration sense of the same Marathi root term.
Know God
Approved rendering: जाणतो / ओळखतो
Transliteration: jāṇto / oḷakhto
Doctrine: Fellowship with God and One Another
Original: γινώσκω
Category: Fellowship
NEW TERM (1 John). γινώσκω — experiential, relational knowledge of God, evidenced by love for others (2:3-5; 4:7-8), not intellectual assent or esoteric gnosis. Must not carry vocabulary suggesting a Gnostic-style secret knowledge nor a term implying meditative self-realization/insight attained through practice.
Walk
Approved rendering: चालणे / जीवन जगणे
Transliteration: cālṇe / jīvan jagṇe
Doctrine: God is Light and God is Love
Original: περιπατέω
Category: Ethics
NEW TERM (1 John). περιπατέω — a whole manner-of-life, habitual orientation either toward God (light) or away from him (darkness) (1:6-7; 2:6,11). Conveys habitual life-orientation, not a single isolated act.
Low Risk Terms
Fellowship
Approved rendering: सहभागिता
Transliteration: sahabhāgitā
Doctrine: Christian Fellowship
Rejected alternatives: मैत्री
Original: κοινωνία
Category: Church
Inherited from Romans package. Shared participation in Christ, not mere social friendship. Term-level risk remains Low per baseline in 1 John (1:3,6-7), though the surrounding doctrine of mutual/Trinitarian abiding (see abide, below) carries elevated High risk within this letter.
Little Children Address
Approved rendering: लाडक्या मुलांनो / मुलांनो
Transliteration: lāḍakyā mulānno / mulānno
Doctrine: Pastoral Address to Believers
Original: τεκνία / παιδία
Category: Pastoral
NEW TERM (1 John). τεκνία/παιδία — terms of pastoral affection used repeatedly to address the readers, distinct from τέκνα θεοῦ’s theological status claim. Address form only; no doctrinal content requiring escalation.
Referenced passages