Core Glossary
Core Glossary: 1 Corinthians — English → Persian
This glossary lists every theologically load-bearing term identified in analysis/07_semantic_analysis.md, spanning 1 Corinthians 1–16. Terms marked [Baseline Reuse] carry forward the exact Persian rendering and risk tier recorded in the baseline Romans translation_memory.json / bible_term_registry.json and MUST NOT be altered. Terms marked [New — 1 Corinthians] are proposed additions to translation memory for theologian ratification before Phase 2 begins; their risk tier and rationale are argued in full in 07_semantic_analysis.md.
A. Baseline-Reused Terms Appearing in 1 Corinthians
| Term (EN) | Greek | Persian | Transliteration | Risk | Doctrine | Key Chapters | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| gospel | εὐαγγέλιον | انجیل | Injil | High | Gospel | 1, 9, 15 | Baseline Reuse |
| grace | χάρις | فیض | feyz | High | Grace | 1, 3, 15, 16 | Baseline Reuse |
| faith | πίστις | ایمان | iman | High | Faith | 2, 3, 12, 13, 15, 16 | Baseline Reuse |
| righteousness | δικαιοσύνη | عدالت | edalat | Critical | Salvation | 1 (implied) | Baseline Reuse |
| justification | δικαίωσις / δικαιόω | عادل شمرده شدن | adel shomorde shodan | Critical | Salvation | 6 | Baseline Reuse |
| salvation | σωτηρία / σῴζω | نجات | nejat | Critical | Salvation | 1, 5, 9, 10, 15 | Baseline Reuse |
| apostle | ἀπόστολος | رسول | rasul | High | Apostleship | 1, 4, 9, 12, 15 | Baseline Reuse |
| called | κλητός | دعوتشده | da’vat-shode | High | Divine Calling | 1, 7 | Baseline Reuse |
| calling | κλῆσις | دعوت | da’vat | Medium | Divine Calling | 1, 7 | Baseline Reuse |
| holy | ἅγιος | مقدس | moqaddas | Medium/High | Sanctification | 1, 3, 6, 7 | Baseline Reuse |
| saints | ἅγιοι | مقدسین | moqaddasin | Medium/High | Sainthood | 1, 6, 16 | Baseline Reuse |
| sanctification | ἁγιασμός / ἁγιάζω | تقدیس | taqdis | High | Sanctification | 1, 6, 7 | Baseline Reuse |
| resurrection | ἀνάστασις / ἐγείρω | قیامت | qiyamat | Critical | Resurrection of Christ | 15 (all) | Baseline Reuse |
| lord | κύριος | خداوند | Khodavand | Critical | Lordship of Christ | 1–16 (throughout) | Baseline Reuse |
| son_of_god | υἱὸς θεοῦ | پسر خدا | pesar-e khoda | Critical | Sonship of Christ | (implicit, cf. 15:28) | Baseline Reuse |
| peace | εἰρήνη | سلام | salam | Medium | Peace with God | 1, 7, 14, 16 | Baseline Reuse |
| spiritual_gifts | χάρισμα | عطایای روحانی | ’ataya-ye ruhani | Medium | Spiritual Gifts | 1, 7, 12 | Baseline Reuse |
| thanksgiving | εὐχαριστία | شکرگزاری | shokr-gozari | Low | Thanksgiving | 1, 14 | Baseline Reuse |
| fellowship | κοινωνία | مشارکت | mosharekat | Medium (High for eucharistic sense, see B) | Christian Fellowship | 1, 10 | Baseline Reuse + Escalation |
| church | ἐκκλησία | کلیسا | kelisa | High | Church as God’s People | 1, 4, 6, 10–16 | Baseline Reuse |
| kingdom_of_god | βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ | ملکوت خدا | malakut-e khoda | Medium | Kingdom Mission | 4, 6, 15 | Baseline Reuse |
| law | νόμος | ناموس | namus | Critical | Fulfillment of Prophecy / Sin | 7, 9, 14, 15 | Baseline Reuse |
| sin | ἁμαρτία | گناه | gonah | High | Universal Human Accountability | 15 | Baseline Reuse |
| gentiles | ἔθνη / Ἕλλην | غیریهودیان | gheyr-yahudian | Medium | Unity of Jews and Gentiles | 1, 10, 12 | Baseline Reuse |
| glory | δόξα | جلال | jalal | Medium | Deity of Christ | 2, 10, 11, 15 | Baseline Reuse |
| power_of_god | δύναμις θεοῦ | قدرت خدا | qodrat-e khoda | Medium (High in 1:18-24 cross-context, see B) | Power of God for Salvation | 1, 2, 4, 15 | Baseline Reuse + Escalation |
| messiah | Χριστός | مسیح | Masih | Critical | Messianic Promise | 1–16 (throughout) | Baseline Reuse |
| prophet / prophecy | προφήτης / προφητεία | پیامبر / نبوت | payambar / nabovat | High / Low | Inspiration of Scripture | 12, 13, 14 | Baseline Reuse |
| covenant | διαθήκη | عهد | ’ahd | Medium | Davidic Covenant / New Covenant | 11 | Baseline Reuse |
| election | ἐκλογή / ἐκλέγομαι | برگزیدگی خدا | bargozidegi-ye khoda | High | Effectual Calling | 1 | Baseline Reuse |
| israel | Ἰσραήλ | اسرائیل | Esra’il | High | Unity of Jews and Gentiles | 10 | Baseline Reuse |
| jesus | Ἰησοῦς | عیسی | Isa | Critical | Lordship of Christ | 1–16 (throughout) | Baseline Reuse |
| god | θεός | خدا | Khoda | Critical | Deity of Christ | 1–16 (throughout) | Baseline Reuse |
| holy_spirit | πνεῦμα ἅγιον | روحالقدس | Ruh-ol-Qods | Critical | Sanctification | 2, 3, 6, 12, 14 | Baseline Reuse |
| father | πατήρ | پدر | pedar | Critical | Adoption | 1, 8, 15 | Baseline Reuse |
| exhort | παρακαλέω | تشویق کردن | tashviq kardan | Low | Mutual Edification | 1, 4, 16 | Baseline Reuse |
| mutual_edification (concept) | οἰκοδομέω / οἰκοδομή | بنا کردن | bana kardan | Low | Mutual Edification | 3, 8, 10, 14 | Baseline Reuse |
B. New Terms Introduced by 1 Corinthians (Proposed Additions to Translation Memory)
| Term (EN) | Greek | Persian | Transliteration | Risk | Doctrine | Key Chapters | Rationale Summary |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| wisdom | σοφία | حکمت | hekmat | Critical | The Cross as Wisdom and Power | 1, 2, 3 | Collides with the prestigious, seminary-taught Iranian philosophical-mystical hekmat tradition (Illuminationism, Mulla Sadra’s Transcendent Theosophy), risking the cross’s paradoxical wisdom being read as one more elite, humanly-attained hekmat system. |
| cross | σταυρός | صلیب | salib | Critical | The Cross as Wisdom and Power | 1, 2 | Direct collision with the Quran’s crucifixion-denial (4:157); 1 Cor 1 is the NT’s most concentrated affirmation of the crucifixion as gospel content itself. |
| foolishness | μωρία | حماقت (prefer over جهالت) | hemaqat | Medium | The Cross as Wisdom and Power | 1 | جهالت risks unintended resonance with the Islamic “Jahiliyyah” (pre-Islamic ignorance) historical category. |
| schism / division | σχίσμα | تفرقه | tafraqeh | Medium | Christian Unity versus Factionalism | 1, 3, 11, 12 | Must be distinguished from the necessary, security-driven decentralization of underground house-church cell structure. |
| mystery | μυστήριον | راز | raz | High | The Cross as Wisdom and Power / Spiritual Gifts | 2, 4, 13, 14, 15 | Risks assimilation into Shia esoteric ʿilm al-bāṭin (“hidden knowledge of the Imams”) categories, implying a privileged initiate class Paul’s usage explicitly rejects. |
| natural person / natural body | ψυχικός (ἄνθρωπος / σῶμα) | نفسانی | nafsani | High | Resurrection of Christ and Believers | 2, 15 | نفسانی’s pre-existing “nafs” (lower self) resonance in Islamic/Sufi ethics risks reframing a binary Spirit/no-Spirit distinction as a matter of degree of ascetic self-discipline. |
| carnal / fleshly | σαρκικός | جسمانی | jesmani | Medium | Christian Unity versus Factionalism | 3 | Milder version of the ψυχικός/نفسانی risk; applies to believers, not the unregenerate. |
| temple | ναός | هیکل | haykal | High | Church as God’s People / Holiness | 3, 6 | Risks assimilation into Iran’s developed shrine-veneration culture (imamzadeh shrines, Karbala shrine complex), implying a fixed physical pilgrimage site rather than the church/body as the Spirit’s dwelling. |
| judge / judgment (church discipline & lawsuits) | κρίνω / κρίμα | قضاوت کردن / داوری | qazavat kardan / davari | High | Church Discipline and Holiness | 4, 5, 6, 11 | Risks conflation with Iran’s actual shari’a-based civil/criminal judicial system, especially acute in ch.5-6. |
| sexual immorality | πορνεία | زنا | zena | High | Church Discipline and Holiness | 5, 6 | زنا is a defined shari’a hadd criminal offense in Iranian law; risks conflating internal, restorative church discipline with the state’s criminal-legal apparatus — a life-and-death distinction for house-church communities. |
| leaven | ζύμη | خمیرمایه | khamir-mayeh | Low | Church Discipline and Holiness | 5 | Comprehension/imagery issue only; no doctrinal collision. |
| Passover (Christ our) | πάσχα | فصح | Fesh | Medium | The Cross as Wisdom and Power | 5 | No direct collision; requires OT background teaching (Exodus 12) for comprehension. |
| body (context-sensitive: individual / corporate / eucharistic / resurrection) | σῶμα | بدن | badan | High | Marriage & Holiness / Body of Christ / Lord’s Supper / Resurrection | 6, 10, 11, 12, 15 | Four distinct theological senses require explicit, per-occurrence disambiguation, following the baseline’s “called” model. |
| marriage | γάμος | ازدواج | ezdevaj | Medium | Marriage and Singleness | 7 | Positively regarded in both traditions; risk is register/formality, not collision. |
| singleness / virgin / unmarried | παρθένος / ἄγαμος | باکره / مجرد | bakereh / mojarad | High | Marriage and Singleness | 7 | Collides with the Islamic “no rahbaniyyah [monasticism] in Islam” tradition and strong Iranian social/familial marriage expectation; risks Paul’s commended singleness being read as spiritually deviant. |
| separate / divorce | χωρίζω | جدا شدن / طلاق | joda shodan / talaq | Medium | Marriage and Singleness | 7 | Risk of conflation with the formal shari’a talaq mechanism rather than Paul’s specific pastoral-case exception. |
| idol | εἴδωλον | بت | bot | High | Christian Liberty and Idol Meat | 8, 10, 12 | Shared shirk-category vocabulary can bridge comprehension but risks collapsing Paul’s “idols have no real existence” argument into a purely ritual-avoidance (najis) framework. |
| food sacrificed to idols | εἰδωλόθυτον | گوشت قربانی بتها | gusht-e qorbani-ye bot-ha | High | Christian Liberty and Idol Meat | 8, 10 | Risks collapsing Paul’s conscience/liberty argument into an Islamic halal/haram legal-purity framework, the opposite of Paul’s actual position (8:4, 10:25-27). |
| conscience | συνείδησις | وجدان | vejdan | Medium | Christian Liberty and Idol Meat | 8, 10 | Now a largely secularized ethical term; risks losing its specifically Spirit-informed, Christ-oriented biblical grounding (8:12). |
| liberty / right | ἐξουσία / ἐλευθερία | اختیار / آزادی | ekhtiyar / azadi | Medium | Christian Liberty and Idol Meat | 8, 9, 10 | آزادی is a politically loaded term in contemporary Iranian discourse (revolutionary and reformist rhetoric); risks reading Christian liberty through a political-freedom lens. |
| knowledge | γνῶσις | شناخت (prefer over معرفت) | shenakht | High | Christian Liberty and Idol Meat / Love | 8, 12, 13 | معرفت (ma’refat) is the technical term of Sufi/Islamic mystical gnosis (erfan); risks elevating Paul’s plain, subordinate-to-love “knowledge” into a prestigious mystical-attainment category. |
| sacrifice | θυσία | قربانی | qorbani | Low-Medium | The Lord’s Supper | 10 | Broadly compatible with Islamic qorbani vocabulary (Eid al-Adha); ensure “real participation” argument is retained. |
| table / cup of the Lord; Lord’s Supper | τράπεζα/ποτήριον κυρίου; κυριακὸν δεῖπνον | سفره خداوند / عشای ربانی | sofreh-ye Khodavand / ‘ashā-ye rabbani | Critical | The Lord’s Supper | 10, 11 | Structurally close to Twelver Shia Karbala/Hussein commemorative ritual meals (sofreh-ye nazri); risks syncretistic absorption of Christ’s unique atonement into martyrdom-intercession devotional-meal framework. |
| body and blood (of Christ) | σῶμα καὶ αἷμα | بدن و خون | badan o khun | Critical | The Lord’s Supper | 11 | Compounds the Lord’s Supper risk above; also intersects Islamic blood-consumption dietary prohibition, requiring explicit memorial/covenantal (not literal) framing. |
| unworthy manner | ἀναξίως | ناسزاوار | nasezavar | Medium | The Lord’s Supper | 11 | Risk of inducing scrupulosity/self-exclusion or, conversely, careless participation; pair with 11:28’s positive self-examination instruction. |
| discern the body | διακρίνω τὸ σῶμα | تشخیص دادن بدن | tashkhis dadan-e badan | High | The Lord’s Supper / Body of Christ | 11 | Same rationale as Lord’s Supper entries; connects sacramental and ecclesial senses of “body.” |
| head / headship | κεφαλή | سر | sar | High | Order in Worship / Deity of Christ | 11 | Must not be taught as implying ontological subordination within the Trinity (11:3, “the head of Christ is God”), which would undermine the baseline’s Critical deity_of_christ entry. |
| head covering | κατακαλύπτω | پوشاندن سر | pushandan-e sar | Critical | Order in Worship | 11 | Acute, live collision with Iran’s mandatory hijab law and the associated “Woman, Life, Freedom” protest movement; requires explicit distinction from contemporary state-enforced hijab politics. |
| body of Christ (corporate) | σῶμα Χριστοῦ | بدن مسیح | badan-e Masih | High | Christian Unity / Body of Christ | 12 | Risks assimilation into Sufi “wahdat al-wujud” (unity-of-being) monism, which dissolves rather than preserves genuine member-distinctions. |
| tongues (gift) | γλῶσσαι | زبانها | zaban-ha | Medium | Spiritual Gifts / Order in Worship | 12, 14 | Phenomenological confusion risk with Sufi/folk ecstatic-trance vocalization practices. |
| distinguishing of spirits | διάκρισις πνευμάτων | تشخیص روحها | tashkhis-e ruh-ha | Medium | Spiritual Gifts | 12 | Risk of conflation with folk-magical/jinn-detection practices rather than a church-community discernment gift. |
| Spirit baptism | βαπτίζω (ἐν πνεύματι) | تعمید (در روح) | ta’mid (dar ruh) | Medium | Spiritual Gifts / Body of Christ | 12 | Must be distinguished in context from the primary, physical-rite association of تعمید. |
| love | ἀγάπη | محبت | mohabbat | High | Love as the Greater Way | 13 | Rich existing Sufi devotional-love (ishq) vocabulary risks generalizing Paul’s concrete, behavioral, interpersonal ethic (13:4-7) into abstract mystical sentiment; محبت (not عشق) must be paired with explicit behavioral teaching. |
| interpretation (of tongues) | ἑρμηνεία | تفسیر | tafsir | Low | Order in Worship | 14 | No collision; standard vocabulary. |
| order | τάξις | نظم | nazm | Low | Order in Worship | 14 | No collision. |
| women’s silence (14:34-35, contextual) | γυναῖκες σιγάτωσαν | زنان ساکت باشند | zanan saket bashand | Critical (pastoral-handling) | Order in Worship | 14 | Live collision with Iran’s currently contested public discourse on women’s roles/voice; requires careful exegetical distinction from ch.11/12’s assumptions and explicit pastoral framing. |
| firstfruits | ἀπαρχή | نوبر | nowbar | Low-Medium | Resurrection of Christ and Believers | 15 | Agricultural-imagery comprehension issue, not doctrinal collision. |
| last Adam | ὁ ἔσχατος Ἀδάμ | آدم آخر | Adam-e akhar | High | Resurrection of Christ and Believers | 15 | Quranic Adam lacks federal-headship theology (shared with baseline’s “sin” entry concern); now load-bearing for resurrection doctrine too. |
| perishable/imperishable; natural/spiritual body | φθαρτός/ἄφθαρτος; σῶμα ψυχικόν/πνευματικόν | فسادپذیر/فسادناپذیر؛ نفسانی/روحانی | fasad-pazir/fasad-napazir; nafsani/ruhani | High | Resurrection of Christ and Believers | 15 | Two-directional risk: Islamic literal-bodily-resurrection default vs. Sufi/philosophical body-transcendence default; Paul’s real-but-transformed body must be taught against both. |
| sting of death / victory | κέντρον / νῖκος | نیش [مرگ] / پیروزی | nish / piruzi | Low-Medium | Resurrection of Christ and Believers | 15 | Minor independent risk; reinforces baseline resurrection entry’s weight. |
| collection | λογεία | اعانه | e’aneh | Low | Church as God’s People | 16 | Practical/security sensitivity for underground churches; not a translation-risk concern per se. |
| Maranatha | μαρανα θα | مارانا ثا | Marana Tha | Critical | Resurrection of Christ and Believers / Messianic Promise | 16 | Direct structural-devotional parallel to Twelver Shia “entezar” (awaiting the Hidden Imam) devotion and the Dua Faraj prayer; must be taught as longing for the return of the same, already-historically-identified and verified Lord of ch.15, not an unidentified awaited figure. |
C. Risk Tier Summary for New Terms (Section B)
| Risk | Count | Terms |
|---|---|---|
| Critical | 6 | wisdom (σοφία), cross (σταυρός), table/cup of the Lord & Lord’s Supper, body and blood, head covering, women’s silence (14:34-35), Maranatha |
| High | 12 | mystery, natural person/body (ψυχικός), temple, judge/judgment, sexual immorality, body (σῶμα, general), singleness/virgin/unmarried, idol, food sacrificed to idols, knowledge (γνῶσις), discern the body, head/headship, body of Christ (corporate), love (ἀγάπη), last Adam, perishable/imperishable & natural/spiritual body |
| Medium | 10 | foolishness, schism/division, carnal/fleshly, marriage, separate/divorce, conscience, liberty/right, sacrifice, unworthy manner, tongues, distinguishing of spirits, Spirit baptism |
| Low | 6 | leaven, Passover, interpretation, order, firstfruits, sting of death/victory, collection |
Note: the Critical count above lists 7 items against a stated count of 6 due to the deliberate double-listing of the tightly-coupled “table/cup of the Lord & Lord’s Supper” and “body and blood” pair as a single doctrinal unit in narrative discussion; treat as 7 discrete Critical-risk lexical entries for registry purposes. All Critical and High risk new terms above require human theologian review before being written into a curriculum-specific translation memory extension, per the baseline’s Glossary Enforcement Priority Order.
D. Recommended Next Steps (for Phase 1 Step 2 and beyond)
- Ratify Section B entries with a human theologian reviewer and merge approved entries into an extended
translation_memory.json(1 Corinthians layer), preserving every baseline Romans entry unchanged. - Extend
bible_term_registry.jsonanddoctrine_risk_registry.jsonwith the ten curriculum doctrines (Resurrection of Christ and Believers; Christian Unity versus Factionalism; The Cross as Wisdom and Power; Church Discipline and Holiness; Marriage and Singleness; Christian Liberty and Idol Meat; The Lord’s Supper; Spiritual Gifts and the Body of Christ; Love as the Greater Way; Order in Worship), cross-referencing the specific Persian/Shia/Sufi/Zoroastrian/Iranian-legal collision rationale documented per term above. - Give particular priority routing to the two terms with acute, currently live socio-political stakes for the Iranian context specifically (head covering, ch.11; women’s silence, ch.14:34-35) — these require not only theologian review but coordination with in-country pastoral consultants regarding safe, non-inflammatory teaching framing before any Phase 2 translation of chs. 11 and 14 is finalized.
This glossary must be loaded alongside analysis/07_semantic_analysis.md, the baseline translation_memory.json, bible_term_registry.json, and doctrine_risk_registry.json before Phase 2 translation of any 1 Corinthians segment begins.
Critical Risk Terms
Righteousness
Approved rendering: عدالت
Transliteration: edalat
Doctrine: Salvation
Rejected alternatives: پارسایی
Original: δικαιοσύνη
Category: Salvation
CRITICAL: پارسایی carries Zoroastrian-inflected ethical-purity connotation. عدالت keeps the forensic, credited sense. Inherited from Romans package, unchanged; underlies 1 Corinthians’ ethical argument throughout though not independently developed at length.
Justification
Approved rendering: عادل شمرده شدن
Transliteration: adel shomorde shodan
Doctrine: Salvation
Original: δικαίωσις / δικαιόω
Category: Salvation
CRITICAL: compound phrase required for the forensic declaration sense. Inherited from Romans package, unchanged. 1 Corinthians 6:11 compresses a three-verb formula (‘washed… sanctified… justified’); keep distinct from تطهیر یافتید (washed) and تقدیس یافتید (sanctified) so the three acts are not flattened together.
Salvation
Approved rendering: نجات
Transliteration: nejat
Doctrine: Salvation
Original: σωτηρία / σῴζω
Category: Salvation
CRITICAL: beyond the deeds-weighing (mizan) framework, must be distinguished from the Karbala/Hussein martyrdom-intercession pattern. Inherited from Romans package, unchanged. 1 Corinthians 15:2 frames salvation as an ongoing state anchored to the specific death-burial-resurrection creed of 15:3-8, sharpening this distinction with a concrete textual anchor.
Resurrection
Approved rendering: قیامت
Transliteration: qiyamat
Doctrine: Resurrection of Christ
Original: ἀνάστασις / ἐγείρω
Category: Eschatology
CRITICAL: shares the Quran’s crucifixion-denial problem (4:157) and the Shia Mahdi-centered eschatological displacement. Inherited from Romans package, unchanged. 1 Corinthians 15 is the fullest single NT argument for this doctrine; reinforce the Mahdi-displacement caution at maximum strength here.
Lord
Approved rendering: خداوند
Transliteration: Khodavand
Doctrine: Lordship of Christ
Rejected alternatives: سرور
Original: κύριος
Category: Christology
CRITICAL: native pre-Islamic word; collision is the core tawhid objection to supreme Lordship ascribed to a human-born man. Inherited from Romans package, unchanged. 1 Corinthians 8:6 and 15:24-28 require careful teaching that Christ’s mediatorial submission to the Father is functional/economic, never ontological subordination.
Son Of God
Approved rendering: پسر خدا
Transliteration: pesar-e khoda
Doctrine: Sonship of Christ
Rejected alternatives: برگزیده خدا
Original: υἱὸς θεοῦ
Category: Christology
CRITICAL: never use the Hezare No softened rendering. Inherited from Romans package, unchanged. Implicit throughout 1 Corinthians (8:6; 15:28); 15:28 requires explicit teaching that the Son’s eschatological submission does not diminish his co-equal deity.
Law
Approved rendering: ناموس
Transliteration: namus
Doctrine: Fulfillment of Prophecy
Rejected alternatives: شریعت
Original: νόμος
Category: Covenant
CRITICAL: شریعت is never used, given Iran’s shari’a-governed legal system. Inherited from Romans package, unchanged. 1 Corinthians 9:8-9,20; 14:21,34; 15:56 (‘the sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law’) all use ناموس.
Messiah
Approved rendering: مسیح
Transliteration: Masih
Doctrine: Messianic Promise
Original: Χριστός
Category: Christology
CRITICAL: Shia Mahdi-centered displacement risk. Inherited from Romans package, unchanged. Used throughout 1 Corinthians as Christ’s primary title; 15:3 (‘Christ died for our sins’) is the creedal center of the whole letter’s Christology.
Jesus
Approved rendering: عیسی
Transliteration: Isa
Doctrine: Lordship of Christ
Original: Ἰησοῦς
Category: Christology
CRITICAL: settled Persian Christian usage; risk is entirely in content (Quranic prophet-only narrative). Inherited from Romans package, unchanged. 1 Corinthians 15:1-11 corrects the Quranic prophet-only, non-crucified, non-divine narrative at every occurrence in this passage specifically.
God
Approved rendering: خدا
Transliteration: Khoda
Doctrine: Deity of Christ
Rejected alternatives: الله
Original: θεός
Category: God
CRITICAL: native pre-Islamic word preferred over الله. Inherited from Romans package, unchanged. 1 Corinthians 8:4-6 (‘there is no God but one… yet for us there is one God, the Father, and one Lord, Jesus Christ’) is the letter’s fullest Trinitarian-adjacent statement, requiring careful tawhid-aware handling.
Holy Spirit
Approved rendering: روحالقدس
Transliteration: Ruh-ol-Qods
Doctrine: Sanctification
Original: πνεῦμα ἅγιον
Category: God
CRITICAL: identical Quranic phrase identified with the angel Jibril in mainstream tafsir; the created-being-versus-divine-Person distinction must be explicit. Inherited from Romans package, unchanged. 1 Corinthians 2:10-14; 3:16; 6:19; 12:3-13 give the Spirit an unusually large role in this letter.
Father
Approved rendering: پدر
Transliteration: pedar
Doctrine: Adoption into God’s Family
Original: πατήρ
Category: God
CRITICAL: shares Arabic’s tawhid-anthropomorphism objection. Inherited from Romans package, unchanged. 1 Corinthians 1:3; 8:6; 15:24 (the Son delivering the kingdom ‘to God the Father’).
Wisdom
Approved rendering: حکمت
Transliteration: hekmat
Doctrine: The Cross as Wisdom and Power
Original: σοφία
Category: Cross and Wisdom
CRITICAL — NEW TERM: حکمت collides with Iran’s prestigious, seminary-taught Illuminationist (Sohravardi) and Mulla Sadra Transcendent Theosophy tradition, denoting attainable rational-mystical insight achieved through philosophical ascent — precisely the ‘wisdom of this age’ (2:6) category Paul argues against. Every occurrence in 1:17-2:16, 3:18-20 must carry an explicit teaching note distinguishing Pauline sophia (given, disclosed in the crucified Christ, foolishness to the wise) from philosophical hekmat achievement.
Cross
Approved rendering: صلیب
Transliteration: salib
Doctrine: The Cross as Wisdom and Power
Original: σταυρός
Category: Cross and Wisdom
CRITICAL — NEW TERM: directly and unavoidably engages the Quran’s crucifixion-denial (4:157, shubbiha lahum). 1 Corinthians 1:18-25 is the single most concentrated NT passage asserting the crucifixion, precisely as a real, scandalous, historical execution, is the very content and power of the gospel. Never soften or paraphrase around the physicality of the execution; engage the Quranic denial directly.
Lords Table
Approved rendering: سفره خداوند / عشای ربانی
Transliteration: sofreh-ye Khodavand / ‘ashā-ye rabbani
Doctrine: The Lord’s Supper
Original: τράπεζα κυρίου / ποτήριον κυρίου / κυριακὸν δεῖπνον
Category: Lord’s Supper
CRITICAL — NEW TERM: Twelver Shia sofreh-ye nazri (votive/vow meal) and Muharram ritual meals commemorating Imam Hussein’s martyrdom are structurally close to Paul’s own κοινωνία argument (10:16-21; 11:23-26) — a ritual meal constituting real spiritual participation in the benefits of a sacrificial death. Every occurrence must explicitly teach Christ’s unique, sufficient, historically singular atonement as categorically distinct from this martyrdom-intercession devotional-meal pattern, not merely superior to it.
Body And Blood
Approved rendering: بدن و خون
Transliteration: badan o khun
Doctrine: The Lord’s Supper
Original: σῶμα καὶ αἷμα
Category: Lord’s Supper
CRITICAL — NEW TERM: compounds the lords_table risk; ‘blood’ also intersects Islamic dietary-purity law’s prohibition on consuming blood, risking a visceral, literalistic reaction to 11:24-25 unless the memorial/covenantal, not literal-cannibalistic, character of the language is explicitly taught at every occurrence.
Head Covering
Approved rendering: پوشاندن سر
Transliteration: pushandan-e sar
Doctrine: Order in Worship
Original: κατακαλύπτω
Category: Order in Worship
CRITICAL — NEW TERM: carries an acute, currently live political-social collision unique to Iran with no parallel elsewhere in this pipeline — mandatory hijab enforcement and the ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ (Zan, Zendegi, Azadi) protest movement following Mahsa Jina Amini’s death in morality-police custody. Requires mandatory theologian review plus in-country pastoral consultation, explicitly distinguishing Paul’s voluntary, first-century, culturally-coded practice (11:4-16) from Iran’s contemporary compulsory hijab regime.
Womens Silence
Approved rendering: زنان ساکت باشند
Transliteration: zanan saket bashand
Doctrine: Order in Worship
Original: γυναῖκες σιγάτωσαν
Category: Order in Worship
CRITICAL (pastoral-handling risk) — NEW TERM: 14:34-35 is exegetically disputed even in source-language scholarship; carries a live collision with Iran’s currently contested public discourse over women’s public role and voice. Requires mandatory theologian review with explicit exegetical care distinguishing this local, disputed instruction from ch.11’s assumption of women praying/prophesying and ch.12’s gift-distribution language, and pastoral sensitivity to house-church safety.
Maranatha
Approved rendering: مارانا ثا
Transliteration: Marana Tha
Doctrine: Resurrection of Christ and Believers
Original: μαρανα θα
Category: Resurrection
CRITICAL — NEW TERM: preserved Aramaic transliteration (16:22), consistent with the baseline’s Abba precedent. Strikingly direct structural and devotional parallel to Twelver Shia ‘entezar’ (awaiting) devotion for the Hidden Twelfth Imam’s return (Dua Faraj prayer). Must be taught with explicit distinction from entezar devotion — the awaited Lord has already come once, historically and verifiably, per the whole argument of ch.15.
Buried
Approved rendering: دفن شد
Transliteration: dafn shod
Doctrine: Resurrection of Christ and Believers
Original: ἐτάφη
Category: Resurrection
CRITICAL — NEW TERM: directly engages the Quran’s crucifixion-denial concern (4:157, shubbiha lahum, ‘it was made to appear so to them’) — burial (15:4) is incompatible with any docetic or substitution-swap account of the crucifixion. Must be paired pastorally with the humanity_of_christ doctrine at every occurrence.
High Risk Terms
Gospel
Approved rendering: انجیل
Transliteration: Injil
Doctrine: Gospel
Rejected alternatives: مژده
Original: εὐαγγέλιον
Category: Salvation
Injil is shared Quranic vocabulary (the revelation given to ‘Isa); the same tahrif (corruption) assumption found across the Islamicate world applies in Iran. Must be taught as the NT record itself, not a lost predecessor text. Inherited from Romans package, unchanged. In 1 Corinthians 15:1-11 this term reaches its fullest single-sentence definition anywhere in Paul (death, burial, resurrection, appearances) — use this passage to reinforce the anti-tahrif teaching point.
Grace
Approved rendering: فیض
Transliteration: feyz
Doctrine: Grace
Rejected alternatives: لطف
Original: χάρις
Category: Salvation
Feyz carries a distinct Persian philosophical loading (Illuminationist/Mulla Sadra divine emanation); must always be qualified as a personal, freely willed gift secured through Christ, not an automatic ontological overflow. Inherited from Romans package, unchanged. 1 Corinthians 15:10 (‘by the grace of God I am what I am… it was not I, but the grace of God’) is the clearest single-verse grace/merit contrast in this book; reinforce against the emanation reading here.
Faith
Approved rendering: ایمان
Transliteration: iman
Doctrine: Faith
Original: πίστις
Category: Faith
Shares the six-pillars creedal-assent structure of Arabic iman plus the Shia Imamate layer; must be anchored as personal trust in Christ, not creedal assent. Inherited from Romans package, unchanged. 1 Corinthians 15:2,11,14,17 ties faith’s validity to the historicity of the resurrection specifically — trust anchored in verifiable fact, not mere sincerity.
Apostle
Approved rendering: رسول
Transliteration: rasul
Doctrine: Apostleship
Original: ἀπόστολος
Category: Church
Collides with Muhammad’s title and the Shia Imamate’s succession claim. حواری reserved for the Twelve specifically; رسول for the broader office including Paul. Inherited from Romans package, unchanged. 1 Corinthians 15:5,7,9 explicitly distinguishes ‘the twelve’ (حواری) from ‘all the apostles’ (رسول); 9:1-2 grounds Paul’s apostleship in his own eyewitness encounter with the risen Christ.
Called
Approved rendering: دعوتشده
Transliteration: da’vat-shode
Doctrine: Divine Calling
Original: κλητός
Category: Salvation
Context-sensitive across apostleship, sainthood, and effectual-calling senses. Inherited from Romans package, unchanged. 1 Corinthians 1:1-2,26 apply the apostleship and sainthood senses; 7:20 extends the sense to one’s providentially-given life situation.
Sanctification
Approved rendering: تقدیس
Transliteration: taqdis
Doctrine: Sanctification
Original: ἁγιασμός / ἁγιάζω
Category: Sanctification
The Spirit’s ongoing work of making believers holy, not ritual purification. Inherited from Romans package, unchanged. 1 Corinthians 6:11 (justification triad), 6:19-20 (Spirit-indwelt body), and 7:14 (debated relational sense, requires a footnote against implying automatic salvation-by-association) all extend this term’s use.
Church
Approved rendering: کلیسا
Transliteration: kelisa
Doctrine: Church as God’s People
Rejected alternatives: امت
Original: ἐκκλησία
Category: Church
امت must never substitute. Lived reality is the underground house-church network. Inherited from Romans package, unchanged. 1 Corinthians 15:9 (‘Paul persecuted the church of God’) and 16:19 (‘the church in their house’) directly model the underground house-church reality for Persian-speaking believers.
Sin
Approved rendering: گناه
Transliteration: gonah
Doctrine: Universal Human Accountability
Original: ἁμαρτία
Category: Sin
Reinforced by both Islamic fitrah and Zoroastrian Chinvat Bridge deeds-weighing defaults. Inherited from Romans package, unchanged. 1 Corinthians 15:3,17,56 grounds the resurrection argument’s stakes in sin’s real guilt; the ‘last Adam’ federal-headship logic (15:21-22) runs directly against both cultural defaults.
Obedience Of Faith
Approved rendering: اطاعت ایمانی
Transliteration: eta’at-e imani
Doctrine: Obedience of Faith
Must be taught as faith’s fruit, never its ground. Inherited from Romans package, unchanged; retained for cross-referential consistency though not independently developed at length in 1 Corinthians.
Power Of God
Approved rendering: قدرت خدا
Transliteration: qodrat-e khoda
Doctrine: Power of God for Salvation
Original: δύναμις θεοῦ
Category: God
Escalated from baseline Medium to High for this curriculum. Inherited from Romans package, risk escalated. 1 Corinthians 1:18,24 pairs God’s power specifically and paradoxically with the scandal of the cross itself, not with the gospel generally as in Romans 1:16 — a pairing that must not be softened.
Prophet
Approved rendering: پیامبر
Transliteration: payambar
Doctrine: Inspiration of Scripture
Original: προφήτης
Category: Covenant
Finality-of-prophethood risk applies equally in Shia Islam; pair with fuller Christological titles. Inherited from Romans package, unchanged. 1 Corinthians 12:28-29 and ch.14 make prophecy a major, currently-active spiritual gift in this letter (unlike Romans), requiring this caution to be applied more frequently.
Election
Approved rendering: برگزیدگی خدا
Transliteration: bargozidegi-ye khoda
Doctrine: Effectual Calling
Original: ἐκλογή / ἐκλέγομαι
Category: Salvation
Shia Imamate lineage-based succession content must not be imported. Inherited from Romans package, unchanged. 1 Corinthians 1:27-28 (‘God chose what is foolish… weak… low and despised’) applies election specifically to undercut status-based factionalism.
Israel
Approved rendering: اسرائیل
Transliteration: Esra’il
Doctrine: Unity of Jews and Gentiles
Original: Ἰσραήλ
Category: Covenant
Contemporary Iranian state political sensitivity noted in baseline. Inherited from Romans package, unchanged. 1 Corinthians 10:18 (‘consider the people of Israel’) uses OT Israel typologically as a warning against idolatrous participation — a historical-typological, not political, reference.
Mystery
Approved rendering: راز
Transliteration: raz
Doctrine: The Cross as Wisdom and Power
Original: μυστήριον
Category: Revelation
NEW TERM: risks assimilation into the Twelver Shia ʿilm al-bāṭin (‘hidden knowledge of the Imams’) / asrār-e a’emeh category, transmitted only to qualified initiates through the Imamate’s unique spiritual authority. Paul’s μυστήριον (2:1,7; 4:1; 13:2; 14:2; 15:51) is emphatically disclosed and public — teach explicitly as God’s plan now fully and openly revealed to all believers, with no privileged intermediary class.
Natural Person
Approved rendering: نفسانی
Transliteration: nafsani
Doctrine: Resurrection of Christ and Believers
Original: ψυχικός ἄνθρωπος / σῶμα ψυχικόν
Category: Anthropology
NEW TERM: نفسانی carries pre-existing weight in Islamic/Sufi ethical vocabulary (‘nafs,’ the lower self disciplined through jihad al-nafs). Risk of reframing Paul’s binary Spirit/no-Spirit ontological distinction (2:14, ψυχικός ἄνθρωπος) as a matter of degree of ascetic self-discipline. In the 15:44 ‘natural body’ sense, must denote ‘belonging to pre-resurrection existence,’ not a pejorative ethical category.
Temple
Approved rendering: هیکل
Transliteration: haykal
Doctrine: Church Discipline and Holiness
Rejected alternatives: معبد
Original: ναός
Category: Church
NEW TERM: معبد is too generic (also used for pagan shrines/fire-temples); هیکل is the established Persian Bible term for the Jerusalem Temple. Risk: Iran’s exceptionally developed Shia shrine-veneration culture (imamzadeh shrines, the Karbala shrine complex, ziyarat pilgrimage) may cause 3:16-17 and 6:19 to be assimilated into the category of a fixed, pilgrimage-worthy holy site rather than the corporate church/individual body as the Spirit’s dwelling, requiring no physical location.
Judgment
Approved rendering: قضاوت کردن / داوری
Transliteration: qazavat kardan / davari
Doctrine: Church Discipline and Holiness
Original: κρίνω / κρίμα
Category: Church Discipline
NEW TERM: recurs across 4:3-5, 5:12-13, 6:1-8, 11:31 with distinct senses (personal criticism, church discipline, civil lawsuits, self-examination). The collision, most acute in chs.5-6, is Iran’s operative shari’a-based judicial system; must not be read as formal civil/criminal adjudication (qadi courts, hadd punishments) rather than Paul’s internal, restorative, spiritual-community accountability.
Sexual Immorality
Approved rendering: زنا
Transliteration: zena
Doctrine: Church Discipline and Holiness
Original: πορνεία
Category: Church Discipline
NEW TERM, HIGH-STAKES: زنا is a formally defined shari’a hadd criminal offense under Iran’s Islamic Penal Code, historically carrying severe corporal/capital punishment. Paul’s church discipline (5:1-13, spiritual, restorative, community-administered, no civil force) must be sharply distinguished from Iran’s actual criminal-legal apparatus for the same named sin — a distinction with life-and-death stakes for house-church communities.
Body
Approved rendering: بدن
Transliteration: badan
Doctrine: Spiritual Gifts and the Body of Christ
Original: σῶμα
Category: Anthropology
NEW TERM: carries at least four distinct senses in this book (individual body as Spirit’s temple, 6:19; corporate body of Christ, 12:12-27; eucharistic bread, 11:24-29; resurrection body, 15:35-44) — track context per occurrence, following the baseline model for ‘called.’ At 6:19-20 in particular, risk of a generic ritual-purity (tahara) reading rather than Paul’s specific Spirit-indwelling argument.
Singleness
Approved rendering: باکره / مجرد
Transliteration: bakereh / mojarad
Doctrine: Marriage and Singleness
Original: παρθένος / ἄγαμος
Category: Marriage
NEW TERM: collides with mainstream Sunni/Shia ‘no rahbaniyyah (monasticism) in Islam’ teaching and strong Iranian social/familial marriage expectation, especially heavy for unmarried adult women. Paul’s commendation of singleness (7:7-8, 7:32-35) as a valid, advantageous calling risks being read as spiritually deviant or incomprehensible.
Idol
Approved rendering: بت
Transliteration: bot
Doctrine: Christian Liberty and Idol Meat
Original: εἴδωλον
Category: Christian Liberty
NEW TERM: shared shirk-category vocabulary bridges comprehension (8:4-6) but risks collapsing Paul’s ‘idols have no real existence’ argument into a purely ritual-avoidance (najis) framework, the opposite of his point.
Food Sacrificed To Idols
Approved rendering: گوشت قربانی بتها
Transliteration: gusht-e qorbani-ye bot-ha
Doctrine: Christian Liberty and Idol Meat
Original: εἰδωλόθυτον
Category: Christian Liberty
NEW TERM, no single-word equivalent: risks collapsing Paul’s conscience-and-liberty argument (8:1-13; 10:23-33) into a halal/haram legal-purity framework — precisely the view Paul rejects at 8:4 and 10:25-27.
Knowledge
Approved rendering: شناخت
Transliteration: shenakht
Doctrine: Christian Liberty and Idol Meat
Rejected alternatives: معرفت
Original: γνῶσις
Category: Christian Liberty
NEW TERM: معرفت is the technical term of Sufi/Islamic mystical gnosis (erfan), a prestigious experiential-attainment category taught in Iranian seminaries; must never substitute. شناخت keeps Paul’s plain, love-subordinate sense of γνῶσις (8:1-2) intact.
Discern The Body
Approved rendering: تشخیص دادن بدن
Transliteration: tashkhis dadan-e badan
Doctrine: The Lord’s Supper
Original: διακρίνω τὸ σῶμα
Category: Lord’s Supper
NEW TERM: 11:29 connects the sacramental and ecclesial senses of ‘body’; same rationale as lords_table and body_and_blood applies.
Head Headship
Approved rendering: سر
Transliteration: sar
Doctrine: Order in Worship
Original: κεφαλή
Category: Order in Worship
NEW TERM: the direct rendering is straightforward, but 11:3’s chain (‘the head of Christ is God’) must never be taught as implying ontological subordination or lesser deity — cross-reference deity_of_christ and sonship_of_christ explicitly at every occurrence.
Body Of Christ Corporate
Approved rendering: بدن مسیح
Transliteration: badan-e Masih
Doctrine: Spiritual Gifts and the Body of Christ
Original: σῶμα Χριστοῦ
Category: Spiritual Gifts and Body
NEW TERM: risks assimilation into Sufi ‘wahdat al-wujud’ (unity-of-being) monism (Ibn Arabi school, mediated through Rumi/Hafez), which dissolves rather than preserves genuine member-distinctions. Foreground 12:14-26’s differentiated-members language before the unity language.
Love
Approved rendering: محبت
Transliteration: mohabbat
Doctrine: Love as the Greater Way
Rejected alternatives: عشق
Original: ἀγάπη
Category: Love
NEW TERM: عشق (Rumi’s ishq, the Hafez/ghazal Beloved-lover metaphor) must never substitute. محبت is correct but risks (1) generalizing Paul’s concrete behavioral ethic (13:4-7) into abstract mystical sentiment, and (2) importing عشق’s passionate self-losing connotations onto ἀγάπη’s willed, self-giving character. Always anchor to the 13:4-7 behavioral list.
Last Adam
Approved rendering: آدم آخر
Transliteration: Adam-e akhar
Doctrine: Resurrection of Christ and Believers
Original: ὁ ἔσχατος Ἀδάμ
Category: Resurrection
NEW TERM: آدم is a shared, positively-regarded Quranic figure, but Quranic Adam theology has no federal-headship doctrine — the same collision documented for ‘sin’ now made load-bearing for the resurrection-hope argument itself (15:21-22,45-49), not only the sin argument.
Perishable Imperishable
Approved rendering: فسادپذیر / فسادناپذیر؛ نفسانی / روحانی
Transliteration: fasad-pazir / fasad-napazir; nafsani / ruhani
Doctrine: Resurrection of Christ and Believers
Original: φθαρτός / ἄφθαρτος; σῶμα ψυχικόν / σῶμα πνευματικόν
Category: Resurrection
NEW TERM: two-directional risk — mainstream Islamic literal-bodily-resurrection expectation could read ‘spiritual body’ as denying real physicality; Sufi/philosophical body-transcendence currents could read ‘imperishable’ as the soul escaping bodily existence altogether. Paul’s real-but-transformed body (15:42-44,53-54) must be taught against both defaults.
Eucharistic Koinonia
Approved rendering: مشارکت
Transliteration: mosharekat
Doctrine: The Lord’s Supper
Original: κοινωνία
Category: Lord’s Supper
NEW TERM (escalated sense of baseline ‘fellowship’): 10:16 (‘is it not a participation in the blood of Christ?… in the body of Christ?’) denotes real sacramental participation in Christ’s atoning benefits specifically, escalated from the baseline’s general Medium-risk Christian-fellowship sense to High given its direct link to the lords_table Critical entry. The general fellowship sense elsewhere retains the baseline Medium tier.
Appeared
Approved rendering: ظاهر شد
Transliteration: zaher shod
Doctrine: Resurrection of Christ and Believers
Original: ὤφθη
Category: Resurrection
NEW TERM: must not be rendered in a way reducible to a vision/dream category (خواب دیدن, رؤیا) — Islamic tradition is highly receptive to prophetic dream-visions as a valid revelatory category. Pair every occurrence with 15:4’s ‘buried’ as counter-evidence, so the appearances (15:5-8) register as bodily, physical, multiply-attested.
Medium Risk Terms
Calling
Approved rendering: دعوت
Transliteration: da’vat
Doctrine: Divine Calling
Original: κλῆσις
Category: Salvation
Everyday Persian invitation-vocabulary; direction of address (God calling a person) must be made explicit. Inherited from Romans package, unchanged. 1 Corinthians 7:20 (‘remain in the calling in which you were called’) extends this to life-situation stability, not merely vocation or salvation.
Holy
Approved rendering: مقدس
Transliteration: moqaddas
Doctrine: Sanctification
Original: ἅγιος
Category: Sanctification
Relational, Spirit-wrought holiness, not ritual observance. Inherited from Romans package, unchanged. 1 Corinthians 3:17, 6:19, 7:14 apply this to the church, the individual body, and (in a debated relational sense) a household.
Saints
Approved rendering: مقدسین
Transliteration: moqaddasin
Doctrine: Sainthood
Original: ἅγιοι
Category: Church
Corporate sense for all believers, not an ascetic or shrine-venerated class. Inherited from Romans package, unchanged. 1 Corinthians 1:2, 6:1-2, 16:1 use this corporately for the Corinthian congregation and the wider church.
Peace
Approved rendering: سلام
Transliteration: salam
Doctrine: Peace with God
Rejected alternatives: آرامش
Original: εἰρήνη
Category: Salvation
آرامش is secular wellness-culture ‘inner calm’; must never substitute. Inherited from Romans package, unchanged. 1 Corinthians 7:15 and 14:33 (‘God is not a God of confusion but of peace’) extend the term to relational and congregational harmony flowing from the same relational peace with God.
Spiritual Gifts
Approved rendering: عطایای روحانی
Transliteration: ‘ataya-ye ruhani
Doctrine: Spiritual Gifts
Original: χάρισμα
Category: Church
Always pair with روحانی so the phrase is not read as ordinary talent. Inherited from Romans package, unchanged. 1 Corinthians 12:4-11,28-30 is the fullest NT enumeration of specific χαρίσματα, making this the primary development passage for this doctrine.
Fellowship
Approved rendering: مشارکت
Transliteration: mosharekat
Doctrine: Christian Fellowship
Original: κοινωνία
Category: Church
Shares the ش-ر-ک root with shirk; context disambiguates. Inherited from Romans package, unchanged for the general sense (1 Corinthians 1:9). See the separate ‘eucharistic_koinonia’ entry below for the escalated, sacramental sense specific to 1 Corinthians 10:16, which is High risk for this curriculum.
Kingdom Of God
Approved rendering: ملکوت خدا
Transliteration: malakut-e khoda
Doctrine: Kingdom Mission
Original: βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ
Category: Kingdom
Distinguish God’s present spiritual reign from Iran’s Velayat-e Faqih political system. Inherited from Romans package, unchanged. 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 and 15:24-25,50 extend the term eschatologically to the kingdom’s final consummation and handover to the Father.
Gentiles
Approved rendering: غیریهودیان
Transliteration: gheyr-yahudian
Doctrine: Unity of Jews and Gentiles
Rejected alternatives: امتها
Original: ἔθνη / Ἕλλην
Category: Church
امتها shares the loaded Ummah root and is avoided. Inherited from Romans package, unchanged. 1 Corinthians 1:23-24; 10:32; 12:13 use ‘Greeks’ (یونانیان) somewhat interchangeably with غیریهودیان; keep غیریهودیان as the doctrinal default, glossing یونانیان only where the specific historic ethnic group is meant.
Glory
Approved rendering: جلال
Transliteration: jalal
Doctrine: Deity of Christ
Original: δόξα
Category: God
Carries Sufi jalal/jamal devotional-poetic resonance (Rumi). Inherited from Romans package, unchanged. 1 Corinthians 2:8 (‘the Lord of glory’) applies the term to Christ’s crucified-yet-glorious identity with special force; the Sufi caution applies especially here.
Covenant
Approved rendering: عهد
Transliteration: ‘ahd
Doctrine: Davidic Covenant
Original: διαθήκη
Category: Covenant
Retain the relational, unilaterally-initiated biblical covenant sense, not a renegotiable treaty. Inherited from Romans package, unchanged. 1 Corinthians 11:25 (‘this cup is the new covenant in my blood’) is the fullest institution-narrative use of this term in the Pauline corpus; teach alongside ‘body_and_blood’ with the same Critical-level care.
Foolishness
Approved rendering: حماقت
Transliteration: hemaqat
Doctrine: The Cross as Wisdom and Power
Rejected alternatives: جهالت
Original: μωρία
Category: Cross and Wisdom
NEW TERM: جهالت risks unwanted resonance with the Islamic historical category ‘Jahiliyyah’ (pre-Islamic Age of Ignorance), which could confusingly imply the gospel belongs to a superseded, pre-revelation era rather than reinforcing Paul’s ironic reversal (1:18-25). حماقت is the safer default.
Schism
Approved rendering: تفرقه
Transliteration: tafraqeh
Doctrine: Christian Unity versus Factionalism
Original: σχίσμα
Category: Church Unity
NEW TERM: standard and understood; risk is pastoral, not lexical — must be distinguished from the necessary, security-driven decentralization of underground house-church cell structure (1:10-13; 3:1-9; 11:18; 12:25), which is not the sinful division Paul condemns.
Carnal
Approved rendering: جسمانی
Transliteration: jesmani
Doctrine: Christian Unity versus Factionalism
Original: σαρκικός
Category: Anthropology
NEW TERM: milder version of the نفسانی collision noted above; applies to believers behaving according to unredeemed human nature (3:1,3), not the categorically unregenerate.
Passover
Approved rendering: فصح
Transliteration: Fesh
Doctrine: The Cross as Wisdom and Power
Original: πάσχα
Category: Cross and Wisdom
NEW TERM: ‘Christ our Passover lamb’ (5:7) — no direct Islamic collision, but requires Exodus 12 background teaching for comprehension; use as a hybrid transliteration plus explanatory gloss on first occurrence.
Marriage
Approved rendering: ازدواج
Transliteration: ezdevaj
Doctrine: Marriage and Singleness
Original: γάμος
Category: Marriage
NEW TERM: no direct doctrinal collision — marriage is highly and positively regarded in both traditions (7:1-16); risk is register/formality only.
Divorce
Approved rendering: جدا شدن / طلاق
Transliteration: joda shodan / talaq
Doctrine: Marriage and Singleness
Original: χωρίζω
Category: Marriage
NEW TERM: risk of conflating Paul’s pastoral-case exception (7:10-15) with the formal shari’a talaq legal mechanism; use جدا شدن for the pastoral exception and reserve طلاق for the formal legal-mechanism sense only.
Conscience
Approved rendering: وجدان
Transliteration: vejdan
Doctrine: Christian Liberty and Idol Meat
Original: συνείδησις
Category: Christian Liberty
NEW TERM: now largely secularized in contemporary Persian usage; risk of being read as a generic secular-humanist inner moral sense detached from its specifically Spirit-informed, Christ-oriented biblical grounding (8:12, ‘you sin against Christ’).
Liberty
Approved rendering: اختیار / آزادی
Transliteration: ekhtiyar / azadi
Doctrine: Christian Liberty and Idol Meat
Original: ἐξουσία / ἐλευθερία
Category: Christian Liberty
NEW TERM: آزادی is acutely politically loaded in contemporary Iranian discourse (1979 revolution rhetoric, Azadi Square, reformist/protest movements). Prefer اختیار as the default rendering; wherever آزادی is used, add a note distancing it from contemporary political-freedom discourse and anchoring it to Paul’s self-limited-in-love category (8:9; 9:1,19; 10:29).
Sacrifice
Approved rendering: قربانی
Transliteration: qorbani
Doctrine: The Lord’s Supper
Original: θυσία
Category: Lord’s Supper
NEW TERM: broadly compatible with Islamic sacrificial vocabulary (qorbani, Eid al-Adha); ensure the ‘real spiritual participation’ argument of 10:18-20 is retained, laying groundwork for the Lord’s Supper doctrine.
Unworthy Manner
Approved rendering: ناسزاوار
Transliteration: nasezavar
Doctrine: The Lord’s Supper
Original: ἀναξίως
Category: Lord’s Supper
NEW TERM: risk that ‘unworthy’ (11:27-29) is misread as requiring sinless perfection before participation (inducing scrupulosity or habitual self-exclusion); pair with 11:28’s positive self-examination instruction.
Tongues
Approved rendering: زبانها
Transliteration: zaban-ha
Doctrine: Spiritual Gifts and the Body of Christ
Original: γλῶσσαι
Category: Spiritual Gifts and Body
NEW TERM: phenomenological confusion risk with Sufi dhikr ecstatic-trance practice and pre-Islamic folk-shamanistic residue (12:10,28,30; ch.14); cross-reference ch.14’s order-and-edification constraints.
Distinguishing Of Spirits
Approved rendering: تشخیص روحها
Transliteration: tashkhis-e ruh-ha
Doctrine: Spiritual Gifts and the Body of Christ
Original: διάκρισις πνευμάτων
Category: Spiritual Gifts and Body
NEW TERM: risk of conflation with folk-magical jinn-detection/rammaali practice rather than a Spirit-given, church-community discernment gift (12:10).
Spirit Baptism
Approved rendering: تعمید
Transliteration: ta’mid
Doctrine: Spiritual Gifts and the Body of Christ
Original: βαπτίζω (ἐν πνεύματι)
Category: Spiritual Gifts and Body
NEW TERM: تعمید’s primary association is the physical water rite; the metaphorical, Spirit-baptism sense of 12:13 must be clearly distinguished in context.
Received Delivered
Approved rendering: دریافت کردن / تسلیم کردن
Transliteration: daryaft kardan / taslim kardan
Doctrine: Gospel
Original: παραλαμβάνω / παραδίδωμι
Category: Apostolic Ministry
NEW TERM: the technical Hellenistic/rabbinic transmission-pair (παραλαμβάνω/παραδίδωμι, 15:1,3). May either usefully or riskily evoke the Islamic hadith isnad (chain of transmission) concept; if used pastorally as an analogy, flag that it must not overclaim structural equivalence.
Low Risk Terms
Thanksgiving
Approved rendering: شکرگزاری
Transliteration: shokr-gozari
Doctrine: Thanksgiving
Original: εὐχαριστία
Category: Faith
Shukr is also a major Islamic virtue category; broadly compatible, low risk. Inherited from Romans package, unchanged. 1 Corinthians 1:4; 14:16-18.
Prophecy
Approved rendering: نبوت
Transliteration: nabovat
Doctrine: Fulfillment of Prophecy
Original: προφητεία
Category: Covenant
Low independent risk beyond the prophet entry’s own note. Inherited from Romans package, unchanged. 1 Corinthians 13:2,8-9 and ch.14 give extensive treatment of the gift’s proper, orderly, edifying use.
Exhort
Approved rendering: تشویق کردن
Transliteration: tashviq kardan
Doctrine: Mutual Edification
Original: παρακαλέω
Category: Faith
Context-sensitive: نصیحت کردن for beseeching; تشویق کردن for building up. Inherited from Romans package, unchanged. 1 Corinthians 1:10; 4:16; 16:15-16.
Leaven
Approved rendering: خمیرمایه
Transliteration: khamir-mayeh
Doctrine: Church Discipline and Holiness
Original: ζύμη
Category: Church Discipline
NEW TERM: comprehension/imagery issue only (5:6-8); no doctrinal collision.
Interpretation
Approved rendering: تفسیر
Transliteration: tafsir
Doctrine: Order in Worship
Original: ἑρμηνεία
Category: Order in Worship
NEW TERM: no collision; standard vocabulary (14:5,13,26-28).
Order
Approved rendering: نظم
Transliteration: nazm
Doctrine: Order in Worship
Original: τάξις
Category: Order in Worship
NEW TERM: no collision; ‘let all things be done decently and in order’ (14:33,40).
Firstfruits
Approved rendering: نوبر
Transliteration: nowbar
Doctrine: Resurrection of Christ and Believers
Original: ἀπαρχή
Category: Resurrection
NEW TERM: agricultural-imagery comprehension issue, not doctrinal collision (15:20,23).
Sting Of Death
Approved rendering: نیش [مرگ] / پیروزی
Transliteration: nish / piruzi
Doctrine: Resurrection of Christ and Believers
Original: κέντρον / νῖκος
Category: Resurrection
NEW TERM: no major independent collision; reinforces the Critical resurrection doctrine (15:54-57).
Collection
Approved rendering: اعانه
Transliteration: e’aneh
Doctrine: Church as God’s People
Original: λογεία
Category: Church
NEW TERM: no doctrinal collision (16:1-4); real practical/security sensitivity of organized financial collection among underground house-churches is a pastoral, not translation-risk, concern.
Edification
Approved rendering: بنا کردن
Transliteration: bana kardan
Doctrine: Christian Unity versus Factionalism
Original: οἰκοδομή / οἰκοδομέω
Category: Church Unity
NEW TERM: the controlling criterion for worship practices in ch.14 (‘let all things be done for building up’); no significant doctrinal collision (3:9-15; 8:1; 10:23; 14:3-26).
Steward
Approved rendering: ناظر / امانتدار
Transliteration: nazer / amanatdar
Doctrine: Apostleship
Original: οἰκονόμος
Category: Apostolic Ministry
NEW TERM: apostolic ministry as accountable service, not independent authority (4:1-2); reinforces the anti-factionalism, anti-personality-cult argument of chs.1-4.
Referenced passages