Words With a False Religious "Gloss"

A reader asked me to write more about how Jesus’s words are changed in translation to support doctrine and dogma. A good way to start is to provide an overview of common, ordinary words that are given a gloss of religious meaning only in biblical translation. So many great ideas are lost because translators insist on using words with a religious meaning that often obscures what Jesus was saying This list is not exhaustive, but it should give you a sense of how the process works. In the interests of full disclosure, I have also included the words he used that actually do have a mainly religious meaning.

“Religious” Word Used By Jesus

“Altar” is from a Greek word that means “altar” as a place of sacrifice.

“Angels” is a common noun that means “messengers.” Many of his uses of this word are probably are to regular, human, messengers, other reference messengers from the Divine.

“Apostles” is from a Greek verb that simply means “send.” The phrase translated as “apostle” means “the one being sent.” The role was what we call a “frontman” today, someone that goes somewhere to arrange the upcoming visit of a celebrity.

“Baptize” and “baptism” are the related Greek verb and noun for “to dip” and “dunking” It is translated that way when Jesus dips his bread in a bowl. Yes, he used it to mean religious rebirth, but in a light-hearted way as we might say, “I’ll be dipped.”

“Believe” and “faith” are the related Greek verb and noun meaning “to trust,” and “trust” especially people and their words. Jesus uses it generally, only occasionally to refer to trusting the Divine.

“Blessed” comes from two different Greek words. One means “fortunate” and “lucky.” The other means “to speak well of.”

“Behold” is from the Greek word that means simply “see.”

“Christ” means “anointed” in the sense of being rubbed with oil. This term was used to identify those chosen by the Divine to lead Israel.

“Church” is a Greek word that means “assembly” or “meeting.” It did not mean a religious meeting but a community gathering.

“Come” and “coming” are from the Greek word that primarily mean “to start.” They also mean both “to go” and “to come.” Jesus clearly used it to mean “start” in some verses such as “start a fire” (Luke 12:49). Coming as “the coming” is sometimes from another word that means “being present.”

“Commandments” is from a Greek word meaning “an order” or “an order.”

“Cross” means an upright stake without implying any cross member. And “crucify” means either nailing someone to a stake, as in Jesus’s case, or impaling them.

"Damnation" is Greek word that means "decision," "judgment," "decree," "resolution," and a "legal decision." It is the noun form of the word that is usually translated as “judge.”

“Demon” and “devil” can come from a word that means a Greek adjective that means “semi-divine” and which was used as an honorific like “good sir.” It could also be used to mean “marvelous” like we say something good is “divine.” It was used to described “skilled” like we might say, he is a “demon” at playing basketball. Jesus uses this word thirteen times. When someone was crazy, they were described as “possessed by demons.”

“Devil” and “demon” could also come from an adjective meaning “slanderous” and “backbiting.” This word is only used by Jesus four times.

“Eternal” is from a Greek word meaning “for an age,” with the sense of “on-going” or “perpetual.”

“Evil” comes from a conflation of several different words with different meanings. By far the most common is a Greek word that means “useless” or “worthless.” However, to confuse matters, one of the other words is does mean “evil” in a moral sense. Jesus uses only once.

“Forgive” is a Greek word that means “let go” or “leave.” Jesus uses it often when it is translated that way. It is rarely translated as “forgive,” usually only when used with the word mistranslated as “sin” (see below).

“Forgiveness” is a Greek noun meaning "letting go," "release," "relaxation," "exhaustion," and "freedom." It is the noun form of the previous verb, but a lot less common.

“Glory” and “Glorify” are from a noun and verb that primarily mean “reputation” and “recognition.”

“God” is a Greek word meaning “god” and “a divine” and it is actually religious. However, Jesus uses it almost exclusively as “the Divine.”

“Good” comes from a conflation of a number of words. The two most common means “noble” and “valuable.” Another means “law-abiding.”

“Gospel” is, of course, from a good that simply means “good news.”

“Heaven” is from a word that means primarily “sky.” Because of the way the sky was viewed, it also means the “universe” in the sense of everything that is not on earth.

“Hell” comes from a conflation of two words. The most common referred to a particular site for burning trash. The other was the Greek underworld, a concept that Jesus did not likely believe in.

“Holy” is a Greek religious word meaning “to dedicate to the Divine” or “to purify.”

“Holy Spirit” comes again from a conflation of several words. The most legitimate is a phrase meaning “the spirit/breath the holy one.” However, sometimes the translators add an article and capitalize “the Spirit” to make it seem as Jesus is referencing the Holy spirit when he just says “spirit/breath” (see below).

“Hypocrites” is from a Greek word that just means “actors.” Given the state of Hollywood, Jesus’s use of “actor” seems more accurate.

“Lord” is a Greek word meaning “having power.” The same word is also translated as “master.” It has a religious sense in that the OT used this word to translated the name of the Divine.

"Love” is from two different Greek words. One means “care for” as we care for our children. The other means “enjoy” as we enjoy ourselves.

“Minister” is a Greek noun and verb that means “servant” and “to serve.”

“Miracles” is a Greek phrase that means “works of authority” or “works of ability.” It is from the verb meaning “having power” or “having an ability.”

“Pray” and “prayer” are Greek religious words that means “to pray” and “prayer,”

“Preach” is from two different Greek words. The most common means “to be a herald” and to announce. The less common specifically means “to announce good news.” It had no sense of people teaching religion.

“Priest” is another Greek word with a religious sense of being a “priest” and a “sacrificer.” It literally means “temple person.”

“Prophets” is a Greek word that means “the enlightened” or “luminaries.”

"Proselyte" is a Greek word that means “newcomer.”

“Rabbi” is from a Hebrew word that means “great” or “strong.”

“Repent” is another word that comes from two Greek words. The most common one means “to change your mind.” The other, used only once of twice by Jesus, means “to feel regret.”

“Resurrection” is a Greek noun that means “standing up.” It is from the word meaning “to stand.”

“Righteous” means “law-abiding.”

“Sabbath” is from a Hebrew word that means “rest.” It referred to a day of rest, not a day of worship.

“Save” is a Greek word meaning “rescue” and “keep safe.” Jesus never used the two Greek words meaning “save” and “souls” in the sense of spirit in the same verse. He did use the word that can be translated as “soul” (see below), but it is usually translated as “life” when it appears with “save.”

“Salvation” is a Greek word meaning “keeping safe,” “deliverance,” and “preservation.’

“Satan” is a Greek word that means “adversary” or “adversity.”

“Scripture” is a Greek word that simply means “writings.”

“Scribes” is a Greek word that simply means “writers.”

“Sin” and “sinners” are Greek words that mean “mistakes” and “mistaken.” The sense is specifically, “missing the mark.”

“Soul” is from a Greek word that is also commonly translated as “life.” In the KJV, this word is translated fifty-eight times as “soul,” but forty times as “life.” This word is the one from which we get “psyche.”

“Spirit” is from a word that means “wind,” “breath,” and "the breath of life.” It can also mean a non-material being. The Greek word is the source of our word “pneumonia.”

“Temple” is a religious Greek word meaning “holy place.” It is unrelated to the word for “holy,” coming from a root word that means “super-human” or “wonderful.”

“Tempt” and “Temptation” are related Greek word that means “to make a trial of” “trial” in the sense of a test or a worry. The word for “tempt” can also mean “to seduce,” but that wasn’t its primary meaning.

“Testament” is a Greek word that describes a legal document, usually describing a will or a legal contract.

“Tribulation” is a Greek word that means “pressure” or “crushing.” It had no sense of religious persecution.

“The Word” is a Greek word that is the source of our word “logic.” Jesus uses it in the sense of “this idea” or “this concept.”

“Worship” is a Greek word that means “to bow down.” It describes a physical act that may be done to anyone in power not necessarily the Divine.

Conclusions

I may have missed a few, but from this list, we get a good sense of how a religious gloss is added to perfectly ordinary words. This is not to say that Jesus did not use many of these words religiously in a given context. However, there are many common words that are translated as if they were in a religious context when they aren’t. The word “a spirit” translated as “the Spirit” is perhaps a good example.

There is no doubt that Jesus taught based upon a religious perspective of reality, but he didn’t only teach religion and ethics. A lot of what he taught was the economics of the real world. Many of his ideas are perhaps better described as about human psychology and especially fulfillment. However, all of his lessons are confused one people set to put them only in the context of current doctrine.

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