Source-Text Translation (WoH Translation Program)

The Wheel of Heaven Translation Program produces original English-language translations of religious and mythological texts from their source languages, read through the Wheel of Heaven lens — which takes the Raëlian canon as foundational and prefers, where the source admits multiple defensible readings, the reading most consistent with that canon.

This is a different kind of work from the i18n localisation pipeline that translates English Wheel of Heaven content into the nine other site languages. The two pipelines do not compete; they sit at different points in the content flow.

A book translated under the WoH Translation Program (worked example: Genesis-WoH, 50 chapters signed off as stable) is subsequently fanned out to the other site languages through the i18n localisation pipeline. The two are sequential, not parallel.

What lives here#

• Principles — the project’s editorial commitments. Accuracy above lens; lens in the apparatus, not in the text; the Raëlian canon as the tiebreaker where the source is ambiguous; explicit claim_type discipline.
• Workflow — the eight-step per-chapter pipeline from source acquisition through human sign-off, with a worked example.
• Roles — full role definitions for the three AI agents in the pipeline (Translator, Editor, Reviewer), with their hard rules and input/output contracts.
• Glossary system — the three glossary layers (production / overlay / distribution), what each is for, and how they interact during translation.
• Source acquisition — where to obtain openly-licensed pointed/transliterated source texts, by tradition: Hebrew Bible, Greek NT, Akkadian, Sumerian, Egyptian, Qur’an, Pseudepigrapha.
• File formats — the JSON schemas for source files, chapter files, and glossary files, with full worked examples.
• Reviewer citation shelf — the canonical scholarly lexicons and commentaries the Reviewer agent must cite. Acceptable and unacceptable sources by tradition.
• Roadmap — the prioritised text list, current state, and what is next.
• Library Acquisition Program — the broader strategy the roadmap operates within: which texts are sourced, in which tradition, on which track (Edition vs Translation), and why.

Who this section is for#

• Editors and reviewers who want to understand or audit the project’s translation methodology.
• Scholarly readers who want to see the project’s source-handling discipline before deciding whether to trust the translations.
• Future contributors (human or AI-assisted) producing translations under the Program.
• Anyone curious about how the Raëlian-lens reading interacts with serious source-language work.

If you are reading a WoH Translation in the Library and want to know why the translation makes a particular choice, the glossary entry referenced from the chapter’s glossaryRefs[] is the immediate answer; this section is the methodological background behind that answer.

The one-paragraph version#

A chapter of source-language text flows through three AI agents in sequence — Translator (literal rendering applying the existing glossary), Editor (lexical-decision adjudication, commentary, glossary deltas), Reviewer (independent verification with mandatory scholarly citations). The Reviewer then produces a sign-off package; a named human reviewer (currently Zara Zinsfuss) signs off; the chapter is promoted to stable. The translated text reads as a defensible scholarly translation; the Wheel of Heaven lens lives in the per-verse commentary and the glossary entries, never in the translated English itself. Every divergence from a major public-domain translation is recorded with a claim_type (direct / inferred / speculative) so readers can audit exactly how far the lens went in any specific choice.

Current state (2026-06)#

• Books shipped or in flight: 21. Hebrew Bible — Genesis (50 ch, complete), Exodus, Isaiah (scaffold), Ezekiel, Daniel, Job. New Testament — Matthew, Mark, Luke, Acts, Revelation. Qur’an (selections). Pseudepigrapha — 1 Enoch, Jubilees, Shi’ur Qomah. Mesopotamian — Gilgamesh XI, Adapa, Eridu Genesis, Enki and Ninmah, Enki and Ninhursag, Song of the Hoe. Ugaritic — Baal Cycle (KTU 1.3–1.4). All drafted chapters are signed off as stable.
• Acquisition queue: 72 more books are registered as planned in catalog.json per the 2026-06 Library Acquisition Program: the Atrahasis ring, the Anatolian Kumarbi cycle, the Avesta, Greek (Theogony, Plato, the Hellenistic witnesses), Egyptian (Heavenly Cow, Pyramid Texts), Bahá’í, Caodai, Oomoto, more pseudepigrapha, Hekhalot, Gnostic/Coptic.
• Production glossary is at v2.69.0 with 789 terms across six source languages (Hebrew, Sumerian, Akkadian, Ugaritic, Arabic, Greek). Distribution: 708 direct / 74 inferred / 7 speculative.
• Per-translation overlay glossaries are active for 19 books (every shipped translation except Genesis-WoH and the Mormon Edition track). The mechanism is described in Glossary system.
• Multi-language fanout is operational and runs after a book reaches stable — see Translations.