On Tue, Jul 2, 2019 at 1:55 PM Lieven L. Litaer <levinius@gmx.de> wrote:

NOOOOOOO! [add echo here]

Hold on! There's a big difference between building words based on the
rules described in TKD, and inventing completely new words.

It's true that {turuqqangqa'moHtaHneS'a'} was never written by Okrand,
but if I make up words like {bawuS vISop} nobody will ever know what it
means.

That's because there is no systematic approach for going from whatever bawuS is supposed to mean to the word bawuS. On the other hand, there is at least an informal systemic approach, derived from what Okrand has already done, to make transliterations. The gulf between <whatever> and bawuS is much wider than the one between, say, *bIruqlIn and Brooklyn.

But the informal rule (again, see the FAQ) is that we should not do it.
It's true that there are systems that show how to transliterate, but
again, it's not 100% clear. You may think that {moSqaw} is obvious, but
a Russian writer may prefer {moSIqva'}.

I would prefer something like moSIqva' too, since we already know that Okrand prefers to use the native place name when transliterating. There are plenty of other cases where following Okrandian examples can lead to confusion, because not every detail of grammar and syntax has been explained. (In turuqqangqa'moHtaHneS'a', does the combination of -qang and -taH mean "to be continually willing to do it" or "to be willing to do it continually"? Both? Neither? Either depending on context? How about when you add -qa'? The translation I provided is not the only possible one.)

(I admit I goofed with na'Saretlhngan 'I'eySoS, I was combining English and Greek transliterations and got the word order wrong to boot. If we go with Aramaic, it'd probably be something like yeSu' naSratlhngan.)

And that's why the safest way is to simply write "Jesus", which is a
word that everyone understands in enarly every language.

If the assumption is that the reader already speaks another language, then why bother translating? When people are translating the New Testament into other languages, they don't just leave it as "Jesus" right there. They find some way to translate it into the local tongue, even if the locals don't already have an accepted word for "Jesus". When I look up the book of Mark on Biblegateway.com in all the various languages they have, they don't have Jesus's name in English or Greek or Hebrew in the middle of the Urdu or Welsh or Cherokee translations. In the case of the Gospels specifically, the entire point is to explain who Jesus is so that you don't need to have heard of him before. The point of translating them is so that people don't have to rely on their knowledge of Jesus from other languages.

This is what I was trying to get at: the specific sequences of letters or phonemes you use to talk about Jesus is not as important as the story surrounding him. Just pick one. If you think the audience of potential Klingon Christians would be more likely to use his Federation Standard name, go with jIySuS. If you think they'd prefer his name in his native tongue, look it up in Aramaic or Hebrew and come up with something. If you're concerned that an English speaker won't know who you're referring to without context, you're translating the whole book! It's all context! Jesus' name is mentioned in the first verse of the book. Whatever transliteration you use, you're immediately explaining that that name refers to joH'a' puqloD. They will get it, I promise.