Executive Summary — Luke (English → Azerbaijani)

Curriculum: Luke 1–24 | Core passage: Luke 4:16-21 | Language authority: Baseline Romans Language Package (extended, never contradicted)

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Why it matters

Luke is the most narratively concrete, culturally exposed book yet run through this pipeline for Azerbaijani. It stages the sharpest Christological collisions with tawhid (Incarnation, Sonship, Deity, Resurrection, Ascension) inside vivid, memorable stories — not abstract argument — which means doctrinal errors here are more likely to be remembered and repeated by readers than an equivalent error in Romans’ propositional prose. Luke also introduces Azerbaijan’s dominant Shia devotional categories (şəfaət/Imam intercession, tövbə, folk-Islamic jinn practice, tavazö humility) into direct contact with the text at a much higher frequency than Romans did. The core passage (4:16-21) is Jesus’ own self-anointing, Messiah-claiming, mission-defining announcement — get this passage wrong and the whole curriculum’s theological foundation shifts.

Key findings

• 31 doctrines identified across full-book coverage (all 24 chapters reviewed, none silently skipped); 11 Critical + 14 High = 25 require mandatory human theologian review; 4 require native speaker review; 2 are automated-only.
• 116 total glossary terms now governed for this curriculum: 47 baseline Romans terms reused exactly (“inherited,” 14 Critical / 18 High among them) + 69 newly-introduced Luke-specific terms (15 Critical / 15 High among them), per the Core Glossary and Linguistic Gap Analysis.
• Two entirely new Critical risks not present in Romans: the Ascension (24:50-51, requiring the invented-for-this-purpose distinction between götürülmə and the forbidden qaldırılma) and Paradise (23:43, where — unlike Xilas — the source text itself uses Cənnət and the task is to defend its immediacy, not avoid the word).
• The ἄφεσις wordplay (4:18/11:4) is a permanent, uncompensated translation loss — Azerbaijani has no single word spanning “release from captivity” and “forgiveness of sins”; this can only be repaired with mandatory teaching notes, never with vocabulary alone.
• A genuinely new syncretism vector: Sufi mürid–şeyx discipleship models, folk-Islamic jinn/exorcism practice, and Shia şəfaət/Imamate-intercession piety are all more actively, devotionally practiced in Azerbaijan than the abstract categories Romans had to guard against, raising the practical (not just theoretical) collision risk for Luke’s discipleship, exorcism, and assurance-of-salvation texts.
• Two sectarian/contextualized rendering patterns must be actively excluded, not just avoided by omission: the Jehovah’s Witnesses Azerbaijani New World Translation’s re-punctuation of Luke 23:43, and informal Muslim-idiom paraphrases that drop Məsih from İsa or gloss Müqəddəs Ruh as Cəbrail.

Risks

• Highest-severity terms requiring theologian sign-off on every occurrence: Cənnət (23:43), göyə götürülmə (24:50-51), çarmıx/death-resurrection sequence (chs. 9, 23-24), Allahın Oğlu / İnsan Oğlu pairing, Yeni Əhd / bədən-qan (22:19-20), saleh sayıldı (18:14), İnsan Oğlu itmişi axtarmaq və xilas etmək üçün gəldi (19:10), Hades (16:23).
• Highest-severity doctrines: Sonship of Christ, Deity of Christ, Incarnation, Resurrection, Ascension, Lordship, Messianic Promise, Atonement/New Covenant, Assurance of Salvation, Justification-by-Faith bridge, and Jesus as Savior for All Nations — all Critical, all mapped to specific Luke passages in 11_doctrine_analysis.md.
• Highest-severity cultural collision risk: popular Azerbaijani religious teaching’s self-sufficient, mediator-free tövbə and deferred, Imamate-mediated soteriology sit in direct, repeated tension with Luke’s Christ-authorized forgiveness (5:20-24) and Christ’s unmediated “today…Paradise” assurance (23:43) — this is not a one-time correction but a recurring one across many chapters.

Opportunities

• Genuine cultural bridge points exist and should be used deliberately: Mary’s veneration (Məryəm), İbrahim’s shared honor, tavazö/humility resonance, qonaqpərvərlik hospitality culture, mərhəmət/rəhm-etmək compassion vocabulary, and Jesus’ full, uncontested humanity all give teaching material real starting points before pivoting to the sharper, distinguishing doctrinal claims.
• The Luke–Romans justification bridge (Luke 18:9-14 ↔ Romans’ Saleh sayılma doctrine) is an unusually strong, ready-made cross-curriculum teaching asset.
• The core passage’s anointing wordplay (məsh etmişdir / Məsih) gives a natural, memorable hook for teaching the full Messianic content Luke intends, rather than leaving Məsih as an unexamined familiar label.

Recommended actions

1. Load assets/translation_memory.json (Luke) and analysis/12_ai_translation_requirements.md (Luke) alongside the baseline Romans package before any Phase 2 segment translation begins; treat Luke’s forbidden-substitution list as additive to, never a replacement for, the baseline’s.
2. Route all 25 theologian-review-tier doctrines and all Critical/High terms through mandatory human review per doctrine_risk_registry.json; do not allow automated-only clearance for any Christological, salvation, or intercession-adjacent segment.
3. Attach the mandatory translator notes specified for Cənnət, göyə götürülmə, the ἄφεσις wordplay passages, Hades, and the tövbə/forgiveness pairing at first occurrence in every lesson, not only once at the book’s opening.
4. Positive-match Phase 2 back-translation QA against the two identified sectarian/contextualized rendering patterns (§ Key findings) in addition to the standard forbidden-term checks.
5. Carry the YouVersion citation convention (Müqəddəs Kitab / AZB / version ID 2692 / book code LUK) forward unchanged into all subsequent Luke curriculum artifacts, and reconfirm the version ID against the live API before first production use.