Linguistic Gap Analysis
06 Linguistic Gap Analysis — 2 Corinthians — English → Bengali
Purpose and Method
This analysis identifies where the Bengali theological lexicon — as established by the baseline Romans translation_memory.json and extended for this curriculum — has genuine gaps, false friends, and crowded semantic neighborhoods when carrying the eight core doctrines of 2 Corinthians into Bengali. It covers the full letter (chapters 1–13), with the anchor passage (5:11-21, the reconciliation/new-creation pericope) receiving the deepest treatment because it carries the highest concentration of Critical-risk terms in the book. No chapter is silently skipped; chapters that introduce no new lexical risk are noted as reviewed with pointers to the reused baseline vocabulary that covers them.
This document produces four required outputs:
- Doctrine Vocabulary Matrix — for each of the eight named curriculum doctrines, the available Bengali terms, their weaknesses, and the recommended handling strategy.
- Missing Vocabulary vs. Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods — a fencing plan distinguishing concepts Bengali simply lacks a word for from concepts where Bengali has too many competing words, each pulling toward a different religious tradition.
- Transliteration vs. Paraphrase Decisions — a term-by-term ruling on when to keep a loanword/transliteration versus build a Bengali compound phrase.
- Ranked List of Highest-Risk Ambiguities — the passages and terms most likely to produce doctrinal drift if mishandled in Phase 2.
All rulings here are downstream-consistent with the baseline translation_memory.json/bible_term_registry.json and with the Step 1 core glossary (08_core_glossary.md); no ruling here contradicts an established rendering.
Section 1 — Doctrine Vocabulary Matrix
| Doctrine | Key Passages | Available Bengali Terms | Weaknesses in Existing Lexicon | Recommended Strategy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reconciliation with God | 5:18-20 (anchor); cf. 5:11-21 throughout | মিলন / মিলন করানো (new); ঈশ্বরের সাথে মিলিত হও (imperative); মিলনের বাণী / মিলনের সেবাকাজ | Bengali has no single native word carrying the full forensic-plus-relational sense of καταλλαγή (hostility judicially resolved AND relationship restored). The closest natural phrase, বন্ধুত্ব পুনঃস্থাপন (“restoring friendship”), is socially warm but theologically thin — it suggests a mutual patch-up between two estranged equals, not a holy God graciously initiating restoration with guilty humanity. | Use মিলন/মিলন করানো as the fixed technical term (already registered Critical), always with God as the grammatical initiator (“ঈশ্বর…মিলন করালেন,” never “আমরা মিলন করলাম”). Mandatory translator note at first occurrence (5:18) distinguishing this from (a) social patch-up, (b) Hindu ritual appeasement of an offended deity, (c) Islamic unilateral forgiveness-by-decree without relationship. |
| New Creation in Christ | 5:17 (anchor) | নতুন সৃষ্টি (new); খ্রীষ্টে (in Christ, new); resurrection পুনরুত্থান (reused Critical) | The most serious false friend in the entire letter: পুনর্জন্ম (rebirth/reincarnation) is the ordinary Bengali word a Hindu-background reader’s mind will reach for when hearing “made new.” Bengali also has no existing Christian-register phrase distinguishing a one-time, linear, decisive re-creation from a repeatable cyclical renewal (cf. avatar cycles, seasonal festival renewal imagery). | নতুন সৃষ্টি is coined specifically to avoid the rebirth-cycle reading; pair with খ্রীষ্টে to anchor the newness to union with Christ rather than an impersonal cosmic process. Mandatory translator note at every occurrence (5:17; conceptually echoed 3:18; 4:16) explicitly naming and rejecting পুনর্জন্ম as the wrong reading. |
| Suffering and Comfort in Ministry | 1:3-7; 4:7-17; 7:4-13 | কষ্ট / দুঃখ-কষ্ট (affliction, new); সান্ত্বনা (comfort, new); ঈশ্বরসম্মত দুঃখ (godly grief, new) | Bengali is rich in vocabulary for suffering, but the richest available term, ক্লেশ, is doctrinally poisoned: it is the fixed technical term for the pañca-kleśa, the five afflictions binding the soul to samsara in yogic philosophy. Meanwhile সান্ত্বনা risks being read as passive, fatalistic resignation (common in Bengali proverbial wisdom about accepting suffering) rather than active, relational divine comfort. | Forbid ক্লেশ outright (already flagged in registry); use কষ্ট/দুঃখ-কষ্ট for affliction. For comfort, always keep God (or a believer acting on God’s behalf) as the grammatical subject/source of সান্ত্বনা, never letting it stand as a bare noun implying self-generated stoic calm. |
| The New Covenant versus the Old | 3:6-18 | নতুন নিয়ম / পুরাতন নিয়ম (reused/new); অক্ষর (letter, new); আবরণ (veil, new); প্রতিরূপ (image, new); রূপান্তরিত হওয়া (transformed, new) | Structural naming collision, not a missing-word problem: নতুন নিয়ম and পুরাতন নিয়ম are the exact same phrases the established Bengali Bible uses for the New Testament and Old Testament canons. Paul in ch. 3 is discussing the covenant-reality, not the book collections, and unqualified use risks readers hearing “the New Testament versus the Old Testament” as two competing scriptures rather than two covenant administrations. | Retain the terms (they are already fixed in Bengali Bible tradition and cannot be replaced without breaking cross-reference consistency), but require a disambiguating translator note at 3:6 and 3:14 clarifying “covenant-relationship,” not “scriptural collection,” is meant. |
| Sincerity and Apostolic Authority | 1:12; 2:17; 3:12; 4:2; 5:11 | সরলতা / নিষ্কপটতা (new); সাহস (boldness, new); প্রভুর ভয় (fear of the Lord, new); বিবেক (conscience, new) | Bengali social custom (in both Hindu-majority and Muslim-majority regions) places a very high value on preserving group harmony and deference to elders/authority, sometimes at the cost of blunt candor. A literal rendering of “sincerity” risks collapsing into mere politeness (নম্রতা/ভদ্রতা) rather than Paul’s sense of full transparency of motive before God even when that transparency creates social friction with rivals. | Use সরলতা/নিষ্কপটতা as the fixed term, deliberately choosing নিষ্কপটতা (“without hidden deceit”) over softer politeness-words, and anchor every occurrence to the phrase “ঈশ্বরের সামনে” (before God) to keep the accountability vertical, not merely horizontal/social. |
| Generosity and Grace in Giving | 8:1-9:15 | অনুগ্রহ (grace, reused, extended sense); দান (giving, new); উদারতা (generosity, new); সমতা (equality, new); বীজ বপন করা/কাটা (sowing/reaping, new) | Two distinct collision risks stack in this doctrine: (1) reusing অনুগ্রহ for ordinary Christian generosity risks readers assuming giving generates saving grace rather than flowing from grace already given; (2) দান is the fixed technical term of Hindu dāna ethics, where giving generates punya (merit) toward better rebirth — a direct contradiction of grace-not-merit theology. | Keep অনুগ্রহ (do not invent a separate word — Paul’s wordplay is deliberate) but require a mandatory translator note at first occurrence in ch. 8 distinguishing soteriological grace from grace-motivated giving. Permit দান for the act of giving itself, but require every occurrence to be anchored explicitly to অনুগ্রহে (in/by grace) so it is never read as a merit-generating act performed to secure future benefit. |
| Power in Weakness | 4:7-12; 12:7-10; 13:3-4,9 | ঈশ্বরের সামর্থ্য (power of God, reused Critical); দুর্বলতা (weakness, new); ধন…মাটির পাত্রে (treasure in jars of clay, new) | The central paradox of this doctrine — that God’s power is displayed, not despite weakness, but precisely through it — has no ready Bengali idiom; Bengali proverbial wisdom about weakness tends toward either fatalistic acceptance (ভাগ্য) or an expectation that faith/devotion should produce visible strength (a prosperity-adjacent reading risk, given the popularity of some Bengali charismatic/prosperity preaching). শক্তি remains strictly forbidden here as elsewhere, and is an even sharper risk in ch. 12 because a reader could otherwise imagine Paul receiving a goddess-like power infusion at the moment of confessing weakness. | Retain ঈশ্বরের সামর্থ্য without exception; render দুর্বলতা without euphemism or softening (do not translate toward “God helps us overcome our weakness,” which erases the paradox that weakness itself is the venue of power). Flag every occurrence of 12:9-10 for mandatory theologian review. |
| Genuine versus False Apostleship | 11:1-15; 12:11-13; 13:5 | প্রেরিত (apostle, reused Medium); ভণ্ড প্রেরিত (false apostles, new Critical); অতি প্রেরিত (super-apostles, new); আলোর দূত (angel of light, new); ঈশ্বরসম্মত ঈর্ষা (godly jealousy, new) | Bengal’s religious landscape includes a wide range of gurus, pirs, and self-proclaimed enlightened teachers claiming spiritual authority through personal charisma, vision-claims, or ascetic feats — exactly the profile Paul is describing in the “super-apostles.” Bengali has no existing single word distinguishing an authorized/sent office-holder from a charismatically self-authorizing spiritual figure; ভণ্ড প্রেরিত is a coined compound, not an inherited term. | Use ভণ্ড প্রেরিত consistently (never soften to “wrong teachers” or “mistaken teachers,” which lose the moral charge of ψευδαπόστολοι). Require a translator/teaching note connecting this doctrine’s discernment criteria (11:4,13-15) to the live pastoral reality of competing claims to spiritual authority in the target culture, without naming specific outside traditions in the translated text itself. |
Chapter coverage check for Section 1: Chapters 1–2 (comfort/affliction, sincerity, forgiveness), 3 (new covenant), 4 (power in weakness introduced), 5 (reconciliation/new creation, anchor), 6–7 (suffering/comfort continued, separation), 8–9 (generosity), 10–12 (apostleship, power in weakness continued), 13 (self-examination, benediction) are all represented above or in Section 2 below. No chapter is without covered vocabulary.
Section 2 — Missing Vocabulary vs. Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods
2a. Missing Vocabulary (Bengali has no ready single word — compound/paraphrase required)
These are concepts where the gap is an absence: no existing Bengali word, in any register, carries the needed sense, so a multi-word phrase or coined compound is required. None of these compete with an existing false-friend meaning; the risk here is under-translation (flattening the concept into something too thin), not syncretism.
| Concept | Passage(s) | Why Bengali lacks a single word | Chosen compound/paraphrase |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reconciliation (forensic + relational) | 5:18-20 | No word combines “legal hostility resolved” with “relationship restored” | মিলন / মিলন করানো (+ mandatory note) |
| New creation | 5:17 | No word for a one-time, linear, non-repeatable re-creation distinct from cyclical renewal | নতুন সৃষ্টি (+ mandatory note) |
| Judgment seat of Christ (reward, not condemnation) | 5:10 | No existing term distinguishes reward-evaluation from condemnatory judgment or karmic reckoning | খ্রীষ্টের বিচারাসন |
| Ambassador (diplomatic envoy, distinct from apostle/messenger) | 5:20 | Bengali দূত collapses envoy/messenger/angel into one word; প্রেরিত is reserved for the apostolic office | প্রতিনিধি |
| Cheerful giver | 9:6-7 | No word isolates “joyful, un-coerced, grace-motivated” giving from merit-generating দান | আনন্দের সাথে দানকারী (+ mandatory anchor to অনুগ্রহে) |
| Unequally yoked | 6:14 | No agricultural-yoke idiom exists in standard Bengali register for mismatched partnership | অসমভাবে জোয়ালে যুক্ত হওয়া |
| Weapons of warfare / strongholds (metaphorical) | 10:4 | No existing idiom marks military vocabulary as strictly figurative for a contest of ideas | যুদ্ধের অস্ত্র / দুর্গ (+ mandatory figurative-framing note) |
| Thorn in the flesh | 12:7 | No native idiom for a chronic, God-permitted, unresolved affliction | মাংসে কাঁটা (paired with শয়তানের দূত) |
| Third heaven / paradise (immediate presence of God) | 12:2-4 | No term isolates “immediate divine presence” from Hindu multi-loka cosmology or Islamic Jannat’s garden-imagery | তৃতীয় স্বর্গ / পরমদেশ (+ distinguishing note) |
| Outer man / inner man | 4:16 | No phrase distinguishes progressive renewal-versus-decay from ātman/body metaphysical dualism | বাহ্যিক মানুষ / অন্তরের মানুষ (+ distinguishing note) |
| Treasure in jars of clay | 4:7 | No idiom for “surpassing worth carried in a frail vessel” without a prosperity-wealth misreading | ধন…মাটির পাত্রে |
2b. Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods (Bengali has too many words — fencing required)
These are concepts where Bengali already has strong, well-established competing terms rooted in Hindu and/or Muslim religious practice. The risk here is over-translation into the wrong tradition, not thinness. Each requires either a forbidden-substitution rule or a mandatory qualifying construction.
| Bengali Term Under Pressure | Competing Tradition-Rooted Meaning | Doctrine at Risk | Fencing Strategy |
|---|---|---|---|
| শক্তি | Shakta-Hindu goddess-power (Durga/Kali), especially salient in Bengal | Power in Weakness (4:7; 12:9; 13:4) | Forbidden. Always সামর্থ্য (already fixed baseline rule; heightened stakes here because ch. 12’s central paradox makes any goddess-power resonance especially damaging). |
| দর্শন | The technical Hindu devotional act of viewing/being seen by a deity’s temple image (mūrti) | Power in Weakness — visions and revelations (12:1) | Never use unqualified. Use compound অলৌকিক দর্শন (“supernatural vision”) or pair with প্রত্যাদেশ, with a first-occurrence note distancing this from temple mūrti-viewing. |
| দান | Hindu dāna ethics — meritorious giving that generates punya toward better rebirth | Generosity and Grace in Giving (9:6-7) | Permitted but must always be anchored to অনুগ্রহে (by/in grace) in the immediate co-text; never allowed to stand alone as a self-sufficient act of merit. |
| ক্লেশ | Yogic pañca-kleśa — the five afflictions binding the soul to samsara | Suffering and Comfort in Ministry (throughout) | Forbidden. Use কষ্ট/দুঃখ-কষ্ট exclusively. |
| প্রতিমা | The specific word for a Hindu devotional idol-statue (e.g., Durga Puja images) | New Covenant / Deity of Christ — image/likeness (3:18; 4:4) | Forbidden. Use প্রতিরূপ exclusively. |
| পর্দা | Islamic purdah — gender-based veiling/seclusion practice, a live and socially charged term especially in Bangladesh | New Covenant versus Old — veil (3:13-16) | Avoid as primary rendering; default to আবরণ. পর্দা may appear only in an explanatory footnote contrasting the two concepts, never in the translated verse text. |
| মন্দির | Hindu temple, specifically understood as the housing-place of a deity’s localized presence in an image | Church as God’s People — temple of God metaphor (6:16) | Permitted (already fixed for this metaphor in the registry) but requires a mandatory translator note clarifying that the indwelling in view is the personal Holy Spirit, not a housed devotional image. |
| গর্ব | Ordinary Bengali usage skews strongly negative (pride, arrogance) | Sincerity and Apostolic Authority / Genuine vs. False Apostleship — boasting (5:12; 7:4,14; 8:24; 9:2-3; chs. 10-12) | Every occurrence requires an explicit contextual qualifier: প্রভুতে গর্ব (boasting in the Lord, positive) versus মাংসিক/বাহ্যিক গর্ব (boasting in the flesh/outward appearance, condemned). Never leave গর্ব bare. |
| ঈর্ষা | Ordinary Bengali usage is uniformly negative — sinful envy/covetousness | Genuine versus False Apostleship — godly jealousy (11:2) | Requires the compound ঈশ্বরসম্মত ঈর্ষা plus a translator note reframing this as protective, betrothal-guarding concern, not sinful envy. |
| প্রেম | Bengali’s primary word for romantic/secular love, with heavy Tagore-era literary and film-song association | Reconciliation with God / general (5:14; 8:7-8,24; 13:11,14) | Every christological/divine-love occurrence must retain God/Christ as the explicit grammatical subject in the same clause or immediate co-text, so প্রেম cannot drift toward a romantic reading; translator note recommended at first occurrence (5:14). |
| নিয়ম (নতুন/পুরাতন) | Doubles as the established Bengali Bible name for the New Testament / Old Testament canon | New Covenant versus the Old (3:6,14) | Cannot be replaced (breaks cross-reference tradition); fence with a mandatory disambiguating translator note at each occurrence in ch. 3 rather than a lexical substitution. |
| অনুতাप | Risks assimilation to prāyaścitta — Hindu/dharmic prescribed ritual penance that expiates sin through a performed act | Suffering and Comfort — repentance (7:9-10) | Retain অনুতাप but pair consistently with ঈশ্বরসম্মত দুঃখ (godly grief) as the stated cause, keeping the change-of-mind/direction sense primary over any ritual-performance sense. |
| বিশ্বাস | Already fenced in the Romans baseline against ঈমান (Islamic creedal submission) and শ্রদ্ধা (Hindu devotional reverence) | Faith; Walk by Faith Not Sight (5:7; 8:7; 13:5) | No new fencing required; reuse baseline rule. Noted here only because 2 Corinthians’ frequent use (5:7; 13:5) makes consistent enforcement across a longer letter important. |
Section 3 — Transliteration vs. Paraphrase Decisions
| Term/Phrase | Category | Decision | Rationale |
|---|---|---|---|
| Proper names (Jesus, Christ, Paul, David, Israel, etc.) | Proper noun | Transliterate using established Bengali Christian Bible forms | Already fixed in baseline; changing would break cross-reference consistency across curricula. |
| Amen, Hallelujah | Liturgical exclamation | Transliterate (আমেন, হাল্লিলূয়া) | Already fixed in baseline; universally recognized across Bengali Christian traditions. |
| Third heaven / paradise (12:2-4) | Theological concept | Paraphrase, not transliterate | Transliterating “paradise” toward the Perso-Arabic জান্নাত would import Islamic garden-paradise imagery; তৃতীয় স্বর্গ / পরমদেশ conveys the immediate-presence sense without borrowing either tradition’s cosmology. |
| Judgment seat of Christ / bēma (5:10) | Theological concept | Paraphrase as খ্রীষ্টের বিচারাসন | A transliterated “বিমা” would be meaningless (and homophonous with the Bengali word for “insurance,” বিমা — a real collision risk); the Greco-Roman tribunal image must be explained functionally, not transliterated. |
| Ἀρραβών / guarantee-pledge (1:22; 5:5) | Financial-legal metaphor | Paraphrase as জামিনস্বরূপ | The underlying image (a down payment securing a future transaction) has a ready Bengali commercial equivalent (বায়না); no benefit to transliterating a Greek legal term the target audience has no independent reason to recognize. |
| Εἰλικρίνεια / sincerity (1:12; 2:17) | Abstract virtue | Paraphrase/compound as সরলতা / নিষ্কপটতা | No single Bengali word carries “unmixed motive without hidden agenda”; the compound is more precise than either word alone. |
| Ὑπερλίαν ἀπόστολοι / super-apostles (11:5; 12:11) | Sarcastic coinage | Paraphrase as অতি প্রেরিত, preserving irony through surrounding context rather than a special marked term | Bengali has no equivalent ironic prefix construction; the sarcasm must be carried by discourse framing (translator/teaching notes), not by inventing an artificial-sounding neologism. |
| Κατὰ σάρκα / “according to the flesh” as worldly standard (5:16; 10:2-3; 11:18) | Idiom | Paraphrase with mandatory qualifying construction (মাংসিক দৃষ্টিতে / জাগতিক দৃষ্টিতে) | A bare literal “মাংস” (meat/flesh) reading is jarring and semantically wrong; must always signal “from the standpoint of,” and must be kept distinct from the unrelated physical-descent sense of the same Greek idiom already fixed for Romans 1:3. |
| Θλῖψις / affliction | Common vocabulary | Use existing Bengali word (κষ্ট/দুঃখ-কষ্ট), not a coinage or transliteration | A native, well-understood word exists and is doctrinally safe once the crowded neighbor (ক্লেশ) is fenced off — no need to paraphrase further. |
| Καινὴ κτίσις / new creation (5:17) | Coined theological compound | Compound Bengali phrase (নতুন সৃষ্টি), not transliteration | Transliterating “ktisis” would be meaningless to readers; a Bengali compound using existing morphemes (নতুন + সৃষ্টি) is transparent and was already the right call in the Section A/B glossary — confirmed here. |
| Παράκλησις / comfort (throughout ch. 1, 7) | Common vocabulary with theological freight | Use existing word (সান্ত্বনা), reinforced by consistent divine-source framing, not transliteration or new coinage | সান্ত্বনা is already a warm, recognizable Bengali word; the risk is not lexical absence but a fatalistic misreading, addressed by syntax (keeping God as source), not by inventing new vocabulary. |
General rule derived from this section: transliteration is reserved strictly for proper names and fixed liturgical exclamations already anchored in Bengali Bible tradition. Every theological concept — however exotic to Bengali religious vocabulary — is handled by paraphrase or compound-building from existing Bengali morphemes, never by importing an unglossed Greek or English loanword. This keeps 2 Corinthians’ unusually idiom-dense rhetoric (chs. 10-12 especially) fully naturalized in Bengali register.
Section 4 — Ranked List of Highest-Risk Ambiguities in 2 Corinthians
Ranked by combined severity (doctrinal centrality × likelihood of syncretistic misreading), for Phase 2 review-routing priority.
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“Became sin” (5:21a) — Christ’s representative identification with sin’s penalty. Highest risk in the entire letter: a literal reading could imply Christ became morally sinful (Christological heresy), while an over-cautious softening (“took our sins”) loses Paul’s stark forensic point. Anchor passage territory. Mandatory theologian review, every occurrence.
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New creation vs. reincarnation (5:17) — নতুন সৃষ্টি sitting one semantic step away from পুনর্জন্ম for any Hindu-background reader encountering “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation” without the surrounding argument fully in view (e.g., in isolated quotation on cards, banners, social media). Mandatory translator note at every standalone use.
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Reconciliation as appeasement vs. God-initiated grace (5:18-20) — Real risk of readers assimilating মিলন into either Hindu ritual deity-appeasement or Islamic unilateral-decree forgiveness, both of which remove the relational and Christ-substitutionary dimensions Paul insists on. Mandatory theologian review.
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Power of God vs. শক্তি across chs. 4 and 12 — The forbidden-substitution rule is well established, but ch. 12’s dramatic testimony (“power is perfected in weakness”) is exactly the kind of vivid, quotable verse most likely to be excerpted for devotional cards/sermons where a translator under time pressure might reach for the more poetic-sounding শক্তি. Flag for automated lexical scan plus theologian spot-check on all excerpted/devotional-use segments.
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False apostles / super-apostles / angel of light (11:1-15) — Discernment-of-authority language landing in a religious culture with an active landscape of gurus, pirs, and charismatic teachers; mistranslation could either (a) be read as a blanket condemnation of all non-Christian religious teachers (increasing communal friction) or (b) be softened into vague “be careful of bad teachers” language that loses Paul’s specific polemical force. Mandatory theologian review; native-speaker tone check on framing.
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Grace in salvation vs. grace in giving (chs. 3-5 vs. chs. 8-9) — Same Bengali word, অনুগ্রহ, spans both senses; if the extension is not explicitly flagged, readers may conclude generous giving is what secures or increases saving grace, reversing Paul’s actual logic (grace produces generosity, not the reverse). Mandatory translator note at first occurrence in ch. 8.
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Boasting’s dual valence (5:12; 7:4,14; 8:24; 9:2-3; chs. 10-12) — গর্ব’s uniformly negative default sense in ordinary Bengali risks either flattening all of Paul’s “boasting in the Lord” statements into false modesty-violations, or (conversely) legitimizing the self-promoting boasting Paul is condemning if the qualifier is dropped even once. High-frequency term; native-speaker review on every occurrence for correct qualifier.
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Old/New Covenant vs. Old/New Testament naming collision (3:6,14) — Structural ambiguity baked into the existing Bengali Bible vocabulary itself, not a mistranslation risk per se, but a comprehension risk: readers may hear “the ministry of the new covenant” as “the ministry of the New Testament [book]” and miss the ch. 3 argument about covenant realities (letter vs. Spirit; veiled vs. unveiled glory). Mandatory disambiguating note.
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Visions and revelations / দর্শন (12:1) — A single unqualified noun choice (দর্শন) could pull Paul’s reluctant, self-deprecating account of a mystical experience into the register of Hindu temple-image devotional viewing, exactly inverting his rhetorical purpose (which is to downplay, not celebrate, this experience). Mandatory qualifying compound plus note.
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Weapons of warfare / strongholds (10:4) — Military metaphor for the contest of ideas, translated into a region with real historical and occasionally live communal-religious tension; unqualified translation risks being read (or weaponized in quotation) as endorsing literal religious conflict. Mandatory figurative-framing note; native-speaker tone review.
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Godly jealousy (11:2) — ঈশ্বরসম্মত ঈর্ষা fighting against ঈর্ষা’s uniformly negative connotation in everyday Bengali; risk of the phrase reading as self-contradictory or, worse, as excusing ordinary sinful jealousy under a religious label. Native-speaker review; mandatory note.
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Temple of God metaphor (6:16) — ঈশ্বরের মন্দির risking assimilation to the Hindu concept of a deity housed in a temple image, when Paul’s point is the personal, moving, relational indwelling of the Spirit in a person, not the static housing of a devotional object. Native-speaker review; mandatory note.
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Godly grief / repentance vs. prāyaścitta (7:9-10) — অনুতাप risking a ritual-penance reading (a specific act performed to expiate sin) rather than Paul’s sense of a Spirit-produced change of mind and direction. Native-speaker review.
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Unequally yoked (6:14) — Practical/ethical application with real social stakes around interfaith marriage and business partnership in a religiously plural society; risk is less lexical than pastoral-tonal. Native-speaker review for tone, not theologian escalation.
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Sincerity vs. social harmony/deference norms (1:12; 2:17; 4:2) — Lower doctrinal severity than items above, but a genuine cultural-pragmatic risk: translators instinctively softening blunt self-defense/candor into more socially deferential phrasing, thereby muting Paul’s actual rhetorical stance against his opponents. Native-speaker review.
Summary and Handoff
This gap analysis confirms that 2 Corinthians introduces no doctrinal vocabulary that can be handled by simple reuse of the Romans baseline alone — every one of the eight named doctrines requires either a newly coined Bengali compound, a mandatory disambiguating translator note, or a forbidden-substitution fence against a crowded Hindu- or Muslim-rooted semantic neighbor. The highest concentration of risk sits at the anchor passage (5:11-21: reconciliation, new creation, imputed/non-imputed righteousness, “became sin”), consistent with its role as the curriculum’s theological center, but chapters 3–4 (covenant/veil/glory) and 10–12 (apostleship/boasting/power-in-weakness) carry comparably serious risk given the letter’s uniquely personal, polemical, and rhetorically dense style compared to Romans.
All findings here are carried forward unchanged into the Step 1 core glossary (08_core_glossary.md) and are ready for promotion into translation_memory.json and bible_term_registry.json in the subsequent Phase 1 step.