Linguistic Gap Analysis
06 Linguistic Gap Analysis — Ephesians — English → Bengali
Purpose
This analysis inventories where Bengali’s existing religious vocabulary is sufficient, where it is crowded (multiple available terms, all carrying contaminating associations from Hinduism, Islam, or folk practice that must be fenced off), and where it is genuinely missing (requiring compounding, calque, or paraphrase rather than a single existing word). It builds directly on the baseline Romans translation_memory.json and the Ephesians 08_core_glossary.md / bible_term_registry.json, and exists to justify the term choices already recorded there and to surface the residual ambiguities Phase 2 translators and reviewers must watch for. It does not re-litigate settled baseline terms (ঈশ্বর, যীশু, খ্রীষ্ট, প্রভু, পরিত্রাণ, অনুগ্রহ, বিশ্বাস, ধার্মিকতা, পবিত্র, পবিত্র লোক, etc.) except where an Ephesians-specific context reopens a risk not fully addressed by the Romans baseline.
Part 1 — Doctrine Vocabulary Matrix
For each of the nine curriculum doctrines: the Bengali terms currently available (existing Bengali Bible tradition + baseline + new Ephesians coinages), their weaknesses, and the recommended strategy.
1. Salvation by Grace through Faith
| Available Bengali terms | Weakness | Recommended strategy |
|---|---|---|
| অনুগ্রহ (grace, baseline), বিশ্বাস (faith, baseline), পরিত্রাণ (salvation, baseline), উপহার (gift), দয়া (mercy), কর্ম/কাজ (works), সৃষ্টি (workmanship), সৎকর্ম (good works) | Bengali’s most natural word for “gift” in a religious frame, দান, is itself a merit-generating ritual act (Hindu dāna); its closest common synonym for “deed/work,” কর্ম, is phonetically and conceptually adjacent to পুণ্য (merit) and to the pan-South-Asian karma-accounting worldview shared, in different form, by folk Islamic weighed-deeds theology. The whole doctrine depends on a clean ἔργα/ποίημα (works/workmanship) fence that Bengali does not supply automatically — কর্ম and সৃষ্টি must be actively kept apart by the translator, not merely by lexical accident. | Retain established baseline terms অনুগ্রহ/বিশ্বাস/পরিত্রাণ without variation. For the Eph 2:8-10 hinge, enforce the FENCE: কর্ম (v.9, what does NOT save) vs সৃষ্টি (v.10, God’s handiwork) vs সৎকর্ম (v.10, the FRUIT, not cause). Never let সৃষ্টি or সৎকর্ম drift toward কর্ম’s root. উপহার, not দান, for “gift” in 2:8. Translator note mandatory at 2:8-10 explaining the three-way fence to reviewers. |
2. Election and Predestination in Christ
| Available Bengali terms | Weakness | Recommended strategy |
|---|---|---|
| ঈশ্বরের মনোনয়ন (election, baseline), পূর্বনির্ধারণ (predestined, new coinage), ইচ্ছা (will), উদ্দেশ্য (purpose) | This is the single most exposed doctrinal seam in the letter. Bengali Muslim readers possess a fully assimilated, theologically loaded native word for fixed divine decree — তকদির/তাকদীর (taqdir) — and Bengali Hindu readers possess two: ভাগ্য and নিয়তি (impersonal karmic fate). None of Bengali’s existing single-word options for “predetermined by a higher power” are religiously neutral; all three culturally dominant options make God’s foreordination sound impersonal, unappealable, and morally detached from the one it concerns — the opposite of Eph 1:4-5’s “in love he predestined us.” | Use the coined compound পূর্বনির্ধারণ (not a loanword from any one tradition) specifically because it is doctrinally “unclaimed” territory rather than borrowed from a rival system. MANDATORY translator note at first occurrence (1:5) explicitly distinguishing this from তকদির/ভাগ্য/নিয়তি and anchoring it to “প্রেমে” (in love) in the same verse — never present 1:5/1:11 without the accompanying love-context clause nearby. Keep ঈশ্বরের মনোনয়ন (election) and পূর্বনির্ধারণ (predestination) visually and root-distinct from each other so Phase 2 reviewers can trace which Greek term underlies which Bengali rendering. |
3. The Church as the Body of Christ
| Available Bengali terms | Weakness | Recommended strategy |
|---|---|---|
| মণ্ডলী (church, baseline), দেহ (body), মস্তক (head), পূর্ণতা (fullness), একতা (unity) | দেহ (body) used metaphorically for the corporate church risks a literal/anatomical reading if not consistently signaled as figurative — Bengali has no separate customary “corporate body” idiom the way English has developed one through centuries of ecclesial usage. মস্তক (head) sits inside a live cultural expectation (in both Bengali Hindu joint-family structure and Muslim household norms) that “head of X” implies unilateral authority — the opposite valence Paul intends when he grounds Christ’s headship in self-giving nourishment (4:16) and sacrificial love (5:25-29), not command-and-control. | Always pair দেহ with an explicit referent (“খ্রীষ্টের দেহ, অর্থাৎ মণ্ডলী”) at first occurrence per chapter to block a literal reading. For মস্তক, insist that every occurrence in a lesson or footnote gloss the self-giving, nourishing sense (cf. 4:16; 5:29) rather than letting the word stand alone to imply hierarchy only. পূর্ণতা must retain one shared root across all three distinct senses (1:23; 3:19; 4:13) for cross-reference tracing — do not vary the rendering per context even though the English underlying nuance shifts. |
4. Unity of Jews and Gentiles in One New Humanity
| Available Bengali terms | Weakness | Recommended strategy |
|---|---|---|
| পরজাতি (Gentiles, baseline), বিভেদের প্রাচীর (dividing wall), এক নতুন মানুষ (one new man), পুনর্মিলন সাধন করা (reconcile), সহনাগরিক/নাগরিকত্ব (fellow citizens/citizenship) | Bengali’s stock political vocabulary for “citizenship” (নাগরিকত্ব, সহনাগরিক) is currently live and contested in both Bangladesh and West Bengal — citizenship-registration and refugee-status debates make these words carry immediate contemporary political charge that risks eclipsing Paul’s spiritual point entirely. “Reconcile” also has an available, tempting shortcut — সন্ধি — which is the standard word for a negotiated political/military truce between two still-separate, still-somewhat-adversarial parties, exactly the wrong image for Christ’s one-sided, costly, cross-achieved reconciliation. | Retain নাগরিকত্ব/সহনাগরিক as the semantically closest terms (no better alternative exists) but require a translator’s contextual framing note at 2:12,19 clarifying this names spiritual, covenantal belonging, not civic/legal registration status — flagged for native-speaker review given the live political sensitivity. Reject সন্ধি categorically for “reconcile”; retain পুনর্মিলন সাধন করা (baseline registry) as the God-initiated, costly, asymmetric reconciliation term. |
5. The Mystery of Christ Revealed
| Available Bengali terms | Weakness | Recommended strategy |
|---|---|---|
| নিগূঢ়তত্ত্ব (mystery, coined), রহস্য (rejected alternative), প্রত্যাদেশ (revelation), ব্যবস্থাপনা (stewardship) | রহস্য, the everyday Bengali word most readers would reach for first, denotes a detective-novel puzzle or an occult/tantric guarded secret restricted to initiates — precisely inverted from Paul’s repeated point that this μυστήριον is now openly disclosed to everyone (3:5,9-10). প্রত্যাদেশ (revelation) risks being heard through the Islamic doctrine of waḥy — a single, complete, dictated revelation delivered once through one final prophet — whereas Ephesians presents revelation as progressive, Spirit-given, and mediated through multiple apostles and prophets (3:5) plus ongoing illumination for believers (1:17). | Use নিগূঢ়তত্ত্ব consistently at every occurrence (1:9; 3:3-9; 5:32; 6:19) — never substitute রহস্য even for stylistic variety. Mandatory translator note at first occurrence (1:9) contrasting “once hidden, now revealed to all” with রহস্য’s occult-secrecy connotation. For প্রত্যাদেশ, a lighter native-speaker-routed note at 1:17 is sufficient, reinforcing the baseline’s existing inspiration_of_scripture doctrine guidance (progressive, multi-author, not single-dictation). |
6. Spiritual Warfare and the Armor of God
| Available Bengali terms | Weakness | Recommended strategy |
|---|---|---|
| ঈশ্বরের সম্পূর্ণ যুদ্ধসজ্জা (whole armor), individual armor-piece compounds, কর্তৃত্ব/ক্ষমতা/আকাশের কর্তৃত্বের অধিপতি (rulers/authorities/ruler of power of air), the seven-term power-word cluster (1:19-21) | This is the doctrine with the single greatest number of AVAILABLE-BUT-FORBIDDEN terms in the whole letter. শক্তি — the single most natural, idiomatic Bengali word for “power” — is unusable throughout the entire power-word cluster (1:19-21) and the spiritual-authorities cluster (6:12) because of Bengal’s historic Shakta (Durga/Kali) devotional culture, where শক্তি names goddess-power specifically. Separately, “armor” imagery risks being absorbed into an existing, extremely active regional practice of protective amulets (taveez in Muslim folk practice, tantric protective charms in Hindu folk practice) — precisely because Bengali folk religion already has a rich vocabulary for spiritually potent protective objects, and “armor of God” sits dangerously close to that semantic field if not fenced. | Enforce the শক্তি ban with zero exceptions across all seven power-cluster terms (কার্যকারিতা, পরাক্রম, বল, কর্তৃত্ব, ক্ষমতা, প্রভুত্ব) and the 6:12 spiritual-authorities cluster — this is the single highest-priority forbidden-substitution check for this letter, on par with the Romans baseline’s সালিভ্যাল বান on মুক্তি/মোক্ষ. Mandatory translator note at 6:11 and 6:13 clarifying “armor of God” names Christian virtues/disciplines actively put on by faith (truth, righteousness, faith, salvation, the Spirit’s word, prayer), explicitly NOT a physical or magically-potent protective object — this note is theologically load-bearing, not merely stylistic. |
7. Household Codes and Christ-Centered Relationships
| Available Bengali terms | Weakness | Recommended strategy |
|---|---|---|
| বশীভূত হওয়া (submit), মস্তক (head, of wife), দাস (slave/bondservant), মালিক (human master), প্রভু (reserved divine Lord), সুগন্ধি নৈবেদ্য ও বলিদান (fragrant offering and sacrifice) | বশীভূত হওয়া sits inside strongly reinforced existing patriarchal household expectations common to both Bengali Hindu and Muslim tradition; excerpted without 5:21’s mutuality and 5:25’s husband’s self-sacrificial-love command, the same word could be (and historically has been, in some pulpit use) weaponized to demand one-directional wifely subjugation while quietly dropping the husband’s far costlier command. দাস, separately, is also an extremely common Bengali surname historically tied to specific caste communities, risking an anachronistic caste-lens reading of a first-century Greco-Roman household-slavery text. সুগন্ধি নৈবেদ্য ও বলিদান overlaps heavily with active Hindu puja offering vocabulary. | Never permit 5:22-24 (wives) to be excerpted, quoted, or footnoted for Phase 2 output without 5:21 and 5:25-29 present in the same unit — enforce at the document-structuring level, not just the term level. Mandatory translator/teaching note at 6:5 explaining দাসের first-century Greco-Roman household context, explicitly disclaiming any caste application. Mandatory translator note at 5:2 clarifying Christ’s offering is ONE, FINISHED, HISTORICAL, never a repeated ritual. Preserve মালিক/প্রভু split at 6:5-9 with the wordplay note at 6:9 (Paul’s single κύριος deliberately naming both human masters and the heavenly Master — a nuance Bengali cannot preserve in one word and must therefore surface explicitly). |
8. Gifts for Building Up the Church
| Available Bengali terms | Weakness | Recommended strategy |
|---|---|---|
| আত্মিক বর (spiritual gifts, baseline), সুসজ্জিত করা (equipping), গড়ে তোলা (building up), একতা (unity), পূর্ণতা (fullness), the fivefold office terms (প্রেরিত, ভাববাদী, সুসমাচার প্রচারক, পালক, শিক্ষক) | বর alone (already flagged in the Romans baseline) evokes the folk-Hindu “boon granted to a devotee by a pleased deity” story-pattern; the fivefold office list, if рendered with generic Bengali words for “teacher/leader,” risks flattening into Bengali’s existing (and very active) guru/pir spiritual-authority template, where a single revered figure holds concentrated, largely unaccountable personal authority — the opposite of Ephesians’ vision of gifts distributed across the WHOLE body for mutual equipping (4:11-12,16). | Retain আত্মিক বর without exception (never বর alone). For সুসজ্জিত করা (equipping), ensure surrounding context/notes make clear the fivefold offices equip ALL the saints for ministry rather than concentrating ministry authority in the office-holders themselves — this is a framing note, not a lexical substitution, but should be flagged for native-speaker review at 4:11-12 given the regional guru/pir authority template’s pull. |
9. Walking in Newness of Life
| Available Bengali terms | Weakness | Recommended strategy |
|---|---|---|
| পুরাতন মানুষ / নতুন মানুষ (old/new man), মনের নবীকরণ (renewed in mind), খুলে ফেলা ও পরিধান করা (put off/put on), চলা (walk/conduct) | The old-man/new-man identity-transformation language sits between two existing, competing Bengali religious templates for personal transformation: the Hindu/Vedantic doctrine of an unchanging inner ātman working through successive rebirths toward liberation, and Islamic tazkiyah, a program of self-directed moral purification through disciplined practice and submission. Both templates locate the engine of transformation differently than Ephesians does (a decisive, grace-given, Christ-wrought new creation, echoing 2:10’s ποίημα/κτίζω language) — readers from either background may quietly re-import their own template if the text is not anchored back to the doctrine of union with Christ. | Retain পুরাতন মানুষ/নতুন মানুষ; require a cross-reference note tying 4:22-24 back to 2:10 (same creation-language root, সৃষ্টি/সৃষ্টি করা) so the “new man” is read as christologically grounded new creation, not self-achieved renovation nor rebirth-cycle progress. চলা must be consistently glossed figuratively (জীবনযাপন করা) at first occurrence in a lesson to prevent a literal “walking” reading. |
Part 2 — Missing Vocabulary vs. Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods
2A. Genuinely Missing Vocabulary (no adequate single Bengali word exists; compounding/paraphrase required)
| Concept | Why Bengali has no ready single word | Chosen solution |
|---|---|---|
| ποίημα vs ἔργα fence (workmanship vs works) | Bengali’s ordinary words for “made thing” and “deed” share overlapping roots (কর্ম-family) that a single-word choice cannot avoid without deliberate root-separation. | Two unrelated-root words: সৃষ্টি (workmanship/creation) vs কর্ম (works) — engineered fence, not a natural Bengali distinction. |
| ἀνακεφαλαιώσασθαι (sum up/unite under one head, 1:10) | No single Bengali verb captures “gather everything together under a single head” in cosmic scope. | Full descriptive clause: সবকিছুকে খ্রীষ্টের অধীনে একত্রীভূত করা (“gather everything under Christ’s authority”). |
| συγκληρονόμος / σύσσωμος / συμμέτοχος triple compound (3:6) | Greek’s rhetorical triple-compounding for total equal co-participation has no Bengali morphological equivalent. | Retained as three parallel compound phrases rather than flattened to one generic “included together” — preserves rhetorical weight at the cost of brevity. |
| μέτρον ἡλικίας τοῦ πληρώματος τοῦ Χριστοῦ (mature manhood/fullness of Christ’s stature, 4:13) | No idiomatic Bengali phrase for this compound growth-metric image exists. | Full descriptive compound: খ্রীষ্টের পূর্ণতার পরিমাণ পর্যন্ত পরিপক্বতা, sharing the পূর্ণতা root for traceability. |
| ἀρραβών (down payment/guarantee, 1:14) | Partial gap: Bengali DOES have a strong cultural equivalent (বায়না, the earnest-money term from land/property transactions) but it is purely commercial by default. | বায়নাস্বরূপ (used “as” a বায়না) plus a relational-not-merely-commercial framing note — a hybrid solution, not a pure gap, but flagged here because the commercial connotation must be actively supplemented. |
| Fivefold office equipping without guru/pir-template import (4:11-12) | No neutral Bengali vocabulary for “distributed, accountable ministry office” exists outside either the church-borrowed terms (প্রেরিত, পালক, শিক্ষক) or the guru/pir template. | Retain the church-specific loanwords/established terms and supplement with explicit distribution framing in notes rather than coining a new term. |
2B. Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods Requiring Active Fencing
These are cases where Bengali has too many candidate words, and the risk is not absence of vocabulary but an unwary translator reaching for the wrong (contaminated) one by default.
| Neighborhood | Candidate words present in Bengali | Word(s) fenced OUT | Word(s) fenced IN | Contaminating association |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Power/might/authority (1:19-21; 6:12) | শক্তি, সামর্থ্য, কার্যকারিতা, পরাক্রম, বল, কর্তৃত্ব, ক্ষমতা, প্রভুত্ব | শক্তি (absolute ban, all seven cluster terms) | সামর্থ্য (baseline power_of_god) + the six new cluster terms, each root-distinct | Shakta Hinduism’s Durga/Kali goddess-power devotional culture, historically centered in Bengal. |
| Merit/gift-giving (2:8) | দান, উপহার, দক্ষিণা | দান | উপহার | দান is itself a merit-generating ritual act in Hindu religious practice (dāna), reversing the God-to-us direction of Paul’s gift. |
| Works/deeds (2:9-10) | কর্ম, কাজ, পুণ্য, সৎকর্ম | পুণ্য (absolute ban, baseline) | কর্ম (works, negated) / সৎকর্ম (good works, fruit only) | পুণ্য names accumulated religious merit; already forbidden for “grace” in the baseline, applies with equal force here. |
| Fate/predetermination (1:5,11) | তকদির, ভাগ্য, নিয়তি, কর্মফল, পূর্বনির্ধারণ | তকদির, ভাগ্য, নিয়তি, কর্মফল (all four banned) | পূর্বনির্ধারণ (coined, doctrinally neutral) | Islamic taqdir (fixed divine decree) and Hindu karma-fate concepts, both impersonal/unappealable in common usage, unlike Paul’s love-grounded predestination. |
| Secret/hidden knowledge (1:9; 3:3-9) | রহস্য, নিগূঢ়তত্ত্ব, গুপ্তবিদ্যা | রহস্য, গুপ্তবিদ্যা | নিগূঢ়তত্ত্ব | রহস্য = detective/occult secrecy; গুপ্তবিদ্যা = initiate-only esoteric/tantric knowledge. Both invert “now revealed to all.” |
| Reconciliation/peace-making (2:14-16) | সন্ধি, মিলন, পুনর্মিলন | সন্ধি | পুনর্মিলন সাধন করা | সন্ধি = negotiated treaty between still-adversarial equal parties; wrong relational shape for a one-sided, cross-achieved reconciliation. |
| Servant/slave status (6:5-9) | দাস, ভৃত্য, চাকর, কর্মচারী | (none banned outright; দাস retained but fenced with mandatory historical note) | দাস + mandatory translator note | দাস is a live Bengali caste-associated surname; risk of caste-lens misreading of a Greco-Roman institution. |
| Protective spiritual equipment (6:11-17) | তাবিজ, মাদুলি, কবজ (all folk-protective-amulet vocabulary), যুদ্ধসজ্জা | তাবিজ, মাদুলি, কবজ (excluded entirely; never appear in translation, but the CONCEPT they represent is the risk to fence against) | ঈশ্বরের সম্পূর্ণ যুদ্ধসজ্জা + mandatory de-magic-ing note | Regional folk-Islamic taveez and Hindu/tantric protective-charm practice; “armor” imagery is adjacent enough to invite readers toward object-based protection rather than active, faith-exercised virtue. |
| Ecstatic/altered worship states (5:18) | পবিত্র আত্মায় পূর্ণ হওয়া, ভাব/ভাবাবেশ (trance/possession terms), দরবেশি অবস্থা (Sufi-ecstatic-state terms) | ভাব/ভাবাবেশ, দরবেশি অবস্থা (excluded) | পবিত্র আত্মায় পূর্ণ হওয়া + note (produces sober worship/mutual submission, not loss of control) | Folk trance-possession practice (bhaba) in Bengali Hindu village religion and Sufi ecstatic dhikr states; both involve loss of ordinary self-control, which Ephesians’ filling explicitly does not. |
| Citizenship/civic belonging (2:12,19) | নাগরিকত্ব, সহনাগরিক, প্রজা | (none banned; both retained as best available) | নাগরিকত্ব / সহনাগরিক + contextual framing note | Live, contested contemporary citizenship/registration politics in Bangladesh and West Bengal risk eclipsing the spiritual sense. |
| Sacrificial offering (5:2) | নৈবেদ্য, বলিদান, পূজা-adjacent vocabulary | (retained, cannot avoid overlap entirely) | সুগন্ধি নৈবেদ্য ও বলিদান + mandatory “once, finished” note | Hindu puja food/animal-offering ritual vocabulary is unavoidably close; the note, not a lexical swap, must carry the doctrinal weight. |
Part 3 — Transliteration vs. Paraphrase Decisions
Bengali Christian translation tradition transliterates proper names and a small set of fixed liturgical/technical terms, but paraphrases (via compounding or descriptive clause) almost everything else. The following decisions govern Ephesians-specific cases.
3A. Transliterate (retain source-language form)
| Term | Rationale |
|---|---|
| আব্বা (Abba) — not used directly in Ephesians but the baseline convention extends to any Aramaic/Hebrew liturgical exclamation encountered | Preserve untranslated per baseline precedent; lands with warmth for Muslim-background readers too, per baseline note. |
| আমেন, হাল্লিলূয়া (Amen, Hallelujah, if present in doxological material adjacent to 1:3-14; 3:20-21) | Established transliterated forms per 12_ai_translation_requirements.md. |
| Proper names: পৌল (Paul), ইফিসীয় (Ephesians/Ephesus), তুখিকাস, ইত্যাদি | Follow established Bengali Bible naming conventions; no paraphrase risk. |
3B. Paraphrase / Compound (no transliteration; construct a Bengali phrase)
| Term | Why not transliterated | Chosen paraphrase |
|---|---|---|
| μυστήριον (mystery) | A Greek loanword transliteration (মিস্টেরিওন) would communicate nothing to a Bengali reader and forfeit the “hidden/now revealed” tension entirely. | নিগূঢ়তত্ত্ব (compound of “hidden” + “doctrine/truth”). |
| προορίζω (predestined) | Transliterating would produce an opaque neologism with zero pastoral resonance and would forfeit the chance to actively fence against তকদির/ভাগ্য. | পূর্বনির্ধারণ (compound: “before” + “determination”). |
| ἀνακεφαλαιώσασθαι (sum up under one head) | No transliteration is intelligible; this is a technical compound verb even in Greek. | Full descriptive clause (see Part 2A). |
| πανοπλία (whole armor) | A loanword would carry no protective-equipment imagery at all for a Bengali reader. | ঈশ্বরের সম্পূর্ণ যুদ্ধসজ্জা (“God’s complete war-equipment”), with de-magic-ing note. |
| ἀπολύτρωσις (redemption) | Transliteration impossible/unhelpful; the existing Bengali candidate মুক্তি is doctrinally contaminated (Hindu moksha/rebirth-liberation), so paraphrase-via-compound was required rather than either transliteration or the contaminated native word. | উদ্ধার, supplemented with রক্তের মূল্যে (“at the price of [Christ’s] blood”) where the price-paid dimension needs foregrounding. |
3C. Deliberately NOT Transliterated Despite Being More Familiar to Some Readers
Consistent with the Romans baseline’s rejection of ঈসা/ইঞ্জিল/মশীহ/অবতার for the mainstream Christian register, the following Islamic- or Hindu-idiom transliterations remain excluded from Ephesians translation regardless of local familiarity:
- তকদির (taqdir) for predestination — excluded; see Part 2B.
- ওয়াহি/waḥy-style framing for revelation — excluded; see Doctrine Matrix §5.
- অবতার for any incarnational/descent language that might arise in Christological summary material accompanying the letter — excluded per baseline, reinforced here since Ephesians’ cosmic Christ language (1:20-23; 4:9-10 material if included in the curriculum) could otherwise invite avatar-framing.
- তাবিজ/মাদুলি/কবজ for armor-of-God material — excluded; these are not simply “more familiar” alternatives but name the exact folk-magical object category the passage must be fenced against.
Part 4 — Ranked List of Highest-Risk Ambiguities in Ephesians
Ranked by combined severity (doctrinal centrality × likelihood of cultural misreading × availability of a genuinely safe Bengali rendering). All Rank 1-8 items require mandatory human theologian review per the escalation rules already established in 12_ai_translation_requirements.md; Rank 9-14 require native-speaker review at minimum.
- Ephesians 2:8-10 works/workmanship/good-works fence — the doctrinal thesis of “Salvation by Grace through Faith” collapses entirely if কর্ম, সৃষ্টি, and সৎকর্ম are not kept strictly root-distinct; this is the single highest-stakes lexical fence in the letter.
- 6:12 spiritual-authorities cluster + 6:11 whole armor — dual risk of (a) softening real personal spiritual opposition into mere metaphor for social evil, or (b) inviting folk-exorcism/amulet-protection practice; both directions defeat Paul’s actual prescription (truth, righteousness, faith, prayer). শক্তি absolutely forbidden throughout.
- 1:5,11 predestination vs. taqdir/bhagya/niyoti — the most theologically loaded “false friend” cluster in the letter; readers from either dominant regional tradition possess a ready-made, wrong-shaped category waiting to receive this term unless actively fenced with the “in love” framing.
- 5:21-33 submission/headship household code — highest social-application risk in the letter; excerpting 5:22-24 without 5:21 (mutual) and 5:25-29 (self-sacrificial) produces a translation that is technically accurate word-by-word yet doctrinally and pastorally distorted.
- 1:9; 3:3-9; 5:32; 6:19 mystery (μυστήριον) — the default Bengali word (রহস্য) inverts Paul’s central point (hidden → now revealed to all); must be caught at every occurrence, not just the first.
- 2:13-16 blood of Christ / reconciliation / dividing wall / one new man — atonement-adjacent cluster; স nichi’s rejection for “reconcile” and the “actual, now-demolished barrier” (not vague difference) framing for “dividing wall” are both easy to get subtly wrong under translation pressure.
- 6:5-9 slave/master + wordplay note — caste-surname collision (দাস) combcombined with the untranslatable Greek κύριος wordplay (Paul’s single word for both human and divine “lord/master”) makes this passage doubly exposed.
- 5:2 fragrant offering and sacrifice — proximity to active Hindu puja offering vocabulary; without the “once, finished” note, readers may hear an invitation to ongoing ritual imitation rather than a description of Christ’s unique historical act.
- 5:18 filled with the Spirit — proximity to regional folk trance/ecstatic-possession phenomena (bhaba, Sufi ecstatic states); must be anchored to its actual fruit (mutual submission, thanksgiving, sober worship) in 5:19-21.
- 2:12,19 citizenship/fellow-citizens — contemporary political contamination (citizenship/registration debates) risks eclipsing the spiritual-belonging sense; unavoidable given the lack of a better Bengali option, so framing notes must carry the weight lexical choice cannot.
- 1:19-21 sevenfold power-word cluster — not doctrinally ambiguous in meaning, but mechanically demanding: six of seven Bengali terms must each avoid শক্তি while remaining root-distinct from one another for future cross-reference tracing.
- 2:2 ruler of the power of the air — risk of folk sky-spirit/jinn syncretism if not explicitly anchored to “the already-defeated Satan” (cf. 1:20-22).
- 1:14 arrabōn/guarantee (বায়নাস্বরূপ) — the strong, natural Bengali land-transaction equivalence is a genuine asset but risks flattening a relational divine guarantee into a merely commercial down-payment if left unglossed.
- 4:22-24 old man/new man — risk of quiet re-importation of either ātman-transmigration or self-directed tazkiyah frameworks for personal transformation unless explicitly tied back to the 2:10 creation-language root (সৃষ্টি).
Summary
Ephesians reuses the great majority of the Romans baseline’s Critical/High-risk theological vocabulary without alteration (ঈশ্বর, যীশু, খ্রীষ্ট, প্রভু, পরিত্রাণ, অনুগ্রহ, বিশ্বাস, ধার্মিকতা, পবিত্র, পবিত্র লোক, পুনরুত্থান, দত্তকপুত্রতা). Its distinctive linguistic challenge is not primarily replacing baseline terms but fencing new, letter-specific vocabulary against the same cluster of contaminating neighbors the baseline already identified — Shakta goddess-power (শক্তি), karma/merit accounting (পুণ্য, দান, কর্ম), fatalistic decree (তকদির/ভাগ্য/নিয়তি), occult secrecy (রহস্য), and folk-protective ritual practice (তাবিজ/মাদুলি) — while additionally navigating two genuinely NEW risk zones the Romans corpus did not surface with the same intensity: contemporary citizenship-politics contamination (2:12,19) and household-code power dynamics (5:21-6:9) intersecting with existing regional patriarchal and caste-adjacent social structures. All Critical/High items identified here must be carried forward into bible_term_registry.json and doctrine_risk_registry.json updates and loaded into translation_memory.json before Phase 2 segment translation begins, per the enforcement priority order in 12_ai_translation_requirements.md.