Linguistic Gap Analysis: Joshua

Curriculum: Joshua Destination language: Bengali (বাংলা) Core passage: Joshua 24:14–15 Generated: Phase 1, Step 8 Depends on: translation_memory.json (Romans baseline), bible_term_registry.json (Romans baseline + Joshua extensions in assets/bible_term_registry.json), analysis/08_core_glossary.md Status: This analysis governs the vocabulary decisions already recorded in the Joshua glossary and term registry outputs. Where this document identifies a gap or a fencing requirement, the corresponding glossary/registry entry implements the resolution. No contradiction between the three documents is permitted; this document explains why those choices were made and ranks the remaining exposure.

---

1. Purpose and Method

Romans is a doctrinal letter written in the New Testament’s abstract theological register. Joshua is Old Testament narrative — historical, martial, ritual, and covenantal — and it activates a materially different part of the Bengali religious lexicon: Vedic sacrificial vocabulary, Shakta fear/appeasement religious patterns, Islamic-idiom ritual vocabulary (circumcision, submission-vocabulary), Hindu/Buddhist liberation and meditation vocabulary, and folk-astrological “fate” vocabulary. The Romans package’s forbidden-substitution list (ধর্ম, শক্তি, অবতার, মুক্তি/মোক্ষ, ঈসা, ভগবান/আল্লাহ) was built to fence off Hindu-devotional and Islamic-idiom neighborhoods for soteriological and Christological vocabulary. Joshua requires an equivalent fencing exercise for cultic, martial, and covenant-ritual vocabulary, which the Romans corpus never activates.

This analysis proceeds in four parts, per the Phase 1 Step 8 mandate:

1. Doctrine vocabulary matrix — for each of the seven curriculum doctrines, the available Bengali terms, their weaknesses, and the recommended strategy.
2. Missing vocabulary vs. crowded semantic neighborhoods — where Bengali simply lacks a term (requiring compound coinage) vs. where Bengali has too many competing terms already colonized by other traditions (requiring fencing/exclusion).
3. Transliteration vs. paraphrase decisions — a ledger of every point where the team had to decide between borrowing a Hebrew/Greek sound-form and constructing a Bengali descriptive phrase.
4. Ranked list of this book’s highest-risk ambiguities — the terms and passages most likely to be mistranslated or misheard if Phase 2 enforcement lapses.

---

2. Doctrine Vocabulary Matrix

2.1 God’s Faithfulness to the Land Promise

Available Bengali terms	Weaknesses	Recommended strategy
দেশ (land, geography)	Flattens the covenant-promise dimension into bare territory; usable for real estate, national geography, colloquial “desh” (homeland) nostalgia	Reserve দেশ for neutral geographic references only
প্রতিজ্ঞাত দেশ (promised land, compound)	Requires the reader to hold “প্রতিজ্ঞা” (promise) actively in mind; a compound, not an inherited single Bengali Bible word	Mandatory wherever the land is framed as covenant fulfillment (1:2–6; 21:43–45); never substitute bare দেশ in these passages
শপথ করা (swear/oath)	প্রতিশ্রুতি দেওয়া (a weaker “make a promise”) is the natural conversational alternative but loses the unilateral, binding, self-obligating force of a divine oath	Use শপথ করা consistently for both God’s oath to the patriarchs and Israel’s own oaths (ch. 9), preserving the narrative logic that a divine-style binding oath, once sworn, cannot be casually broken
অধিকার (inheritance/allotment)	সম্পত্তি (“property”) is the default Bengali word for inherited land in family-law contexts, but it is transactional/commercial and severs the link to the NT’s κληρονομία (inheritance in Christ)	Retain অধিকার to preserve a traceable line into future NT typological teaching on the believer’s inheritance
গুলিবাঁট (lot-casting)	ভাগ্য-নির্ধারণ (“fate-determination”) is the natural pairing in vernacular Bengali but imports an impersonal-chance frame	Frame every occurrence as sovereign divine determination, explicitly parallel to the baseline’s existing guard on ভাগ্য/নিয়তি (election, providence)

Doctrine-level risk: High. The whole doctrine depends on distinguishing covenant-promise fulfillment from generic possession of territory, and sovereign divine allotment from folk-fate. Both distinctions require compound phrases or explicit anchoring; neither is available as a single unambiguous Bengali word.

2.2 Holy War and Divine Judgment

Available Bengali terms	Weaknesses	Recommended strategy
বর্জিত বস্তু / সম্পূর্ণরূপে ধ্বংস করা (herem)	No single Bengali word carries the dedicated-to-God-for-destruction sense; nearest single words (ধ্বংস “destroy,” উৎসর্গ “offer/dedicate”) each carry only half the concept	Mandatory compound + mandatory theologian note at every occurrence (see §5, “Herem,” ranked #1 below)
সদাপ্রভুর ক্রোধ (wrath/anger of the LORD)	রাগ (ordinary anger) or রোষ (fury) are available but read as an emotional outburst; regional Shakta fear-appeasement religious patterns (propitiating an unpredictable, wrath-prone deity such as Kali or Shitala to avert calamity) sit uncomfortably close	Frame as righteous, judicial anger tied explicitly to covenant betrayal (Achan), never as capricious temper requiring ritual appeasement
জাতিগণ (Canaanite nations under judgment)	পরজাতি is available and more familiar from the Romans register, but importing it here would retroactively read Romans’ positive inclusion doctrine into Joshua’s judgment narrative	Keep জাতিগণ and পরজাতি strictly partitioned by Testament-register (see §3.2 below)
সদাপ্রভু ইস্রায়েলের জন্য যুদ্ধ করলেন (the LORD fought for Israel)	Risk of being read as a general “God helps those who fight” formula, or worse, as scriptural warrant for religiously-motivated violence today, a live pastoral sensitivity given documented communal violence history in the Bangladesh/West Bengal region	Every occurrence should carry (in teaching material, not the base text) a framing note distinguishing this unique conquest-era divine-warrior action from any transferable holy-war ethic

Doctrine-level risk: Critical. This is the doctrine with the single highest collision potential in the entire curriculum (see herem, ranked #1 in §5).

2.3 Courage through God’s Presence

Available Bengali terms	Weaknesses	Recommended strategy
বলবান ও সাহসী হও (be strong and courageous)	Bengali has abundant secular courage vocabulary (সাহস, দৃঢ়তা, বীরত্ব) drawn from nationalist and folk-heroic literature (independence-movement rhetoric, Puranic warrior epics); risk of the phrase being extracted as a free-standing motivational slogan divorced from its theological ground	Never translate the phrase without its grounding clause (“for the LORD your God is with you”); if space forces separation across a line break, a footnote must restore the link
সদাপ্রভুর সৈন্যদলের সেনাপতি (Commander of the LORD’s army)	No lexical weakness, but the possible Christophany reading (5:13–15) raises the doctrinal stakes above what the term itself signals	Flag for theologian review whenever teaching material asserts a Christophany identification

Doctrine-level risk: High, primarily due to extraction/decontextualization risk rather than lexical unavailability.

2.4 Rahab and the Inclusion of the Nations by Faith

Available Bengali terms	Weaknesses	Recommended strategy
বিশ্বাস (faith)	Already fenced by the Romans baseline against ঈমান (Islamic creedal submission) and শ্রদ্ধা (Hindu devotional reverence); no new weakness introduced, but Rahab’s OT usage must not be treated as a “looser” or merely natural-virtue sense distinct from the NT’s	Explicitly cross-reference Hebrews 11:31 in teaching notes so বিশ্বাস reads as continuous allegiance-reorienting trust across both Testaments
বেশ্যা (harlot)	সরাইখানার মালিক (“innkeeper”) is a common softening found in some popular retellings and even some paraphrase Bibles, motivated by pastoral delicacy	Reject the softening; retain বেশ্যা. The doctrine’s force — that grace reaches the most socially excluded — is erased by euphemism, exactly as the baseline document warns against smoothing over doctrinally load-bearing bluntness elsewhere (cf. Romans’ insistence on unsoftened “all have sinned”)
বিশ্বস্ত দয়া (covenant kindness / chesed)	Bare দয়া (“mercy/kindness”) is available and more natural but loses the reciprocal covenant-obligation sense Rahab is explicitly invoking by analogy to Israel’s own covenant loyalty	Retain the compound; do not simplify to দয়া alone in 2:12,14

Doctrine-level risk: High. The central lexical risk is not unavailability but the temptation toward pastoral softening that would blunt the doctrine.

2.5 Covenant Renewal at Shechem

Available Bengali terms	Weaknesses	Recommended strategy
সেবা করা (serve)	সেবা is the ordinary Bengali word for temple/deity devotional service (ঠাকুরের সেবা), and in mainstream Bengali Hindu devotional practice such service is typically non-exclusive — a devotee may perform সেবা to multiple deities, at multiple shrines, without contradiction	Mandatory footnote at every occurrence in ch. 24 establishing exclusive, total covenant allegiance, explicitly not one deity-service option among several
সদাপ্রভুকে ভয় করা (fear the LORD)	শ্রদ্ধা করা alone is too weak (mere respect); ভয় alone risks reading as servile terror or the propitiation-fear pattern common in Shakta/folk-religious practice toward unpredictable local deities and spirits	Retain the full compound; teaching material should gloss as reverential covenant awe, not appeasement-fear
বেছে নেওয়া (choose, human) vs. ঈশ্বরের মনোনয়ন (divine election)	Bengali has only one root family (মনোনীত/মনোনয়ন, নির্বাচন) readily available for “choose/choice” in formal register, and it is already claimed by the baseline for God’s sovereign election	Deliberately use the ordinary, non-technical বেছে নেওয়া for 24:15’s human decision, preserving the divine-sovereignty/human-responsibility distinction across Testaments
আঁকড়ে থাকা (cling to)	আসক্তি (“attachment/clinging”) is the nearer cognate and more literarily elevated, but in Buddhist and Hindu ethical vocabulary আসক্তি denotes the craving-attachment that binds one to suffering and must be released — precisely the opposite of what dabaq commends	Use আঁকড়ে থাকা, a positive relational-loyalty idiom, and never আসক্তি
ত্বকছেদ (circumcision)	সুন্নত is the near-universal Bengali word for circumcision and is functionally synonymous with the Islamic rite for the overwhelming majority of Bengali readers	Retain the standing Bengali Bible term ত্বকছেদ; never সুন্নত, on the same reasoning as the baseline’s ঈসা/ইঞ্জিল/মশীহ exclusions

Doctrine-level risk: Critical, because this is the doctrine of the core passage (24:14–15) and because সেবা করা is the single most exposed term in the whole curriculum to being read through a non-exclusive, multi-deity devotional frame (see §5, ranked #2).

2.6 Obedience and the Conquest

Available Bengali terms	Weaknesses	Recommended strategy
ব্যবস্থা (Law)	Reused from baseline; no new weakness, but Joshua activates it far more densely (1:7–8; 8:31–34; 23:6; 24:26) than Romans does, raising cumulative exposure	Enforce ব্যবস্থা-পুস্তক as the fixed compound for “Book of the Law”; never ধর্ম বই or শরিয়ত-জাতীয় বই
মনে মনে বার বার আওড়ানো / চিন্তা করা (meditate, hagah)	The inherited older Bengali Bible gloss ধ্যান করা is now the single most recognizable Bengali word for yogic/Buddhist meditation (dhyāna) — a silent, self-directed, often liberation-oriented contemplative technique, which inverts hagah’s actual sense of audible, repeated verbal rehearsal aimed at obedient action	Deliberate departure from the inherited gloss (parallel precedent: সাধুগণ → পবিত্র লোক in the Romans package); mandatory theologian review at every occurrence
বেদী (altar) / হোমবলি (burnt offering)	বেদী and হোম together are also the standard vocabulary for a Vedic/Hindu yajna fire-altar and fire-sacrifice, typically performed by a Brahmin priest, sometimes addressed to multiple deities or ancestral spirits	Anchor every occurrence with explicit “for সদাপ্রভু” context; do not allow the terms to stand unqualified
যাজক (priests)	পুরোহিত (Hindu Brahmin priest) and ইমাম (Muslim prayer-leader) are the socially dominant Bengali religious-specialist terms	Retain the established Christian-register যাজক to avoid importing either tradition’s specialist role and status connotations
আশীর্বাদ ও অভিশাপ (blessing and curse)	ভাগ্য (fortune/luck) is the vernacular default framework for “why good or bad things happen to a person”	Tie explicitly to covenant sanctions (Deuteronomy 27–28 background), never to folk luck

Doctrine-level risk: Critical, driven almost entirely by the meditate/hagah term, with High-risk secondary exposure from the sacrificial-ritual vocabulary cluster.

2.7 Rest in the Promised Land as a Type of Salvation Rest

Available Bengali terms	Weaknesses	Recommended strategy
বিশ্রাম (rest)	Bare বিশ্রাম denotes only ordinary rest/relief from labor (a weekend, a nap, a pause from work) and carries no inherent covenant-theological freight	Anchor every doctrinally load-bearing occurrence (21:44; 22:4) explicitly to God’s gift of settled, secure dwelling as fulfillment of covenant promise
মোক্ষ / নির্বাণ (not used, named here as the neighborhood to avoid)	These are the dominant Bengali words for ultimate spiritual “rest” — liberation from samsara or the extinguishing of craving, both attained substantially through the seeker’s own disciplined effort	Never let বিশ্রাম’s typological force (cf. Hebrews 3–4) be taught or glossed in a way that imports a self-attained-liberation frame; the rest is given, paralleling the baseline’s existing পরিত্রাণ vs. মুক্তি/মোক্ষ fencing

Doctrine-level risk: High. The lexical gap is not unavailability (বিশ্রাম is a perfectly good word) but under-specification: without doctrinal anchoring, it defaults toward either a thin secular sense or an unintended liberation-theology sense borrowed from the dominant regional traditions.

---

3. Missing Vocabulary vs. Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods

3.1 Missing vocabulary (Bengali has no ready single-word equivalent)

Concept	Why no single Bengali word suffices	Resolution
חֵרֶם (herem)	The concept fuses “irrevocably dedicated” and “destroyed as judgment,” a fusion no ordinary Bengali word carries; ধ্বংস covers destruction only, উৎসর্গ covers dedication only	Compound: বর্জিত বস্তু (noun) / সম্পূর্ণরূপে ধ্বংস করা (verb), with mandatory note at every occurrence
הָגָה (hagah, meditate)	No Bengali word natively distinguishes “silent contemplative technique” from “audible, repeated, action-oriented rehearsal”; the available candidate (ধ্যান করা) has been fully absorbed by the former sense	Descriptive phrase: মনে মনে বার বার আওড়ানো / চিন্তা করা
πρόσταγμα καὶ κρίσιν (statute and rule, as a fixed legal-covenantal pair)	Bengali legal register (বিধি, নিয়মকানুন, শাসন) has no single inherited pair-term matching the Hebrew’s fixed hendiadys	Compound: বিধি ও শাসন
כָּרַת בְּרִית (covenant establish/“cut a covenant”)	The Hebrew idiom of “cutting” a covenant has no Bengali idiomatic equivalent	Verb phrase built on the baseline noun: নিয়ম স্থাপন করা
חֲזַק וֶאֱמָץ (be strong and courageous, as a fixed exhortation formula)	Bengali courage vocabulary exists in abundance but not as a fixed two-part liturgical/exhortation formula tied to divine presence	Fixed phrase: বলবান ও সাহসী হও, always paired with its grounding clause

These are genuine vocabulary gaps: no existing Bengali lexical item, borrowed or native, covers the concept, so compound construction (rather than fencing an existing crowded term) was the correct strategy in each case.

3.2 Crowded semantic neighborhoods (Bengali has too many competing terms, requiring exclusion/fencing)

Bengali term needed	Competing occupants of the neighborhood	Fencing decision
সদাপ্রভু (YHWH)	প্রভু (reserved for NT κύριος of Christ)	Never interchange; keeps the OT’s personal, named, promise-keeping God distinct from a generic honorific any deity or ruler could bear
ঈশ্বর (the true God)	ভগবান (Hindu devotional address), আল্লাহ (Islamic), দেবতা (a deity generally)	ঈশ্বর reserved exclusively for the true God; দেবতা is deliberately retained (not excluded) as the correct term for false gods in 24:2,14,20,23 — the one place in this curriculum where the “crowded neighborhood” word is the right choice, because Joshua’s polemic specifically needs the “one deity among many” sense দেবতা carries
সেবা করা (serve, exclusive covenant sense)	সেবা in ordinary Bengali Hindu devotional usage (ঠাকুরের সেবা — routinely non-exclusive, multi-deity, multi-shrine)	Cannot be fully fenced by word-substitution (no better single word exists); fenced instead by mandatory footnote at every ch. 24 occurrence
ত্বকছেদ (circumcision)	সুন্নত (Islamic-idiom, near-universal Bengali default)	সুন্নত excluded entirely, parallel to baseline’s ঈসা/ইঞ্জিল/মশীহ exclusions
আঁকড়ে থাকা (cling to, positive)	আসক্তি (Buddhist/Hindu “clinging attachment,” negative)	আসক্তি excluded entirely; opposite valence would invert the doctrine
বিশ্রাম (covenant rest)	মুক্তি/মোক্ষ/নির্বাণ (liberation attained by self-effort)	Excluded by anchoring convention (doctrinal note), not by word-substitution, since বিশ্রাম itself is the correct base word and has no better single-word alternative
গুলিবাঁট (lot-casting)	ভাগ্য/লটারি (impersonal chance, gambling)	Excluded by framing convention: sovereign divine determination, not chance
জাতিগণ (Canaanite nations, judgment register)	পরজাতি (baseline’s NT inclusion register)	Both terms retained but partitioned strictly by Testament and connotation — a fencing decision by register, not by exclusion of either term
বেছে নেওয়া (human choice)	মনোনীত করা/মনোনয়ন (baseline’s divine election register)	মনোনয়ন excluded from 24:15’s human-choice context; reserved exclusively for divine election, preserving the baseline’s existing fence
বেদী / হোমবলি (altar / burnt offering)	Vedic yajna-vedi / homa (Hindu ritual fire-sacrifice)	Not excluded (no better Bengali alternative exists) but fenced by mandatory “for সদাপ্রভু” anchoring at every occurrence

The pattern across both sections: where the concept is genuinely absent from Bengali, the correct move is compound coinage (§3.1); where the concept exists but the word is already occupied by a rival tradition’s usage, the correct move is either full exclusion (if a safe alternative exists, e.g. ত্বকছেদ/সুন্নত) or anchoring/footnoting (if no safe alternative exists, e.g. সেবা করা, বেদী/হোমবলি).

---

4. Transliteration vs. Paraphrase Decisions

Item	Transliteration option	Paraphrase/calque option	Decision	Rationale
חֵרֶם (herem)	হেরেম (bare transliteration)	বর্জিত বস্তু / সম্পূর্ণরূপে ধ্বংস করা	Paraphrase	A bare transliteration would leave ordinary Bengali readers with an opaque loanword requiring constant glossing; the compound phrase, though longer, is transparent to a reader on first encounter and can still be footnoted for technical precision
יְהוָה (YHWH)	Bare transliteration (e.g. “যাহওয়েহ”)	সদাপ্রভু (established calque, “the ever-Lord/true Lord”)	Established calque, not transliteration	Bengali Bible tradition has never transliterated the tetragrammaton; সদাপ্রভু is the settled convention and must be followed exactly, consistent with this curriculum’s rule of reusing established Bengali Bible terms wherever they exist
פֶּסַח (Passover)	পেসাখ (transliteration)	নিস্তারপর্ব (established calque, “festival of deliverance”)	Established calque	নিস্তারপর্ব is already the standard Bengali Bible term and correctly encodes the Exodus-deliverance narrative that a bare transliteration would not convey to a reader unfamiliar with Hebrew
Place names (Shechem, Gilgal, Jericho, Ebal, Gerizim, Gibeon)	Transliterated forms per established Bengali Bible convention (শিখিম, গিল্গল, যিরীহো, এবাল, গরিষীম, গিবিয়োন)	N/A — proper names are not paraphrased	Transliteration (established forms)	Standard practice for all proper nouns; risk is confined to consistency, not doctrine — Phase 2 must use the Bangladesh Bible Society / Bible Society of India established forms exactly and not introduce ad hoc alternate spellings
Personal names (Rahab, Achan, Caleb, Joshua)	রাহাব, আখান, কালেব, যিহোশূয়	N/A	Transliteration (established forms)	Same as above; no paraphrase applicable
שַׂר־צְבָא יְהוָה (Commander of the LORD’s army)	সেনাপতি-শব্দ transliterated militarily (not attempted)	সদাপ্রভুর সৈন্যদলের সেনাপতি	Paraphrase	No transliteration option is coherent for a descriptive title; the Bengali military-rank vocabulary (সেনাপতি, “general/commander”) is precise and carries no competing religious connotation
מִקְלָט (city of refuge)	মিক্লাত (transliteration)	আশ্রয় নগর	Paraphrase	Transliteration would obscure the judicial-legal function; আশ্রয় নগর is transparent and, importantly, does not collide with আশ্রম (a different word, for a Hindu ascetic retreat), so no fencing note beyond a functional clarification is required
אָבָּא (Abba, NT register, for contrast)	আব্বা (retained, per Romans baseline)	N/A	Transliteration (established, Romans-package precedent)	Not a Joshua term, cited here only to confirm the curriculum’s general posture: transliteration is preferred only where (a) an established Bible-translation convention already exists, and (b) the term functions as an intimate or proper-name-like address rather than a description of an action or object. Joshua’s key doctrinal terms (herem, hagah, statute-and-rule) fail test (b) and were therefore paraphrased rather than transliterated

General rule derived: transliterate proper names and terms with a settled Bengali Bible convention (সদাপ্রভু, নিস্তারপর্ব, place/personal names); paraphrase with a transparent compound wherever the term is a description of an action, object, or legal category without prior Bengali Bible convention, especially where a bare transliteration would function as an unglossed loanword for the average reader (Class 8–10 reading-level target, per the baseline’s tone requirements).

---

5. Ranked List of Joshua’s Highest-Risk Ambiguities

Ranked by combined severity (doctrinal centrality × likelihood of collision with a dominant regional religious framework × frequency of occurrence in the book).

1. חֵרֶם / herem — “devoted to destruction / the ban” (6:17–21; 7:1,11–13; 8:26; 10:28–40; 11:11–21). Critical. No safe single-word Bengali rendering exists; every occurrence risks being read either as generic warfare (losing the theological “devoted” dimension) or as a transferable holy-war mandate (a serious real-world pastoral risk given communal-violence history in the region). Mandatory theologian review at every occurrence, no exceptions.

2. সেবা করা / “serve” in Joshua 24 (the core passage). Critical. This is the single term most exposed to being read through the ordinary Bengali Hindu devotional-service frame (ঠাকুরের সেবা), where serving multiple deities at multiple shrines is normal and non-contradictory. Because 24:14–15 is the curriculum’s core passage and the summons is explicitly exclusive allegiance, a slip here undermines the entire lesson’s argument. Mandatory footnote at every occurrence in ch. 24.

3. הָגָה / “meditate” (1:8). Critical. The inherited older Bengali Bible gloss (ধ্যান করা) has been fully absorbed by yogic/Buddhist meditation and now means the opposite emphasis (silent, self-directed, liberation-oriented) of what the Hebrew intends (audible, repeated, obedience-oriented rehearsal). High risk of silent regression to the old gloss by translators working from habit or by reviewers unfamiliar with this curriculum’s deliberate departure.

4. সদাপ্রভু vs. প্রভু (YHWH vs. kyrios-register “Lord”). Critical. Not present as a risk in the Romans package (NT-only), so reviewers trained solely on the Romans baseline may default to প্রভু out of habit. A single lapse collapses Joshua 24’s argument that Israel’s allegiance is owed to one named, promise-keeping covenant God, not a generic honorific.

5. ঈশ্বর vs. দেবতা (“God” vs. “other gods,” 24:2,14,20,23). Critical. Both words are needed in the same verses, in direct contrast to each other; a single substitution error (using ঈশ্বর for the ancestors’ idols, or দেবতা for the true God) inverts the entire polemic of the covenant-renewal speech.

6. বেশ্যা / “harlot” (Rahab). High. Strong pastoral pressure toward euphemism (সরাইখানার মালিক, “innkeeper”) exists in the broader translation ecosystem; this curriculum must actively resist that pressure at every review pass, since softening erases the doctrine’s force.

7. ত্বকছেদ vs. সুন্নত (circumcision, ch. 5). High. Near-universal Bengali reflex is to reach for সুন্নত; the risk is not doctrinal confusion about circumcision itself but an unintended signal that this is “the same rite” Bengali Muslim readers practice, collapsing a distinct Abrahamic/Mosaic covenant sign into an Islamic-idiom container.

8. বেদী / হোমবলি (altar / burnt offering, 8:30–31). High. Vedic yajna/homa associations are strong and automatic for many Bengali readers; without the “for সদাপ্রভু” anchor, these verses can be misread as generic ritual-fire-sacrifice imagery interchangeable with Hindu domestic or temple ritual.

9. বিশ্রাম (rest, 21:44; 22:4) read against মুক্তি/মোক্ষ/নির্বাণ. High. The risk is not a wrong word but an unanchored word: without explicit doctrinal framing, “rest in the land” can be quietly absorbed into a self-attained-liberation frame that is the dominant regional default for what spiritual “rest” means.

10. জাতিগণ vs. পরজাতি (Canaanite nations under judgment vs. NT Gentile-inclusion register). High. Reviewers moving between Joshua and the Romans curriculum in the same teaching cycle are the specific failure mode: cross-contamination in either direction (importing Romans’ positive inclusion into Joshua, or Joshua’s judgment connotation into Romans) would corrupt both curricula’s doctrine.

11. সদাপ্রভুর ক্রোধ (wrath of the LORD, ch. 7). High. Regional Shakta fear-appeasement religious patterns toward unpredictable, propitiation-hungry deities make it easy for this term to be heard as “an angry god who must be calmed down” rather than righteous judicial anger against a specific covenant breach.

12. আঁকড়ে থাকা vs. আসক্তি (cling to, 22:5; 23:8). Medium-High. Lower frequency than items above, but the risk is severe if it occurs: আসক্তি would invert the doctrine’s valence entirely (commending release rather than loyalty), even though the two words are near-synonyms in casual usage.

13. বেছে নেওয়া vs. মনোনয়ন (choose, 24:15). Medium-High. Precisely in the core passage; a translator reaching for the more elevated-sounding মনোনীত করা (perhaps for register reasons) would blur the deliberate divine-sovereignty/human-responsibility distinction the whole doctrine depends on.

14. গুলিবাঁট (lot-casting, chs. 14–19) read against ভাগ্য (fate/fortune). Medium. Frequent (occurs across the entire tribal-allotment section) but lower doctrinal centrality per single occurrence than items 1–9; cumulative exposure across many chapters still warrants Medium-High attentiveness in review.

15. সদাপ্রভু ইস্রায়েলের জন্য যুদ্ধ করলেন (the LORD fought for Israel, 10:14,42). Medium. Real risk is less mistranslation than mis-application in teaching material — a pastoral framing risk more than a lexical one, but flagged here because it recurs at the most narratively climactic points of the conquest account.

---

6. Summary and Handoff

• Every Critical- and High-risk item identified above already has a corresponding entry in analysis/08_core_glossary.md and assets/bible_term_registry.json; this document supplies the reasoning trail for those entries and should be read alongside them, not as a competing source of truth.
• Items 1–5 above must be treated as non-negotiable, mandatory-theologian-review terms in Phase 2, with zero tolerance for silent substitution.
• Items 6–9 require active resistance to well-established softening/collapsing pressures already present in the broader Bengali Bible-translation ecosystem (euphemism for Rahab; সুন্নত for circumcision; unanchored ritual vocabulary).
• Items 10–15 are primarily consistency and cross-curriculum-contamination risks, appropriate for native-speaker review with theologian spot-checks rather than mandatory theologian review of every occurrence.
• No term in this analysis contradicts the Romans baseline package; all Joshua-specific extensions are additive and register-partitioned exactly as documented in §3.2 above.