Executive Summary: Micah → Bengali Translation Requirements

Why it matters

Micah is an Old Testament Hebrew prophetic book with a dense covenant-lawsuit structure, an explicit messianic prophecy (5:2) directly quoted in Matthew 2:5-6, and a climactic doxology (7:18-20) affirming God’s incomparable uniqueness — all landing in a Bengali destination culture split between a Hindu-majority West Bengal and a Muslim-majority Bangladesh, each carrying its own distinct collision risks for this material. Because Micah pre-dates and theologically anchors several New Testament doctrines the baseline Romans package already protects (Messiah, Incarnation, Sonship of Christ, Salvation), this curriculum cannot be treated as low-stakes background reading — it requires the same rigor as Romans, extended to new OT-specific vocabulary the NT-only baseline never had to fix (the covenant name YHWH, sacrificial terminology, the covenant-lawsuit genre, and a three-term Hebrew sin vocabulary).

Key findings

• 61 total glossary terms now registered for Phase 2 enforcement: 21 reused exactly from the baseline Romans package, 40 newly introduced for Micah’s Hebrew prophetic content.
• 15 Critical-risk terms (9 inherited + 6 new: সদাপ্রভু/YHWH, শাসক/ruler, অনাদিকাল থেকে/from everlasting, সদাপ্রভুর ধার্মিক কার্যাবলি/righteous acts of the LORD, আমার পরিত্রাণের ঈশ্বর/God of my salvation, তোমার মতো ঈশ্বর আর কে আছেন?/Who is a God like you) require human theologian review at every occurrence, not merely first use.
• 30 High-risk terms require human theologian review, including the core passage’s own three demands (ন্যায়বিচার/do justice, দয়াকে ভালোবাসা/love mercy, নম্রভাবে চলা/walk humbly) and the sacrificial term হোমবলি.
• 18 doctrines are mapped in the doctrine risk registry: 5 Critical, 12 High, 1 Medium, 0 Low — 17 of 18 doctrines route to human theologian review, and only one (Covenant Faithfulness of God) routes to native-speaker-only review. No doctrine in the book qualifies for automated-only review.
• Micah 5:2 (“the Coming Ruler from Bethlehem”) is the single highest-doctrinal-density passage in the book: it carries two Critical terms (শাসক, অনাদিকাল থেকে) simultaneously, plus a direct NT fulfillment link (Matthew 2:5-6) that must never be severed in teaching material.
• The core passage (Micah 6:6-8) requires syntax-level validation, not just lexical validation: its three parallel imperatives must render as grammatically co-equal clauses, or Micah’s own theological argument is inverted.

Risks

• Ritual-vocabulary collision: হোমবলি (burnt offering) risks being read through live Hindu homa fire-ritual logic, inverting Micah’s own point that ritual cannot substitute for obedience.
• Idolatry-vocabulary collision: প্রতিমা/মূর্তি (idol) are the exact everyday Bengali words for a consecrated Hindu deity image; unframed, this is the single greatest risk of real interfaith/pastoral harm in the entire book.
• Philosophical-vocabulary collision: অনাদিকাল থেকে (from everlasting) draws on the same Bengali lexical register as Hindu Vedantic Brahman-eternity, risking a Christological pre-existence claim being heard as an impersonal philosophical abstraction.
• Salvation-vocabulary drift: উদ্ধার করা (redeem) sits one careless idiomatic choice away from a মুক্তি-derivative, reproducing the exact Hindu-moksha collision the baseline salvation ruling was built to prevent.
• Dual-audience doxology risk: তোমার মতো ঈশ্বর আর কে আছেন? (Micah 7:18) risks opposite mishearings in each of Bengal’s two dominant traditions — “best among many gods” in Hindu-majority contexts, an anti-Trinitarian proof text in Muslim-majority contexts.
• Political-sensitivity risk: naming corrupt leaders (নেতা/প্রধান শাসকগণ) by specific office carries real contemporary social risk in both Bangladesh and West Bengal.
• Compassion/mercy-vocabulary crowding: দয়া and করুণা both sit near, but must stay distinct from, the baseline’s অনুগ্রহ (grace) and from Buddhist karuna doctrine — three-way fencing is required at the book’s climax (7:18-19).

Opportunities

• Micah 6:8’s near-universal cross-traditional resonance (justice, mercy, humility affirmed in some form across nearly every tradition surveyed) makes it an unusually accessible bridge passage for evangelism and discipleship, provided the covenant-lawsuit frame (6:1-5) is taught alongside it so it is not heard as generic detachable ethics.
• Bengali agrarian history (zamindari-era land seizure, ongoing landlessness) gives Micah’s social-justice material (2:1-2, 8-9) unusual emotional resonance and pastoral relevance if handled with its full covenantal weight rather than flattened into secular land-rights language.
• The Abraham/Jacob covenant-oath material (7:20) offers a genuine, if partial, bridge to Muslim-background readers’ existing veneration of Ibrahim and Ya’qub, usable for relational apologetic bridge-building when framed carefully.
• Full-book coverage confirms every chapter (1–7) contributes load-bearing vocabulary or doctrine with no silent gaps, giving Phase 2 translators a complete, pre-vetted term inventory before segment work begins.

Recommended actions

1. Register all 61 terms in assets/translation_memory.json before any Phase 2 segment translation begins; do not allow ad hoc term selection during translation.
2. Route all 15 Critical-risk terms and all Micah 5:2-5, 6:6-8, and 7:18-20 passages to dedicated, unhurried human theologian review passes — do not batch with lower-risk chapters.
3. Attach mandatory translator notes to the eight fenced terms (দর্শন, প্রতিমা/মূর্তি, হোমবলি, নম্রভাবে চলা, দয়া, করুণা, অবশিষ্টাংশ, সদাপ্রভুর অভিযোগ) at first occurrence per lesson unit, and validate their presence at Phase 2 Step 15 quality scoring.
4. Enforce the সদাপ্রভু/ঈশ্বর/প্রভু three-way distinction as a structural validation rule, not an optional stylistic preference — the covenant-lawsuit genre’s argument depends on it.
5. Brief all reviewers using 12_ai_translation_requirements.md (Micah extension) before Phase 2 begins, given the substantially higher theologian-review routing rate (17 of 18 doctrines; 45 of 61 terms at Critical/High tier) compared to a typical NT-only curriculum pass.