Executive Summary: Ruth (English → Bengali)

Why it matters

Ruth is a short, four-chapter narrative book, but it carries a disproportionately high theological-translation risk load for Bengali: it is Old Testament narrative (not epistle), it introduces the divine covenant name YHWH for the first time in this Language Package, and its central doctrines — Hesed, the Kinsman-Redeemer, and Gentile inclusion — sit directly on top of Bengal’s two dominant religious traditions’ most sensitive pressure points (Hindu caste/জাতি vocabulary, Shakta শক্তি goddess-power associations, and honor/modesty norms shared across Hindu- and Muslim-majority communities). Get this book’s core vocabulary wrong and this curriculum either imports exactly the syncretism risks the Romans baseline worked to close, or produces a translation that reads as scandalous or incoherent to Bengali readers where the source text is in fact vindicating and clear.

Key findings

• Six named doctrines, thirteen total doctrines analyzed across all four chapters (no chapter skipped): Hesed, Kinsman-Redeemer, Providence, Gentile Inclusion, Loyalty/Faithfulness, and Genealogy are joined by seven supporting doctrines (Divine Sovereignty in Suffering, Levirate Marriage, Legal Integrity, Sexual Purity and Honor, Care for the Vulnerable, Personal Conversion and the Divine Name, Mutual Blessing).
• 34 glossary terms extend the Romans baseline translation memory; 10 Romans-baseline terms are reused/fenced (ঈশ্বর, প্রভু, অনুগ্রহ, নিয়ম, পরজাতি, ঈশ্বরের পরিচালনা, দায়ূদ, বিশ্বাস, পরিত্রাণ, ইস্রায়েল) and 24 are wholly new to this book.
• The single highest-stakes decision in the curriculum is Ruth 1:16’s “your people shall be my people,” which must render עַם as লোক, never জাতি — জাতি’s live caste (জাতপাত) association in Bengali would turn a covenant-conversion confession into an apparent caste-transfer claim.
• The second-highest-stakes decision is go’el (“Kinsman-Redeemer”), rendered উদ্ধারকারী জ্খাতি rather than the more familiar মুক্তিদাতা, because this doctrine typologically anticipates Christ and মুক্তি’s Hindu-moksha association would reopen a syncretism risk the Romans baseline permanently closed.
• A new divine-name convention (সদাপ্রভু for YHWH) must be introduced and fenced against both generic ঈশ্বর (Elohim) and প্রভু (Christ’s NT Lordship title) — the escalation between these two terms across Ruth 1:16-17 is itself the textual evidence of Ruth’s genuine covenant conversion.

Risks

• 4 Critical-risk doctrines (Hesed; The Kinsman-Redeemer; The Inclusion of Gentiles in God’s Redemptive Plan; Personal Conversion and the Divine Name) and 5 High-risk doctrines (Providence; Genealogy Pointing to David and Christ; Divine Sovereignty in Suffering; Levirate Marriage and Family/Name Continuity; Sexual Purity and Honor) — 9 of 13 total doctrines require mandatory human theologian review.
• At the term level, 5 terms carry mandatory Critical-tier theologian review (সদাপ্রভু, নিয়মের দয়া, উদ্ধারকারী জ্ঞাতি, উদ্ধার, লোক-vs-জাতি at 1:16) and 6 additional terms carry High-tier theologian review (সর্বশক্তিমান, মোয়াব/মোয়াবীয়া, the “at the feet” custom, the levirate-marriage custom, বংশ/সন্তান, বংশাবলি) — 11 terms total requiring theologian sign-off before entering fixed translation memory.
• The threshing-floor scene (3:1-14) and the levirate “acquire” language (4:5-10) carry acute honor/modesty and property-language misreading risk in both Hindu-majority and Muslim-majority Bengali contexts; neither can be safely rendered as bare literal text without accompanying framing notes.
• সর্বশক্তিমান (Almighty) retains the forbidden শক্তি root for Shakta-associated “power” language; this is a deliberate, documented exception to the Romans baseline’s own rule and must never be treated as license to reintroduce শক্তি elsewhere.

Opportunities

• Ruth’s Gentile-inclusion and kinsman-redeemer doctrines give this curriculum a uniquely concrete, narrative-driven on-ramp into typology that later NT curriculum materials (Matthew 1:5’s genealogy, Romans’ “seed of David”) can cite directly, provided বংশ/সন্তান and দায়ূদের বংশ are held cross-Testament consistent from this point forward.
• The Hesed doctrine’s required compound (নিয়মের দয়া) establishes a template — anchoring a new theological compound to an already-fixed baseline term (নিয়ম) — that can be reused for other covenant-loyalty vocabulary gaps in future Old Testament books added to this Language Package.
• Because Ruth is short and self-contained, its full glossary, doctrine registry, and AI instruction-set extension can be completed and locked in a single Phase 1 pass (as delivered here), giving Phase 2 a fully loaded, internally consistent enforcement database before any segment translation begins.

Recommended actions

1. Route all 11 Critical/High-tier terms and 9 Critical/High-tier doctrines to human theologian review before translation_memory.json (Ruth) is treated as locked for Phase 2.
2. Confirm with native-speaker reviewers that the mandatory framing notes for the threshing-floor scene and levirate-marriage custom read as vindicating (per 3:11, 3:14) rather than ambiguous, before these segments leave Phase 1.
3. Carry the সদাপ্রভু / ঈশ্বর / প্রভু three-way fence forward as the standing convention for any future Old Testament curriculum book, since this is the first book in the Language Package to require it.
4. Reconfirm the YouVersion RUT book-code hyperlink pattern and রূৎ citation form against a live fetch before Phase 2 production begins, consistent with analysis/05_translation_landscape.md.