Executive Summary — 3 John (English → Bodo)

Why it matters

3 John is a 14-verse personal letter that packs an unusually high doctrinal-risk density for its length into a Bodo-speaking context shaped by Bathouism (aniconic nature-religion centered on Bathoubwrai, expressed through Kherai puja and doudini trance-mediumship) and Brahma Dharma (a 1912 Sanskritized Hindu-reform movement). This curriculum’s five assigned doctrines — hospitality, imitation of good, church leadership and pride, commendation of faithful witness, and truth/fellowship — all sit directly on top of live comparative-religion collision points already documented in the Romans baseline, and in several cases the collision is sharper here than in Romans because the letter is short, personal, and concentrates its risk into a handful of terms that recur.

Key findings

• Full-book coverage is coextensive with core-passage coverage. 3 John has exactly one chapter; all 14 verses have been analyzed (Steps 4-8, 11) with no silent omissions.
• 40 new theological terms were introduced beyond the Romans baseline; 7 terms (God, Church, Peace, Gentiles, Faith, Jesus, Messiah) are inherited from the Romans package and enforced unchanged.
• 9 doctrines are tracked in the doctrine risk registry, one more than the 5 curriculum-assigned doctrines, because two structurally distinct but load-bearing sub-doctrines (Authority of the Name of Christ; Legitimate Pastoral Authority of the Elder) were separated out for translation-risk clarity, plus a Low-risk closing-convention doctrine.
• The letter’s single christological reference — “the Name” (τὸ ὄνομα, 1:7) — is never paired with “Jesus” or “Christ” in the Greek text itself, making it the letter’s most acute translation risk.
• One verb (जागायनाय, “receive/welcome”) must carry opposite moral polarity three verses apart (1:8 positive vs. 1:9-10 negative) — a genuine ambiguity risk unique to this letter’s compressed structure.

Risks

17 terms rated Critical or High risk require human theologian review before Phase 2 deployment:

• 5 Critical-risk terms: God, Jesus, Messiah (inherited from Romans, applicable via “the Name” expansion and the Johannine “has seen God” idiom), plus two new terms unique to this letter — the Name (τὸ ὄνομα) and love of preeminence (φιλοπρωτεύων, Diotrephes’ hapax-legomenon core sin).
• 12 High-risk terms: Faith (inherited), plus eleven new — Elder, Love (ἀγάπη), Truth (ἀλήθεια), Prosper (εὐοδοῦσθαι), Testify/Witness, Testimony, Receive/Welcome, Slander, Cast out/expel, Imitate, and Has-seen-God.

8 of the 9 tracked doctrines require human theologian review (2 Critical: Church Leadership and Pride, Authority of the Name; 6 High: Truth and Christian Fellowship, Hospitality to Traveling Ministers, Spiritual/Physical Well-Being, Commendation of Faithful Witness, Imitating Good rather than Evil, Legitimate Pastoral Authority). Only 1 doctrine (Personal Christian Correspondence and Greeting) is Low-risk/automated-review-only. Zero doctrines route to native-speaker-only review — every substantive doctrine in this short letter is theologically load-bearing enough to require theologian sign-off, a notably higher concentration than Romans’ 20 High/8 Critical spread across 16 chapters.

The three sharpest specific risks: (1) a bare, unglossed “the Name” being heard as a Bathou/Kherai ritual name-invocation formula; (2) Diotrephes’ “love of preeminence” being normalized as ordinary, respectable Bodo clan/village status-seeking or read against the doudini’s own recognized ritual-specialist status; (3) “prosper” (1:2) being isolated from its soul-health qualifier and mistaught as a prosperity-gospel or reciprocal-offering guarantee — the same do-ut-des risk class already flagged for “grace” in the Romans baseline.

Opportunities

• Bodo’s existing guest-hospitality custom (आगु) offers a genuinely positive cultural bridge into the Hospitality doctrine, provided every use is anchored explicitly to “for the sake of the Name” rather than left as free-standing village-honor reciprocity.
• The letter’s three named case studies (Gaius, Diotrephes, Demetrius) give this curriculum concrete, memorable positive/negative models that translate well into small-group discussion without requiring abstract doctrinal vocabulary alone.
• Seven-term inheritance from the Romans package (God, Church, Peace, Gentiles, Faith, Jesus, Messiah) means this curriculum can be deployed with substantial vocabulary continuity for learners who have already studied Romans, reducing new-term cognitive load to the 40 genuinely new items.

Recommended actions

1. Route all 17 Critical/High terms and 8 Critical/High doctrines to human theologian review before any Phase 2 segment is marked approved, per assets/doctrine_risk_registry.json and assets/bible_term_registry.json.
2. Confirm प्राचीन (elder), गुनांथिनाय (love), and जोहार होनाय (greet) with a native-speaking theologian for regional naturalness before wide deployment (all currently provisional).
3. Verify the BSI Bodo Bible’s own printed text of 3 John against every rendering in this Language Package, per the outstanding action item in 05_translation_landscape.md Section 1.1 — this has not yet been done and is a precondition for Phase 2 finalization.
4. Resolve the outstanding YouVersion {BODO_VERSION_ID} placeholder before generating any reader-facing hyperlinks.
5. Enforce the जागायनाय polarity-flag validation rule (see 12_ai_translation_requirements.md) on every Phase 2 segment touching 1:8-10 without exception.