Executive Summary — Matthew 1–28 (English → Bodo)

Why it matters

The Matthew curriculum is the first non-Romans extension of the Bodo Language Package, and it moves the translation team into more exposed doctrinal territory than Romans did. Matthew is a discourse-driven narrative built around a single supreme Teacher, a “greater righteousness” claim (5:20), and a programmatic disciple-making imperative (28:19) — a shape that sits unusually close to Brahma Dharma’s own guru-centered, dharma-and-merit-coded 1912 reform vocabulary, and to Bathouism’s aniconic, possession-oriented Kherai puja practice. Get the Beatitudes (5:1-12, the curriculum’s theological anchor), the Kingdom of Heaven, and the Great Commission wrong, and the curriculum risks quietly re-teaching either a merited-afterlife prosperity gospel or a guru-reform ethic instead of the gospel Matthew actually presents.

Key findings

• 90 enforced glossary terms now govern Matthew segment translation: 33 inherited verbatim from the Romans baseline (zero deviation permitted) and 57 new Matthew-specific terms, of which 6 are marked [PROVISIONAL] pending native-speaker/theologian confirmation (blessed/धिन्य, meek/नम्र, disciple/सिष्य, follow/उदांनाय, love/मोसाथिनाय, temptation/फांसनाय).
• 61 of 90 terms (68%) carry Critical or High doctrine risk — 26 Critical, 35 High, 26 Medium, 3 Low — meaning most of this curriculum’s vocabulary requires mandatory human review, not automated pass-through.
• 39 of 43 tracked doctrines (91%) require human theologian review — 24 Critical-risk doctrines, 15 High-risk doctrines — versus 4 requiring native-speaker review only and zero automated-only doctrines. This is a markedly higher theologian-review burden than Romans carried, reflecting Matthew’s denser concentration of narrative, Christological-title, and eschatological material.
• Two new Critical Forbidden Substitutions join the baseline’s existing list: पूजा (forbidden for worship of Christ — it is the literal name of the Kherai ritual-offering system) and नरक (permitted only with a mandatory non-rebirth caveat attached at every occurrence).
• The judgment/eschatology cluster (end of the age, eternal life/punishment, hell, the Second Coming, resurrection) is the single highest-density collision zone in the book, because जुग (“age”) and नरक both carry latent Hindu/Brahma Dharma cyclical-rebirth cosmology that Matthew’s linear, final judgment must explicitly override every time.

Risks

• Prosperity-gospel drift at the Beatitudes. धिन्य (“blessed”) readily reads as this-worldly fortune, colliding directly with Bathou sijou-offerings and the Kherai pantheon’s wealth-goddess Mainao — the exact opposite of the paradoxical, hardship-amid-blessing sense 5:3-12 requires.
• Rule-intensification drift across the Sermon on the Mount. Because Brahma Dharma’s own 20th-century project was a rule-intensification reform, “righteousness exceeding the Pharisees” (5:20), “reward” (5:12 and throughout), and “mercy” (5:7) are all individually defensible but cumulatively risk re-creating a merit-and-rule-keeping gospel if not actively fenced in every lesson — a pattern-level risk, not just a term-level one.
• Guru-sishyo collapse of discipleship language. सिष्य, उदांनाय, and सिष्य मोहरै दानाय all sit inside the same semantic neighborhood as Brahma Dharma’s guru-disciple paradigm; any segment where Jesus is not the explicit grammatical object risks being heard as generic reform-movement recruitment, most dangerously at the Great Commission’s imperative climax (28:19).
• Incarnation/possession confusion. मानसि गुदि सोलायनाय, इम्मानुएल, and मानसिनि गोरा (Son of Man) all require sustained distinction from doudini trance-possession during Kherai puja — a live, currently-practiced ritual phenomenon, not a historical analogy.
• Territorial-political entanglement. “Inherit the earth” (5:5) and “all nations” (28:19) both carry live collision risk with contemporary Bodoland ethnic-territorial identity politics, independent of their comparative-religion risk.

Opportunities

• Bodo clan (afad) lineage-value gives “Son of David” and genealogy language (ch. 1) a natural point of resonance to build davidic-covenant teaching from, rather than starting from zero.
• Matthew’s discourse structure (five major teaching blocks) gives the curriculum a built-in pedagogical scaffold; Phase 2 lesson design can align directly to it.
• The mixed Baptist/Catholic/new-convert audience means ambiguous passages (16:18-19 keys/rock; 26:26-28 Words of Institution) can be translated literally and neutrally, with denominational catechesis handled outside the translated text — reducing translation-stage doctrinal risk rather than increasing it.
• Ground-up teaching notes already required for फोरायनाय (Romans baseline) extend naturally to स्वर्गनि राज्य, नरक, and जुगनि जोबथाव — the curriculum can reuse one proven “teach from zero, don’t assume” pedagogical pattern across all four terms.

Recommended actions

1. Route all 39 Critical/High doctrines to mandatory human theologian review before Phase 2 output is finalized — no exceptions, per doctrine_risk_registry.json routing.
2. Resolve all 6 [PROVISIONAL] terms with a Bodo-speaking theologian or native speaker before Phase 2 enforcement begins, prioritizing धिन्य (blessed) and सिष्य (disciple) given their frequency and doctrinal centrality.
3. Treat the grace-versus-merit pattern as a standing lesson-level QA check, not a one-time term audit — flag any lesson combining three or more of {reward, mercy, righteousness, perfect, obedience} for a dedicated pattern-level theologian read-through.
4. Verify the BSI Bodo Bible’s actual printed renderings of the fifteen hardest verses identified in 05_translation_landscape.md (Section 3) before treating any of them as settled precedent, and confirm the YouVersion {BODO_VERSION_ID} before generating any Phase 2 hyperlink.
5. Carry the two new Forbidden Substitutions (पूजा, uncaveated नरक) into every Phase 2 validation pass, alongside the four inherited from Romans, as a combined six-item hard-fail check.