06 Linguistic Gap Analysis — Ephesians 1–6 (English → Burmese)

Purpose and Scope

This document executes PRD Phase 1 Step 8 for the Ephesians curriculum. It analyzes the Burmese language’s existing vocabulary resources against the nine core doctrines of this curriculum, identifies where Burmese has no equivalent (a gap requiring coinage, compounding, or transliteration) versus where Burmese has too many neighboring terms already colonized by Theravada Buddhist and folk-religious usage (a “crowded neighborhood” requiring semantic fencing), makes explicit transliteration-vs-paraphrase decisions for every load-bearing new term, and ranks the letter’s highest-risk ambiguities for Phase 2 translator attention.

This analysis extends, and must never contradict, the baseline Romans translation_memory.json and bible_term_registry.json. All previously fixed renderings (grace = ကျေးဇူးတော်, salvation = ကယ်တင်ခြင်း, resurrection = ထမြောက်ခြင်း, etc.) are treated here as settled and are analyzed only where Ephesians intensifies or extends their risk profile.

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Section 1: Doctrine Vocabulary Matrix

For each of the curriculum’s nine core doctrines: the Burmese terms currently available, their weaknesses (semantic collision, register mismatch, gap), and the recommended handling strategy.

1.1 Salvation by Grace through Faith

Available Burmese Terms	Weaknesses	Recommended Strategy
ကျေးဇူးတော် (grace, REUSED)	None as a rendering, but the surrounding doctrinal argument in Eph 2:8-9 places grace in direct antithesis to ကောင်းမှုအကျင့် (works/good deeds), the exact vocabulary of daily lay merit-making (ကုသိုလ်ပြုခြင်း). The term itself is settled; the risk is contextual erosion across repeated exposure.	Reuse exactly. Attach a standing translator-note template (see §4) to every occurrence in Eph 2:5-9; do not re-derive the note per occurrence but do not omit it either.
ကောင်းမှုအကျင့် (works/good works)	Burmese has only one common phrase for “good deeds,” and it is the operative vocabulary of the entire lay merit economy. Ephesians 2:9 and 2:10 use the same underlying Greek word (ἔργα / ἔργα ἀγαθά) in opposite argumentative roles within two consecutive verses — a distinction the identical Burmese phrase cannot itself carry.	No native alternative exists that would avoid the collision while still meaning “moral deeds.” Retain ကောင်းမှုအကျင့် for both uses (per registry), but mandate a paired translator note explicitly marking v.9 as “excluded as cause” and v.10 as “included as fruit.” This is the single highest-density gap in the letter.
လက်ဆောင်ကျေးဇူး (gift, unilateral)	ဒါန is the natural Burmese word for “a gift,” but ဒါန is structurally a human-to-monk/Buddha-image act of merit-generating generosity — exactly the wrong direction of giving for Eph 2:8.	Reject ဒါန outright. Use the compound လက်ဆောင်ကျေးဇူး, which pairs the neutral “gift” noun with the fixed grace-root ကျေးဇူးတော်, forcing the God-to-sinner direction into the rendering itself.
ရွေးနှင်းခြင်း (redemption)	No native Burmese religious concept of a substitutionary price paid by another to free a captive from bondage; the closest cultural frame (debt-slave redemption, historically real in pre-colonial Burma) is now archaic and requires footnoting for a modern reader, though it remains linguistically transparent.	Retain the coined compound; supplement with a one-time explanatory note on the historical debt-slavery background rather than repeated footnotes.

1.2 Election and Predestination in Christ

Available Burmese Terms	Weaknesses	Recommended Strategy
ရွေးကောက်ခြင်း (election, REUSED)	Settled from Romans baseline, but Ephesians 1:4 adds a pre-creation timeframe (“before the foundation of the world”) absent from most Romans occurrences, which strengthens the risk of assimilation to ကံဇာတာ (a person’s karmically fixed life-path, understood as set by accumulated past-life action, not by a personal chooser).	Reuse exactly; every occurrence in ch.1 requires the theologian-review flag already mandated by the baseline, reinforced by the pre-creation modifier.
ကြိုတင်ခန့်ထားတော်မူသော (predestined, NEW)	No single native word exists for “to determine a destiny in advance while remaining a personal agent.” Burmese destiny-vocabulary (ကံ, ကံဇာတာ, ကံကြမ္မာ) is uniformly impersonal and retributive — the linguistic gap is total.	Coin the descriptive compound (already proposed in the core glossary): ကြိုတင် (“in advance”) + ခန့်ထား (“to appoint/assign”) + တော်မူသော (honorific verb marker for divine action). This compound has no independent life in ordinary Burmese and therefore carries less risk of importing karmic connotation than any existing single word would. Critical tier; mandatory theologian review at both occurrences (1:5, 1:11).
အမွေ (inheritance, NEW)	Burmese inheritance custom is well understood and largely gap-free; the risk is not incomprehension but under-emphasis — an ordinary heir’s portion can be forfeited by poor conduct or contested by other heirs, which is the opposite of the Spirit-guaranteed inheritance of Eph 1:14.	Retain အမွေ; require the paired term “အာမခံချက်” (guarantee) to appear in close proximity in teaching material so the security of the inheritance, not just its existence, is taught.
တံဆိပ်ခတ်တော်မူသည် (sealed, NEW)	This is a genuine crowded-neighborhood problem, not a gap: Burmese folk-Buddhist practice uses protective tattoos and inscribed seals (in-saq) believed to confer supernatural warding power, and the verb “to seal/stamp” (တံဆိပ်ခတ်) is linguistically identical to sealing such a protective mark.	Retain the term (no better native alternative exists for “official mark of ownership/authentication”), but this is a mandatory fencing case (see §3) requiring an explicit teaching note distinguishing divine ownership-marking from magical amulet-sealing every time it appears (1:13; 4:30).

1.3 The Church as the Body of Christ

Available Burmese Terms	Weaknesses	Recommended Strategy
အသင်းတော် (church, REUSED)	Settled, but Ephesians intensifies the risk beyond Romans: the church is not merely “the assembly” (Romans’ primary sense) but Christ’s own body filled with his fullness (1:22-23), God’s literal dwelling place (2:21-22), and Christ’s bride (5:23-32) — three distinct metaphorical intensifications stacked onto one fixed term.	Reuse exactly; escalate risk tier to High wherever these three intensified senses occur (already reflected in the extended bible_term_registry.json entry).
ကိုယ်ခန္ဓာ (body, NEW)	Burmese has a perfectly good word for “body” with no religious-collision risk; the challenge is purely one of metaphor-consistency across five distinct chapters, not comprehension.	Retain; enforce absolute lexical consistency across all six occurrences (1:23; 2:16; 3:6; 4:4,12,16; 5:23,30) — a discipline issue, not a translation-choice issue.
ဦးခေါင်း (head/kephalē, NEW)	Genuine ambiguity gap: Burmese ဦးခေါင်း means the physical head and, by extension, a leader/chief, but does not carry the Greek’s dual technical sense of “authoritative source” that operates identically whether the body in view is the church (1:22; 4:15) or a marriage (5:23). A Burmese reader may default to “boss/chief” (leadership-only) and miss the “source of life/nourishment” dimension present in 4:15-16.	Retain ဦးခေါင်း as the single fixed rendering across all three senses (ecclesial and marital) to preserve Paul’s deliberate wordplay; supplement with a standing teaching note explaining the “source” dimension, since no separate Burmese word cleanly carries both senses simultaneously.
ပြည့်စုံခြင်း (fullness/plērōma, NEW)	No independent gap, but a moderate crowded-neighborhood risk: ပြည့်စုံ is also the ordinary word for a personally “complete/perfected” state, resonant with the language of individual meditative attainment or a fully accumulated store of merit.	Retain; every occurrence (1:23; 3:19; 4:13) requires framing language making clear this is Christ’s own completeness expressed corporately through the church, not an individually attained perfection.

1.4 Unity of Jews and Gentiles in One New Humanity

Available Burmese Terms	Weaknesses	Recommended Strategy
တစ်ပါးအမျိုးသား (Gentiles, REUSED)	Settled from Romans baseline. Ephesians’ concentrated treatment (2:11-3:6) raises the practical-application stakes in a Myanmar context far more than Romans did, given ongoing Bamar-Buddhist-majority/ethnic-minority-Christian social tension.	Reuse exactly; flag the entire 2:11-3:6 unit for native-speaker cultural-sensitivity review in addition to standard theologian review.
တစ်ဦးတည်းသောလူသစ် (one new man, NEW)	Gap: no native Burmese idiom exists for “a single new corporate humanity created from two formerly hostile groups.” The naive literal rendering risks being read as merely “a new person” (individual) rather than “a new corporate humanity” (collective).	Retain the coined compound; require an explanatory gloss on first occurrence per document clarifying the corporate, not individual, referent.
ခွဲခြားထားသော အကာအရံနှင့် ရန်လိုမှု (dividing wall of hostility, NEW)	Gap: the Jerusalem temple’s literal Court-of-the-Gentiles barrier has no Burmese cultural analogue; a descriptive rather than architectural rendering was necessarily chosen, which loses the historical concreteness of the Greek’s single compound noun (μεσότοιχον).	Accept the descriptive-phrase strategy as unavoidable; supplement with a one-time historical-background note on the temple wall rather than attempting a shorter but less accurate coinage.
ပြန်လည်သင့်မြတ်စေခြင်း (reconcile, NEW)	Moderate gap: Burmese has words for settling a dispute or restoring harmony between parties (as in mediated family or business conflict), but no ready-made single word combines the simultaneous horizontal (Jew-Gentile) and vertical (God-humanity) reconciliation Paul describes as one act.	Retain the compound; use consistent surrounding context to make clear both dimensions are accomplished simultaneously by the cross, not sequentially or independently.

1.5 The Mystery of Christ Revealed

Available Burmese Terms	Weaknesses	Recommended Strategy
လျှို့ဝှက်ချက်တော် (mystery, NEW)	Crowded-neighborhood risk, not a gap: Burmese folk-Buddhist and weizza (esoteric-adept) traditions use closely related vocabulary for restricted, secret teachings reserved for advanced initiates — precisely the opposite of Paul’s point that this mystery is now openly disclosed to all believers.	Retain the term (no equally natural alternative exists), but mandate a fencing note at every occurrence (1:9; 3:3-6,9; 5:32; 6:19) explicitly stating the mystery is fully revealed, not an esoteric secret for an initiated elite.
ကွဲပြားစွာသော ဉာဏ်ပညာတော် (manifold wisdom, NEW)	Crowded-neighborhood risk: ဉာဏ်ပညာ (paññā/wisdom) is the central term for meditative insight-wisdom in Theravada soteriology, attained through personal practice.	Retain; require teaching framing this as an attribute of God displayed in redemptive history, not a mental attainment accessible through meditation.

1.6 Spiritual Warfare and the Armor of God

Available Burmese Terms	Weaknesses	Recommended Strategy
ဘုရားသခင်၏ စစ်တန်ဆာအစုံ (armor of God, NEW)	Crowded-neighborhood risk: Burmese folk-Buddhist practice widely uses protective tattoos, amulets, sacred cords, and inscribed charms (in-saq/ban) for supernatural self-protection — the exact functional category into which “armor” risks collapsing without careful framing.	Retain the martial-equipment rendering (not a charm/amulet word); mandatory fencing note at 6:11 and 6:13 distinguishing God-given protective equipment for an already-won conflict from magical self-protection objects.
မာရ်နတ်၏ပရိယာယ်များ (wiles of the devil, NEW)	Direct-collision risk (not merely crowded neighborhood): မာရ်နတ် (Mara) is the established Myanmar Christian rendering for Satan/the devil, but Mara is also a specific named tempter-figure in the Buddha’s own enlightenment narrative — a different personal figure in a different cosmology bearing the identical name.	Retain မာရ်နတ် as the established term (changing it now would break decades of Myanmar Christian usage), but require an explicit disambiguating note on first occurrence per document distinguishing the biblical Satan of Eph 2:2/6:11 from the Buddhist Mara figure.
အထွဋ်အမြတ်များ၊ အာဏာပိုင်များ၊ […] မကောင်းမှု၏ဝိညာဉ်ဓာတ်များ (rulers/authorities/cosmic powers/spiritual forces, NEW)	The single densest collision zone in the letter: Burmese cosmology is thickly populated with the 37 nats, territorial guardian spirits, astrological powers, and weizza occult forces — a functioning spiritual hierarchy analogous in structure (if not in moral character) to Paul’s ranked list of hostile powers.	No paraphrase can fully neutralize this risk; retain the descriptive multi-term rendering and require mandatory theologian review with explicit anti-syncretism teaching at every occurrence (1:21; 3:10; 6:12), specifically warning against seeking protective mediation from nats, astrologers, or weizza practitioners as a “solution” to spiritual conflict the passage itself prescribes prayer and the armor of God to address.
ကောင်းကင်ဘုံအရပ်များ (heavenly places, NEW)	Crowded-neighborhood risk: Burmese Buddhist cosmology has a tiered structure of deva-realms and Brahma-realms (kama-loka, rupa-loka) attainable through accumulated merit, structurally similar to “heavenly places” as a plural, layered spiritual geography.	Retain; require a standing teaching note that this is the unseen dimension of Christ’s present reign and ongoing conflict, not a hierarchy of merit-earned abodes a practitioner ascends toward.

1.7 Household Codes and Christ-Centered Relationships

Available Burmese Terms	Weaknesses	Recommended Strategy
နာခံခြင်း / ဦးခေါင်း (wife submission / husband headship, NEW)	Gap in the opposite direction from most entries: Burmese culture already has strong existing patriarchal-authority vocabulary and social expectation, so the risk is not incomprehension but over-reading — applying headship as unilateral authority detached from Christ’s self-sacrificial pattern in 5:25.	Retain the terms; mandate that 5:22-24 never be translated or taught as an isolated unit — every occurrence must be linked explicitly to 5:25’s self-giving love standard within the same teaching note.
ကျွန် / သခင် (bondservants and masters, NEW)	Direct-collision risk with Table 1’s fixed rendering of divine Lord (သခင် = κύριος). Eph 6:5-9 uses the identical Greek word κύριος for an ordinary human household master, and Burmese သခင် likewise doubles as a term of address for a social superior or historical slave-master, but the text’s theological point (masters answer to a impartial heavenly Master, 6:9) depends on readers not confusing the earthly and heavenly referents.	Retain သခင် for both senses (there is no natural alternative Burmese word for “master” in this context), but this is the single mandatory disambiguation point flagged for the Phase 2 AI instruction set: every occurrence of human-master သခင် in 6:5-9 requires an explicit translator note distinguishing it from the divine-Lord သခင် used everywhere else in the letter.
ပူဇော်ရာယဇ်အဖြစ် ဆက်ကပ်တော်မူသော (offering and sacrifice, NEW)	Crowded-neighborhood risk: ပူဇော် (to offer/venerate) is standard vocabulary for ritual offerings made to Buddha images, pagodas, or nats for merit or favor.	Retain (no adequate substitute conveys OT sacrificial-system background), but require framing that this describes Christ’s own once-for-all self-giving fulfilling the OT sacrificial pattern, not a devotional offering made by a worshiper to secure divine favor.

1.8 Gifts for Building Up the Church

Available Burmese Terms	Weaknesses	Recommended Strategy
ဝိညာဉ်ဆုကျေးဇူး (spiritual gifts, REUSED)	Settled from Romans baseline; Ephesians ties it more explicitly to “the measure of the gift of Christ” (4:7) and the fivefold office-list (4:11), raising the stakes for consistent sovereign-apportionment framing versus differing individual merit-levels.	Reuse exactly; extend the existing note to explicitly address the sovereign-apportionment point at 4:7.
သိုးထိန်း (pastor/shepherd, NEW)	Crowded-neighborhood risk: any Burmese term for a senior spiritual guide/teacher risks assimilation to the monastic ဆရာတော် role (a title of considerable social deference and authority in Burmese Buddhist religious life).	Retain သိုးထိန်း (shepherd-imagery, not a generic “teacher” title); avoid ဆရာတော် entirely, consistent with the baseline’s existing caution on “apostle.”
ပြည့်စုံရင့်ကျက်ခြင်း (mature manhood, NEW)	Moderate crowded-neighborhood risk: Burmese religious culture has well-developed vocabulary for graduated stages of personal spiritual attainment (e.g., stages toward arahantship), which could be imported onto Eph 4:13’s corporate, Christ-measured maturity.	Retain; require framing language that this maturity is corporate and measured against Christ’s fullness, not an individual attainment ladder.

1.9 Walking in Newness of Life

Available Burmese Terms	Weaknesses	Recommended Strategy
ကျင့်နေခြင်း (walk/conduct, NEW)	No significant gap; primary risk is literary-consistency, since περιπατέω forms a deliberate frame across the letter (2:2,10; 4:1,17; 5:2,8,15) moving from walking in death to walking in good works and light.	Retain a single fixed rendering across all seven occurrences without stylistic variation, even where English translations vary their wording (“walk,” “live,” “conduct yourselves”).
ဓလေ့ဟောင်းလူ / လူသစ် (old self / new self, NEW)	Crowded-neighborhood risk: Burmese self-improvement and Buddhist moral-cultivation vocabulary describes gradual transformation of character through discipline and practice, which could flatten Paul’s decisive, once-for-all identity change into a gradual self-improvement narrative.	Retain; require teaching framing the “putting off” and “putting on” as a decisive act grounded in union with Christ (echoing 2:10’s new-creation language), lived out progressively but not self-manufactured.
ဝိညာဉ်တော်ကို စိတ်မသာအောင်ပြုခြင်း (grieve the Holy Spirit, NEW)	Gap: Theravada anatta doctrine denies any permanent self or spirit-entity capable of relational emotion; Burmese has no ready idiom for a permanent divine Person experiencing relational sorrow caused by another’s sin.	Retain the descriptive compound (no single-word equivalent exists); flag as Critical tier requiring explicit Holy-Spirit-personhood teaching at every occurrence (4:30), reinforcing the baseline’s existing guardrail.

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Section 2: Missing Vocabulary vs. Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods

2.1 Genuine Vocabulary Gaps (no native Burmese word or idiom covers the concept at all)

These require coinage, compounding, or transliteration because Burmese religious and everyday vocabulary simply has no corresponding category:

1. Predestination (προορίζω) — no personal, non-karmic destiny-determination vocabulary exists; solved by descriptive compound ကြိုတင်ခန့်ထားတော်မူသော.
2. One new man / new corporate humanity (2:15) — no idiom for a genuinely new collective identity formed from two formerly hostile peoples; solved by coined compound.
3. Dividing wall of hostility (2:14) — no architectural or social analogue to the temple’s Court-of-the-Gentiles barrier; solved by descriptive phrase plus historical footnote.
4. Sealed with the Spirit as ownership-mark, not protection-mark (1:13; 4:30) — the ownership/authentication sense of sealing is not independently available apart from the protection-mark sense; solved by retaining the term under mandatory fencing (see §3).
5. Grieve the Holy Spirit (4:30) — no idiom for a permanent divine Person’s relational sorrow; solved by descriptive compound plus mandatory Critical-tier teaching.
6. Redemption as a costly price paid by another (1:7,14) — historically available (debt-slavery), now culturally distant; solved by retaining coined term with a one-time historical note.
7. Fellow citizens and household of God (2:19) — no single Burmese term captures simultaneous full civic and familial belonging; solved by compound phrase.
8. The sevenfold “one” creedal list (4:4-6) — Burmese syntax does not naturally stack seven consecutive numerical-singularity assertions with the same rhetorical force as Greek; solved by an explicit enumerated rendering (already fixed in the registry) rather than a flowing prose paraphrase that would dilute the emphatic repetition.

2.2 Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods (Burmese has abundant existing vocabulary, but all of it is already occupied by Buddhist or folk-religious usage, requiring active fencing rather than coinage)

These are higher aggregate risk than the pure gaps above, because a translator or reader may reach for the “obvious” available word without realizing it imports an entire competing doctrinal frame:

1. Mystery (μυστήριον) — collides with weizza/esoteric restricted-teaching vocabulary.
2. Wisdom (σοφία, manifold wisdom of God, 3:10) — collides with paññā (meditative insight-wisdom).
3. Fullness/completeness (πλήρωμα) — collides with individual meritorious perfection/attainment vocabulary.
4. Works / good works (ἔργα / ἔργα ἀγαθά) — collides directly with ကုသိုလ်ပြုခြင်း (merit-making); the single highest-density collision in the letter given it appears twice in adjacent verses with opposite argumentative roles.
5. Sealed (σφραγίζω) — collides with protective tattoo/amulet-sealing (in-saq) practice.
6. Armor of God (πανοπλία τοῦ Θεοῦ) — collides with protective charm/amulet culture.
7. Rulers, authorities, cosmic powers, spiritual forces of evil (6:12; cf. 1:21, 3:10) — collides with the entire populated Burmese spirit-world (37 nats, territorial guardians, astrology, weizza).
8. Heavenly places (ἐπουράνια) — collides with tiered deva/Brahma-realm cosmology.
9. Mara / wiles of the devil (μεθοδεία τοῦ διαβόλου) — collides with the distinct named Buddhist tempter-figure Mara.
10. Offering and sacrifice (προσφορὰ καὶ θυσία, 5:2) — collides with ritual merit-offering vocabulary (ပူဇော်).
11. Kindness / mercy (χρηστότης / ἔλεος, 2:4,7) — collides with ကရုဏာ, one of the four brahmavihara cultivated mental states.
12. Love (agapē) (throughout) — collides with မေတ္တာ, another of the four brahmavihara, a cultivated impartial-radiation state distinct from covenantal, chosen, self-sacrificial agapē.
13. Imitators of God (5:1) — collides with folk framings of advanced practitioners attaining god-like/deva status through practice.
14. Renewed in the mind (4:23) — collides with self-directed meditative mind-training vocabulary.
15. Mature manhood / fullness of Christ’s stature (4:13) — collides with graduated stages of personal spiritual attainment.

General principle for fencing: every crowded-neighborhood term above must carry a standing translator note (drafted once, reused consistently — not re-derived per occurrence) that names the Buddhist/folk concept being distinguished from and states the positive biblical content in one sentence. This is more efficient and more consistent than the ad hoc case-by-case notes used for the pure vocabulary gaps in §2.1, since crowded-neighborhood risk recurs by nature of the shared vocabulary, not by nature of the specific verse.

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Section 3: Transliteration vs. Paraphrase Decisions

Term	Greek	Decision	Rationale
Christ	Χριστός	Retain established transliteration/title ခရစ်တော်	Fixed Myanmar Christian proper-name form; paraphrase would destroy the “in Christ” union theology that structures the entire letter.
Jesus	Ἰησοῦς	Retain established transliteration ယေရှု	Judson-tradition standard form; no paraphrase considered.
Mystery	μυστήριον	Paraphrase (လျှို့ဝှက်ချက်တော်), not transliteration	A transliterated “mysterion”-style loanword would carry zero inherited meaning for a Burmese reader and would not resolve the underlying esoteric-teaching collision risk anyway; paraphrase at least permits fencing notes to attach to a meaningful native compound.
Predestined	προορίζω	Paraphrase (coined descriptive compound)	No transliteration tradition exists for this term in Myanmar Bible history (unlike Messiah/Amen/Hallelujah); a coined Burmese descriptive phrase is more teachable and more resistant to karmic reinterpretation than an opaque loanword would be.
Abba	אַבָּא	Retain transliteration အဗ္ဘ (per Romans baseline, applicable if Ephesians’ “Abba, Father” language is cross-referenced in teaching materials though the term itself does not recur independently in Ephesians)	Precedent from Romans baseline; preserves Aramaic intimacy register alongside the formal Burmese အဖ.
Armor pieces (belt, breastplate, shield, helmet, sword)	ζώνη, θώραξ, θυρεός, περικεφαλαία, μάχαιρα	Paraphrase using ordinary Burmese military/equipment vocabulary, not transliteration of Greco-Roman military terms	Ordinary Burmese words for these equipment items (ခါးပန်း, ရင်အုပ်သံချပ်, ဒိုင်း, သံခေါင်းအုပ်, ဓား) are immediately concrete and visualizable; transliterating Roman legionary terms would add an opaque layer of foreignness with no compensating doctrinal gain.
Mara (the devil)	διάβολος	Retain existing Myanmar Christian term မာရ်နတ် (not a fresh transliteration of “diabolos”)	Already established Myanmar Christian usage; changing it now would break decades of consistent Bible translation practice. The residual collision with the Buddhist Mara figure is handled by fencing notes (§2.2), not by abandoning the established term.
Amen / Hallelujah (if occurring in liturgical framing material)	ἀμήν / ἁλληλουϊά	Retain established transliterations အာမင် / ဟာလေလုယ	Per baseline AI translation requirements; no paraphrase considered for these liturgical exclamations.
Messiah-register terms (Χριστός used in an explicit OT-fulfillment sense, if it recurs in teaching cross-references to Romans)	Χριστός / Μεσσίας	Reserve the transliterated မေရှိယ only for explicit OT-fulfillment contexts per the Romans baseline; use ခရစ်တော် as Ephesians’ primary proper-name/title rendering	Ephesians uses Χριστός overwhelmingly as a fixed union-formula title (“in Christ”), not as an OT-fulfillment argument as in Romans 9-11; conflating the two registers would blur the letter’s distinct theological emphasis.
Whole armor of God	πανοπλία τοῦ Θεοῦ	Paraphrase, not transliteration of “panoplia”	A loanword would forfeit the concrete martial imagery entirely; the compound ဘုရားသခင်၏ စစ်တန်ဆာအစုံ retains the vivid picture while remaining fenceable against amulet-culture misreading.
Household code terms (δοῦλος/κύριος as human master)	δοῦλος / κύριος	Reuse existing Burmese social vocabulary ကျွန် / သခင်, not a new coinage or transliteration	These are ordinary first-century household social roles with direct Burmese social-vocabulary equivalents; the risk is disambiguation from the divine-Lord sense (handled by translator note), not lexical gap.

General principle applied throughout: transliteration is reserved for (a) proper names with an unbroken Myanmar Bible translation tradition, and (b) liturgical exclamations with no semantic content to paraphrase. Every other new theological term in this curriculum is handled by paraphrase/compounding, because a fresh loanword would carry no inherited meaning for the target audience and would forfeit the opportunity to build in doctrinal fencing at the point of translation itself.

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Section 4: Standing Translator-Note Templates (for repeated crowded-neighborhood terms)

To avoid re-deriving the same doctrinal caution at every occurrence (per the core glossary’s Step-2 recommendation), the following standing note templates should be finalized in Phase 2 tooling and attached wherever the associated term occurs:

• Grace/works template (Eph 2:5,7,8,9,10; 3:2,7,8; 4:7; 6:24): “ကျေးဇူးတော် (grace) here stands in direct antithesis to ကောင်းမှုအကျင့် (works). Salvation is God’s unilateral gift, never secured or supplemented by merit-making (ကုသိုလ်ပြုခြင်း). Where ကောင်းမှုအကျင့် recurs in v.10 as fruit rather than cause, this must be explicitly flagged as the opposite argumentative direction from v.9.”
• Agapē template (1:4-5; 2:4; 3:17-19; 4:2,15-16; 5:2,25,28,33; 6:23-24): “ချစ်ခြင်းမေတ္တာ here denotes God’s chosen, self-sacrificial, covenantal love culminating in the cross (5:25), not the cultivated, impartially-radiated mental state named by the Buddhist brahmavihara မေတ္တာ.”
• Sealed/armor/amulet template (1:13; 4:30; 6:11,13): “This term describes God’s own authenticating ownership-mark or protective equipment for an already-decided spiritual conflict (cf. 1:20-22), not a magically protective tattoo, amulet, or charm (in-saq/ban) as understood in Burmese folk practice.”
• Spiritual powers template (1:21; 3:10; 6:12): “These are real, personal, hierarchically organized evil beings under a defeated commander (Satan), not an impersonal cosmic force and not one tier among the 37 nats, territorial guardian spirits, or weizza occult powers. Believers are never directed to seek mediation from such figures; prayer in Christ’s name and the armor of God are the sole prescribed defense.”
• Mystery template (1:9; 3:3-6,9; 5:32; 6:19): “This ‘mystery’ is now fully and openly disclosed to every believer, not an esoteric teaching reserved for an initiated elite comparable to weizza secret knowledge or advanced monastic instruction.”
• Mara template (6:11): “မာရ်နတ် here names the same personal biblical Satan of Eph 2:2, defeated but still active; not the distinct tempter-figure named Mara in the Buddha’s enlightenment narrative.”

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Section 5: Ranked List of the Letter’s Highest-Risk Ambiguities

Ranked by combined severity (doctrinal centrality × probability of misreading given Burmese religious-linguistic context). All items below require mandatory human theologian review per the escalation rules extended from the baseline.

1. Ephesians 2:9 vs. 2:10 — Identical Burmese word (ကောင်းမှုအကျင့်) for “works excluded as cause” and “works included as fruit.” The single highest-stakes ambiguity in the letter: a reader moving from v.9 to v.10 without an explicit note will very naturally read Paul as first denying and then immediately re-affirming merit-based salvation — precisely reversing his argument. Mandatory paired translator note at every occurrence of this doctrinal pivot.
2. Ephesians 6:12 (with 1:21, 3:10) — Rulers, authorities, cosmic powers, spiritual forces of evil. The densest possible collision with Burmese cosmology’s populated spirit-world; risk is not incomprehension but active syncretistic reinterpretation (seeking nat/astrology/weizza mediation as a “solution” the passage itself excludes).
3. Ephesians 4:30 — Grieve the Holy Spirit. Requires the Spirit’s full personhood against Theravada anatta’s denial of any permanent self/spirit-entity; a mistranslation here does not just weaken a doctrine but potentially depersonalizes the entire Trinity for the passage’s readers.
4. Ephesians 6:5-9 — κύριος as human master vs. divine Lord. Unique to this letter within the curricula processed so far; failure to disambiguate risks either deifying a human slave-master or, conversely, weakening the reader’s sense of Christ’s supreme Lordship elsewhere in the letter through habituation to a lower-case usage of the identical Burmese word သခင်.
5. Ephesians 1:5,11 — Predestined, set against ကံဇာတာ/ကံကြမ္မာ. The coined compound is linguistically safer than any existing word, but the doctrine itself (a personal God’s pre-creation determination) is the single hardest concept in the letter for a karma-formed worldview to receive without flattening it into fatalism.
6. Ephesians 5:22-33 — Wife submission/husband headship, isolated from 5:25’s self-sacrificial standard. Highest risk of selective citation in a culture with strong existing patriarchal norms; the danger is not incomprehension of ဦးခေါင်း/နာခံခြင်း but their misapplication when detached from the passage’s controlling Christ-pattern.
7. Ephesians 1:13; 4:30 — Sealed with the Spirit vs. protective amulet-sealing (in-saq). A believer catechized without the fencing note may functionally treat the Spirit’s seal as a superior version of an amulet rather than as relational, ownership-conferring divine action.
8. Ephesians 6:11,13 — Armor of God vs. protective charms/tattoos. Closely related to #7; the martial metaphor’s protective function is exactly the functional category occupied by Burmese folk-protective objects, making this a high-probability site of devotional (not merely doctrinal) syncretism.
9. Ephesians 2:14-15 — Dividing wall of hostility / one new man. Doctrinally central to the unity thesis and carries live social-application stakes in a country where ethnic-minority Christian identity and Bamar-Buddhist-majority identity are already in tension; mistranslation risks either historical obscurity (readers miss the Jew-Gentile referent entirely) or unintended contemporary political reading.
10. Ephesians 1:9; 3:3-6,9; 5:32; 6:19 — Mystery, against weizza/esoteric-teaching associations. Lower probability of doctrinal collapse than items 1-9 above (the term’s own content, once explained, is fairly resistant to confusion), but its five recurrences across the letter mean an unfenced first occurrence tends to propagate the misreading through every subsequent one.

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Summary for Phase 2 Handoff

• Terms in Table 2 of the core glossary (08_core_glossary.md) requiring coined descriptive compounds rather than transliteration are now finalized in §3 above and should be written into the Ephesians translation_memory.json extension without further linguistic deliberation.
• The six standing translator-note templates in §4 should be implemented as reusable snippets in Phase 2 tooling rather than freshly authored per segment, both for efficiency and for consistency across the 98 terms catalogued in the core glossary.
• The ranked ambiguity list in §5 should directly inform Phase 2 Step 16/17 review-routing priority: items 1-5 warrant first-pass theologian review before any batch translation of chapters 2, 4, and 6 begins.