Executive Summary — Exodus | English → French

Why it matters

Exodus is the theologically densest book this pipeline has processed for French to date. Unlike Romans’ NT Greek vocabulary, which already has five centuries of stable francophone Bible-translation precedent, Exodus introduces the Hebrew divine name, the cultic vocabulary of sacrifice and priesthood, and a concentration of terms that collide directly with French Catholic sacramental and devotional vocabulary — the same word, “tabernacle,” names both Israel’s wilderness sanctuary and the cabinet holding the reserved Eucharistic host in virtually every French Catholic church. Get this wrong and the curriculum’s core teaching — that God dwells among his redeemed people, culminating in the Incarnation — is silently overwritten by an unrelated, if devotionally powerful, Catholic association. The core passage, Exodus 12:1–14, sits inside a near-homograph trap of its own: “la Pâque” (Passover) versus “Pâques” (Easter).

Key findings

• 31 doctrines mapped across all 40 chapters (full-book coverage confirmed); 10 Critical and 12 High-risk doctrines require mandatory human theologian review — 22 of 31 doctrines (71%) — versus the Romans baseline’s 12 of 40.
• 81 terms in the Exodus term registry; 11 Critical and 20 High-risk terms (31 terms, 38% of the registry) require mandatory theologian review, before native-speaker or automated review even begins.
• The single lexical gap identified across the whole book is Hebrew chesed (covenant-loyalty + active kindness) — no French word carries both senses; every other challenge is disambiguation of an already-adequate French Bible-translation vocabulary, not invention of new vocabulary.
• France’s intra-Christian denominational collision risk (Catholic sacramental terms: tabernacle, expiation, prêtre, onction, mémorial) dominates the risk profile, distinct from — and arguably more acute than — the competing-worldview risks documented for other target languages in this pipeline.
• Two forward-looking cross-curriculum bridges carry Critical weight and must be locked now for future NT curricula: kapporet/“le propitiatoire” → Romans 3:25’s hilastērion, and kevod-YHWH/“la gloire du SEIGNEUR remplit le tabernacle” → the baseline’s Critical Incarnation doctrine (John 1:14).

Risks

Risk	Why it’s dangerous
”le tabernacle” unglossed	Silently reinterprets God’s wilderness dwelling as the Eucharistic host-cabinet for the large Catholic-heritage segment of the audience
”la Pâque” / “Pâques” homograph	Collapses the living Jewish Passover institution into a vague Easter association, or vice versa
”expiation” without directionality note	Inverts the gospel’s God-provides-the-substitute logic into Catholic penitential human-self-satisfaction
”jaloux” unglossed	Attributes petty human emotional insecurity to God’s covenant-exclusive character
”endurcir le cœur” with softened agency	Distorts the Romans 9:17-18 divine-sovereignty argument the baseline already treats as High-risk
chesed collapsed into “grâce”	Erases the covenant-loyalty dimension central to the entire Character-of-God doctrine
”prêtre” / “grand prêtre” unframed	Reads as validation or rejection of contemporary church clergy structures in a mixed Catholic/Protestant/secular audience

Opportunities

• French’s clean “crainte” vs. “peur” distinction is a genuine asset unavailable in English — it lets the curriculum teach Exodus 20:18–20’s fear-of-the-Lord doctrine more precisely than the source text’s own vocabulary allows.
• The established idioms “veau d’or” and “œil pour œil, dent pour dent” already carry correct cautionary/proportionality connotations in ordinary French — no correction needed, only light reinforcement.
• “onction“‘s etymological bridge to baseline “Messie” gives a ready-made, doctrinally rich teaching moment linking Aaronic ordination directly to Christ.
• Segond 21 (S21), YouVersion ID 152, provides a stable, ecumenically acceptable, non-archaic citation base already vetted for this language pair.

Recommended actions

1. Lock the YHWH/“le SEIGNEUR” convention and “Je suis celui qui suis” now, with formal theologian sign-off, before any Phase 2 segment is processed — both are load-bearing in nearly every chapter.
2. Mandate the “tabernacle” clarifying gloss at every occurrence, not merely first use — the highest-priority disambiguation task in the entire French curriculum.
3. Enforce the “la Pâque (juive)” apposition rule at first occurrence in every document without exception, given the core passage’s centrality.
4. Add the dedicated chesed → “amour fidèle” entry to standing theologian review, flagging every recurrence given its frequency and doctrinal weight.
5. Route all 22 Critical/High doctrines and 31 Critical/High terms to human theologian review before native-speaker or automated passes, per the updated assets/doctrine_risk_registry.json and assets/bible_term_registry.json.
6. Coordinate now, not later, on the three binding cross-curriculum renderings (“le propitiatoire,” “le sang de l’alliance,” “endurcir le cœur”) that any future Romans, Matthew, or Hebrews French materials must match exactly.