Linguistic Gap Analysis
Linguistic Gap Analysis: Mark 1–16 (French)
Purpose
This document executes Phase 1 Step 8 of the TRI pipeline for the Gospel of Mark, English → French. It identifies where standard French Bible vocabulary is adequate, where it is missing, and where it is “crowded” — i.e., a single French word must carry multiple distinct theological senses that risk bleeding into one another. It extends, and must not contradict, the baseline Romans translation_memory.json and bible_term_registry.json. Every reused baseline term (Fils de Dieu, Seigneur, grâce, élection, Église, etc.) is treated here as a fixed constraint, not a fresh translation decision.
Coverage is the full book of Mark, chapters 1–16, anchored theologically in the core passage Mark 10:35–45 (the request of James and John, and the ransom saying). Chapters that raise no new terminology or doctrinal collision beyond what is already logged are explicitly marked “reviewed, no new load-bearing gap” below rather than omitted.
1. Doctrine Vocabulary Matrix
For each of the eight curriculum doctrines: the available French terms, their specific weaknesses/collision risks in this Mark curriculum, and the recommended handling strategy.
1.1 Jesus as the Suffering Servant and Son of God
| Available French terms | Weaknesses | Recommended strategy |
|---|---|---|
| Fils de Dieu (baseline, Critical) | None inherent to the term itself; risk lies in under-teaching the inclusio (1:1, 1:11, 3:11, 5:7, 9:7, 14:61, 15:39) as one continuous thread | Reuse exactly; add explicit cross-reference notes at each occurrence so the inclusio is traceable |
| Fils de l’homme (new, Critical) | Reads in ordinary French as a plain circumlocution for “a human being,” losing Daniel 7’s fixed-title, dominion-and-suffering freight | Capitalize as a title; anchor first occurrence (2:10) with a Daniel 7 cross-reference note; render identically at all ~14 occurrences |
| souffrir / Serviteur souffrant (new) | “Souffrir” is theologically inert in French — it carries no built-in redemptive-suffering resonance the way “Ebed YHWH” language does in Hebrew | Pair every occurrence of the Passion-prediction “souffrir” with explicit Isaiah 53 framing in teaching notes, not the word alone |
| Messie (baseline, Medium) | Popular French usage can flatten “Messie” toward “a long-awaited hero/savior figure” in a secular metaphorical sense (e.g. sports journalism calling a player “le messie”) | Retain baseline term; anchor Peter’s confession (8:29) explicitly against the false-messiah warnings later (13:21-22) to keep the referent singular and exclusive |
Gap: French has no single word combining “Servant” (in the Isaianic sense) and “Son” the way the doctrine title does; the pairing must be carried by the curriculum’s own framing language, not by any one term.
1.2 The Kingdom of God Breaking In
| Available French terms | Weaknesses | Recommended strategy |
|---|---|---|
| Royaume de Dieu (baseline, Medium) | Secular French political vocabulary (“royaume,” monarchy nostalgia, EU/republic contrast) can pull toward a territorial-nationalist reading | Reuse exactly; 1:15’s “s’est approché” (has come near) must retain dynamic, in-breaking force, not a static realm |
| mystère (new, Medium) | Detective/thriller genre association (“un mystère à résoudre”) implies an unsolved human puzzle rather than a divine disclosure withheld/given by revelation | Gloss at first use (4:11): “un mystère révélé, non un mystère à percer” |
| Évangile (baseline, Low) | Stable; minor risk only from general biblical illiteracy about the content behind the word | Reuse exactly |
| les nations / païens (baseline, Medium) | “Païens” carries pejorative “uncivilized” overtones stronger than in Mark’s neutral ethnē sense at 10:42, 13:10 | Prefer “les nations” at neutral/positive-scope passages; reserve “païens” only where the text itself marks outsider status negatively |
Gap: No single French term captures the “already/not yet” tension of the in-breaking kingdom; this must be carried by verb tense and teaching commentary, not vocabulary alone.
1.3 Faith and Discipleship amid Fear
| Available French terms | Weaknesses | Recommended strategy |
|---|---|---|
| foi (baseline, Medium) | Risk of drifting toward “la religion”/institutional identity rather than personal trust exercised in crisis (4:40, 5:34, 9:23-24, 10:52) | Reuse exactly; keep the healing-formula “ta foi t’a sauvé” tightly bound to the specific narrative act of trust |
| peur / crainte (new, High) | French cleanly splits self-protective fright (“peur”) from reverential awe (“crainte”), but Mark’s phobos regularly straddles both senses across 4:41, 5:33, 6:50, 9:32, 10:32, 16:8 | Judge per occurrence; where the narrative arc moves fear toward worship, prefer “crainte” or a doubled gloss (“saisis de crainte”) to preserve the positive trajectory |
| disciple (new, Medium) | Secular usage (“les disciples d’un philosophe/gourou”) reduces it to intellectual allegiance | Anchor at first use (1:16-20) with the concrete, total-abandonment narrative detail (leaving nets immediately) |
Gap: No French idiom exists that fuses “faith” and “fear” as two poles of one disciple posture the way Mark’s narrative structures them; the curriculum’s teaching apparatus, not the lexicon, must do this work.
1.4 The Necessity of the Cross
| Available French terms | Weaknesses | Recommended strategy |
|---|---|---|
| il faut / il est nécessaire (new, High) | “Il faut” is the everyday circumstantial-obligation verb (“il faut partir”); it carries no inherent theological weight | Reinforce every occurrence (8:31, 9:11, 13:7, 13:10, 14:31) with “selon le plan de Dieu” or equivalent explicit framing |
| croix / crucifier (new, Critical) | The idiom “porter sa croix” is fully secularized in French for any generic burden (workplace stress, illness) | Assert the concrete Roman execution referent (15:20-27) before any metaphorical extension (8:34) is taught |
| coupe / baptême (metaphorical) (new, Medium) | “Coupe” is a neutral drinking vessel; “baptême” defaults to the sacramental rite | Both require explicit OT/teaching-note anchoring (Ps 75:8; Isa 51:17) at 10:38-39; do not rely on the bare word |
Gap: French possesses no single term for “necessary redemptive suffering decreed by God” — this entire doctrine depends on compounding otherwise-ordinary words (il faut, souffrir, croix) with sustained explicit cross-referencing, a structural gap the curriculum notes must close.
1.5 Servanthood versus Worldly Greatness
| Available French terms | Weaknesses | Recommended strategy |
|---|---|---|
| serviteur (new, High) | Risk of collapsing into the later, narrower ecclesial office “diacre” if diakonos is mistranslated | Never render diakonos as “diacre”; keep “serviteur” as the universal-ethic term |
| esclave (new, Critical) | France’s own historical memory of slavery (esclavage, Code Noir, 1848 abolition, contemporary reparations debate) makes this a live, weighted word, not a neutral archaism | Do not soften to “serviteur”; require theologian review with explicit pastoral framing acknowledging the word’s live cultural weight before use |
| dominer / exercer un pouvoir autoritaire sur (new, High) | Both must avoid any echo of the positive “Seigneur”/“autorité” vocabulary used elsewhere of Christ’s legitimate authority | Confirm no French cognate overlap survives in translation; verify against baseline “Seigneur” and Mark’s own “autorité” entries at review |
| grand / le plus grand (comparative “greatness”) | No inherent risk; French comparative forms are semantically neutral | Standard rendering; ensure the paradox (greatest = servant/slave) lands clearly at 9:35, 10:43-44 |
Gap: The deliberate Greek escalation diakonos → doulos (10:43-44) has a clean French parallel (serviteur → esclave), which is a rare case of gap absence — but the cultural weight difference (French slavery memory vs. first-century Greco-Roman slavery) is itself a new risk requiring careful handling, not a lexical gap.
1.6 The Messianic Secret
| Available French terms | Weaknesses | Recommended strategy |
|---|---|---|
| réduire au silence / ordonner strictement (new, High) | Risk of reading as a single isolated command rather than a recurring narrative device (1:25, 1:34, 1:44, 3:12, 5:43, 7:36, 8:30, 9:9) | Render identically at every occurrence so the pattern is traceable across the whole book |
| le Saint de Dieu (new, High) | Risk of reading as a generic descriptor of moral purity rather than a fixed divine title | Capitalize; treat as parallel in force to “Fils de Dieu” |
| signe (new, Medium) | Secular demand for empirical “proof” (French rationalist/laïque culture) risks reframing 8:11-12 as a scientific-verification request rather than a faith-response marker | Retain “signe” but frame contextually against demanded-on-skeptical-terms reading |
Gap: No French term exists for “a truth disclosed yet deliberately suppressed pending the right narrative moment” as a single word; this doctrine is entirely carried by consistent cross-referencing of the silence-command formula across chapters, which the glossary must enforce rigidly.
1.7 Jesus’ Authority over Sickness, Sin, and Nature
| Available French terms | Weaknesses | Recommended strategy |
|---|---|---|
| autorité (new, High) | Can default to bureaucratic/administrative authority in ordinary French, losing the astonishment sense of 1:22, 1:27 | Anchor with narrative reaction language (“ils étaient stupéfaits”) to preserve the astonishment |
| pardonner (new, High) | Risk of reading as ordinary interpersonal forgiveness rather than a direct divine prerogative claimed by Jesus | Keep tightly bound to the blasphemy charge context (2:5-10) so the divine-authority claim is unmistakable |
| esprit impur / démon (new, Medium) | Secularizing French horror-genre and therapeutic usage (“avoir des démons” = personal struggles) risks metaphorical flattening | Assert real personal malevolent-being referent at first occurrence (1:23-27) |
| sauver / guérir (σῴζω, new, Medium) | French must split one Greek verb into two words, losing Mark’s deliberate wordplay | Footnote the wordplay at 5:34 and 10:52 so readers see the connection |
| sabbat (new, Medium) | France-specific collision: “le sabbat des sorcières” (witches’ sabbath) is a live folkloric/horror association adjacent to the biblical term | Flag for catechetical footnote at first occurrence (1:21) to preempt the folkloric association |
Gap: No gap in core vocabulary; the risk category here is entirely collision/crowding (see Section 2), not absence.
1.8 The Ransom for Many
| Available French terms | Weaknesses | Recommended strategy |
|---|---|---|
| rançon (new, Critical) | Contemporary French usage is dominated by kidnapping/hostage news reporting (“payer une rançon aux ravisseurs”), risking a commercial-transactional reading that erases the Isaiah 53 sacrificial background | Mandatory Isaiah 53 cross-reference at every occurrence (10:45); theologian review required every time |
| à la place de (ἀντί, new, Critical) | Risk of softening to a generic “pour” (for), which exists in French but blurs substitution into mere benefit | Never substitute “pour” for “à la place de” at 10:45; keep distinct from the “on behalf of” (hyper) rendering at 14:24 |
| beaucoup (πολλῶν, new, High) | Risk of expansion to “tous” (universalist drift) or contraction to “quelques-uns” (limiting drift) | Render the exact scope; flag for theologian review given live atonement-scope debate |
| vie / âme (ψυχή, new, Medium) | “Âme” risks a body/soul dualism (only the immaterial part given); “vie” risks losing any eternal-destiny resonance | Prefer “vie” at 10:45 specifically; permit either at 8:35-37 with a note that both render one Greek word |
| corps / sang (new, High) | Live French Catholic/Protestant Eucharistic flashpoint (transubstantiation vs. memorial/spiritual presence) | Render plainly; flag for theologian review rather than resolving the sacramental debate in the translation itself |
Gap: This is the curriculum’s single highest-density gap cluster. French has no ransom-payment word untouched by the modern hostage-crisis news register, and no way to grammatically encode substitution as economically as ἀντί without an explicit multi-word phrase. This doctrine requires the heaviest teaching-note support of any doctrine in the curriculum.
2. Missing Vocabulary vs. Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods
2.1 Missing Vocabulary (no adequate existing French term; requires compounding, glossing, or coinage-by-context)
| Concept | Why French lacks a clean equivalent | Resolution |
|---|---|---|
| λύτρον as sacrificial-substitutionary ransom | ”Rançon” is captured by the hostage/kidnapping register | Compound with mandatory Isaiah 53 cross-reference; never stand alone |
| ἀντί’s grammatical substitution force | French has no single-morpheme substitutionary preposition equivalent to ἀντί; “à la place de” is a phrase, not a word | Accept the multi-word phrase as the fixed rendering; forbid “pour” as a substitute |
| δεῖ’s divine-necessity force | ”Il faut” is purely circumstantial in ordinary register | Always co-occur with explicit divine-plan language |
| Fils de l’homme’s Daniel 7 title-force | The literal French phrase reads as a generic human-being description | Capitalize as a fixed title; require cross-reference note at first occurrence |
| διάκονος → δοῦλος escalation’s rhetorical shock | French “serviteur”/“esclave” preserves the lexical escalation but not automatically the shock, since modern French readers may not immediately register ancient slavery’s totalizing legal status | Teaching notes must supply the ancient legal-status contrast (no personhood, no wages, no exit) alongside the modern cultural-memory weight |
| γέεννα’s Hinnom Valley background | French readers lack the historical referent and default to a generic literary “enfer” (Dante-inflected) | Glossed transliteration with brief historical note at first occurrence (9:43-47) |
2.2 Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods (one French word serving multiple, potentially colliding, senses)
These require explicit “fencing” — deliberate scope restriction through context, capitalization, or qualifying words — to keep senses from bleeding into one another.
| French word | Competing senses in this curriculum | Fencing strategy |
|---|---|---|
| Seigneur | (a) Kyrios/exclusive divine Lordship [baseline Critical]; (b) feudal-historical “seigneur du château” register; (c) must be kept distinct from “Maître” (Teacher-address) at 10:35, where James/John petition Jesus as instructor, not yet in full Lordship confession | Reserve “Seigneur” strictly for kyrios contexts; use “Maître” for didaskalos; never let the two converge prematurely in the same passage |
| Maître | (a) Disciple’s honorific address for Jesus (didaskalos); (b) ordinary French senses of employer, slave-owner, professional expert | Context (Jesus as teacher within a discipleship narrative) sufficiently fences this at 10:35, 10:51, etc.; no gloss needed but consistency required |
| autorité / dominer / exercer un pouvoir autoritaire sur | Positive, Christ-derived legitimate authority (exousia) vs. negative worldly domination (katakyrieuō, katexousiazō) at 10:42-43 | Use entirely distinct verbs/phrases (never share the “autorité” or “Seigneur” root) for the negative examples so no positive echo survives |
| sabbat | (a) Biblical Sabbath/Torah day of rest; (b) folkloric “sabbat des sorcières” (witches’ gathering) | Footnote at first occurrence; context (Torah legal controversy) generally disambiguates but low-literacy readers benefit from an explicit note |
| rançon | (a) Isaiah-53-shaped sacrificial atonement; (b) contemporary kidnapping/hostage payment (dominant news-register sense) | Mandatory doctrinal framing every occurrence; never let the word stand alone in a segment |
| serviteur / diacre | (a) Universal servant-ethic (diakonos); (b) specific Catholic ecclesial office of deacon | Absolute prohibition on “diacre” for diakonos in this curriculum |
| mystère | (a) Divinely disclosed revelation; (b) unsolved detective-genre puzzle | Explicit gloss at first occurrence (4:11) reversing the expected direction of disclosure |
| croix | (a) Concrete Roman execution instrument (15:20-27); (b) fully secularized idiom “porter sa croix” for any burden | Assert the concrete referent first; only then permit the metaphorical extension (8:34) under firm doctrinal guardrails |
| cœur | (a) Hebraic whole inner moral/volitional center (kardia); (b) purely emotional/sentimental French register (“avoir du cœur”) | Anchor at 7:6, 7:19, 7:21 by pairing with will/thought vocabulary, not feeling vocabulary |
| amour / aimer | (a) Willed, covenantal agapē (Great Commandment, 12:29-31); (b) dominant romantic/eros connotation in French popular culture | Anchor by object (Dieu, le prochain) and imperative mood (“tu aimeras”) rather than relying on the noun alone |
| corps / sang | (a) Neutral narrative description; (b) live Catholic Eucharistic (transubstantiation) vs. Protestant memorial/spiritual-presence theological dispute | Render plainly at 14:22-24; flag for theologian review; do not adjudicate the sacramental debate through word choice |
| tradition | (a) Jesus’ specific first-century critique of “the tradition of men” (7:1-13); (b) the broader French Catholic-Protestant sola scriptura vs. Scripture-and-Tradition confessional divide | Keep narrowly historical/exegetical at 7:1-13; avoid language that reads as adjudicating the broader confessional debate |
| élection / élus [baseline High] | (a) God’s sovereign choice (13:20, 13:22, 13:27); (b) everyday political/democratic election | Reuse baseline caution; always context-anchor as divine sovereign gathering, never competitive process |
| peur / crainte | Self-protective fright vs. reverential awe — the same Greek word (phobos) straddles both across the Faith-and-Fear doctrine’s narrative arc | Judge per occurrence per Section 1.3 above; do not default mechanically to one word |
3. Transliteration vs. Paraphrase Decisions
| Term (source) | Decision | Rationale |
|---|---|---|
| Abba (14:36) | Transliterate, retain untranslated | Baseline precedent (Romans 8:15); Mark himself preserves it in Aramaic before Jesus’ own address; French tradition (Segond, TOB, BJ) all retain it |
| Talitha koum (5:41) | Transliterate + Mark’s own gloss (“petite fille, lève-toi”) | Mark himself supplies the gloss immediately after the Aramaic; follow his precedent exactly, do not add an independent French paraphrase |
| Éloï, Éloï, lama sabachthani (15:34) | Transliterate + Mark’s own gloss (Psalm 22:1 citation) | Same principle as Talitha koum; the doctrinal weight of the cry of dereliction is best left to teaching commentary, not resolved by translation choice |
| Corban (7:11) | Transliterate + brief explanatory gloss (“une offrande vouée à Dieu”) | No French equivalent exists; pure information gap, not a false-friend risk |
| Hosanna (11:9-10) | Transliterate (standard liturgical term, used in Catholic Sanctus also) | Established across French Christian liturgical tradition; gloss original “sauve maintenant” sense given low OT literacy |
| Golgotha (15:22) | Transliterate + traditional gloss (“lieu du crâne”) | Standard across all French Bible traditions |
| Béelzébul (3:22) | Transliterate + brief gloss (“le prince des démons”) | Standard proper name; gloss aids low-literacy readers |
| Fils de l’homme (throughout) | Paraphrase (literal phrase-translation), NOT transliteration | Established French rendering across Segond/TOB/BJ; risk lies in insufficient title-force signaling (capitalization + cross-reference), not in the choice of literal translation over transliteration |
| Rançon (10:45) | Paraphrase (translate, do not transliterate a Greek loanword) | No transliteration option exists in normal French religious register; the risk is semantic crowding (Section 2.2), not a transliteration-vs-translation choice |
| Géhenne (9:43-47) | Transliterate (already an established loanword in French Bible tradition) + explanatory gloss | ”Géhenne” is itself a transliteration already fixed in French Bible tradition; supplement with Hinnom Valley background note since the transliteration alone carries no inherent meaning for readers |
| Pâque (14:1, 14:12-16) | Use established French term, singular form only | Must NOT use plural “Pâques” (Christian Easter); orthographic precision is doctrinally significant here, distinguishing the Jewish feast referent from the later Christian festival |
| Sabbat (1:21, 2:23-28) | Use established French term, no transliteration alternative exists | Accept the folkloric-collision risk (Section 2.2) and manage it through footnoting rather than seeking an alternate rendering |
General principle applied: Transliterate only where (a) Mark himself transliterates and glosses (Aramaic phrases), or (b) French Bible tradition has already fixed a transliterated loanword with no viable paraphrase (Géhenne, Corban, Hosanna, Golgotha, Béelzébul, Messie, Pâque). Elsewhere, paraphrase/translate and manage risk through glossing, capitalization, and cross-referencing rather than through transliteration.
4. Ranked List of Highest-Risk Ambiguities
Ranked by combined severity of doctrinal consequence and likelihood of misreading by the target audience (practicing/lapsed Catholics, small evangelical/Reformed minority, secular biblically-unchurched readers).
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λύτρον → rançon (10:45) — Critical. The dominant contemporary French register (hostage/kidnapping ransom) risks completely re-framing the atonement as a commercial transaction rather than Isaiah-53-shaped substitutionary sacrifice. Highest-frequency real-world collision of any term in this curriculum.
-
ἀντί → à la place de vs. “pour” (10:45) — Critical. A single wrong preposition choice erases the grammatical encoding of substitutionary atonement; “pour” is the natural, easy, wrong shortcut a less careful translator would reach for.
-
δοῦλος → esclave (10:44) — Critical. France’s own unresolved national reckoning with slavery memory makes this word emotionally loaded in a way the original Greco-Roman social category was not for its first readers; softening to “serviteur” erases Jesus’ deliberate rhetorical escalation, but using “esclave” without pastoral framing risks reader shock disconnected from the intended doctrinal point.
-
Seigneur vs. Maître at 10:35-45 — High. The core passage itself contains the highest-density collision risk in the curriculum: James and John address Jesus as “Maître” while the passage teaches about who will hold true “seigneurie” (lordship) in the Kingdom, inverted through “esclave.” A translator conflating Maître/Seigneur register would blur the passage’s central irony.
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κατακυριεύω/κατεξουσιάζω vs. legitimate autorité/Seigneur vocabulary (10:42-43) — High. Both negative terms are etymologically built on roots (kyrios, exousia) that are elsewhere positively associated with Christ; any French rendering that lets the shared root show risks implying Christ’s own lordship is the same kind of domination being condemned.
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Fils de l’homme as title vs. generic humanity description — Critical. Occurs ~14 times across the whole book; if the capitalized-title force is lost even once, the reader loses the Daniel 7 authority-and-suffering fusion at that occurrence, with cumulative effect across the narrative.
-
σῴζω split into sauver/guérir (5:34, 10:52) — Medium-High. Mark’s deliberate wordplay (a single verb spanning healing and salvation) is structurally unrenderable as one French word; losing the connection weakens the doctrine that physical healing points toward eschatological salvation.
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corps/sang at the Last Supper (14:22-24) — High. The single most historically fraught confessional flashpoint in French Christianity (transubstantiation vs. memorial view); any translation choice beyond the plain words risks appearing to adjudicate the debate.
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rançon’s scope: beaucoup (πολλῶν) vs. tous — High. A translator’s instinct toward inclusive, evangelistically warm language could accidentally universalize “beaucoup” into “tous,” altering the atonement-scope claim of the passage.
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γέεννα vs. literary/Dantean “enfer” — Medium. Without the Hinnom Valley background, French readers will default to inherited literary imagery rather than Jesus’ concrete OT-rooted image.
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sabbat’s witches’-sabbath folkloric adjacency (1:21, 2:23-28) — Medium. Low probability of a reader consciously confusing the two referents, but the associative field is real and worth a preemptive footnote given the multiple recurrences.
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mystère’s detective-genre default (4:11) — Medium. A secular French reader’s first association (a puzzle to be solved) inverts the direction of revelation Mark intends (a truth disclosed by grace, not deduced by cleverness).
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peur/crainte’s fear-to-awe arc (4:41 through 16:8) — Medium-High cumulative risk. No single occurrence is Critical, but inconsistent handling across eight recurrences would obscure the Faith-and-Discipleship-amid-Fear doctrine’s narrative trajectory as a whole.
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tradition’s Catholic/Protestant confessional resonance (7:1-13) — Medium. Risk is subtler than most entries: not a mistranslation of the word itself, but a risk that French readers import the wrong debate (sola scriptura controversy) into a narrowly first-century exegetical point.
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cœur’s sentimental drift (7:6, 7:19, 7:21) — Medium. Lower doctrinal stakes than the above, but affects clarity of Jesus’ teaching on the source of defilement.
5. Full-Book Chapter Coverage Log
Per the full-book coverage mandate, every chapter of Mark has been reviewed for load-bearing terminology and doctrinal collision risk, whether or not it introduces new items beyond what is logged above.
| Chapter | Status |
|---|---|
| 1 | Load-bearing: gospel, Son of God, baptism, repentance, disciple, authority, unclean spirit/demon, Holy One of God, silence command, Sabbath. Covered in Sections 1, 2, 3 above. |
| 2 | Load-bearing: forgive sins, Sabbath (Lord of the Sabbath), Son of Man (first occurrence), bridegroom, fasting. Covered above. |
| 3 | Load-bearing: the Twelve, Beelzebul, blasphemy, Son of God (demon confession). Covered above. |
| 4 | Load-bearing: parable, mystery, kingdom of God, fear (first major occurrence). Covered above. |
| 5 | Load-bearing: fear, faith/healing formula, save/heal wordplay, Talitha koum. Covered above. |
| 6 | Load-bearing: send/commission, bless, prophet (self-application), fear/awe register continues. Covered above. Reviewed; no new load-bearing gap beyond items already logged. |
| 7 | Load-bearing: tradition, defile/common, Corban, heart, Gentiles (Syrophoenician woman). Covered above. |
| 8 | Load-bearing: sign, save/heal, divine necessity (dei), suffer, cross/crucify, deny oneself, soul/life, glory (first eschatological use). Covered above; this chapter carries the pivot into the Necessity-of-the-Cross doctrine. |
| 9 | Load-bearing: transfigured, beloved, Son of Man (Passion prediction recurrence), Gehenna, faith (9:23-24). Covered above. |
| 10 | Load-bearing: divorce, eternal life, core passage (10:35-45): Teacher/Maître, cup, baptism-metaphorical, dominate/lord-over, exercise-authority-over, servant, slave, Son of Man, soul/life, ransom, in-place-of, many, Son of David, Bartimaeus’s un-silenced confession. This is the theological anchor chapter; every entry above traces to it. |
| 11 | Load-bearing: Hosanna, kingdom entry acclamation, chief priests/scribes/elders, authority challenge (11:27-33, echoing ch.1’s authority theme). Covered above. |
| 12 | Load-bearing: love/Great Commandment, David/Son of David riddle (Psalm 110, double-Kyrios), Caesar, resurrection (Sadducee controversy), election/elect groundwork for ch.13. Covered above. |
| 13 | Load-bearing: tribulation, false messiahs/false prophets, election/elect (13:20, 22, 27), watch/be alert, divine necessity (dei) recurrence, Gentiles/nations (mission scope). Covered above. |
| 14 | Load-bearing: Passover, body/blood, hand over/betray, covenant, Abba, cup (literal Gethsemane recurrence), watch/be alert (Gethsemane recurrence), Son of Man (recurrence). Covered above. |
| 15 | Load-bearing: King of the Jews, Golgotha, Eloi Eloi lama sabachthani, temple veil, Son of God (centurion’s climactic confession), cross/crucify (literal). Covered above. |
| 16 | Load-bearing: resurrection (empty tomb announcement), proclaim (Great-Commission-parallel, gospel inclusio with 1:1), fear (closing occurrence, 16:8). Covered above. |
6. Summary of Recommendations Feeding Forward to Phase 2
- All baseline Romans terms reused in Mark (Fils de Dieu, Seigneur, Esprit Saint, Royaume de Dieu, foi, élection, etc.) must be applied with zero deviation from
translation_memory.json. - Six Mark-specific Critical-risk terms (Fils de l’homme, esclave, rançon, à la place de, souffrir, croix/crucifier) require theologian review at every single occurrence without exception.
- The crowded-neighborhood pairs identified in Section 2.2 — especially Seigneur/Maître, autorité/dominer, rançon/kidnapping-ransom, and serviteur/diacre — require active fencing at every occurrence, not merely a one-time glossary note.
- The core passage (Mark 10:35-45) concentrates a disproportionate share of this curriculum’s highest-risk ambiguities (items 2, 3, 4, 5, 9 in the ranked list) and should receive the most intensive review pass of any single passage in the book.
- Recurring narrative-device vocabulary (silence commands, fear, watch/be alert, divine necessity) must be rendered identically at every occurrence across all 16 chapters so French readers can trace these motifs as Mark’s own deliberate compositional devices.
This document feeds 07_semantic_analysis.md and 08_core_glossary.md and must be read alongside the baseline translation_memory.json, bible_term_registry.json, and doctrine_risk_registry.json before Phase 2 translation begins.