Linguistic Gap Analysis — Luke (German)

Continuing the established finding across all prior German packages: German again has precise native vocabulary for Luke’s key concepts, with the recurring sensitivity-gap, associative richness, and textual-transmission gap categories applying to new material.

Terms requiring careful qualification

• Selig / arm (Luke’s beatitudes, 6:20): no vocabulary gap, but a disambiguation gap relative to Matthew’s parallel — the same German words could be used for both Gospels’ versions, but the underlying emphasis (economic vs. spiritualized poverty) differs and must be taught as such rather than assumed identical.
• Ἱλάσκομαι (be merciful/make atonement, 18:13): German “gnädig sein” adequately conveys mercy but slightly under-translates the sacrificial/atoning technical sense the Greek verb carries; teaching material should note the connection to atonement vocabulary already established via Colossians’ Schuldschein and Matthew’s Lösegeld.

Terms requiring sensitivity notes rather than compounding

• Der barmherzige Samariter, der verlorene Sohn: no vocabulary gap at all (both are precise, long-established German renderings) but the associative-overload category first identified for Freiheit (Galatians) and Philosophie (Colossians): perfectly correct words whose independent cultural circulation, detached from theological context, is itself the translation-adjacent risk requiring contextual reconnection rather than a different rendering.

A recurring gap category: textual transmission

• Luke 11:1-13, 22:19b-20, 22:43-44/23:34: three distinct instances of the textual- transmission gap category first identified in the Mark package (16:9-20). None require any translation adjustment; all require transparent documentation. Luke has the highest concentration of this gap category of any curriculum in this pipeline’s German portfolio.

Terms with no gap at all

• Meine Seele erhebt den Herrn, richtete er sein Angesicht fest darauf, er ward aufgehoben gen Himmel: all precise, well-established renderings, several with centuries of German liturgical and musical use, requiring no gap-filling strategy.

Gap-filling strategy

Where Luke presents its own combination of associative-overload risk (the independent-idiom parables) and textual-transmission gaps (three distinct instances), this Language Package documents both categories explicitly across 02_cultural_context.md, 05_translation_landscape.md, and the doctrine registry, following the containment and transparency strategies already established in prior German packages rather than inventing new approaches.

Coverage confirmation

Covers linguistic-gap material relevant across chapters 6, 11, 15, 18, 22, and 23; the remainder of the Gospel introduces no new gap category beyond those already documented in prior German packages.