Linguistic Gap Analysis — Mark (German)

Continuing the established finding across all prior German packages: German again has precise native vocabulary for Mark’s key concepts (Legion, Lösegeld, Scherflein), with the recurring sensitivity-gap and theological-history categories applying to new material. Mark also introduces a genuinely new category for this pipeline: a textual-transmission gap.

Terms requiring careful qualification

• Sogleich/alsbald (εὐθύς): no vocabulary gap, but a consistency-discipline gap — German has multiple adequate renderings (sogleich, alsbald, sofort) and the risk is stylistic variation eroding a recognizable narrative feature, not any single rendering being inadequate.
• The cry of dereliction (Eloi, Eloi…): no vocabulary gap — Luther’s rendering is precise and well-established — but the same theological-history gap category already identified for kenosis (Philippians) and predestination (Ephesians): a precise German rendering whose theological content has been the subject of significant native scholarly engagement (Moltmann) requiring contextual framing, not lexical adjustment.

A new gap category: textual transmission

• Mark 16:9-20: this is not a translation gap, a sensitivity gap, or an associative-overload gap in the categories already established across this pipeline’s German portfolio — it is a textual-transmission gap, the first of its kind in this pipeline. The German rendering of these verses is entirely unproblematic; the issue is that the verses’ inclusion in the canonical text itself is a matter of ancient manuscript evidence, not translation choice. This requires documentation (transparent textual-critical framing) rather than any translation adjustment.

Terms with no gap at all

• Legion, Anfang des Evangeliums, Wahrlich, dieser Mensch ist Gottes Sohn gewesen: all precise, transparent renderings requiring no gap-filling strategy.

Gap-filling strategy

Where Mark presents its own textual-transmission gap (16:9-20), this Language Package documents the requirement in 07_semantic_analysis.md and the doctrine registry as a transparency obligation distinct in kind from every other gap category identified in this pipeline so far.

Coverage confirmation

Covers linguistic-gap material relevant across chapters 1, 15, and 16; the remainder of the Gospel introduces no new gap category beyond those already documented in prior German packages.