Leviticus — Executive Summary (Hmong Language Package)

Why it matters: Leviticus 16 (the Day of Atonement) is this curriculum’s theological anchor — and it is also the single densest convergence point of doctrinal collision risk in the entire Hmong Bible translation pipeline to date. Five of this package’s eight assigned doctrines (Sacrificial System, Priesthood, Clean/Unclean, Day of Atonement, Scapegoat/Substitution) meet simultaneously in one chapter, and the book as a whole introduces the largest concentration of Critical-risk vocabulary yet logged for Hmong, because Leviticus’s sacrificial, purity, and priestly-mediation systems each have a structurally near-identical functional counterpart already alive in Hmong traditional religion (shamanic appeasement offerings, ritual-pollution/cleansing, spirit-mediation, illness-transfer rites). Getting this package right is what prevents Hmong Christians from either (a) quietly re-adopting shamanic practice under relabeled biblical vocabulary, or (b) dismissing Leviticus wholesale as discredited superstition rather than divinely instituted, Christ-anticipating law.

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Key Findings

• 91 terms locked in the Phase 2 Translation Memory (assets/translation_memory.json): 21 inherited verbatim from the Romans baseline (unaltered, per the hard no-re-gloss rule) + 70 newly surfaced Leviticus terms spanning all 27 chapters.
• 39 of those 91 terms are Critical or High risk (16 Critical, 23 High) — nearly 43% of the entire package’s vocabulary carries a documented, specific collision risk with Hmong animism, shamanism, ancestor veneration, or ritual-purity/pollution custom, more than double the density of Critical/High terms in the Romans baseline.
• All 8 assigned doctrines carry mandatory review routing; none is automated-review-only. 5 are Critical (Sacrificial System and Atonement; Holiness of God and the Call to Be Holy; Clean and Unclean; Day of Atonement; Scapegoat and Substitution), 1 is High (Priesthood and Mediation), and 2 are Medium (Sabbath and Sacred Time; Love of Neighbor) — meaning 6 of 8 doctrines require mandatory human theologian review before publication with no automated bypass, and the remaining 2 require native-speaker review at minimum with theologian escalation on any detected collision.
• The core passage (Lev 16:1-34) is a five-doctrine convergence chapter — any lesson unit built on it must simultaneously satisfy the preservation rules for Sacrificial System, Priesthood, Clean/Unclean, Day of Atonement, and Scapegoat/Substitution; partial application is explicitly disallowed.
• Three proper-noun transliterations remain phonologically unconfirmed (Axaxes/Azazel, Molej/Molek, Hnub Xanpataug/Sabbath) and are flagged [TRANSLATOR REVIEW NEEDED] — their doctrinal content and risk tier are locked, but their final Hmong spelling/pronunciation is not.
• The huv/qias (clean/unclean) pairing is the single highest-risk lexical decision in the package — a near-complete structural parallel to Hmong ritual-pollution categories (death-contact, postpartum confinement, taboo-animal contact) spanning chapters 11-17, 20, and 22.

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Risks

1. Sacrificial-appeasement assimilation (Critical): The fij-rooted offering vocabulary (burnt/grain/peace/sin/guilt offerings) shares its outward form with fij dab, the live Hmong practice of offering animals to appease ancestors/spirits. Unqualified use would let hearers reinterpret God’s self-initiated, substitutionary sacrificial system as one more spirit-appeasement transaction.
2. Azazel/scapegoat syncretism (Critical): The Day 16 scapegoat rite — laying hands on a goat, confessing sin, releasing it to the wilderness — structurally mirrors named Hmong shamanic illness-transfer rituals. Without the mandatory dual-clause non-reality teaching note at every occurrence, hearers risk concluding Scripture affirms a real wilderness spirit receiving Israel’s sin.
3. Purity-system re-adoption or wholesale dismissal (Critical): huv/qias map almost one-to-one onto Hmong ritual-pollution/cleansing categories, risking either quiet retention of shamanic purity practice under Christian vocabulary, or dismissal of Leviticus’s purity law as mere discredited superstition rather than terminated, Christ-anticipating pedagogy.
4. Priest-shaman conflation (High): tus povthawj/tus Tuam Pov Thawj and roj pleev tsa (anointing oil) risk being heard as a Christianized version of txiv neeb (shaman) spirit-mediation and ritual-power empowerment rather than a categorically distinct, rule-governed divine office.
5. Repeatable-ritual re-priming (Critical): The Day of Atonement’s “once a year” formula, if taught without its mandatory contrast to Christ’s unrepeatable sacrifice, silently re-primes the very appeasement-ritual assumption the rest of the package works to dismantle.
6. Three unresolved transliterations: Azazel, Molek, and Sabbath renderings are doctrinally sound but phonologically provisional, creating a residual risk of inconsistent spelling/pronunciation across curriculum materials until native-speaker confirmation is formally logged.

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Opportunities

1. Direct OT-to-NT doctrinal bridge: Leviticus 16’s mercy seat (kapporet → lub Npoo Kub Theej Txhoj) is the literal source of Romans 3:25’s hilastērion, already Critical-locked in the baseline TM as qhov theej txhoj kev txhaum. This package can visibly demonstrate whole-Bible coherence rather than treating the Testaments as lexically unrelated.
2. Strong positive cultural bridges: The kinsman-redeemer (go'el) and Jubilee institutions (ch. 25) resonate positively with existing Hmong clan-redemption and debt-release custom, and can anchor the harder-to-motivate weekly Sabbath teaching.
3. Christ’s own reversal of the contagion logic (the woman with the discharge of blood, Mark 5:25-34) offers a ready-made teaching bridge out of the purity-law collision risk, turning a liability into a compelling gospel illustration.
4. 19:18/19:34 pairing offers a built-in, textually native corrective to the clan-bounded “neighbor” reading before any NT universalizing move is introduced, strengthening rather than importing the scope-expansion argument.

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Recommended Actions

1. Route all content touching Doctrines 1, 2, 4, 5, or 6 (Critical) and Doctrine 3 (High) to mandatory human theologian review before publication, no automated bypass — this is 6 of 8 doctrines, i.e., the large majority of this book’s curriculum content.
2. Commission immediate native-speaker phonological review of Axaxes, Molej, and Hnub Xanpataug to close the three outstanding [TRANSLATOR REVIEW NEEDED] items before Phase 2 generation scales up.
3. Enforce the 13 Leviticus-specific mandatory qualifier/contrast pairs (§2.2 of 12_ai_translation_requirements.md) as non-negotiable, non-omittable structural units in every generation pass, with special priority on the Azazel dual-clause note and the once-a-year/once-for-all contrast, given their Critical-tier, high-repetition profile in the core passage.
4. Prioritize theologian bandwidth on Leviticus 16 lesson units specifically, since any content there must satisfy five Doctrinal Preservation Rules concurrently — the highest per-unit review burden in the package.
5. Carry the huv/qias mandatory catechetical framing into every ch. 11-17, 20, 22 lesson without exception, treating it as the package’s highest-priority single translation decision.