Linguistic Gap Analysis — 1 Peter (English → Japanese)

Purpose and Method

This analysis identifies where Japanese lacks adequate vocabulary for 1 Peter’s theological content (“missing vocabulary”), where existing Japanese vocabulary is already occupied by competing Shinto/Buddhist/secular meanings that must be actively fenced off (“crowded semantic neighborhoods”), where transliteration is preferable to paraphrase (and vice versa), and which specific ambiguities carry the greatest doctrinal risk across the whole letter. It extends the baseline Romans Language Package without contradicting any established rendering, and integrates the terms already classified in 08_core_glossary.md and the 1 Peter additions to bible_term_registry.json. All Critical/High reasoning below is grounded in the same documented cultural-collision classes the baseline uses (on-giri reciprocity, Shinto kegare/ritual purity, State Shinto political theology, Buddhist soteriology, shame-culture, pop-culture dilution, biblical illiteracy).

This document covers the entire book (1 Peter 1–5) with density weighted toward the curriculum’s eight designated doctrines and the core passage (1:3-9), per the full-book-coverage mandate.

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Part 1: Doctrine Vocabulary Matrix

For each of the eight curriculum doctrines: available Japanese term(s), their weaknesses, and the recommended mitigation strategy.

1. The Living Hope of the Resurrection (1:3-9, 3:21)

Available term	Weakness	Recommended strategy
望み／希望 (nozomi/kibō) for “hope”	Generic optimism vocabulary saturating Japanese advertising, self-help, and motivational media; carries no inherent tie to a historical event. Secondary friction: Buddhist teaching frames unfulfilled desire/craving (欲, yoku) as a root of suffering, creating mild cultural resistance to “hope” as something to actively cultivate rather than release.	Always render as the compound 生ける望み (“living hope”), never bare 望み, in doctrinal exposition of 1:3. Immediately and explicitly anchor to Christ’s historical resurrection in the same sentence — the modifier 生ける does real doctrinal work here and must never be dropped for stylistic variation.
復活 (fukkatsu) for “resurrection”	BASELINE term, reused exactly. Doctrinally correct but rhetorically deflated by constant secular pop-culture use (“band’s comeback,” “product relaunch,” “team’s rally”).	1 Peter 1:3 is the single best anchor point in this curriculum to actively restore 復活’s doctrinal weight — teaching materials must state explicitly that this is a one-time, bodily, historical event, not a comeback narrative, every time 1:3 or 3:21 is taught.
新しく生まれさせる／新生 (new birth)	No existing single Japanese term for regeneration; risk of confusion with 輪廻転生 (reincarnation, forbidden under baseline) or with secular “fresh start” self-improvement language (心を入れ替える, “turning over a new leaf”).	Use the descriptive verbal phrase 新しく生まれさせる in narrative/exposition (matches 1:3’s grammar, God as the acting subject) and reserve the noun 新生 for glossary/heading use only, always paired with “God’s one-time sovereign act” language.
相続／資産 (inheritance)	Defaults to Japan’s modern inheritance-tax/estate-law register (相続税 is a major personal-finance topic in an aging society); risks a legal-financial reading.	Retain 相続 (positive bridge via Japan’s family/business-succession culture, parallel to baseline’s adoption bridge) but immediately qualify with 朽ちず、汚れず、しぼむことのない (“imperishable, undefiled, unfading”) from 1:4 itself — the verse’s own modifiers do the fencing work if not omitted.
たましい (soul)	Risk of pulling in folk/animist wandering-ancestor-spirit associations (Obon memorial rites) or ghost tropes (幽霊).	Use consistently for the whole-person eternal-salvation sense (1:9, 2:25); never gloss with 霊 (which must stay reserved for Holy Spirit / spirits-in-prison contexts per the sharp distinction rule below).

Overall doctrine strategy: This doctrine is a biblical-illiteracy/dilution risk cluster, not primarily a false-concept collision (unlike, e.g., salvation or priesthood below). The vocabulary exists; the danger is that every available word (望み, 復活, 相続) already has a strong secular gravitational pull. Countermeasure: never let any of these terms stand alone without their scriptural modifiers (生ける, 朽ちない, etc.) — the modifiers are the fence.

2. Suffering for Righteousness’ Sake (1:6-7, 2:19-20, 3:14-17, 4:1, 4:12-19, 5:9-10)

Available term	Weakness	Recommended strategy
苦しみ／苦しむ (suffering)	Direct doctrinal-structure collision with Buddhism’s foundational First Noble Truth, 一切皆苦 (“all existence is suffering”) — a piece of cultural literacy known even to secular Japanese. Buddhist soteriology treats suffering as a universal condition to be escaped through detachment/enlightenment; 1 Peter treats suffering-for-righteousness as meaningful, purposeful, participatory, pointing toward future glory rather than release from existence.	This collision must be explicitly taught, not assumed absent — a dedicated teaching note contrasting “suffering as universal condition to escape” vs. “suffering as purposeful participation with Christ leading to vindication” should accompany every major suffering passage, not just a first occurrence.
試練 (trial) vs. 誘惑 (temptation)	Greek πειρασμός can mean either; Japanese lexically separates them cleanly (試練 = ordeal/hardship, 誘惑 = temptation to sin), which is actually an advantage — but consistency across translators is required so the same Greek word isn’t rendered both ways within one letter.	Standardize: 1 Peter’s πειρασμός occurrences (1:6) always render 試練 (external persecution/hardship), never 誘惑, throughout this curriculum.
試された信仰／精錬された信仰 (genuineness of faith, δοκίμιον)	Risk of collapsing into ascetic self-training (修行), already flagged Critical-adjacent under the baseline sanctification entry.	Frame explicitly as God refining a faith he has already given by grace — never as merit accumulated through disciplined practice. Pair 精錬 (refining, as of metal) with the gold-refining image already present in 1:7 rather than inventing a new metaphor.
恥じる (ashamed, 4:16)	Direct collision with Japan’s well-documented shame-oriented culture (恥, haji; 体面, taimen, “face”/public standing) — being publicly reproached in a strongly group-conformity society is a live pressure for Japan’s small Christian minority, not a merely historical concern.	Do not render Peter’s command flatly; supply sensitive framing that acknowledges real social cost while redirecting the locus of evaluation from public face to glorifying God — teaching materials, not the translation itself, must carry this nuance.
キリストの苦しみにあずかる (sharing Christ’s sufferings, 4:13)	Risk of flattening into generic in-group solidarity/camaraderie (仲間意識, baseline-flagged).	Escalated to High (from Romans’ Low-risk generic fellowship) — must be taught as real participatory union with Christ in pain, not sympathetic team spirit.

Overall doctrine strategy: This is 1 Peter’s single most theologically load-bearing collision with Japan’s dominant religious tradition. Recommend a standing cross-reference note in every lesson touching suffering: “1 Peter’s suffering is not what Buddhism means by suffering.” This is a fencing requirement that must recur throughout the curriculum, not a one-time footnote.

3. The Church as a Holy and Royal Priesthood (2:4-10)

Available term	Weakness	Recommended strategy
聖なる祭司／王である祭司 (holy/royal priesthood)	Critical direct-collision risk. 祭司 is the correct biblical term (used for OT Aaronic priests), but Japan has living, visible, professional priestly castes: Shinto 神主 (kannushi) and shrine maidens 巫女 (miko) performing purification rites, and Buddhist 僧侶／お坊さん performing funeral/memorial rites. Both are specialist, often hereditary/ordained roles — the opposite of a corporate all-believer priesthood.	Every occurrence must carry an explicit clarifying clause that ALL believers corporately (not a ritual-specialist class) are meant — parallel in urgency to the baseline’s 菩薩/聖者 “saints” warning. Never let 祭司 stand as a bare noun in a doctrinal statement without this clause.
生ける石 (living stone, 2:4-5)	Collision with Shinto sacred-stone devotion (磐座, iwakura — stones believed to house a kami, venerated at shrines).	Clarify explicitly as architectural/corporate metaphor (Christ as rejected-yet-chosen cornerstone, believers built together), never a power-bearing sacred object.
霊的な家 (spiritual house, 2:5)	霊的 (“spiritual”) is saturated in contemporary Japanese New Age/occult-tourism vocabulary (パワースポット, “power spot”; TV mediums).	Anchor explicitly and immediately to Holy Spirit indwelling of the corporate church — never leave 霊的 to float as a vague spiritual-energy descriptor.
霊の供え物 (spiritual sacrifices, 2:5)	供え物 (offering) is the standard word for literal ritual offerings placed at Shinto/Buddhist altars (food, sake, incense).	Clarify these are non-cultic, non-physical offerings of praise and obedient conduct — never literal ritual objects before an altar.
聖なる国民 (holy nation, 2:9)	Critical direct-collision risk, reactivating the baseline’s 神国日本 (State Shinto ultranationalist slogan) warning already flagged under kingdom_of_god.	Must be anchored immediately and explicitly as the transnational, multiethnic people of God — never permitted to stand alone in a way that could echo an ethno-nationalist “divine nation” claim.

Overall doctrine strategy: This doctrine has the highest concentration of Critical-tier direct collisions in the entire letter — three of its five core phrases (holy/royal priesthood, spiritual house, holy nation) collide with living, mainstream Japanese religious practice or historically fraught political theology. Recommend this doctrine receive dedicated theologian review at every occurrence, not sampling-based review.

4. Submission to Authority and Christlike Endurance (2:13-3:7, 5:1-5)

Available term	Weakness	Recommended strategy
従う／服従する (submission, ὑποτάσσω)	Extremely high real-world stakes given Japan’s hierarchical-deference culture (senpai-kōhai seniority, corporate hierarchy, historic Bushido loyalty-to-lord ethics, and contemporary karōshi/workplace-death-from-overwork concerns about excessive deference). Real risk the teaching is heard as endorsing existing social/corporate power structures.	Never teach submission passages (2:13-3:7) in isolation from 5:3’s explicit prohibition of domineering leadership and from 2:9’s truth that all believers are equally a royal priesthood. Frame as voluntary, Christlike, gospel-motivated posture — not blanket social-hierarchy endorsement.
支配するのではなく (not domineering, κατακυριεύοντες, 5:3)	Underused as a corrective; risk of being treated as a minor aside rather than the letter’s own internal safeguard.	Foreground this phrase prominently alongside every submission passage as the letter’s built-in check on hierarchical abuse.
長老 (elder, πρεσβύτερος)	Positive bridge via Japan’s Confucian-influenced age/seniority-respect culture, but this bridge is itself a risk: Japan’s culture confers automatic deference by age/seniority alone.	Clarify this is an appointed, qualified spiritual office (tested, shepherding, teaching) — not mere age-based deference.

Overall doctrine strategy: The vocabulary itself is adequate; the risk is entirely in application framing, not lexical gap. Recommend a standing pairing rule: any lesson teaching a submission passage must co-teach the corresponding restraint-on-authority passage in the same unit.

5. Christ’s Substitutionary Suffering (1:18-19, 2:21-25, 3:18)

Available term	Weakness	Recommended strategy
義 (righteous, of Christ, 3:18)	Same Critical Bushido-virtue collision already flagged in baseline (personal moral-courage virtue vs. forensic right-standing) — here specifically describing Christ’s qualifying status to die substitutionally, not a virtue he displays.	Every occurrence in 3:18/2:24 context must carry a distinguishing note: 義 here names a status that qualifies Christ to stand in others’ place, not moral courage he exhibits.
キリストは…苦しみを受けられた／正しい方が正しくない者たちのために (substitutionary formula)	ὑπέρ carries both substitutionary (“in your place”) and exemplary (“for your benefit/as an example”) force in different verses of 1 Peter (2:21 exemplary, 2:24/3:18 substitutionary); a single Japanese rendering risks collapsing both senses into one.	Maintain two distinct renderings calibrated per verse context — do not standardize a single formula across both senses; flag each occurrence’s intended sense in the segment cache.
贖われた（贖う） (ransomed, λυτρόω, 1:18-19)	Critical on-giri reactivation. Readers may process “being ransomed” as incurring a debt (恩) now owed back to Christ through obligatory repayment, exactly the risk already flagged for grace in the baseline. Secondary risk: flattening to a crime-drama “ransom payment” (身代金) transaction between equals.	Require explicit non-transactional framing paired with 恵み wherever 贖われた occurs — teach as a completed, once-for-all release, not an ongoing debt.
先祖から伝えられた (ancestral tradition, πατροπαράδοτος, 1:18)	Direct collision: Japan’s ancestor-veneration practices (先祖供養, butsudan home altars, Obon rites) are widely maintained even by secular/nominal families as filial duty, not experienced as “empty” religion.	Careful, non-inflammatory framing: name the biblical category of inherited futile/idolatrous custom in general terms without gratuitously targeting specific family practices readers may still observe.
傷もなく汚れもない子羊 (unblemished lamb, 1:19)	汚れ (kegare) directly names the Shinto ritual-pollution concept addressed through purification rites; also requires OT Passover/sacrificial-system background absent for biblically illiterate readers.	Teach as moral/spiritual purity guaranteed by God, distinct from ritual-pollution-and-cleansing; supply Passover background explicitly, do not assume it.

Overall doctrine strategy: This doctrine combines a Critical on-giri reactivation (ransom/redemption) with a Critical Bushido-virtue collision (righteous) and a High ritual-purity collision (undefiled/unblemished) — three separate collision classes converging on one doctrine. Recommend this be treated as the single highest-density risk doctrine for theologian review alongside the priesthood doctrine.

6. Holiness in Conduct (1:14-16, 2:11-12, 4:1-4)

Available term	Weakness	Recommended strategy
聖い (holy)	BASELINE term. Distinguish from Shinto ritual purity (misogi/harae, kegare-focused ceremonial cleanliness) as already flagged.	Reuse exactly; reinforce moral/relational set-apartness, not ceremonial cleanliness.
恐れ (reverent fear, φόβος, 1:17)	Risk of collapsing into either generic terror or Japan’s folk-religious practice of fearing/placating kami or ancestral spirits to avert misfortune (祟り, tatari — the concept of curses/retribution from offended spirits).	Teach explicitly as reverent, relational awe before a personal, holy, impartial Father who judges justly — not appeasement of a potentially vindictive spiritual power.
偶像礼拝 (idolatry, 4:3)	Critical direct-collision risk. Unlike distant historical “paganism,” Japan’s Shinto kami-worship and Buddhist devotional image veneration (butsudan altars with ihai ancestor tablets, kamidana household shelves) remain living, mainstream practice maintained by secular/nominal readers’ own families as filial duty.	Requires exceptionally careful, non-inflammatory but doctrinally clear framing — name the biblical category without gratuitously targeting readers’ family altars; do not soften the category’s seriousness while doing so.
良心 (good conscience, 3:21)	Risk of collapse into shame/social-conscience (cf. baseline’s 恥/迷惑 sin-doctrine note) rather than standing before God specifically.	Anchor explicitly to standing before God, not social propriety.

Overall doctrine strategy: Idolatry is this doctrine’s single Critical flashpoint and requires the most delicate pastoral handling in the entire curriculum, precisely because it is not abstract for the target readership.

7. Elders and Humility (5:1-6)

Available term	Weakness	Recommended strategy
謙遜／自分を低くする (humility, ταπεινοφροσύνη)	Japan’s culture has extensive ritualized humility norms (modesty conventions, self-deprecating speech, and the entire honorific 敬語/keigo linguistic system that grammatically encodes social humility toward superiors). Real risk of flattening biblical humility into social-politeness performance.	Teach as genuine heart-posture of dependence on God, not linguistic/social etiquette.
恵み (grace) paired with humility, 5:5 (“God gives grace to the humble”)	Critical on-giri reactivation — humbling oneself could be heard as the meritorious act that obligates God to reciprocate with grace, rather than a posture that freely receives an already-unconditional gift.	Explicit teaching note required every time 5:5 is taught: humility does not earn grace; it is the posture that receives what was already freely given.
長老 (elder) — see Submission doctrine above	Shared risk/strategy with Doctrine 4.	See above.
支配するのではなく (not domineering)	See Doctrine 4.	See above.

Overall doctrine strategy: The Critical risk here is narrow but sharp — the single clause “grace to the humble” — and should be flagged for mandatory theologian review every occurrence regardless of surrounding context.

8. Christ’s Proclamation to the Spirits (1 Peter 3:18-22)

Available term	Weakness	Recommended strategy
捕らわれの霊たちに宣言された (proclaimed to spirits in prison, 3:19)	Uniquely dangerous Critical risk. This is one of the only contexts in the entire curriculum where 霊 (rei) correctly stands WITHOUT the 聖 qualifier — since it refers to imprisoned spirits, not the Holy Spirit — yet sits directly adjacent to Japan’s vivid, mainstream ancestral-spirit and ghost culture (幽霊, yuurei; Obon ancestor rites; folk cosmology with purgatory-adjacent intermediate realms). This creates fertile ground for syncretistic misreading: ancestor spirits needing proclamation/rescue, a purgatory-like realm, ghost-story tropes.	Requires a dedicated, theologian-reviewed explanatory framework presented alongside every occurrence, distinguishing major historic interpretive options (fallen angels per Genesis 6/2 Peter 2/Jude parallel; OT-era humans preached to by the pre-incarnate Christ through Noah; Christ’s post-resurrection proclamation of victory to imprisoned spirits) and explicitly excluding folk-spirit/ancestor-veneration/purgatory readings. This passage should never appear without its explanatory apparatus attached.
箱舟 (ark, 3:20)	Vaguely known even in secular Japan (children’s stories, occasional zoo/aquarium branding) but usually as a decontextualized image.	Supply OT judgment/salvation-through-water background explicitly; do not assume it.
洗礼 (baptism, 3:21)	High risk, not in Romans baseline. 洗礼 also functions as a common secular Japanese idiom (“〜の洗礼を受ける,” “to receive the baptism of ~,” meaning any harsh initiatory/rite-of-passage experience) — parallel to 復活’s pop-culture dilution.	Actively counter with explicit doctrinal anchoring to Christ’s resurrection (3:21’s own clarifying clause) every time; never let 洗礼 stand as “any tough initiation.”
対応するもの／型 (antitype, 3:21)	Rare technical term requiring OT-NT typological explanation for biblically illiterate readers.	Supply explicit typological bridge (flood-judgment → baptism) rather than relying on the term alone.
権威と勢力 (authorities and powers, 3:22)	Minimal lexical risk; positive function as an anchor against folk-spirit-hierarchy misreading of 3:19, since it reinforces Christ’s supremacy over all spiritual powers.	Use this clause deliberately as the passage’s own theological corrective.

Overall doctrine strategy: This is the letter’s single most exegetically volatile passage AND its single highest folk-religion collision risk simultaneously. Recommend it be flagged for mandatory theologian review at 100% of occurrences with no automated-review or native-speaker-only path permitted, exceeding even the baseline’s standard Critical-tier routing.

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Part 2: Missing Vocabulary vs. Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods

Missing Vocabulary (no adequate existing Japanese term; requires constructed compound or explanatory phrase)

Concept	Gap	Resolution
Regeneration/new birth (ἀναγεννάω)	No single native Japanese theological term exists (unlike 受肉 for incarnation, which is an established coinage).	Use descriptive verbal phrase 新しく生まれさせる in exposition; reserve compound 新生 for headings only.
Foreknowledge (πρόγνωσις) as a divine attribute	予知 exists but is pre-occupied (see below); no unclaimed alternative exists.	Retain 神の予知 but require the 神の qualifier be structurally inseparable from the noun — never allow bare 予知.
Antitype/typological correspondence (ἀντίτυπος)	No everyday Japanese equivalent for a technical OT-NT typological category.	Use 対応するもの／型 with mandatory explanatory scaffolding each occurrence; treat as a teaching term, not a translation problem alone.
”Chief Shepherd” compound (ἀρχιποίμην)	No pre-existing compound.	牧者の長／大牧者 — low risk, natural coinage; no further gap-filling needed.
Sojourner/exile as theological identity (παρεπίδημος/πάροικος)	No Japanese term captures “belongs to a heavenly homeland while journeying through, not belonging to, the present order” — closest available term is a bureaucratic visa-status category.	寄留者（仮住まいの者）with mandatory first-occurrence explanatory anchor; see crowded-neighborhood entry below for the collision this creates.

Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods (existing terms already saturated with competing meaning; require active fencing)

Japanese term	Competing occupant(s) of the semantic space	Fencing requirement
霊 (rei)	Ancestral spirits (Obon), ghosts (幽霊), folk spirit-monsters (妖怪) — vivid, mainstream horror/pop-culture genre	NEVER alone for the Holy Spirit (baseline rule, reused). 1 Peter uniquely requires the OPPOSITE discipline in 3:19/3:18/4:6: 霊 must correctly stand WITHOUT 聖 for “spirits in prison” and Christ’s own “spirit” — translators must maintain a rigorous, explicit distinction between these two uses throughout the letter so proximity does not dilute 聖霊’s Critical qualifier.
祭司 (priest)	Living, professional Shinto (神主/巫女) and Buddhist (僧侶) priestly castes	Never let stand without corporate all-believer clarification (Critical, per Doctrine 3 above).
供え物 (offering)	Literal Shinto/Buddhist altar offerings (food, sake, incense)	Always qualify “spiritual sacrifices” (2:5) as non-cultic conduct/praise, not physical ritual objects.
汚れ (kegare)	Shinto ritual-pollution concept, addressed by purification rites (misogi/harae)	Every occurrence in “undefiled” (1:4, 1:19) must be taught as moral/spiritual purity before God, never ceremonial cleanliness.
国民 (kokumin, “nation/citizenry”)	Pre-1945 State Shinto slogan 神国日本 (“divine-nation Japan”)	“Holy nation” (2:9) must never stand unanchored; immediate explicit statement of transnational, multiethnic scope required every time.
霊的 (spiritual, adjective)	Contemporary New Age/occult-tourism vocabulary (パワースポット, “power spot”; TV psychic mediums)	“Spiritual house” (2:5) must anchor explicitly to Holy Spirit indwelling, never left as vague spiritual-energy language.
予知 (foreknowledge/precognition)	Standard Japanese word for ESP/psychic precognition (予知能力, a stock TV-psychic pop-culture trope)	“神の予知” (1:2) requires the qualifier be inseparable; never bare 予知 in doctrinal statements.
洗礼 (baptism)	Secular idiom for any harsh initiatory experience (“〜の洗礼を受ける”)	Must anchor to Christ’s resurrection (3:21) every occurrence, not “any tough initiation.”
復活 (resurrection)	Secular pop-culture “comeback” usage (bands, products, sports teams)	Baseline rule reused; 1:3 and 3:21 both require active weight-restoration.
恥 (shame) / adjacent 恥じる	Japan’s dominant shame-orientation cultural framework (haji, taimen/face)	4:16’s command not to feel shame requires sensitive reframing toward glorifying God, not a flat lexical swap.
恵み (grace)	On-giri reciprocal-obligation system (恩・義理)	Baseline Critical rule reused and reactivated at 1:10/1:13, 4:10, and especially 5:5 (“grace to the humble”) — see Doctrine 7.
贖われた (ransomed)	Crime-drama “ransom payment” (身代金) transactional framing; on-giri debt framing	Requires explicit non-transactional teaching every occurrence (1:18-19).
相続 (inheritance)	Modern inheritance-tax/estate-law register (相続税)	Requires the verse’s own imperishability modifiers to be retained, never dropped for brevity.
在留外国人-adjacent bureaucratic register for “sojourner”	Japan’s regulated foreign-resident visa-status category	”Sojourners” (1:1, 2:11) requires explicit theological-identity anchoring at first occurrence to prevent a legal-status misreading.
良心 (conscience)	Shame/social-propriety conscience rather than standing before God	3:21’s “good conscience” must be anchored to God specifically.
悪魔 (devil)	Heavily pop-culturalized (anime/game “akuma” characters); distinct native folk-demon tradition (鬼, oni; 妖怪, yōkai)	5:8 requires clarification of a real, personal, spiritual adversary, not a fictional villain trope or folkloric monster.

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Part 3: Transliteration vs. Paraphrase Decisions

Term	Decision	Rationale
Jesus, Christ, Lord, David (proper names/titles)	Transliterate (イエス, キリスト, 主, ダビデ)	BASELINE — reuse exactly; established Shinkaiyaku convention; no viable native-Japanese semantic equivalent exists or should be sought for proper names.
Baptism (βάπτισμα)	Transliteration-adjacent established loan/compound term (洗礼), retained, with mandatory anchoring	Paraphrase would lose the letter’s own technical vocabulary and its explicit tie to Christian rite; but bare use risks the secular idiomatic “harsh initiation” reading, so retention must be paired with the verse’s own clarifying clause every time — a hybrid decision, not pure transliteration.
Diaspora (διασπορά)	Paraphrase with explanatory gloss (離散) plus mandatory OT background note, not transliteration	Unlike “Messiah/Christ,” where transliteration is already the established cultural entry point (however illiteracy-laden), “diaspora” has no comparable Japanese loanword footprint; a translated/glossed term requiring explanation is more teachable than an unfamiliar transliteration (e.g., ディアスポラ) that would carry zero existing cultural handle.
Abba-type intimacy terms	Not present in 1 Peter’s text (no Aramaic term to preserve, unlike Romans 8:15)	No decision required; note for completeness — the baseline’s アバ transliteration precedent does not recur in this letter.
Antitype (ἀντίτυπος)	Paraphrase (対応するもの／型), not transliteration	A transliterated loanword (アンティタイプ) would carry zero cultural handle for Japanese readers and add a foreign-sounding technical barrier on top of an already technical typological concept; a native descriptive phrase with explanatory scaffolding is more teachable.
”Living stone,” “spiritual house,” “royal priesthood,” “holy nation” compound phrases	Paraphrase using existing kanji compounds (生ける石, 霊的な家, 王である祭司, 聖なる国民), never transliteration	These are architectural/corporate metaphors requiring native compositional Japanese to carry their sense; transliteration is not a meaningful option for metaphorical compounds of this kind.
Christianos (Χριστιανός, “the name Christian”)	Dual rendering retained: キリスト者／クリスチャン, context-dependent	クリスチャン (loanword) is the common secular-cultural marker (wedding-chapel aesthetic); キリスト者 is the more doctrinally weighted term for costly, suffering-marked identity. Recommend キリスト者 as primary in doctrinal exposition of 4:16, with クリスチャン reserved for narrative/informal contexts, and an explicit note distinguishing the two registers at first occurrence.
Amen, Hallelujah (general convention, not unique to 1 Peter but relevant to 5:11, 4:11 doxologies)	Transliterate (アーメン, ハレルヤ)	BASELINE convention reused exactly.

General rule derived: Transliteration is reserved for (a) proper names, (b) terms with zero viable native compositional alternative and an already-established loanword footprint in Japanese Christian usage (洗礼), and (c) doxological exclamations. Paraphrase/compound-coinage is preferred wherever a technical concept can be built compositionally from existing kanji with sufficient explanatory scaffolding (antitype, diaspora, living stone, spiritual house). No new transliterated loanword is recommended for introduction in this curriculum beyond what the baseline already establishes.

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Part 4: Ranked List of This Letter’s Highest-Risk Ambiguities

Ranked by combined severity (doctrinal centrality × collision class × frequency of occurrence). All entries below require mandatory human theologian review per the baseline’s escalation framework; ranking determines review priority order, not a tiering of “optional” vs. “required” review.

1. “Spirits in prison” proclamation (3:18-22) — Unique Critical risk: correctly unqualified 霊 sitting directly adjacent to Japan’s vivid, mainstream ancestral-spirit/ghost culture, compounded by the passage’s own genuine exegetical disputedness among Christian interpreters. Highest-severity item in the letter: doctrinal ambiguity (which historic interpretation) stacked on top of cultural-collision ambiguity (folk-spirit misreading). Requires its own dedicated explanatory framework attached at every occurrence, not standard footnoting.

2. “Holy nation” / “royal priesthood” (2:9, 2:5) — Direct reactivation of the baseline’s most politically fraught warning (神国日本 State Shinto ultranationalism) combined with direct collision with living professional priestly castes (神主/巫女/僧侶). Two independent Critical collision classes converging on adjacent verses in the same short passage.

3. “Ransomed” / “grace to the humble” (1:18-19, 5:5) — Two separate but structurally identical reactivations of the baseline’s single highest-stakes concern (on-giri reciprocal-obligation), occurring at both the letter’s opening theological foundation and its closing pastoral exhortation. Risk is not that the wrong word is chosen (贖われた／恵み are both correct, established renderings) but that the relational logic of Japanese social reciprocity will silently overwrite the text’s non-transactional meaning without the reader noticing any mistranslation has occurred — the most insidious kind of risk because it produces no visible red flag in back-translation.

4. Suffering-for-righteousness passages generally (1:6-7, 3:14-17, 4:1, 4:12-19) — Direct structural collision with Buddhism’s First Noble Truth (一切皆苦); high frequency across the letter (suffering is arguably 1 Peter’s central pastoral concern) multiplies a single doctrinal collision across a large percentage of the text, requiring the countermeasure to be sustained rather than a one-time note.

5. “Righteous for the unrighteous” (3:18) / Christ’s righteousness generally — Reactivates the baseline’s Bushido-virtue collision (personal moral courage vs. forensic right-standing) at the letter’s most theologically dense single verse (the substitutionary atonement statement), where a slip toward the virtue-reading would corrupt the doctrine at its structural core, not merely its coloring.

6. Baptism “now saves you” (3:21) — Combines a secular idiomatic-dilution risk (洗礼 as “any harsh initiation”) with a genuine theological-precision risk (ritual-efficacy misreading adjacent to Shinto misogi purification) in a single clause that, read wrong, could produce either a flattened pop-culture meaning or a false sacramental-magic meaning — two very different failure modes from one short phrase.

7. Idolatry (4:3) — Uniquely high pastoral risk rather than purely lexical risk: the collision is not primarily about finding the right word (偶像礼拝 is uncontested) but about how directly the teaching confronts readers’ own living family religious practice (butsudan, kamidana), making this the entry most likely to produce real relational/pastoral fallout if mishandled, independent of translation accuracy.

8. Submission passages (2:13-3:7) read apart from their restraint clauses (5:3) — Structural risk rather than lexical risk: even a perfectly accurate word-for-word translation produces a doctrinally distorted result if curriculum sequencing or lesson design separates submission teaching from the letter’s own internal safeguard against domineering authority — a risk located in curriculum architecture as much as in vocabulary choice.

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Summary Recommendations for Phase 2 Handoff

1. Extend translation_memory.json and bible_term_registry.json with all NEW terms identified in 08_core_glossary.md and the 1 Peter registry additions before any Phase 2 segment processing begins.
2. Add a 1 Peter-specific escalation rule to the AI translation requirements (Step 12 equivalent): any segment containing “spirits in prison” (3:18-22) requires theologian review with no automated or native-speaker-only path, exceeding even the standard Critical-tier routing.
3. Add a standing pairing rule: submission passages (2:13-3:7, 5:5) must never be reviewed, taught, or excerpted without their corresponding restraint-on-authority clause (5:3).
4. Flag 霊 usage across the whole letter for a dedicated consistency pass distinguishing Holy-Spirit occurrences (always 聖霊) from the correctly-unqualified spirits-in-prison/Christ’s-own-spirit occurrences (3:18, 3:19, 4:6) — this cross-chapter consistency check is unique to 1 Peter among this curriculum’s source documents.
5. Prioritize theologian review order per the Part 4 ranking above when allocating limited Phase 2 review capacity.