Linguistic Gap Analysis
Linguistic Gap Analysis — Matthew 1–28 (English → Japanese)
1. Purpose and Scope
This analysis identifies where standard modern Japanese lacks a clean one-to-one equivalent for Matthew’s theological vocabulary (“missing vocabulary”), where an available Japanese term already carries a strong competing meaning from Shinto, Buddhist, Bushido, or modern secular/pop-culture usage that must be actively fenced off (“crowded semantic neighborhoods”), and where the correct strategy is transliteration versus native-Japanese paraphrase/compound coinage. It extends — and must never contradict — the baseline Romans translation_memory.json and bible_term_registry.json, and is built directly from the term inventory already surfaced in 08_core_glossary.md and the Matthew-specific entries of assets/bible_term_registry.json.
Coverage spans the full book of Matthew, chapter 1 through chapter 28, anchored theologically on the core passage, the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-12), which is the single densest concentration of new-term risk in the book (righteousness, kingdom of heaven, mercy, purity, peacemaking, persecution/reward all cluster in twelve verses).
2. Method
For each of the nine named curriculum doctrines, this document surveys the Japanese vocabulary already available (baseline reuse + Matthew new terms proposed in 08_core_glossary.md), states its specific weaknesses for this doctrine, and recommends a translation strategy. It then separates the Matthew-specific lexical problem into two structurally different categories that require different remediation:
- Missing vocabulary — no ready-made Japanese term exists at all; a choice must be made between transliteration and constructed compound/paraphrase.
- Crowded semantic neighborhoods — a Japanese term exists and is even the “correct” dictionary equivalent, but it already has a strong, well-formed competing sense (Buddhist doctrine, Shinto ritual concept, Bushido virtue, State-Shinto political slogan, or secular/pop-culture idiom) that must be fenced off through teaching, kanji verification, or transliteration substitution.
A ranked ambiguity list closes the document, followed by a full 28-chapter coverage log confirming no chapter’s load-bearing content has been silently skipped.
3. Doctrine Vocabulary Matrix
| # | Doctrine | Available Japanese Terms | Weaknesses | Recommended Strategy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Kingdom of Heaven | 天の御国 (new, Ten no Mikuni); baseline 神の国 (5 occurrences only) | Two near-synonymous phrases in one book, both individually loaded: 天の御国 risks resonance with 天孫降臨 (imperial-descent mythology); 神の国 risks resonance with 神国日本 (State Shinto slogan, already flagged in baseline). Readers may also merge the two into one concept, obscuring Matthew’s deliberate reverential-circumlocution stylistic choice. | Keep the two phrases lexically distinct exactly as attested in the Greek text (do not normalize both to 神の国). Anchor 天の御国 to its doctrinal sense at every occurrence in teaching material, not just at first occurrence, given its ~32x frequency. Explicitly teach the difference between “heaven” as God’s sovereign realm and Japan’s imperial-heaven mythology. |
| 2 | Jesus as the Promised Messiah and Son of David | Baseline キリスト, ダビデ; new ダビデの子 (Son of David), Hosanna ホサナ | キリスト is known only as a foreign brand-name (Christmas, wedding chapels) with zero OT fulfillment content for most readers; ダビデの子 requires imported Davidic-covenant background entirely absent from secular Japanese general knowledge; ホサナ is phonetically opaque, conveying no meaning without explicit gloss. | Heavy explanatory teaching at every occurrence, not lexical substitution. Always pair ダビデの子 with a one-line covenant reminder in teaching material (cross-reference 2 Samuel 7) on first several occurrences (1:1; 9:27; 12:23; 15:22; 20:30-31; 21:9,15; 22:42-45). Gloss ホサナ with its Psalm 118 “save now” meaning at first use. |
| 3 | Fulfillment of Old Testament Prophecy | Baseline 預言者/預言 (yogensha/yogen) | Extremely high repetition of the 預言/予言 kanji-homophone risk — Matthew’s fulfillment-formula citations (1:22; 2:5,15,17,23; 13:14,35; 21:4; 27:9) make this the single highest-repetition instance of this risk anywhere in the curriculum library so far. Additional risk: the pattern of prophecy-then-fulfillment is unfamiliar to a biblically illiterate reader who lacks any OT narrative to anchor the citations against. | Mandatory kanji verification (預, never 予) at every one of the ~9+ fulfillment-formula instances; flag for typesetting/proofreading pass specifically targeting this pattern. Each fulfillment citation should carry a brief supplied OT-context gloss, since the doctrinal payload depends on the reader recognizing this as linear historical fulfillment, not a lucky coincidence. |
| 4 | The Authority of Jesus’ Teaching | New 権威 (ken’i); new 律法学者 (scribes); baseline 律法 | 権威 by itself can read as generic institutional/social rank (corporate seniority, official position) rather than Jesus’ inherent, self-authenticating authority; the scribes/Pharisees foil (律法学者/パリサイ人) risks flattening into “religious officials” generically, losing the specific “derived vs. inherent authority” contrast the doctrine turns on. | Consistently pair 権威 with contextual qualifiers distinguishing Jesus’ self-grounded authority from the scribes’ derived, tradition-citing authority; climax passages (7:28-29; 28:18, すべての権威) require theologian-reviewed teaching notes making this contrast explicit rather than assuming readers will infer it. |
| 5 | Righteousness Exceeding the Pharisees | Baseline 義 (gi); new 完全な (teleios); new 偽善者 (hypocrite); new パリサイ人; new 清い (pure in heart) | 義 carries the Bushido moral-courage-virtue risk already flagged in baseline; 完全な risks a flawless-perfectionism misreading; 偽善者 collides directly with Japan’s normalized tatemae/honne social convention, which frames outward/inward divergence as ordinary social competence rather than moral failure; 清い is an exact homophone of baseline 聖い (holy), differing only by kanji. | Layered fencing required: (a) reuse baseline caution on 義 distinguishing forensic/character righteousness from Bushido virtue; (b) gloss 完全な as covenantal maturity/faithfulness, not flawlessness; (c) explicit theologian-guided teaching contrasting tatemae-level performance with God’s honne-level (heart-level) requirement for 偽善者; (d) mandatory kanji verification of 清い vs 聖い at every Beatitudes-adjacent occurrence. |
| 6 | The Church and Church Discipline | Baseline 教会; new 御国の鍵 (keys), 縛る/解く (bind/loose), 指摘する (point out fault) | 教会 is already secured by baseline (never 寺/神社); but the “keys/bind/loose” cluster risks two distinct dilutions: a talismanic “magic key” pop-culture reading (RPG/fantasy key-and-seal tropes), and an autonomous-ecclesiastical-power reading detached from Christ’s Lordship; 指摘する risks being heard as public shaming given Japan’s acute shame-sensitivity (恥), rather than Jesus’ graduated, restorative, private-first process (18:15-17). | Teach keys/bind-loose explicitly as delegated, Spirit-empowered authority exercised under Christ, never autonomous; always present church discipline’s graduated structure (private → small group → whole church) in the same breath as 指摘する so it cannot be isolated into a public-shaming action. |
| 7 | The Great Commission | Baseline 宣教, 異邦人; new 弟子/弟子とする, バプテスマ, すべての権威 | 弟子 risks collapsing gospel discipleship into generic Japanese craft/martial-arts apprenticeship (師弟関係) or Buddhist monastic lineage-transmission; バプテスマ (preferred transliteration) still requires explicit teaching since it is a loanword with no inherent meaning to an uninstructed reader; 宣教 already carries the baseline’s Kirishitan-persecution-memory and low-receptivity cautions. | Retain バプテスマ over 洗礼 per baseline-consistent Shinkaiyaku convention, always taught rather than assumed transparent; teach 弟子とする (28:19) as exclusive, whole-life, grace-founded allegiance distinct from skill-apprenticeship; frame 宣教/異邦人 (“all nations”) with explicit historical sensitivity per baseline note. |
| 8 | Judgment and the End of the Age | New ゲヘナ, ハデス, 裁き, 世の終わり, 再臨, 永遠の罰, 聖霊への冒涜 | This cluster carries the highest concentration of Critical risk in the whole book: ゲヘナ vs. the deeply established Buddhist 地獄 cosmology (multiple hell-realms, Enma Daiō); 世の終わり’s direct resonance with Aum Shinrikyo’s 1995 doomsday terrorism, Japan’s most significant modern religious-violence trauma; 裁き/永遠の罰 vs. impersonal folk-karmic 因果応報; 再臨 vs. Japan’s new-religious-movement history of living-messiah “second coming” claims. | Transliterate rather than translate for the most cosmology-loaded terms (ゲヘナ, ハデス); require explicit historical-contextual framing at every 世の終わり occurrence (13:39-40,49; 24:3; 28:20), not just first occurrence; consistently teach 裁き/永遠の罰/報い as a personal moral verdict from a holy, personal God, explicitly named against 因果応報 each time. |
| 9 | Discipleship and the Cost of Following Jesus | New 悔い改める, 十字架を負う, 自分を捨てる, いのち/魂, マモン, 報い | 悔い改める risks collapse into shame-culture social apology (反省/謝る); 十字架を負う has a live secular idiom sense (“bear a burden/responsibility”) parallel to 復活’s dilution problem; 自分を捨てる risks being read as ordinary self-effacing etiquette rather than radical re-orientation of allegiance; 魂 risks Shinto ancestor-spirit/Buddhist rebirth framing. | Explicit distinguishing instruction for 悔い改める (decisive turn toward God, not remorse-performance); sharply distinguish metaphorical 十字架を負う (16:24) from the literal historical crucifixion (ch. 27) in every teaching note; prefer いのち over 魂 as primary rendering in discipleship-cost passages (10:28,39; 16:25-26). |
4. Missing Vocabulary vs. Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods
4.1 Missing Vocabulary (no ready Japanese equivalent — coinage/compound/transliteration required)
These concepts have no pre-existing, doctrinally neutral Japanese word; a rendering had to be constructed or borrowed.
| Concept | Gap | Resolution |
|---|---|---|
| Kingdom of heaven (as distinct from Kingdom of God) | No Japanese phrase distinguishes Matthew’s reverential-circumlocution style from a generic “God’s reign” phrase. | Constructed compound 天の御国 (honorific 御 + 国), kept lexically distinct from baseline 神の国. |
| Son of Man (apocalyptic title) | Literal 人の子 exists as ordinary Japanese (“a human being/someone’s child”) but carries none of the Daniel 7 Judge-figure content. | Retain literal 人の子; compensate entirely through teaching, not lexical invention — no better native alternative exists. |
| Ransom (λύτρον) | No existing theological compound for a substitutionary redemption-price paid for captives, distinct from ordinary commerce. | Native compound 贖い (akanai), built from the 贖 kanji (redeem/atone) rather than a commercial-payment word; requires OT kinsman-redeemer background teaching, not assumed. |
| Immanuel | Untranslatable proper name carrying propositional content (“God with us”). | Transliterate インマヌエル and actively teach the meaning rather than let it pass as an opaque name; form the 1:23/28:20 inclusio explicitly in teaching notes. |
| Hosanna | Hebrew liturgical acclamation with no Japanese lexical equivalent. | Transliterate ホサナ with mandatory Psalm 118 gloss at first occurrence. |
| Mammon | Personified wealth-as-rival-god; no Japanese word personifies money this way. | Transliterate マモン (Aramaic loanword), never flattened to plain お金, to preserve the idolatry-warning personification. |
| Keys of the kingdom / bind / loose | No single existing Japanese ecclesiological term for this delegated-authority image. | Constructed phrase 御国の鍵 plus verb pair 縛る/解く, taught as a unit with explicit “delegated under Christ” qualification. |
| End of the age (συντέλεια τοῦ αἰῶνος) | No neutral existing phrase separate from the loaded 世の終わり. | Retain 世の終わり (no better native alternative exists) but require mandatory historical-contextual framing against Aum Shinrikyo resonance at every occurrence — this is a missing-vocabulary problem now doubling as a crowded-neighborhood problem (see 4.2). |
| Sword not peace idiom (10:34) | A third distinct register of “peace” beyond baseline 平安 and new 平和をつくる者, with no dedicated single-word target. | Paraphrase as a full clause, 平和ではなく剣を, rather than force a one-word gloss; teach as a distinct sense requiring contextual disambiguation from the other two “peace” terms. |
4.2 Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods (existing term, competing meaning must be fenced)
These terms already exist in standard Japanese with a well-formed, sometimes doctrinally opposite, competing sense that risks silently overwriting the biblical concept.
| Japanese Term | Biblical Concept | Competing Neighborhood | Fencing Strategy |
|---|---|---|---|
| 地獄 (rejected) vs. ゲヘナ (used) | Final judgment | Buddhist multi-realm hell cosmology; judge-figure 閻魔大王; karmic-rebirth structure | Never use 地獄; transliterate ゲヘナ; teach as final, personal, once-for-all judgment before the one true God, parallel to baseline’s 救い vs. 解脱/極楽往生 distinction. |
| 天の御国 | Kingdom of Heaven | 天孫降臨 (imperial divine-descent mythology) | Immediate doctrinal anchor at every occurrence (not just first use, given ~32x frequency); explicit note distinguishing God’s spiritual reign from imperial-heaven ideology. |
| 神の国 | Kingdom of God (5x) | 神国日本 (State Shinto WWII-era slogan) | Baseline caution reused verbatim; anchor to Matthew 6:33/12:28/19:24/21:31,43 doctrinal sense at all five occurrences. |
| 聖い (holy) vs. 清い (pure in heart) | Sanctification vs. Righteousness/purity of heart | Exact homophone (kiyoi), differing only by kanji; risk of silent IME/spoken-teaching substitution | Mandatory kanji verification at every occurrence of either term; flag explicitly in any audio/video teaching material transcript. |
| 赦す (forgive) vs. 許す (permit) | Forgiveness of sin | Exact homophone (yurusu); substitution subtly changes “God forgives sin” into “God permits/tolerates sin” | Mandatory kanji verification at every occurrence, especially Lord’s Prayer (6:12,14-15), unforgiving-servant parable (18:21-35), covenant-blood saying (26:28). |
| 預言/預言者 vs. 予言/予言者 | Prophecy/prophet, fulfillment of OT prophecy | Exact homophone; 予言 = fortune-telling prediction | Mandatory kanji verification (預, never 予) at every fulfillment-formula citation — the single highest-repetition instance of this risk class in Matthew. |
| 義 (righteousness) | Righteousness Exceeding the Pharisees | Bushido moral-courage virtue (Nitobe’s code) | Baseline caution reused; always flag with distinguishing note in justification/Sermon-on-the-Mount contexts. |
| 偽善者 (hypocrite) | Righteousness Exceeding the Pharisees | Tatemae/honne (socially normalized public-facade/private-reality distinction) | Deliberate theologian-guided teaching contrasting honne-level divine requirement with mere tatemae performance; do not assume readers will independently register Jesus’ charge as morally serious. |
| 慈悲 (rejected) vs. あわれみ (used, with caution) | Mercy | 観音菩薩 (Kannon Bosatsu), Buddhist compassion of enlightened beings | Never use 慈悲; anchor あわれみ explicitly in God’s own mercy toward sinners, not generic human sympathy. |
| 悪魔/サタン | Satan, temptation narrative | Anime/manga fantasy-villain trope; Buddhist tempter-figure Mara at the Buddha’s enlightenment | Teach as a real, personal being (not fiction); use the Mara narrative parallel cautiously as a bridge, explicitly noting Mara is typically read as impersonal symbolic illusion whereas Satan is personal. |
| 悪霊 (demon) | Authority of Jesus’ Teaching (exorcism narratives) | Japan’s mainstream folk-spirit/horror/exorcism (お祓い) genre | Same caution class as baseline’s 霊-alone risk for Holy Spirit; teach demons as personal beings genuinely subject to Christ’s superior authority, not folkloric horror-genre entities. |
| 神殿 (temple) | Authority of Jesus’ Teaching (temple cleansing, ch. 21, 24) | Shares 神 kanji with God-term; risk of conflation with 神社 (already forbidden for church in baseline) | Explicit teaching that 神殿 names the historical Jerusalem Temple of the one true God, never a generic kami’s shrine/palace. |
| 弟子 (disciple) | Great Commission, Discipleship | 師弟関係 craft/martial-arts apprenticeship; Buddhist monastic master-disciple lineage | Teach as exclusive, whole-life, grace-founded allegiance to Christ, not skill-transmission apprenticeship. |
| 報い (reward) / 永遠の罰 (eternal punishment) / 裁き (judgment) | Discipleship / Judgment doctrines | 因果応報 (folk-Buddhist mechanical karmic cause-and-effect) | Consistently teach as gracious/personal/judicial (from a holy, personal God), never mechanical cosmic ledger. |
| 十字架を負う (take up one’s cross) | Discipleship and the Cost of Following Jesus | Secular idiom for “bear a burden/responsibility” (business/workplace usage) | Sharply distinguish the metaphorical discipleship use (16:24) from the literal historical crucifixion narrated in ch. 27. |
| 変貌する (transfigured) | Deity/Sonship of Christ | Japanese shape-shifting folklore (化け, 狐/kitsune, 狸/tanuki, 変化/henge) | Teach explicitly as revelatory unveiling of pre-existing divine glory, not a folkloric change of nature. |
| 奥義 (mystery of the kingdom) | The Kingdom of Heaven | 密教 (mikkyō) esoteric Buddhist secret-initiation transmission (e.g., Shingon/Kūkai) | Teach as God’s sovereign, freely-disclosed revelation to those he calls, not a technique earned through ritual initiation. |
| 博士 (magi) | Jesus as the Promised Messiah (Gentile inclusion seed) | 陰陽師 (onmyōji court astrologer-diviners, e.g. Abe no Seimei — major pop-culture figure) | Teach as Gentile scholars providentially guided to worship the true King, not occult-mystic diviners. |
| 世の終わり (end of the age) | Judgment and the End of the Age | Aum Shinrikyo 1995 doomsday-terrorism national trauma; broader doomsday-cult pop-culture genre | Mandatory explicit historical-contextual framing at every occurrence, not merely first use, given the direct national-trauma resonance. |
| 御国の鍵 (keys of the kingdom) | Church and Church Discipline | Fantasy/RPG “magic key/seal” pop-culture vocabulary | Minor risk; teach as delegated, Spirit-empowered gospel authority under Christ, not talismanic power object. |
5. Transliteration vs. Paraphrase Decision Log
| Term | Decision | Rationale |
|---|---|---|
| バプテスマ (baptism) | Transliterate (reject 洗礼 as default) | 洗礼’s idiom 「洗礼を受ける」 has secularized into “undergo an ordeal/initiation,” diluting doctrinal weight, parallel to baseline’s 復活 caution; matches broader Shinkaiyaku convention. |
| ゲヘナ (Gehenna) | Transliterate (reject 地獄) | 地獄 imports the full Buddhist multi-realm/karmic-rebirth cosmology; transliteration forces explicit teaching rather than false lexical familiarity. |
| ハデス (Hades) | Transliterate | Reduces confusion with Greek-mythology pop-culture familiarity (e.g. anime) by naming it explicitly as a transliterated proper noun requiring definition, rather than translating with a native word that could imply a native mythological realm. |
| マモン (Mammon) | Transliterate (reject お金) | Preserves the personification (a rival master/god) that a plain “money” translation would erase. |
| インマヌエル (Immanuel) | Transliterate + mandatory gloss | The name’s propositional content (“God with us”) must be taught explicitly; transliteration prevents false assumption that it’s “just a name.” |
| ホサナ (Hosanna) | Transliterate + mandatory gloss | No native equivalent exists; meaning is entirely liturgical/historical (Ps 118) and must be supplied, not inferred from the transliteration itself. |
| 天の御国 (Kingdom of heaven) | Compound coinage (native construction), kept distinct from 神の国 | A functioning, already-idiomatic Japanese theological compound exists (established in wider Japanese Bible translation tradition); no need to transliterate, but must be actively fenced per §4.2. |
| 人の子 (Son of Man) | Literal retention, no coinage attempted | No native alternative would improve on the literal rendering; the under-loading gap is closed only through sustained teaching, not word choice. |
| 贖い (Ransom) | Native compound, not transliteration | A constructed Sino-Japanese compound using 贖 (redeem/atone) avoids the commercial-transaction flattening a plain loanword or generic payment-word would risk; still requires theologian-reviewed OT-background teaching at every occurrence. |
| 悔い改める (Repent) | Native compound, not transliteration | Existing compound is doctrinally serviceable; the risk is conceptual substitution by 反省/謝る in the reader’s mind, not the word’s inherent inadequacy — resolved by explicit teaching, not by transliteration. |
| 十字架を負う (Take up cross) | Native idiom, retained despite dilution risk | No transliteration alternative is possible for a metaphor built on an already-established native term (十字架, cross); dilution risk is resolved by explicit contrast with the literal crucifixion narrative, not by lexical replacement. |
| 変貌する (Transfigured) | Native verb, not transliteration | A Greek technical term (metamorphoō) rendered by ordinary Japanese “change appearance” vocabulary; risk resolved through explicit revelatory-unveiling framing in teaching notes, since no untainted native alternative exists. |
| 奥義 (Mystery of the kingdom) | Native compound, retained with fencing | Alternative 秘密 (“secret”) was considered and rejected as too flat/generic to carry the sense of a divinely disclosed, previously hidden truth; 奥義 retained with explicit anti-mikkyō fencing rather than switched. |
| 世の終わり (End of the age) | Native phrase, retained despite trauma resonance | No viable transliteration or alternative native phrase removes the historical resonance; the decision is to retain the phrase and mandate explicit historical-contextual framing at every occurrence rather than search for an artificial substitute that would itself read as evasive. |
| 御国の鍵 / 縛る / 解く (Keys/bind/loose) | Paraphrase (constructed compound + verb pair) | No single existing Japanese ecclesiological term covers this image; construction from ordinary vocabulary (御国 + 鍵; 縛る/解く) was preferred over transliteration since the underlying image (keys, binding, loosing) is concrete and translatable. |
| ダビデの子 (Son of David) | Compound reuse of baseline proper noun (ダビデ) + native possessive | Standard construction; no transliteration needed since ダビデ is already an established Shinkaiyaku proper-name form from the baseline. |
| 平和ではなく剣を (Sword not peace, 10:34) | Full-clause paraphrase rather than single-word gloss | Forcing a single noun-for-noun rendering would collapse this third sense of “peace” into either baseline 平安 or new-term 平和をつくる者; the paraphrase preserves the saying’s shock value as a distinct register. |
6. Ranked List of Highest-Risk Ambiguities
Ranked by combined severity (doctrine-critical weight × collision/dilution strength × frequency of occurrence in Matthew):
- 天の御国 (Kingdom of heaven) — Critical. Highest frequency in the book (~32x), carries a distinct State-Shinto-adjacent resonance (天孫降臨) separate from but easily confused with baseline 神の国’s own 神国日本 resonance. Two loaded near-synonyms in one curriculum is a compounding risk not present in Romans.
- 人の子 (Son of Man) — Critical. Inverse risk pattern to 神の子: reads as flatly generic (“a human being”) with zero built-in Daniel 7 apocalyptic-Judge content; ~30 occurrences, each requiring positive teaching investment with no lexical shortcut available.
- ゲヘナ vs. 地獄 — Critical. The rejected alternative carries one of the most fully-elaborated competing religious cosmologies in Japanese culture (multi-realm hell, Enma Daiō, karmic rebirth); a single lapse into 地獄 in unreviewed teaching material would import that entire cosmology.
- 世の終わり (End of the age) — Critical. Unique among this list for resonating with a specific, still-recent national trauma (Aum Shinrikyo, 1995 sarin attack) rather than a historical or doctrinal competitor; the risk is emotional/associative, not merely conceptual, and demands the most careful pastoral framing in the whole glossary.
- 贖い (Ransom) — Critical. No baseline atonement vocabulary exists to build on; combines severe biblical-illiteracy risk (no assumed OT sacrificial/kinsman-redeemer background) with a real risk of commercial-transaction flattening (implying a literal creditor).
- 偽善者 (Hypocrite) — Critical. Direct doctrinal collision with a normalized, non-pejorative Japanese social convention (tatemae/honne); risks the charge in ch. 23 and the Sermon on the Mount being read as socially unremarkable rather than a serious moral indictment.
- 清い vs. 聖い (Pure in heart vs. holy) — Critical. Exact homophone differing only by kanji, occurring at the doctrinal center of the core passage itself (Matthew 5:8); a single mistyped or mis-spoken kanji at the Beatitudes would misstate the curriculum’s anchor text.
- 赦す vs. 許す (Forgive vs. permit) — Critical. Same homophone-substitution risk class, occurring at three of Matthew’s most pastorally central passages (Lord’s Prayer, unforgiving servant, Last Supper covenant blood).
- 悪魔/サタン (Satan) — Critical. Combines pop-culture trivialization risk (anime/manga fantasy villain) with a genuinely tempting but theologically hazardous narrative parallel (the Buddha/Mara temptation account) at the very passage (4:1-11) that establishes Jesus’ messianic identity under testing.
- 義 in Sermon-on-the-Mount/righteousness-exceeding-Pharisees contexts — Critical (per baseline), intensified here because Matthew’s usage leans conduct/character rather than strictly forensic, increasing the risk of a straightforward Bushido-virtue misreading exactly where the curriculum’s named doctrine depends on the distinction being maintained.
- 預言者/預言 kanji homophone — High-to-Critical by repetition. Not conceptually ambiguous once correctly written, but occurs so frequently in fulfillment-formula citations that cumulative typographic/spoken risk across the whole book is higher than any single occurrence elsewhere in the curriculum library.
- 報い / 裁き / 永遠の罰 cluster vs. 因果応報 — High. Three separate glossary terms all share one competing folk-karmic frame; treating them independently in isolated teaching notes risks leaving the underlying 因果応報 substitution unaddressed across the cluster as a whole.
- 弟子/弟子とする (Disciple) — High. The Great Commission’s climactic imperative (28:19) depends on this term carrying exclusive, whole-life allegiance; Japan’s well-formed apprenticeship/monastic-lineage bridge is unusually strong (more naturalized than most other bridge risks in this list), making under-teaching especially likely to succeed in producing a plausible-but-wrong reading.
- 奥義 (Mystery of the kingdom) — High. Risk is subtle because 奥義’s esoteric-initiation resonance (mikkyō) is a positively-regarded cultural concept in Japan (associated with mastery and tradition), making the substitution attractive rather than obviously wrong, and thus harder to self-correct in teaching without deliberate flagging.
- 博士 (Magi) — High. A narrative-color risk rather than a core-doctrine risk, but the onmyōji association (a major, currently popular pop-culture figure) is vivid enough to actively reshape the Gentile-inclusion reading of Matthew 2 for younger or media-engaged readers if unaddressed.
7. Full Chapter Coverage Log (Matthew 1–28)
Confirms every chapter has been reviewed for load-bearing terminology; chapters contributing no new vocabulary beyond terms already catalogued are noted explicitly.
| Ch. | Doctrinal load | New/high-risk terms present | Coverage status |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Incarnation, Messianic Promise, Sonship, Salvation | 受肉, キリスト, インマヌエル, 処女, salvation name-gloss (1:21) | Fully analyzed — foundational incarnation/messiah cluster. |
| 2 | Fulfillment of Prophecy, Great Commission (Gentile-inclusion seed) | 博士 (Magi), 預言/預言者 kanji risk (heavy fulfillment-citation density) | Fully analyzed. |
| 3 | Kingdom of Heaven, Baptism, Repentance, Sonship, Holy Spirit, Wrath | 天の御国, バプテスマ, 悔い改める, 怒り, 聖霊 (baptism scene) | Fully analyzed. |
| 4 | Discipleship, Kingdom of Heaven, Satan/Temptation | 悪魔/サタン, 誘惑, calling of disciples (baseline 召された) | Fully analyzed. |
| 5 | Core passage (5:1-12); Righteousness Exceeding the Pharisees, Law fulfillment | 義, 完全な, 清い (5:8), あわれみ, 平和をつくる者, 報い (5:12), 律法 | Fully analyzed — anchor chapter; highest term density per verse in the book. |
| 6 | Righteousness, Forgiveness, Discipleship (anxiety/mammon) | 赦す, マモン, baseline 神の国 (rare exception, 6:33) | Fully analyzed. |
| 7 | Authority of Jesus’ Teaching | 権威 (7:28-29 climax), judging others (裁き root sense) | Fully analyzed. |
| 8 | Faith, Kingdom of Heaven (inclusion/exclusion), Son of Man | 信仰, 人の子 (first occurrence, 8:20), 悪霊 | Fully analyzed. |
| 9 | Forgiveness of sin, Calling, Mission (harvest) | 赦す (paralytic), 収穫 (harvest), 弟子 (Matthew’s calling) | Fully analyzed. |
| 10 | Great Commission (sending of Twelve), Discipleship cost | 使徒, いのち/魂, 平和ではなく剣を (10:34), 報い | Fully analyzed. |
| 11 | Righteousness/Rest, Messianic identity (John the Baptist) | 安らぎ, くびき | Fully analyzed. |
| 12 | Lordship of Christ (Sabbath), Judgment (blasphemy against Spirit), Kingdom of God | 主 (Sabbath lordship), 聖霊への冒涜, しるし (sign of Jonah), baseline 神の国 (12:28) | Fully analyzed. |
| 13 | Kingdom of Heaven (parables), Judgment (end of age seed) | たとえ, 奥義, 世の終わり (first occurrence) | Fully analyzed. |
| 14 | Faith (“little faith”), Thanksgiving | 感謝 (feeding miracle); reviewed — no new glossary terms beyond baseline 信仰/感謝. | Reviewed, no new terms. |
| 15 | Righteousness Exceeding the Pharisees (tradition vs. God’s word), Faith (Gentile woman) | 言い伝え, 汚す | Fully analyzed. |
| 16 | Messianic Promise (Peter’s confession), Church, Discipleship cost | キリスト/神の子 (confession), 御国の鍵, 十字架を負う, 自分を捨てる | Fully analyzed — major doctrinal hinge chapter. |
| 17 | Deity/Sonship of Christ (Transfiguration) | 変貌する; reviewed — mustard-seed faith reuses baseline 信仰, no additional new terms. | Fully analyzed. |
| 18 | Church and Church Discipline, Forgiveness | 指摘する, 御国の鍵/縛る・解く (18:18), 赦す (unforgiving servant parable) | Fully analyzed. |
| 19 | Kingdom of Heaven, Eternal Life, Discipleship cost | 永遠のいのち (first occurrence); reviewed — divorce/rich-young-man material reuses baseline 律法/救い, no additional new terms. | Reviewed, minor new term only (永遠のいのち). |
| 20 | Reward/Grace, Ransom, Son of Man | 贖い (20:28, key atonement verse), 報い (laborers parable) | Fully analyzed. |
| 21 | Messianic Promise (Triumphal Entry), Judgment (temple, tenants), Kingdom of God | ホサナ, ダビデの子 (21:9,15), 礎の石 (cornerstone), baseline 神の国 (21:31,43) | Fully analyzed. |
| 22 | Effectual Calling/Election, Resurrection, Messianic Promise, Righteousness (Greatest Commandment) | 召された/選ばれた (22:14), 復活 debate (22:23-33), 愛 (22:37-39), ダビデの子 riddle (22:42-45) | Fully analyzed. |
| 23 | Righteousness Exceeding the Pharisees (woes), Authority | 偽善者 (dominant chapter), パリサイ人, 律法学者, ゲヘナ (23:15,33) | Fully analyzed — hypocrisy doctrine’s central chapter. |
| 24 | Judgment and the End of the Age | 世の終わり, 再臨, 苦難, 人の子 (coming) | Fully analyzed. |
| 25 | Judgment and the End of the Age (parables) | 永遠の罰/永遠のいのち (25:46, sheep and goats climax); reviewed — talents/virgins parables reuse 報い, no additional new terms. | Fully analyzed. |
| 26 | Covenant, Forgiveness, Sonship/Messianic confession | 契約 (26:28, Last Supper — Gospel’s weightiest covenant use), 赦す, キリスト/神の子 (trial) | Fully analyzed. |
| 27 | Crucifixion (literal cross), Kingship | ユダヤ人の王; literal cross narrative — reviewed against 十字架を負う (ch. 16) to ensure metaphor/literal distinction is maintained; no additional new glossary terms. | Fully analyzed (cross-reference check). |
| 28 | Resurrection, Great Commission, Authority, Trinitarian formula | 復活 (climactic, 28:6-7), すべての権威 (28:18), 弟子とする, バプテスマ, 父/子/聖霊 formula (28:19), インマヌエル inclusio (28:20) | Fully analyzed — climactic closing chapter for four separate named doctrines. |
Coverage confirmation: All 28 chapters of Matthew have been reviewed. Chapters 14, 17, and 19 introduced no major new terminology beyond what is already catalogued elsewhere in this analysis and in 08_core_glossary.md; this is noted explicitly above rather than silently omitted, per the full-book-coverage mandate.
This analysis must be read alongside 08_core_glossary.md (term inventory) and assets/bible_term_registry.json (Matthew-specific registry entries) and must never contradict the locked baseline translation_memory.json renderings. Recommended strategies here are proposals feeding into the doctrine risk registry and Phase 2 AI translation requirements; Critical/High-risk items require theologian review before being written into translation memory.