Linguistic Gap Analysis: Revelation (Japanese)

Purpose and Method

This analysis identifies where the Japanese language (a) lacks native vocabulary for a Revelation doctrine (blankness risk, requiring explanatory teaching) and (b) already possesses vivid, culturally loaded vocabulary that collides with a Revelation doctrine (crowded semantic neighborhood risk, requiring “fencing” — explicit teaching that restricts the term to its intended sense and blocks the unwanted association). It then resolves, term by term, whether transliteration or semantic paraphrase best serves each case, and ranks the highest-stakes ambiguities for Phase 2 translator attention, with priority weight given to the core passage, Revelation 21:1–8.

This document assumes the baseline Romans translation_memory.json and the Revelation 08_core_glossary.md / bible_term_registry.json as settled inputs. No rendering below contradicts those files; this document’s contribution is diagnostic — explaining why each choice was necessary and what specific gap or collision it resolves — to guide Phase 2 AI system-prompt construction and human review routing.

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Section 1 — Doctrine Vocabulary Matrix

#	Doctrine	Available Japanese Term(s)	Semantic Weaknesses / Gaps	Recommended Strategy
1	The Return and Reign of Christ	再臨 (sairin, “second advent” — not yet in translation memory but standard Japanese-Christian vocabulary), キリスト, 王の王、主の主, 明けの明星, 鉄の杖	再臨 is unfamiliar formal vocabulary to secular readers (blankness); 王の王、主の主 has a lower direct imperial-title collision than 神の国 (Japan’s monarch is 天皇, not 王) but still requires teaching that this is total, exclusive sovereignty, not victory-over-rivals rhetoric; 明けの明星 risks assimilation to Shakyamuni’s enlightenment-at-the-morning-star narrative.	Introduce 再臨 explicitly at first use with a one-line gloss (“Christ’s promised, visible, bodily return”); pair 王の王、主の主 teaching with the baseline’s Lordship-of-Christ entry rather than treating it as a new concept; fence 明けの明星 against the Buddhist enlightenment narrative every occurrence (2:28; 22:16).
2	The Sovereignty of God over History	全能者, アルファとオメガ／初めと終わり, 御座, 摂理 (baseline reuse)	アルファとオメガ is a transliteration of a foreign alphabet with zero native semantic content for Japanese readers — pure blankness, not collision; 御座 risks resonance with 高御座 (Takamikura), the actual name of the Japanese Imperial Throne.	Explicit first-use teaching note that Alpha/Omega are the first/last Greek letters (a historical fact, not theology, that must be supplied before the theological point can land); anchor 御座 doctrinally at every throne-room occurrence (ch. 4–5, 20, 21) per baseline’s parallel 神の国 convention.
3	Perseverance and Faithful Witness under Persecution	忍耐, 勝利を得る, 証し／証人／殉教者, 恐れる者／臆病な者	忍耐 sits immediately adjacent to 我慢 (gaman), a prized, self-reliant, honor-based Japanese endurance virtue with no reference to hope in Christ’s return; 勝利を得る sits inside Japan’s competitive-achievement (exam/business “winning”) vocabulary field, risking a merit-earned reading.	Fence 忍耐 explicitly against 我慢 (“not stoic self-reliance, but hope anchored in Christ’s certain return”); fence 勝利を得る against exam/competition “winning” (“granted by grace to the faithful, not achieved by superior effort”); leverage 殉教者’s genuine positive bridge to Japan’s own Kirishitan martyr history (26 Martyrs of Nagasaki, 1597) as a teaching asset, not merely a risk.
4	Judgment of the Wicked and Vindication of the Saints	裁き, 命の書, 火の池, 第二の死, 怒り, 義 (baseline reuse)	火の池 sits inside a densely populated Japanese semantic neighborhood (地獄/jigoku hell-realms, 閻魔/Enma judge-of-the-dead) that is cyclical/karmic/temporary — the opposite structural shape from the biblical doctrine; 怒り risks a tatari (祟り, appeasable angry-spirit) reading; 命の書 risks a merit-ledger (因果) reading.	Fence 火の池 and 第二の死 together at every occurrence with explicit “final, not cyclical” language; fence 怒り against tatari-appeasement logic (“righteous judicial verdict, not an offended spirit needing ritual pacification”); fence 命の書 against merit-ledger logic, tying inclusion explicitly back to baseline’s grace/恵み entry.
5	The New Heaven and New Earth	新しい天と新しい地, 新しいエルサレム／聖なる都, 海, 幕屋／共に住む, 命の木, 呪い	This is the highest-density gap cluster in the curriculum, concentrated almost entirely in the core passage (21:1–8). 新しい alone is structurally ambiguous between “brand-new/unrelated” and “renewed/continuous” — Japanese has no single lexical item that disambiguates this for readers; 海’s removal risks literal bewilderment or even tsunami-memory insensitivity if read non-symbolically; 極楽 (Pure Land paradise-via-rebirth) is a dangerously adjacent competing structure.	See Section 4 (ranked ambiguities) for detailed resolution; overall strategy is mandatory explanatory apparatus (not lexical substitution) at every core-passage occurrence, explicitly distinguishing “renewed creation” from both “unrelated replacement” and “Pure Land rebirth.”
6	The Church as Bride of Christ	花嫁, 子羊の婚宴, 教会 (baseline reuse)	花嫁 and 子羊の婚宴 sit inside modern Japan’s highly visible, aesthetics-driven Western-style wedding-chapel industry (chapels chosen for style, not belief) — a dilution risk structurally identical to the baseline’s already-flagged キリスト “foreign cultural brand” caution.	Actively restore covenantal weight at every occurrence by tying the image back to Old Testament marriage-covenant background (Hosea, Ezekiel 16/23) rather than assuming the word alone carries theological content; never present the imagery through wedding-industry visual language without this anchor.
7	Worship of the Lamb	子羊, ふさわしい, 礼拝する／仕える, 香, 長老, 生き物	礼拝 is generic cross-religious worship vocabulary in Japanese media (used equally for Islamic prayer, Buddhist devotion, Shinto ritual) — this is a genuine crowded-neighborhood risk, since the term itself carries no built-in exclusivity; 香 collides directly with butsudan/funeral incense ritual; 子羊 is a blankness risk (no shepherd/lamb-raising culture in Japan).	Fence 礼拝する／仕える with explicit exclusivity teaching at every occurrence — leverage 19:10 and 22:9 (angels themselves refuse worship) as the text’s own internal fencing device; fence 香 against Buddhist memorial-incense association by anchoring explicitly to “prayer reaching God” (Psalm 141:2 background); supply full explanatory background for 子羊 rather than assuming any native cultural resonance.
8	Symbolic and Apocalyptic Interpretation	黙示, 獣, 竜／龍, 大バビロン, 数字六百六十六, 奥義	This doctrine is a methodological doctrine (how to read symbols) rather than a single-term doctrine, so its central linguistic risk is category-level: Japanese readers, primed by 怪獣 (kaijū) pop-culture monsters, folklore dragons, and strong number-superstition (4/死, 9/苦), are more likely to read Revelation’s symbols either as literal monster-fiction or as omens to decode than as the text’s own structured, Old-Testament-rooted symbolic register (Daniel 7, Ezekiel 1, 38–39).	Teach the method explicitly and early (ideally before ch. 4), naming the specific competing reading habits (kaijū-monster literalism; omen/numerology decoding) the curriculum must pre-empt, rather than fencing each symbol term in isolation only.
9	Assurance of God’s Final Victory over Evil	勝利を得る, 最初の復活, 竜／龍 (defeated), 報い, 主イエスよ、来てください	報い sits adjacent to 因果 (karmic cause-and-effect retribution); 竜／龍’s defeat is doctrinally clear but culturally reversed (Japanese dragons are typically benevolent guardians, so the text’s assumption that readers already feel revulsion toward the dragon cannot be assumed).	Fence 報い against mechanical karmic-payout logic, tying reward explicitly to fulfilled grace-promise per baseline’s on-giri caution; supply explicit teaching that this dragon (Satan) is being identified as author of Genesis 3’s deception (12:9) specifically to override the reader’s default benevolent-dragon association, rather than assuming the negative valence is automatic.

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Section 2 — Missing Vocabulary vs. Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods

2A. Missing Vocabulary (Blankness Risk)

These terms have no competing wrong meaning in Japanese — the risk is that the target audience (largely secular, biblically illiterate, with only light Shinto/Buddhist cultural familiarity per the baseline’s audience profile) has no existing mental slot for the concept at all. The strategy is explanatory teaching, not lexical substitution.

Term	Gap Type	Why No Native Slot Exists
アルファとオメガ (Alpha and Omega)	Pure blankness	Transliterated foreign-alphabet letters carry zero semantic content without explicit explanation that these are the first/last Greek letters.
子羊 (Lamb, as Christological title)	Cultural blankness	Japan has no sheep-herding/shepherding cultural tradition; the vulnerability-yet-conquest paradox central to Revelation 5 has no ready cultural analogue.
しゅろの枝 (Palm Branches)	Biblical-illiteracy blankness	No Palm Sunday referent exists in Japanese cultural memory.
全能者 (Almighty), 摂理 (Providence, baseline reuse)	Register blankness	Formally correct but unfamiliar high-register theological vocabulary to secular readers; risk is non-comprehension, not misconception.
ゴグとマゴグ (Gog and Magog)	Biblical-illiteracy blankness	Requires Ezekiel 38–39 background entirely absent for the target audience.
十二の門／十二の土台 (Twelve Gates/Foundations)	Typological blankness	Twelve-tribes/twelve-apostles typology has no meaning without supplied Old Testament and Gospel background.
明けの明星 (Morning Star) — partial	Blankness plus false-bridge risk	Not a total blank (Buddhist enlightenment narrative supplies a false bridge — see 2B) but the messianic sense (Numbers 24:17) is blank and must be actively supplied.
ハデス (Hades), transliterated	Deliberate blankness (by design)	Chosen specifically to avoid supplying a false native equivalent (黄泉); the resulting blankness is intentional and must be filled by direct teaching, not left unresolved.

Strategy for this category as a whole: Phase 2 materials must never assume comprehension follows automatically from correct word choice. Each blank-slot term requires a first-occurrence explanatory clause (comparable to the baseline’s existing practice for 福音/gospel and キリスト/Messiah) before the term can carry theological weight in later chapters.

2B. Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods (Fencing Required)

These terms have strong existing native meanings that will be activated by default unless explicitly fenced off. Fencing means: (1) name the competing concept explicitly in the teaching material, (2) state clearly why it does not apply, (3) restate the correct sense.

Term	Competing Neighbor	Fencing Statement Required
火の池 (Lake of Fire)	地獄 (jigoku) hell-realms; 閻魔 (Enma)	“Unlike jigoku, this judgment is final and unrepeatable — there is no karmic debt to resolve and no rebirth to follow.”
御座 / 大きな白い御座 (Throne / Great White Throne)	高御座 (Takamikura), the Japanese Imperial Throne	”This is the one Creator’s authority over all history, not an echo of any nation’s imperial institution.”
神の国 (Kingdom of God) — reused, intensified at 11:15	神国日本 (pre-1945 State Shinto slogan)	Baseline’s mandatory anchoring applies with added force at 11:15, whose triumphant political-sounding language could otherwise echo ultranationalist rhetoric.
竜／龍 (Dragon = Satan)	龍神 (ryūjin), benevolent Shinto water deities	”This dragon is named explicitly as the deceiver of Eden (12:9) — the text overrides, rather than draws on, any sense of the dragon as guardian or blessing.”
呪い (Curse)	丑の刻参り folk curse-rituals; 怨霊 (onryō) vengeful-spirit horror tropes	”This is the legal consequence of Genesis 3’s sin being permanently lifted, not a hex being deactivated.”
怒り (Wrath)	祟り (tatari), appeasable angry-spirit anger	”This is a righteous judge’s verdict against sin, not an offended spirit that ritual can pacify.”
香 (Incense)	butsudan/funeral お香 ritual	”This pictures the prayers of believers reaching God, not ancestor-memorial ritual.”
白い衣 (White Robes)	Japanese funeral/mourning white	Valence-flip risk, not merely a neighbor: “White here means the opposite of its usual Japanese funeral association — purity, victory, and joy.”
花嫁 / 子羊の婚宴 (Bride / Marriage Supper)	Western-style wedding-chapel industry aesthetics	”This pictures covenant union fulfilled, not a stylish ceremony chosen for its visual appeal.”
獣 (Beast)	怪獣 (kaijū) Godzilla-tradition movie monsters	”This names real persecuting political-religious power across history, not a fictional creature.”
奥義 (Mystery)	Martial-arts/gaming “secret technique"	"This is a hidden divine plan now disclosed by God, not a special move to be unlocked.”
ハルマゲドン (Armageddon)	Generic pop-culture “apocalyptic showdown” trope	”This names one specific text’s symbolic gathering-point for opposition to God, not a generic doomsday scenario.”
報い (Reward)	因果 (inga), karmic cause-and-effect retribution	”This is the fulfillment of a grace-given promise, not a mechanically earned payout for accumulated deeds.”
御霊 — forbidden, not merely fenced	Shinto enshrined ancestral/kami spirits (御霊祭)	Not eligible for fencing; excluded entirely per baseline-consistent Critical prohibition for Seven Spirits.
極楽 / 極楽往生 — caution-only bridge, not fenced into use	Pure Land Buddhist rebirth-paradise	Never substituted for 新しい天と新しい地 or 救い; may be referenced only as a contrastive teaching bridge per baseline’s existing convention.

Strategy for this category as a whole: every crowded-neighborhood term requires the fencing statement to appear in the first teaching occurrence in each new document/lesson, not merely once in the whole curriculum, because Revelation’s episodic seven-churches / seal-trumpet-bowl structure means readers may enter study at different chapters.

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Section 3 — Transliteration vs. Paraphrase Decisions

Term	Decision	Rationale
God (神), Jesus (イエス), Christ (キリスト), Lord (主), Holy Spirit (聖霊)	Reuse baseline exactly	Settled Bible-translation-tradition terms; no Revelation-specific reason to deviate.
Hades	Transliterate (ハデス)	A native rendering (黄泉) would import a specific, named, well-known indigenous cosmology (Izanami/Izanagi’s underworld); transliteration deliberately produces a blank slot to be filled by teaching, which is safer than a false-equivalent slot already filled with wrong content.
Alpha and Omega	Transliterate + mandatory gloss (アルファとオメガ／初めと終わり)	No native equivalent exists for Greek alphabet letters; retaining both the transliteration and the semantic gloss (“beginning and end”) lets the teaching material supply the missing cultural fact (these are literally the first/last letters) while still landing the theological point.
Amen, Hallelujah, Armageddon, Michael, Gog and Magog, David, Israel	Transliterate (established or proper-noun form)	Standard cross-linguistic Bible-translation practice for proper nouns and liturgical exclamations; Armageddon requires an additional fencing note (see 2B) precisely because its transliteration already circulates in secular pop culture with a diluted sense.
Seven Spirits	Paraphrase, never transliterate/abbreviate to 霊 alone (七つの霊 + mandatory explanatory clause)	A one-word or transliterated rendering would either collapse into the forbidden 霊-alone risk or produce an opaque numeral phrase; paraphrase with built-in explanation is required at every occurrence.
Almighty, Alpha/Omega title pairing, Providence	Paraphrase using existing formal theological vocabulary (全能者, 初めと終わり, 摂理)	These are established, correct, if unfamiliar, formal terms; transliteration would be pointless (no Greek/Hebrew phonetic form is culturally recognizable) and paraphrase risk is low (biblical-illiteracy only, not competing-concept collision).
Lamb, Beast, Dragon, Harlot, Bride	Paraphrase using ordinary Japanese vocabulary (子羊, 獣, 竜／龍, 大淫婦, 花嫁), always with active fencing	These are concrete image-terms load-bearing for the text’s own visual logic; transliteration is not viable (no Greek loanword tradition exists for these common nouns), so the entire risk-management burden falls on the fencing/teaching apparatus described in Section 2B, not on lexical choice.
666 / Number of the Beast	Arabic numeral + kanji paraphrase (数字六百六十六), never treated as a puzzle to “solve”	Transliterating the Greek letter-numerals (χξς) would be unreadable and pedagogically pointless for a Japanese audience; paraphrase as a plain number, taught within its gematria-symbol function, avoids inviting speculative code-breaking.
Mystery	Paraphrase (奥義), fenced against martial-arts/gaming sense	No transliteration tradition exists for this common Greek term; the fencing burden is carried entirely by explanatory teaching, parallel to the baseline’s existing 復活/”comeback” dilution pattern.
Thousand Years, Book of Life, Second Death, Lake of Fire, New Heaven and New Earth, New Jerusalem	Paraphrase with literal, non-interpretive translation (千年, 命の書, 第二の死, 火の池, 新しい天と新しい地, 新しいエルサレム)	These are compound descriptive phrases in the Greek itself; literal paraphrase avoids silently embedding an interpretive stance (e.g., a specific millennial view) that the source text does not contain, consistent with the neutrality principle already established for 千年.

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Section 4 — Ranked List of This Letter’s Highest-Risk Ambiguities

Ranked by combined severity (doctrinal centrality × collision/blankness risk × frequency), with priority weighting toward the core passage, Revelation 21:1–8.

1. New Heaven and New Earth (新しい天と新しい地) — Rev 21:1. The single highest-stakes term in the entire curriculum. 新しい’s structural ambiguity between “unrelated replacement” and “qualitatively renewed” sits directly beside the genuinely close, competing cosmological structure of 極楽 (Pure Land rebirth into a different cosmic order). Located in the very first verse of the core passage. Critical / Human theologian review mandatory at every occurrence.

2. “No more sea” (海はもはやない) — Rev 21:1. A symbolic chaos-removal statement placed in an island nation whose religious (Ryūjin/Watatsumi sea-deities), economic (fishing-village identity), and recent traumatic (2011 Tōhoku tsunami) relationship to the sea is uniquely intense among all destination languages in this Language Package family. A literal misreading here risks not just confusion but pastoral insensitivity. High / Human theologian review with explicit trauma-awareness note.

3. Bride / Holy City identification (花嫁として整えられた聖なる都) — Rev 21:2. Sits inside modern Japan’s highly visible Western-style wedding-industry aesthetic (chapels chosen for style, not belief) — the same “foreign cultural brand” dilution pattern the baseline already flags for キリスト, now applied to the Church’s own self-identity rather than an outsider’s view of Christianity. High / Human theologian review.

4. Tabernacle/Dwell (神が人と共に住む) — Rev 21:3. Must be taught in explicit, unbroken continuity with the baseline’s Critical-risk 受肉 (Incarnation) doctrine (John 1:14). The core-passage risk is not a competing concept but disconnection — presenting this as a new, unrelated end-times event rather than the culmination of the Incarnation already established in the curriculum’s Christological foundation. High / Human theologian review.

5. “He will wipe away every tear… no more death, mourning, crying, pain” (Rev 21:4). Low lexical collision risk but a high pastoral-register risk: without care, this can be flattened into generic wellness/self-care language (paralleling the baseline’s existing 平安 vs. 安心／癒し caution), understating that death’s causes (sin, the curse) are removed, not merely its emotional symptoms soothed. Medium-High / Native speaker review with pastoral-register flag.

6. “These words are trustworthy and true” (Rev 21:5) — 忠実で真実. Interacts with the curriculum’s Symbolic and Apocalyptic Interpretation doctrine: readers must understand this verse as authorizing confident, non-speculative reading of the whole book’s symbolism, not as an isolated reassurance about this one promise alone. Medium / Native speaker review.

7. “I am the Alpha and Omega… to the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life freely (価なしに)” (Rev 21:6). Combines two ranked risks in one verse: the Alpha/Omega blankness (see Section 2A) and 価なしに, the single most direct textual link in the whole book to the baseline’s Critical on-giri/恩義理 warning, now applied to the consummation of salvation rather than only its beginning. Critical / Human theologian review mandatory.

8. “The one who overcomes (勝利を得る者) will inherit these things, and I will be their God and they will be my son (父子)” (Rev 21:7). Stacks three risk-bearing terms in one verse: 勝利を得る (competitive-achievement collision), inheritance (adoption doctrine, generally a positive bridge per baseline but easily lost here amid the other risks), and 父/子 sonship language, which must not be read as reward for winning a contest but as the fruit of grace-sustained faithfulness. High / Human theologian review.

9. “The cowardly (恐れる者)… will have their place in the lake of fire, which is the second death” (Rev 21:8). Stacks the Bushido-honor-shame bridge risk for 恐れる者 (see baseline-consistent caution: must be taught as covenant faith-failure, not mere courage/face failure) directly beside two Critical forbidden-substitution terms (火の池, 第二の死) in the same sentence — the highest term-density-per-verse ambiguity cluster in the core passage. Critical / Human theologian review mandatory for the full verse as a unit, not term-by-term.

10. Idolaters and sorcerers listed among the excluded (偶像礼拝者、魔術を行う者) — Rev 21:8. Requires the same careful, respectful distinction from butsudan ancestor-memorial practice and onmyōdō/占い entertainment fortune-telling already flagged in the glossary, but now delivered inside the emotionally weighty final-judgment list of the core passage rather than in a more didactic earlier chapter — raising the pastoral-sensitivity stakes of getting the framing right on first exposure. High / Human theologian review with pastoral-sensitivity flag.

11. King of Kings and Lord of Lords (王の王、主の主) — Rev 19:16, feeding forward into ch. 21’s consummation. Lower direct imperial-institution collision than 神の国 (Japan’s monarch is 天皇, not 王) but the totalizing, rival-excluding force of the title must not be softened into merely a very great king among others. High / Human theologian review.

12. Seven Spirits (七つの霊) — Rev 1:4; 3:1; 4:5; 5:6. Not in the core passage but ranked highly because the forbidden alternative (御霊) is Japan’s actual liturgical vocabulary for enshrined ancestral/kami spirits (御霊祭) — a uniquely sharp version of the baseline’s general 聖霊-alone caution, requiring absolute vigilance at every occurrence throughout the book. Critical / Human theologian review mandatory.

13. Throne / Great White Throne (御座／大きな白い御座) — Rev 4–5, 20, culminating conceptually in 21’s New Jerusalem enthronement imagery. 高御座 is not merely an analogous concept but the actual proper name of the living Japanese Imperial Throne — the sharpest institutional-name collision risk in the glossary after 神の国. High / Human theologian review.

14. White Robes (白い衣) — Rev 6:11; 7:9,13–14; 19:8. A genuine valence-flip (not merely a competing neighbor): traditional Japanese funeral dress is white, the reverse of the intended purity/victory/joy sense — silent translation without explicit reversal-teaching risks an unconsciously opposite emotional read. High / Native speaker + theologian joint review recommended.

15. Prophet/Prophecy kanji homophone (預言者／預言 vs. 予言者／予言) — recurring at high frequency throughout the book, including 22:18-19’s self-referential closing warning. Not a doctrinal-collision risk but a structural, orthography-only risk unique to Japanese; ranked here because Revelation’s sheer frequency of prophetic self-designation (compared to Romans) multiplies the statistical exposure to a silent kanji swap by IME auto-conversion or furigana-less rendering, at the book’s own climactic warning against altering “the words of this prophecy.” Low doctrinal risk / High operational-QA priority — automated kanji-verification check required at every occurrence.

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Section 5 — Summary Recommendations for Phase 2 System Prompt Integration

1. Add the Section 2B fencing statements as mandatory first-occurrence teaching clauses, not optional stylistic notes, comparable to the baseline’s existing treatment of 神/唯一のまことの神.
2. Treat Revelation 21:1–8 as requiring a combined-verse review unit for items 7 and 9 above (Rev 21:6 and 21:8), since term-by-term validation alone will miss risks that emerge only from the stacked combination of multiple flagged terms in a single verse.
3. Extend the baseline’s escalation rules (from 12_ai_translation_requirements.md) to explicitly include: Seven Spirits, New Heaven and New Earth, Lake of Fire, Second Death, Idolatry, and “freely/no cost” (価なしに) as Revelation-specific mandatory theologian-review triggers, in addition to the baseline’s existing Romans-derived list.
4. Flag 御霊 as an absolute forbidden substitution (not merely discouraged) in every automated validation pass, with the same enforcement priority as the baseline’s 解脱/化身/権化/現人神 list.
5. Where a term’s primary risk is blankness rather than collision (Section 2A), do not over-engineer lexical alternatives; invest instead in first-occurrence explanatory apparatus, consistent with the baseline’s existing successful pattern for 福音 and キリスト.