Linguistic Gap Analysis: Mark 1–16 (English → Korean)

Purpose and Method

This analysis identifies, for each of the eight curriculum doctrines, what Korean vocabulary is available, where that vocabulary is weak or crowded by competing semantic fields (Confucian filial-hierarchy ethics, Korean shamanism/무속신앙, Korean Buddhist cosmology, Korean status-and-achievement culture), and what rendering strategy Phase 2 must follow. It builds directly on 08_core_glossary.md and the Mark-extended bible_term_registry.json; it does not repeat their citation tables but analyzes the linguistic decision structure behind them. All baseline Romans terms are reused exactly per the hard rule; this document’s job is to name where the Mark curriculum’s new narrative material (miracle, exorcism, Passion, discipleship-reversal texts) stresses the existing Korean lexicon in ways Romans’ more expository register did not.

Coverage confirms: all 16 chapters of Mark were reviewed for load-bearing vocabulary (see 08_core_glossary.md Part 4, note 4 — no chapter is a pure baseline-reuse chapter). This document’s matrix organizes that same full-book material by doctrine rather than by chapter.

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Part 1 — Doctrine Vocabulary Matrix

1. Jesus as the Suffering Servant and Son of God

Element	Detail
Available Korean terms	하나님의 아들 (baseline, reused), 인자 [NEW #3], 그리스도 (baseline), 불쌍히 여기다 [NEW #34]
Weaknesses	하나님의 아들 alone does not carry Mark’s servant pole — Korean readers steeped in the term from Romans/John may default to a glory-only reading. 인자 (Son of Man) is the term that carries the suffering pole, but Korean has no existing “servant-king” compound that holds both together; the paradox must be taught structurally (via the 1:1/1:11/15:39 inclusio plus the eight 인자-suffering predictions), not lexically solved by a single word.
Crowded neighborhood	Korea’s Dangun/Hwanung founding-myth echo (already flagged in baseline for 하나님의 아들) risks reading Sonship as elevation only, exactly the opposite emphasis Mark needs at 8:31-38 and 10:45.
Recommended strategy	Always pair 하나님의 아들 occurrences with explicit narrative anchoring to the nearest 인자-suffering saying; never let a lesson teach the title in isolation from Mark’s suffering-and-glory double movement. Use 불쌍히 여기다 consistently to keep the “Servant” register visceral (gut-compassion), not abstract or merely doctrinal.

2. The Kingdom of God Breaking In

Element	Detail
Available Korean terms	하나님의 나라 (baseline, reused, Low risk), 가까이 왔다 [NEW #19], 비유 [NEW #20], 영생 [NEW #29], 지옥 [NEW #28]
Weaknesses	하나님의 나라 itself is low-risk (no live competing “divine kingdom” state ideology in Korea, confirmed by baseline). The gap is specifically in tense/aspect: 가까이 왔다 must communicate present in-breaking, but a naive translator defaults to future-only phrasing (올 것이다), collapsing Mark’s distinctive “already/not yet” tension into a purely future promise — indistinguishable from a fortune-telling prediction genre (점, 사주팔자 예측) that Korean readers know well.
Crowded neighborhood	영생 risks drifting toward a 복 (fortune/blessing)-framed reward-for-renunciation reading in the rich-man pericope (10:17-30), echoing the 기복신앙 critique already central to the baseline’s “grace” entry. 지옥 (지옥, using the same Sino-Korean root shared with Korean Buddhist hell cosmology) risks importing a multi-tiered, karmic, ultimately-impersonal framework.
Recommended strategy	Render ἐγγίζω consistently as 가까이 왔다 (perfect-tense-flavored, not future), with a first-occurrence gloss at 1:15 fixing the “already dawning” sense before any other kingdom material appears. Fence 영생 away from 복 language explicitly in the ch. 10 lesson. Fence 지옥 with an explicit note distinguishing final personal judgment from Buddhist multi-tiered karmic hell at its first occurrence (9:43-48).

3. Faith and Discipleship amid Fear

Element	Detail
Available Korean terms	믿음 (baseline, reused), 두려움 [NEW #24]
Weaknesses	No missing vocabulary — both terms are well-established, stable Korean words. The gap is structural: Mark pairs 믿음/두려움 as a recurring antithesis (4:40-41; 5:36; 6:50; 16:8) that Romans’ more propositional register never required tracking as a motif. If translators treat each occurrence as an independent lexical choice rather than a tracked structural pair, the cumulative narrative argument (fear is not the opposite of discipleship’s cost but faith’s proving ground) is lost.
Crowded neighborhood	믿음 already carries the baseline’s caution against 미신 (superstitious belief) and 사주팔자를 믿는 것 (trusting fortune-telling); Mark’s storm/exorcism narratives (where fear responds to genuinely uncanny events) make this collision more vivid than Romans’ abstract exposition did, since readers may reach for folk-supernatural vocabulary to process the miracle scenes themselves.
Recommended strategy	Track 믿음/두려움 as a paired structural motif across a single cross-reference table in Phase 2 (not per-chapter isolation); require the same motif-tracking discipline already established for the 인자 title and the 잠잠하라 silencing motif.

4. The Necessity of the Cross

Element	Detail
Available Korean terms	십자가 [NEW #5], 반드시 고난을 받다 [NEW #4], 반드시 [NEW #25], 어찌 나를 버리셨나이까 [NEW #6], 언약의 피 [NEW #7], 잔 [NEW #13], 목숨/생명 [NEW #33]
Weaknesses	Korean has strong, stable KRV-established vocabulary for the literal cross (십자가) but no single word carrying δεῖ’s divine-necessity force by default — a literal predictive rendering (고난을 당할 것이다) reads as mere foreknowledge of misfortune, not God’s determined plan.
Crowded neighborhood	This is the sharpest collision surface in the doctrine set: 반드시 stripped of its theological frame risks assimilation to 팔자/운명 (birth-chart-fixed fate, impersonal destiny) — vocabulary the baseline already fences off for “calling” and “providence,” but Mark’s Passion predictions (8:31; 9:12, 31; 10:33-34) apply this same fatalism risk directly to Christ’s death, which is a genuinely new pressure point Romans never tested this heavily. 잔 (cup) risks a flat, literal-vessel reading that loses the OT judgment/suffering idiom entirely if not glossed on first occurrence.
Recommended strategy	Standardize 반드시 with a footnote-style teaching gloss the first time it governs a Passion prediction (8:31), explicitly contrasting divine determined purpose against 팔자/운명. Always render ποτήριον with an explanatory gloss at first occurrence (10:38) rather than assuming carryover recognition from later liturgical use. 어찌 나를 버리셨나이까 (15:34) must never be paraphrased toward “felt” abandonment — mandatory theologian review, per the term registry.

5. Servanthood versus Worldly Greatness

Element	Detail
Available Korean terms	섬기는 자 [NEW #10], 종 [NEW #11], 임의로 주관하다/지배하다 [NEW #8], 권세를 부리다 [NEW #12], 사랑 [NEW #30]
Weaknesses	Korean’s rich existing vocabulary for hierarchical relationship (상하관계, 서열) is precisely the problem, not a gap: there is too much available vocabulary for status-and-rank relations, and the natural drift is toward softening Jesus’ reversal into ordinary respectful-service language already used in Korean corporate/ecclesial administrative contexts (e.g., “섬김의 리더십,” a phrase increasingly common in Korean church leadership literature that can domesticate 10:42-45’s radical reversal into a management technique).
Crowded neighborhood	종 (slave) carries pre-modern Joseon-era class-servitude connotations (노비/종 caste) that risk reading as demeaning imposed status rather than Christ’s own chosen self-description; 임의로 주관하다/지배하다 risks softening into neutral “leadership” vocabulary unless deliberately marked as illegitimate coercive rule.
Recommended strategy	Explicitly distinguish “섬김의 리더십” (a now-common but domesticated Korean church phrase) from Mark’s actual claim: greatness is slavery to others, not a leadership style adorned with humility language. Require 종 to be taught with the double move — naming and rejecting the caste-connotation misreading, then reclaiming total self-giving as the positive content — at every occurrence (10:44).

6. The Messianic Secret

Element	Detail
Available Korean terms	인자 [NEW #3], 비밀 [NEW #21], 잠잠하라 [NEW #22]
Weaknesses	비밀 is available and adequate, but Korean has a near-neighbor term, 신비 (“mystery” in the sense of esoteric/mystical experience), which is more commonly used in general religious registers and risks being reached for instead, especially by translators unfamiliar with this doctrine’s specific theological shape.
Crowded neighborhood	신비 sits adjacent to Korean folk-shamanistic and Buddhist-mystical vocabulary describing hidden spiritual knowledge attained through discipline or revelation-experience (cf. 도인, already fenced off under baseline “saints”); using it here would reframe Mark’s sovereignly-disclosed-yet-deliberately-veiled revelation as attainable esoteric gnosis.
Recommended strategy	Lock 비밀 as the fixed rendering for μυστήριον at 4:11 and forbid 신비 as an alternative in the same way the baseline forbids 신령 for the Holy Spirit. Track 잠잠하라 as a single cross-book motif (1:25, 34, 44; 3:12; 5:43; 7:36; 8:30; 9:9) so its recurring pattern is visible to the reader, not diluted into varied synonyms for “be quiet.”

7. Jesus’ Authority over Sickness, Sin, and Nature

Element	Detail
Available Korean terms	권세 [NEW #9], 능력 (baseline, reused — contrast term), 귀신/더러운 귀신 [NEW #15], 꾸짖다 [NEW #16], 죄 사함/죄를 사하다 [NEW #17], 신성모독 [NEW #18], 부정한/깨끗한 [NEW #27], 구원/낫다 [NEW #23]
Weaknesses	This is the single densest collision zone in the whole curriculum. Korean has abundant, vivid, living vocabulary for the spirit-world (귀신, 신령, 영력) precisely because Korean shamanism (무속신앙) remains an active practice, not a historical memory — unlike some doctrines above, this is not a gap but an oversupply of terms whose default connotations run directly counter to Mark’s theology.
Crowded neighborhood	(a) 귀신 sits next to 조상신 (ancestor-spirits, which are venerated, not simply expelled) — must never be conflated. (b) 권세 sits next to 능력, which the baseline already marks Critical for its 영력/shamanistic-power collision; Mark uses both concepts in close proximity (1:22/1:27 ἐξουσία; cf. baseline δύναμις-driven “power_of_god” caution), so translators must actively resist collapsing the two into a single undifferentiated “spiritual power” register the way a gut ritual’s power-claims would be described. (c) 구원/낫다 is a wholly new dual-sense ambiguity: mechanically rendering every σῴζω occurrence as 구원 would imply every physically healed person (e.g., the hemorrhaging woman, 5:34) received full eschatological salvation, while draining 구원 of force elsewhere; mechanically rendering all as 낫다 would strip healing narratives of soteriological resonance (e.g., 10:52’s “your faith has 낫게/구원했다 you”).
Recommended strategy	Maintain 권세/능력 as structurally distinct nouns across every Mark occurrence (never used interchangeably even where English source text might use “power” loosely). Require per-occurrence context judgment for σῴζω, flagged for native-speaker review (healing-sense) or theologian review (salvific-sense) per the term registry — this cannot be resolved by a fixed rule and must be a judgment call documented in the segment cache. Teach 귀신 exclusively as hostile, non-kin, sovereignly expelled beings, contrasted explicitly against 조상신 veneration at first occurrence (1:23-27).

8. The Ransom for Many

Element	Detail
Available Korean terms	대속물 [NEW #1], 많은 사람을 대신하여 [NEW #2], 언약의 피 [NEW #7]
Weaknesses	Korean has no single pre-existing Christian-vocabulary term that unambiguously conveys “substitutionary ransom payment” without either (a) sounding like a purely commercial transaction (몸값, ransom money with no atonement sense) or (b) sounding like a repeatable cultic offering (제물). This is a genuine missing-vocabulary gap, not merely a crowded-neighborhood problem — no established KRV single word does all the doctrinal work Mark 10:45 requires, hence the compound coinage 대속물 (already used in some Korean theological literature but not as tightly load-bearing as here).
Crowded neighborhood	제물 sits adjacent to both Korean shamanistic gut-ritual offerings and Confucian jesa ancestor-offerings — both repeatable, propitiatory-transactional rituals structurally similar to the 기복신앙 pattern the baseline already flags as the single central Korean risk (under “grace”). 대신하여 vs. 위하여 is a fine but doctrinally load-bearing preposition choice: 위하여 (for the sake of/benefit of) is the more natural, softer Korean idiom and will be the default drift target for any translator not specifically trained on this distinction.
Recommended strategy	Lock 대속물 and forbid 제물/몸값 as substitutes, matching the enforcement pattern already used for 은혜 (grace) in the baseline. Lock 대신하여 and forbid 위하여 as a substitute specifically in 10:45 and 14:24, both flagged for mandatory theologian review per occurrence. Teach 대속물/많은 사람을 대신하여/언약의 피 as one coherent doctrinal cluster (already directed in 08_core_glossary.md Part 3), never introduced as three unrelated vocabulary items.

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Part 2 — Missing Vocabulary vs. Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods

2.1 Genuinely Missing Vocabulary (no adequate existing Korean Christian term)

Concept	Gap description	Resolution
λύτρον substitutionary ransom (10:45)	No single existing KRV word conveys “unilateral, non-repeatable, substitutionary payment” without either commercial or cultic-offering connotations	Coin/lock compound 대속물; forbid 제물, 몸값
ἀντὶ πολλ�ών precision (10:45)	Korean’s natural idiom (위하여, “for the sake of”) does not carry the strict substitution (“instead of”) sense by default	Lock 대신하여; forbid 위하여 in this construction
δεῖ as theological necessity marker	반드시 exists and is adequate lexically, but nothing in ordinary Korean usage flags it as divine rather than fated necessity without added teaching gloss	Require first-occurrence teaching gloss (8:31) distinguishing from 팔자/운명
υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου as fixed apocalyptic title	사람의 아들 (a literal, transparent gloss) exists but loses all Daniel 7 force; no naturalized Korean idiom independently carries that force	Lock transliterated-loan-flavored fixed title 인자; require Daniel 7 teaching note at first occurrence (2:10)
ποτήριον as suffering-idiom (not literal vessel)	Korean 잔 is lexically correct but carries zero built-in OT judgment/suffering connotation without explicit gloss	Mandatory explanatory footnote at first occurrence (10:38)

2.2 Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods Requiring Fencing

Korean term/field	Competing neighbors	Doctrine(s) at risk	Fencing action
권세 (authority)	능력 (baseline Critical term, shamanistic 영력 collision)	Jesus’ Authority; Servanthood vs. Greatness	Maintain as two structurally distinct nouns; never interchange
귀신 (unclean spirit)	조상신 (venerated ancestor-spirit), 신령 (baseline Holy Spirit caution)	Jesus’ Authority over Sickness/Sin/Nature	Explicit contrast note at first occurrence; hostile/non-kin framing required
구원 (salvation) / 낫다 (healed)	mechanical single-word substitution for both senses of σῴζω	Faith and Discipleship; Jesus’ Authority; Salvation (baseline)	Per-occurrence contextual judgment, flagged for review
반드시 (necessity)	팔자, 운명 (fate/destiny, baseline providence caution)	Necessity of the Cross	Teaching gloss distinguishing divine purpose from fatalism
비밀 (mystery, disclosed)	신비 (esoteric mystical gnosis)	The Messianic Secret	Lock 비밀; forbid 신비
종 (slave)	노비/종 (Joseon-era caste servitude)	Servanthood vs. Greatness	Teach positive reclaiming after naming the caste-connotation risk
지옥 (Gehenna)	Korean Buddhist multi-tiered karmic hell (지옥, same root)	Kingdom of God Breaking In	Explicit contrast note: personal/final vs. karmic/impersonal
유전 (tradition)	전통 (positively-valued Confucian inherited tradition)	Jesus’ Authority (Law/Tradition)	Target the specific failure mode (nullifying God’s command), not tradition generally
임의로 주관하다/지배하다, 권세를 부리다	Korean church “섬김의 리더십” administrative vocabulary	Servanthood vs. Greatness	Distinguish Mark’s radical reversal from a domesticated leadership-style reading
사랑 (agapē)	정 (relational affection), 효 (filial devotion)	Servanthood vs. Greatness (greatest commandment)	Teach as commanded, self-giving will, broader than either category
어찌 나를 버리셨나이까 (cry of dereliction)	any softened “felt-abandonment-only” paraphrase	Necessity of the Cross; Suffering Servant	Forbid softening; mandatory theologian review every occurrence

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Part 3 — Transliteration vs. Paraphrase Decisions

Korean’s decision surface here differs from lower-Christian-literacy languages in this pipeline: because Korean already possesses a century-plus-old, extremely stable Bible-translation vocabulary (KRV, 개역개정), most Mark-specific terms should be naturalized Korean/Sino-Korean compounds already circulating in Korean church usage, not transliterations. Transliteration is reserved for cases where the source Aramaic/Greek term’s sound itself is theologically significant or already an established loanword.

Term	Decision	Rationale
Ἀββά (Abba)	Transliterate: 아빠	Already established in the Romans baseline; Korean 아빠 (informal “dad”) is an unusually close semantic and phonetic near-cognate — one of the few cases in this whole project where transliteration and natural meaning converge. No paraphrase needed.
Ελωι Ελωι λεμα σαβαχθανι	Preserve Aramaic transliteration in-line (as KRV does: 엘리 엘리 라마 사박다니) plus the Korean translation 어찌 나를 버리셨나이까 immediately following, matching the source text’s own bilingual structure (Mark gives both the Aramaic and its Greek translation)	Mark 15:34 itself is bilingual; the Korean rendering should preserve this same “foreign cry + immediate translation” structure rather than silently dropping the Aramaic, since the untranslated cry’s rawness is part of its rhetorical force
υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου (Son of Man)	Paraphrase into fixed Sino-Korean title: 인자, NOT transliterated, NOT literally glossed as 사람의 아들	인자 is already the established KRV rendering; a transliteration would be meaningless to readers, and the literal gloss loses the Daniel 7 title-force; the existing Sino-Korean compound is the correct middle path
λύτρον (ransom)	Paraphrase/coin: 대속물, NOT transliterated	No Greek loanword tradition exists for this term in Korean; the Sino-Korean compound (대신 + 속 + 물, “substitute-redemption-thing”) is the only path that carries the atonement sense without importing commercial or cultic-offering connotations
γέεννα (Gehenna)	Use existing Sino-Korean term 지옥, NOT a transliteration (게헨나)	A transliteration would be unfamiliar and pedagogically opaque to ordinary readers; the existing term is required for comprehension but must be fenced (see Part 2.2) rather than replaced
Χριστός (Christ/Messiah)	Transliterate: 그리스도 (already baseline)	Established convention; no paraphrase alternative under consideration
βάπτισμα (baptism)	Use existing loanword-derived established term 세례 (itself ultimately a Sino-Korean compound, not a Greek transliteration), NOT a fresh transliteration	세례 is deeply established across all of Korean Christianity (Protestant and Catholic); introducing a Greek-based transliteration would fracture Bible-translation-tradition consistency for no doctrinal gain
παράδοσις (tradition) vs. νόμος (law)	Both paraphrase into existing distinct Sino-Korean terms: 유전 vs. 율법; no transliteration for either	Korean already has two lexically distinct native theological terms adequate to mark this contrast; transliteration would be both unnecessary and would erase the existing helpful lexical distinction

General rule for this letter: default to paraphrase using existing KRV-established Sino-Korean theological vocabulary; reserve transliteration only for (a) terms already fixed by baseline convention (아빠, 그리스도, 예수, etc.) or (b) cases where the source text itself preserves a transliterated foreign term for rhetorical effect (Ελωι Ελωι, Mark 15:34).

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Part 4 — Ranked List of Highest-Risk Ambiguities

Ranking criteria: (1) doctrinal centrality to the core passage (Mark 10:35-45) and the eight curriculum doctrines, (2) severity of potential syncretism with Korean shamanism/Confucian/Buddhist frameworks, (3) whether the ambiguity is a genuine missing-vocabulary gap vs. a crowded-neighborhood risk, (4) whether Romans’ baseline already provides partial cover or whether this is a wholly new pressure point for the Mark curriculum.

1. ἀντὶ πολλῶν substitution precision (many 대신하여 vs. 위하여) — Core-passage-critical (Mark 10:45 itself). A single preposition choice determines whether the ransom is penal substitution or generalized benefit. No baseline precedent. Mandatory theologian review every occurrence.

2. λύτρον ransom vs. offering/ritual-payment framing (대속물 vs. 제물/몸값) — Core-passage-critical. Directly inherits the single highest-severity syncretism risk in the entire Korean package (the 기복신앙 transactional pattern already flagged Critical for “grace” in the baseline), now applied to the atonement itself rather than to divine favor generally.

3. σῴζω dual sense (구원 vs. 낫다) — Not present in Romans at all; a wholly new category of ambiguity for this curriculum. High volume of occurrences across healing narratives (5:23-34; 6:56; 10:52) creates many opportunities for either over- or under-claiming salvific weight per occurrence; requires case-by-case judgment rather than a fixed rule, raising execution risk in Phase 2 batch processing.

4. 귀신 (unclean spirit) vs. 조상신 (ancestor-spirit) / 영력 (shaman power) — The single most actively practiced competing religious framework this curriculum touches (Korean shamanism remains a live practice, unlike Romans’ comparatively more settled Confucian/Buddhist collision points). High occurrence density (seven+ major exorcism pericopes) multiplies exposure.

5. δεῖ / 반드시 (divine necessity) vs. 팔자/운명 (fate) — Applies the baseline’s already-flagged providence/calling fatalism caution directly to Christ’s own death (8:31 etc.), a theologically higher-stakes application than anything in Romans, where this caution applied to believers’ calling rather than to the cross itself.

6. 권세 (ἐξουσία) vs. 능력 (δύναμις/baseline “power_of_god”) — Both nouns appear in close narrative proximity across Mark’s authority-and-miracle material; the distinction (right-to-act vs. raw might) is conceptually subtle and easy for translators to collapse under time pressure, especially given Korean charismatic church culture’s heavy existing use of 능력-language (already Critical in the baseline for the same shamanistic-collision reason).

7. 어찌 나를 버리셨나이까 (cry of dereliction) — Singular in occurrence count (Mark 15:34 only) but maximal in theological weight; any softening toward “felt-only” abandonment undermines the entire Necessity-of-the-Cross doctrine’s climax.

8. 종/섬기는 자 (slave/servant) vs. Korean caste-servitude and “섬김의 리더십” administrative softening — Core-passage-adjacent (10:43-44) and doctrinally central to Servanthood versus Worldly Greatness; risk is bidirectional (either an offensive caste-connotation misreading or an over-domesticated leadership-technique misreading), requiring a two-part teaching correction rather than a single fix.

9. 비밀 vs. 신비 (mystery: disclosed-yet-veiled vs. esoteric gnosis) — Lower occurrence count (4:11 primarily) but structurally load-bearing for the Messianic Secret doctrine across the whole book; risk is a lexical substitution error more than a conceptual gap, making it comparatively easier to fence via a hard forbidden-term rule.

10. 지옥 (Gehenna) vs. Korean Buddhist karmic multi-tiered hell — Real but comparatively contained risk (single pericope, 9:43-48); included at the bottom of this ranked list because, unlike shamanism (still actively practiced) or the fatalism/necessity collision (touching Christ’s own death), this collision concerns eschatology at one remove from the core passage and the Suffering-Servant/Ransom doctrines most central to this curriculum.

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Part 5 — Handoff to Phase 2

1. All fencing rules and forbidden-substitution pairs identified in Part 2.2 must be added to the Mark-specific AI Translation Requirements document (this curriculum’s version of the baseline’s 12_ai_translation_requirements.md) as explicit forbidden-substitution entries, matching the enforcement pattern already used for Grace/Salvation/Power-of-God/Holy-Spirit/God in the Romans baseline.
2. The σῴζω dual-sense rule (#3 above) and the 권세/능력 distinction (#6 above) require new named escalation rules not present in the Romans baseline instruction set, since Romans never tested either ambiguity.
3. Items ranked 1–7 above require mandatory human theologian review on every occurrence in Phase 2, consistent with the Critical-risk escalation pattern already established in the Romans baseline and carried forward in the Mark-extended bible_term_registry.json.
4. This document should be read alongside 08_core_glossary.md (term-by-term detail) and the Mark-extended bible_term_registry.json/doctrine_risk_registry.json (to be produced/updated in the subsequent Phase 1 step) as the three-part linguistic foundation for all Phase 2 segment translation of Mark.