Executive Summary: Luke 1–24 Translation Requirements (Maithili)

Why it matters

Luke is the first full narrative Gospel this pipeline has run for Maithili, and it lands in a region with no settled indigenous Christian translation tradition to lean on. The core passage, Luke 4:16-21, is Jesus’ own thesis statement for his mission — good news to the poor, release to captives, sight to the blind, the Lord’s favor “today” — and it must be rendered in a language whose available religious vocabulary is saturated with a different thesis: Mithila is the Ramayana’s own home territory, and its everyday spiritual idiom runs on karma-merit, avatar-descent, and lineage purity. Getting this book right sets vocabulary precedent for every future Maithili curriculum.

Key findings

• 86 glossary terms are now tracked for Luke: 47 inherited unmodified from the Romans baseline, 39 newly introduced by Luke’s own vocabulary (repentance, visceral compassion, Son of Man, Savior, paradise, table fellowship, and more).
• 43 doctrines span the full 24 chapters — every chapter reviewed, none silently skipped — anchored by the core passage but extending across Luke’s entire narrative arc from the Annunciation (ch. 1) to the Ascension (ch. 24).
• The single highest syncretism risk identified is Luke 17:21 (“the kingdom of God is within/among you”), where a wrong preposition choice could accidentally affirm an Advaita Vedanta-style indwelling-Self reading indistinguishable from doctrine this project must reject.
• The incarnation narrative (1:31-35, 2:6-7) carries higher stakes than in Romans, because Luke narrates Christ’s conception and birth directly, inside the same region that culturally “owns” the Ramayana’s miraculous-birth story.
• A wholly new doctrine absent from the Romans baseline — Repentance and Forgiveness of Sins — requires a coordinated two-word split (क्षमा / छुटकारा) to carry one Greek root’s dual sense, the single highest-maintenance consistency item in the whole curriculum.

Risks

• 24 Critical-risk and 34 High-risk terms (58 of 86 total) require mandatory human theologian review before approval — nearly two-thirds of the entire glossary.
• 34 of 43 doctrines (19 Critical + 15 High) require the same theologian-level review; only 6 Medium-risk doctrines route to native-speaker review and just 3 Low-risk doctrines are automated-only.
• Culturally, the sharpest single collision point is Luke 14:26 (“hate father and mother”), which lands as a direct-sounding assault on Mithila’s deeply held filial-duty ideal unless every occurrence carries its mandatory hyperbole-clarifying note.
• The recurring करुणा / दया / अनुग्रह compassion-mercy-grace cluster is a standing collapse risk: all three sit as near-synonyms in ordinary Maithili devotional speech, and losing the distinction blurs three doctrinally load-bearing categories central to this curriculum (Jesus’ Compassion, Mercy and Compassion of God, Grace versus Merit).
• The region’s almsgiving-merit worldview (दान/पुण्य-अर्जन) risks silently inverting the “Good News to the Poor” doctrine’s own direction of agency unless every occurrence of दीन-दुखी carries its reversal note.

Opportunities

• Maithili’s own dining and commensality customs — including caste-conscious table norms — give this curriculum a genuinely productive cultural bridge (सङ्गति भोज) for teaching why Jesus’ meals with tax collectors and sinners were scandalous, rather than only a risk to fence against.
• Luke’s own internal correctives (9:20-22; 24:26, “it was necessary for the Christ to suffer”) give built-in teaching material to pre-empt any triumphalist avatar-style reading of Messiah before it takes root.
• The three-fold “today, already” thesis structure (4:21; 19:9; 23:43) offers a clean, repeatable teaching hook for the whole Gospel’s already/not-yet Kingdom theology.

Recommended actions

1. Route all 58 Critical/High terms and 34 Critical/High doctrines through mandatory human theologian review before Phase 2 approval; do not shortcut this for narrative (as opposed to epistolary) content.
2. Lock the “today” formula (4:21, 19:9, 23:43), the core passage (4:16-21), and the closing commission (24:44-49) as fixed, curriculum-wide renderings the moment they are approved.
3. Run dedicated cross-segment QA passes (not just per-segment review) for the ἄφεσις split, the Son of Man/Son of God pairing, and the five-occurrence “lost and found” refrain — these are consistency risks standard review will miss.
4. Treat Luke 17:21 and Luke 14:26 as standing Critical-tier flags requiring their mandatory translator notes on every single occurrence, with zero exceptions.

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Prepared as Phase 1 Step 11 of the TRI Bible study translation pipeline for Luke, destination language Maithili.