06 Linguistic Gap Analysis — 2 Timothy (English → Mandarin)

Purpose

This document performs the gap analysis mandated by PRD Phase 1 Step 8: for every doctrine in this curriculum’s scope, it inventories the Mandarin vocabulary actually available, names where that vocabulary is either missing (no ready-made destination-language term exists and a compound/paraphrase must be constructed) or crowded (too many existing Confucian/Buddhist/Daoist/folk-religious terms compete for the same semantic space and require deliberate fencing), decides transliteration-vs-paraphrase for each proper name and technical term, and ranks the letter’s highest-risk ambiguities for downstream Phase 2 attention. It draws on and does not contradict 08_core_glossary.md and bible_term_registry.json; all Mandarin renderings cited here are the same renderings already fixed in those documents and in the baseline Romans translation_memory.json.

Coverage spans 2 Timothy 1–4 in full. The core passage (3:14–4:5) anchors the analysis but every chapter is represented below; chapters/sections contributing no new gap risk are noted explicitly rather than omitted.

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Section A — Doctrine Vocabulary Matrix

For each of the seven curriculum doctrines: what Mandarin vocabulary already exists (reused from baseline or newly proposed), where that vocabulary is weak, and what strategy Phase 2 must apply.

A.1 Inspiration and Sufficiency of Scripture (2 Tim 3:14–17; background 1:2)

Available Mandarin Terms	Weaknesses	Recommended Strategy
圣经 (Scripture), 神所感示的 (God-breathed), 默示 (inspiration, doctrine-noun), 使人有智慧可以得救 (wisdom unto salvation), 教训/教导, 督责, 使人归正, 教导人学义, 完全/预备（行）, 善事	(1) 经 (jīng) is shared with the Confucian Five Classics and Buddhist/Daoist sutras — readers may default to a “sage canon among other sage canons” reading. (2) 神所感示的 is a paraphrase, not a single lexical item; risk of being misheard as describing a spirit-medium’s channeled message (通灵). (3) 智慧 pulls toward Buddhist prajñā-wisdom (般若智慧), an insight attained by meditative practice rather than given. (4) 善事 is the precise vocabulary of Buddhist merit-accumulation (行善积德). (5) 完全 risks blending with an attained state of perfection/enlightenment.	Never let 圣经 stand without an anchoring clause (“神所赐、独一无二的启示”) in first-use contexts. Always tether 神所感示的 to human authorship under divine superintendence, explicitly denying trance-mediation. Anchor 智慧 to “因信基督耶稣，使人得救” in the same sentence, never standalone. Anchor 善事 to “出于恩典的果子” (fruit of grace) rather than let it stand as an independent virtue-category. Treat 完全/预备(行) as functional sufficiency-for-service, not attained spiritual perfection.

A.2 Perseverance under Suffering (2 Tim 1:8, 1:12, 2:1–13, 3:10–12, 4:5–8, 4:17)

Available Mandarin Terms	Weaknesses	Recommended Strategy
同受苦难/忍受苦难, 忍耐, 逼迫、苦难, 我现在被浇奠, 主站在我旁边加给我力量, 从狮子口里被救出来, 以…为耻 (ashamed), 精兵/运动员/农夫	(1) No existing Mandarin term for suffering-with-a-purpose escapes the gravitational pull of the Buddhist frame in which 苦 (dukkha) is an inherent feature of existence to be transcended through detachment — the vocabulary itself (苦难) is shared, only the frame differs. (2) 浇奠 is precise Chinese ancestor-libation ritual vocabulary. (3) 忍耐 covers two distinct senses in this letter (enduring hardship at 2:10, 2:12; patiently bearing with people at 4:2, translating μακροθυμία) and readers may collapse them into one.	Always frame suffering as purposeful, Christ-centered, and time-bound (not an endless cycle to escape) — pair 苦难 with “为福音的缘故” (for the gospel’s sake) in first-use contexts of each chapter. Bound 浇奠 tightly with an explanatory clause identifying it as a Greco-Roman/OT sacrificial image for a life poured out in service, explicitly not an ancestor-rite offering. Split 忍耐 into two glossed senses in teaching notes (endurance-under-trial vs. patience-with-people) even though the same two characters render both.

A.3 Guarding Sound Doctrine (2 Tim 1:13–14, 2:14–26, 3:1–9 background)

Available Mandarin Terms	Weaknesses	Recommended Strategy
纯正的道理/纯正话语, 纯正话语的规模, 所交托的/所托付的, 保守, 按着正意分解（真理的道）, 世俗的虚谈, 像毒疮一样蔓延, 贵重的器皿/卑贱的器皿, 悔改	(1) CUV’s purity-idiom 纯正 (“unadulterated/authentic”) replaces the Greek health-vs-disease metaphor (ὑγιαίνω, “healthy”); the vivid antithesis to γάγγραινα (“gangrene,” 2:17) is lost unless deliberately recovered. (2) 所交托的/所托付的 sits directly next to the Chan Buddhist technical term 传法 (dharma-transmission), where a master transmits an evolving mind-realization to a chosen heir. (3) 按着正意分解 must not be read as creative reinterpretation of a “path.” (4) 悔改 sits near ritual-expiation vocabulary (拜忏, 做法事).	Recover the health/disease metaphor explicitly in teaching notes pairing 纯正 with 像毒疮一样蔓延 whenever γάγγραινα-adjacent passages occur. Fence 所交托的 with a clarifying phrase: a fixed, already-complete apostolic message being safeguarded unchanged, not a living tradition developing through successive masters. Teach 悔改 as a God-given inward reorientation (2:25), not a transactional penitential rite.

A.4 Faithful Transmission of the Gospel (2 Tim 1:5–6, 2:1–2)

Available Mandarin Terms	Weaknesses	Recommended Strategy
交托给忠心的人, 无伪的信心, 按手, 从新挑起, 刚强、仁爱、谨守	(1) 忠心 (“faithful”) sits directly beside 忠, a core Confucian virtue of loyalty owed to a ruler, state, or clan superior — risk of reframing gospel-transmission as political/hierarchical loyalty rather than trustworthy custodianship of truth. (2) 按手 (laying on of hands) sits near qi-transmission/healing-touch practices in qigong and folk-healing, which transfer an impersonal energy (气). (3) 仁爱 collides with 仁 (rén), a Confucian Five Constant Virtue cultivated by personal moral effort — the exact parallel already flagged for 义 in the baseline.	Clarify 忠心 in 2:2 as reliability in transmitting entrusted gospel content specifically, not general loyalty to a superior. Fence 按手 with a note distinguishing apostolic commissioning-by-authority from energy-transfer healing touch. Teach 刚强、仁爱、谨守 (1:7) as a Spirit-given disposition replacing fear, not a self-cultivated Confucian virtue triad.

A.5 The Charge to Preach the Word (2 Tim 4:1–5; background 1:11)

Available Mandarin Terms	Weaknesses	Recommended Strategy
传道, 我在神和基督耶稣面前嘱咐你, 审判活人死人, 显现, 无论得时不得时, 责备、警戒、劝勉, 传福音者, 职分/事工	(1) 传道 uses 道 for λόγος, inheriting the systemic dào-collision documented across this entire letter (see Section B.2 below) — the single most pervasive lexical risk in 2 Timothy. (2) 显现 must be held to exactly two unique, unrepeatable events (1:10, 4:1/4:8), resisting the pull toward a repeatable bodhisattva-style manifestation. (3) CUV convention often generalizes εὐαγγελιστής (“evangelist”) to 传道的, collapsing a distinct ministry office into the generic act of preaching.	Introduce 传道 in 4:2 with an explicit anchoring clause naming it as proclamation of the fixed apostolic gospel message, never an impersonal Way. Retain 显现 always with a numeral/demonstrative anchor (“那一次的显现”/“他将来的显现”) to block a repeatable-manifestation reading. Prefer 传福音者/福音使者 over generic 传道的 to preserve the evangelist’s distinct office at 4:5.

A.6 Apostasy and False Teachers in the Last Days (2 Tim 3:1–9, 3:13, 4:3–4, 4:10, 4:14–15; background 1:15, 2:16–18, 2:25–26)

Available Mandarin Terms	Weaknesses	Recommended Strategy
末后的日子/末世, 有敬虔的外貌却背了敬虔的实意（能力）, 敬虔, 骗子, 转离/转去不听, 真道/真理, 无稽之谈, 偏离正道, 耳朵发痒, 师傅, 欺骗人也被欺骗, 不认他, 魔鬼的网罗, 离弃了我	(1) 末世 collides with Buddhist cyclical kalpa-ending cosmology (劫) and with Chinese folk-millenarian expectation of a coming cosmic renewal figure — extending the baseline’s Critical Maitreya (弥勒) flag onto the eschatological timeframe itself, not just the Messiah-figure. (2) 末世 and 默示 (inspiration) are homophones (mòshì) distinguished only by character, a live risk in oral catechesis and audio-only contexts. (3) 敬虔 risks reading as generic religious devoutness transferable to any deity’s worshippers. (4) 真道 inherits the systemic 道 collision. (5) 师傅 in Chinese religious/folk culture denotes a Daoist priest or martial-arts master with a personal disciple lineage. (6) 神话 is FORBIDDEN for μῦθος (“myths,” 4:4) because it literally contains 神 (God) and would misleadingly suggest “God’s own story.”	Always render 末世/末后的日子 with contextual anchoring to Christ’s first and second appearing (bounding it as linear, already-inaugurated redemptive history), never a cyclical or renewal-cult frame. Flag the mòshì/mòshì homophone explicitly for any spoken-word (audio, sermon, oral catechesis) deliverable. Anchor 敬虔 to the true God’s actual transforming power (3:5) every time it appears. Use 骗子 (never 邪术士) for γόητες. Use 无稽之谈 (never 神话) for μῦθος — hard forbidden substitution, carried forward from bible_term_registry.json. Distinguish 师傅 (used pejoratively of false teachers sought by itching ears, 4:3) from legitimate 教师/使徒 vocabulary used of Paul.

A.7 Assurance of Reward (2 Tim 4:6–8, 4:18; background 2:10–13)

Available Mandarin Terms	Weaknesses	Recommended Strategy
那公义的冠冕, 那美好的仗我已经打过了/当跑的路我已经跑尽了/所信的道我已经守住了, 公义的审判者, 爱慕他显现的人, 存留, 主必救我脱离诸般的凶恶也必救我进他的天国, 与他同死/同活	(1) 冠冕 (“crown”) risks two distinct misreadings: an earthly/imperial crown denoting political rule (paralleling the baseline’s Mandate-of-Heaven concern under Sonship of Christ), or a self-attained spiritual “fruit” comparable to the forbidden 修成正果. (2) 所信的道 inherits the systemic 道 collision. (3) 公义的审判者 must not slide toward an impersonal cosmic ledger-keeper administering 报应 (karmic retribution), the same collision already flagged for 罪/sin in the baseline.	Always pair 冠冕 with “神所赐” (given by God) or “存留” (already reserved, 4:8) language to block both the political-crown and self-attainment readings simultaneously. Teach τηρέω (“kept,” 4:7) and φυλάσσω (“guard the deposit,” 1:14) as thematically unified acts of faithful custody, reinforcing that the crown rewards faithfulness in keeping, not achievement in producing. Anchor 公义的审判者 to Christ’s personal, individual verdict (4:1’s 审判活人死人), never an impersonal reckoning force.

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Section B — Missing Vocabulary vs. Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods

B.1 Missing Vocabulary (no ready Mandarin lexical item; compound/paraphrase required)

These concepts have no single existing Mandarin word and must be rendered by multi-character compounds or full paraphrase clauses — the gap is structural, not merely a collision risk:

Concept	Greek	Gap	Chosen Paraphrase
God-breathed	θεόπνευστος	No Mandarin verb captures “breathed out by God” in one lexeme	神所感示的
Rightly handle (the word of truth)	ὀρθοτομέω	No single Mandarin verb for “cut a straight path/correctly manage a message”	按着正意分解（真理的道）
Entrusted deposit	παραθήκη	No neutral Mandarin noun for “a valuable held in trust for safekeeping” outside financial/legal registers, which are too transactional/commercial in feel	所交托的 / 所托付的
Poured out (as libation)	σπένδομαι	No Mandarin verb describes this Greco-Roman/OT cultic image without borrowing ancestor-rite vocabulary	我现在被浇奠 (borrowed, then fenced — see B.2)
Pattern of sound words	ὑποτύπωσις ὑγιαινόντων λόγων	No single term for “a retained template/outline of healthy teaching”	纯正话语的规模
Form of godliness (denying its power)	μόρφωσις εὐσεβείας…δύναμιν ἠρνημένοι	No compact idiom for “outward shape without inward substance” applied to religion specifically	有敬虔的外貌，却背了敬虔的实意（能力）
Fought/finished/kept triad	ἀγῶνα ἠγώνισμαι, δρόμον τετέλεκα, πίστιν τετήρηκα	No single Mandarin idiom carries all three athletic-contest images; CUV already solved this with three parallel clauses	那美好的仗我已经打过了，当跑的路我已经跑尽了，所信的道我已经守住了
Wisdom unto salvation	σοφίσαι εἰς σωτηρίαν	No single verb “to-make-wise-for-salvation”	使人有智慧，可以得救

Strategy note: all of the above are already solved at the phrase level in 08_core_glossary.md/bible_term_registry.json; this analysis confirms none of them can be shortened to a single term without doctrinal loss, so Phase 2 segment translators must not “simplify” these compounds under length pressure.

B.2 Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods (vocabulary exists, but competes with entrenched non-Christian meanings)

These are the inverse problem: Mandarin does have a ready term, but that term’s dominant existing associations belong to Confucianism, Buddhism, Daoism, or folk religion, and must be actively fenced off in teaching material.

Mandarin Term	Doctrine Context	Competing Neighbor	Fencing Requirement
道 (in 传道, 正道, 真道, 神的道, 纯正的道理, 所信的道)	Charge to Preach; Guarding Sound Doctrine; Assurance of Reward	Daoist impersonal cosmic Way (道)	Every occurrence across all four chapters requires context making clear this is the fixed apostolic gospel message, not an impersonal metaphysical principle. This is the single most systemic fencing requirement in the letter — it recurs in at least six distinct glossary entries.
义 (righteousness, incl. 教导人学义, 那公义的冠冕, 公义的审判者)	Inspiration/Sufficiency; Assurance of Reward	Confucian Five Constant Virtue 义, cultivated by moral effort	Inherited directly from baseline Critical flag; every 2 Timothy occurrence (2:22, 3:16, 4:8) requires the same distinguishing note as Romans.
成圣 (sanctification)	Guarding Sound Doctrine (2:21)	Neo-Confucian self-cultivation into sagehood	Inherited directly from baseline Critical flag; must never present 2:21’s self-cleansing as self-achieved moral perfection.
善事 (good work)	Inspiration/Sufficiency	Buddhist merit-accumulation (行善积德)	Must be taught as fruit of grace-equipped ministry, never merit accruing toward salvation or a better rebirth.
敬虔 (godliness)	Apostasy	Generic religious devoutness applicable to any deity’s followers	Anchor to the true God’s transforming power specifically; parallel to baseline’s rejection of 虔诚 under “faith.”
忠心 (faithful, in 交托给忠心的人)	Faithful Transmission	Confucian political/clan loyalty (忠)	Clarify as reliability in transmitting truth, not hierarchical loyalty owed to a superior.
仁爱 (love, in 刚强、仁爱、谨守)	Faithful Transmission	Confucian virtue 仁 (rén), self-cultivated	Teach as Spirit-given disposition (1:7), not a self-cultivated Confucian virtue.
师傅 (teachers sought, 4:3)	Apostasy	Daoist priest / martial-arts master with personal disciple lineage	Keep distinct from legitimate 教师/使徒 vocabulary; reserve pejorative framing for false-teacher context only.
末世/末后的日子 (last days)	Apostasy	Buddhist kalpa-ending cosmology (劫); Chinese folk-millenarian renewal expectation	Extends baseline’s Messiah/弥勒 fencing onto the eschatological timeframe itself; teach as linear, already-inaugurated redemptive history.
浇奠 (poured out, 4:6)	Perseverance; Assurance of Reward	Chinese ancestor-veneration libation ritual	Must be explicitly bounded as a Greco-Roman/OT sacrificial metaphor for a life of service, never conflated with ancestor-rite libation.
悔改 (repentance, 2:25)	Guarding Sound Doctrine; Apostasy	Ritual expiation (拜忏, 做法事)	Teach as God-given inward reorientation, not a transactional penitential performance.
智慧 (wisdom, 3:15)	Inspiration/Sufficiency	Buddhist prajñā-wisdom (般若智慧), attained through practice	Anchor tightly to “faith in Christ Jesus” in the same clause every time.
显现 (appearing, 1:10, 4:1, 4:8)	Charge to Preach; Assurance of Reward	Repeatable bodhisattva/deity manifestation	Always anchor with a numeral/demonstrative to block a repeatable-manifestation reading; extends baseline’s 化身/下凡 forbidden-substitution logic.
冠冕 (crown, 4:8)	Assurance of Reward	Imperial/political crown; self-attained spiritual fruit (修成正果 adjacency)	Pair with “神所赐”/“存留” language to block both misreadings simultaneously.

B.3 Chapter-by-Chapter Coverage Note

• Chapter 1 (greeting, thanksgiving, charge to Timothy, suffering for the gospel): contributes the 忠心/仁爱 (Confucian-virtue) and 按手 (qi-transmission) crowding risks, plus 显现 (1:10) and 荣耀/救恩 reuse — all catalogued above; no additional gap beyond what is listed.
• Chapter 2 (transmission, endurance metaphors, sound-handling of the word, vessels of honor): contributes the systemic 道-collision cluster (交托给忠心的人, 按着正意分解, 纯正话语的规模), 浇奠-adjacent 同死/同活 union language, and 悔改 — catalogued above.
• Chapter 3 (last days, false teachers, Scripture’s sufficiency): contributes 末世/敬虔/师傅-adjacent apostasy vocabulary and the full Inspiration/Sufficiency cluster (神所感示的, 智慧, 善事) — catalogued above.
• Chapter 4 (the charge to preach, apostasy examples, the crown, closing greetings): contributes 传道, 冠冕, 公义的审判者, 显现, and the named-individual apostasy cases (Demas, Alexander) — catalogued above; proper names carry no new vocabulary risk (see Section C.1).

No chapter in 2 Timothy is without load-bearing vocabulary; all four are represented above.

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Section C — Transliteration vs. Paraphrase Decisions

C.1 Proper Names — Transliterate (established CUV forms; decision: transliteration, no paraphrase)

All personal names in 2 Timothy follow the established CUV transliteration convention exactly, per Section C of 08_core_glossary.md (提摩太, 保罗, 罗以, 友尼基, 阿尼色弗, 腓吉路, 黑摩其尼, 许米乃, 腓理徒, 雅尼, 佥庇, 底马, 革勒士, 提多, 路加, 马可, 推基古, 加布, 亚历山大, 百基拉, 亚居拉, 以拉都, 特罗非摩, 友布罗, 布田, 利奴, 革老底亚). Decision: transliterate, never gloss or paraphrase a proper name’s meaning. This matters doctrinally at 4:10–21: the named abandonments (Demas) and named harms (Alexander the coppersmith) function as concrete historical anchors for the Apostasy doctrine, and any paraphrase-by-meaning would abstract them into generic types, weakening the letter’s insistence that apostasy is a real, personal, historically documented danger — not a hypothetical category.

C.2 Established Theological Transliterations — Retain

阿们 (Amen), 哈利路亚 (Hallelujah) — not present as standalone occurrences in 2 Timothy but retained as standing baseline convention should a closing benediction context call for them in adjacent lesson material.

C.3 Technical Greek Terms — Paraphrase, Never Transliterate

Decision: no Greek theological technical term in 2 Timothy is transliterated as a loanword. Candidates considered and rejected:

Term	Transliteration Option Considered	Decision	Rationale
θεόπνευστος (theopneustos)	A coined phonetic loan	Rejected — use paraphrase 神所感示的	A phonetic loan would be opaque to readers and forfeit the clear “God” + “breathed” compositional meaning that guards against a spirit-medium misreading.
παραθήκη (parathēkē)	Loan or single-character coinage	Rejected — use paraphrase 所交托的/所托付的	A coinage would need extensive definition anyway; the existing verb-based paraphrase already carries the “held safely in trust” sense transparently.
ἐπιφάνεια (epiphaneia)	Transliterate as a loanword (cf. English “epiphany”)	Rejected — use established gloss 显现	显现 is already a stable, non-collision-prone Mandarin word for “appearing/becoming visible”; a transliteration would be unintelligible without extensive gloss and gains nothing doctrinally.
κήρυξον (root of “kerygma”)	Transliterate as a loan (cf. some missiology literature’s “刻里格马”)	Rejected — use established 传道 (with fencing note per B.2)	A kerygma-loanword is unknown to general readers and would require more explanation than the fenced native term; 传道’s collision risk is manageable through consistent contextual anchoring, unlike an opaque loanword.
στέφανος (crown)	Transliterate	Rejected — use 冠冕	Standard CUV vocabulary; no transliteration precedent exists in the Chinese Bible tradition for this word.

General rule for this curriculum: transliterate only proper names and the small closed set of already-established liturgical transliterations (阿们, 哈利路亚, 阿爸). All other technical vocabulary is rendered by paraphrase or compound using existing CUV-tradition vocabulary, then fenced with teaching notes where a crowded neighborhood risk exists (Section B.2). This matches the baseline Romans package’s practice (e.g. 基督 is a transliteration precedent already fixed; no new transliteration precedent is introduced by 2 Timothy).

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

Ranked by combined severity (doctrinal centrality × collision strength × pervasiveness across chapters). All Critical/High designations here are consistent with the risk tiers already assigned in 08_core_glossary.md and bible_term_registry.json; this ranking exists to prioritize review attention within that set.

1. The 道 (dào) cluster across all four doctrines of proclamation/doctrine — 传道 (4:2), 正意分解真理的道 (2:15), 纯正的道理/话语 (1:13, 4:3), 神的道却不被捆绑 (2:9), 所信的道 (4:7), 偏离正道 (4:4), 真道/真理 (4:4). Highest risk because it is not one term but a systemic pattern recurring in nearly every doctrine and every chapter; a single lapse in contextual fencing in any one occurrence risks an impersonal-Way misreading bleeding into the whole letter’s proclamation theology.

2. 末世/末后的日子 (last days) — both its Buddhist-cosmology collision AND its homophone with 默示 (inspiration) — 3:1. Critical: double jeopardy — a wrong theological frame (cyclical kalpa-ending / folk-millenarian renewal) compounded by a literal audio-confusion risk with an unrelated doctrine (Inspiration of Scripture) sharing the same pinyin “mòshì.”

3. 义 (righteousness) in its three 2 Timothy occurrences (2:22, 3:16, 4:8) — Critical, inherited directly from baseline; every occurrence sits inside doctrines central to this curriculum (Inspiration/Sufficiency; Assurance of Reward), multiplying the baseline’s existing Confucian-virtue collision risk.

4. 成圣 (sanctification, 2:21) — Critical, inherited from baseline; concentrated in a single high-stakes verse (“cleanse himself… a vessel for honorable use”) where a self-cultivation misreading would directly undercut Guarding Sound Doctrine’s dependence on grace.

5. 神所感示的 (God-breathed, 3:16) — Critical; the doctrinal center of Inspiration of Scripture, vulnerable to a spirit-medium/channeling misreading (通灵) that would relocate the doctrine from divine authorship to human paranormal reception.

6. 所交托的/所托付的 (entrusted deposit, 1:12, 1:14) paired with 交托给忠心的人 (2:2) — Critical; the Chan Buddhist 传法 (dharma-transmission) framework is a live, well-known Chinese religious concept for exactly this kind of “master entrusts teaching to successor” scenario, making misreading unusually easy without deliberate fencing.

7. 那公义的冠冕 (crown of righteousness, 4:8) — Critical; sits at the convergence of two separate collision risks simultaneously (political/imperial crown and self-attained spiritual fruit), the only term in the letter with a documented double-collision profile.

8. 我现在被浇奠 (poured out as a libation, 4:6) — Critical/High; the single clearest case in this letter of borrowed vocabulary whose primary real-world Chinese usage is a specific competing religious ritual (ancestor libation), not merely an adjacent philosophical concept.

9. 敬虔 (godliness) and 有敬虔的外貌却背了敬虔的实意 (form of godliness, 3:5) — High; risk is compounded because the passage’s entire rhetorical point (false religiosity without true power) could be neutralized rather than merely weakened if 敬虔 is read as generic, transferable piety.

10. 忠心 (faithful, 2:2) and 仁爱 (love, 1:7) — High; both sit adjacent to specific, named Confucian Five Constant Virtues (忠, 仁), meaning the risk is not vague cultural resonance but collision with a precisely identifiable, widely-taught ethical category.

11. 神话-as-forbidden-substitution for μῦθος (myths, 4:4) — Medium likelihood of occurrence but high severity if it happens: a translator defaulting to the common word for “myth” would inadvertently write “God’s own story,” a direct doctrinal inversion, in one of the letter’s clearest apostasy-warning verses.

12. 善事 (good work, background to 3:17) and 智慧 (wisdom, 3:15) — High/Medium; both sit inside the Inspiration/Sufficiency doctrine’s climactic verses and both border Buddhist merit/wisdom vocabulary (行善积德; 般若智慧) that could quietly reintroduce a merit-based soteriology into a passage whose entire function is to establish Scripture’s sufficiency apart from human attainment.

13. 师傅 (teachers sought, 4:3) — Medium-High; risk is narrower (confined to Apostasy doctrine, ch. 3–4) but sits beside an active, contemporary Chinese religious-cultural role (Daoist priest / martial-arts master with disciples), giving it more everyday salience than a purely historical collision.

14. 显现 (appearing, 1:10, 4:1, 4:8) — High; risk is well-understood and containable (numeral/demonstrative anchoring), placed lower than items above because the fencing strategy is simple and already proven effective in the baseline’s incarnation-doctrine precedent.

15. 悔改 (repentance, 2:25) — High; risk is real but narrower in scope (one occurrence) and the distinguishing strategy (God-given reorientation vs. ritual expiation) is a well-established distinction already modeled in wider Chinese Christian teaching material.

This ranking should govern review-priority ordering when Phase 2 Step 17 routes flagged segments: items 1–8 warrant mandatory human theologian review with explicit fencing-note verification on every single occurrence; items 9–15 warrant human theologian review at first occurrence per document with native-speaker spot-check on repeats.