Comparative Theology
04 — Comparative Theology: Amos (阿摩司书)
Cross-Tradition Doctrinal Interpretation and Sensitive Terminology Analysis
Curriculum: Amos Core passage: Amos 5:18–24 Destination language: Mandarin Chinese — dominant destination-culture religious/philosophical traditions: Confucianism, Daoism, Chinese folk religion (ancestor veneration, popular temple religion), and Chinese Buddhism, treated together in a dedicated column below as the primary syncretism-risk environment for this curriculum, per the baseline Language Package’s documented collision patterns.
Purpose
This document surveys how each of the five curriculum doctrines (plus, briefly, the supporting doctrines from the full-book matrix in 11_doctrine_analysis.md) is understood across major world traditions, with special attention to points of agreement, divergence, likely misunderstandings a Mandarin translation must not invite, and specific sensitive terminology. It supplements — and must never contradict — the collision analysis already embedded in translation_memory.json, bible_term_registry.json, and 08_core_glossary.md.
Column note: “Hindu” and “Chinese Confucian/Daoist/Folk (destination)” are kept as separate dedicated columns per instruction. “Buddhist” is also kept separate as a distinct global tradition, even though Chinese Buddhism is folded into the destination-culture column as lived religious practice in China; where relevant, notes clarify where Chinese popular Buddhism diverges from classical/Theravada Buddhist doctrine.
1. Social Justice and Care for the Poor (Amos 2:6–8; 5:7, 5:10–13, 5:24; 6:12; 8:4–6)
| Tradition | Interpretation |
|---|---|
| Protestant | Covenant obligation flowing from God’s own character, not human merit; reclaimed strongly in evangelical/Reformed social ethics as gospel-adjacent (not gospel-replacing) fruit of grace. Some traditions historically under-emphasized this in favor of individual salvation; modern evangelicalism actively recovers Amos 5:24 as a justice text. |
| Catholic | Central to Catholic Social Teaching: “preferential option for the poor,” structural sin, human dignity grounded in natural law; sees direct continuity between OT prophetic justice and modern magisterial social doctrine. |
| Orthodox | Framed through almsgiving (philanthropia) as a spiritual discipline integrated with liturgical life; patristic preaching (e.g., John Chrysostom) treats care for the poor as inseparable from true worship, resonant with Amos’s own linkage of ritual and justice. |
| Jewish | Central and foundational: tzedakah (charitable righteousness) and mishpat (justice) are core Torah/rabbinic categories; Amos is a paradigmatic prophetic voice, and Amos 5:24 is a touchstone verse in modern Jewish social-justice movements (tikkun olam). Minimal divergence from the plain sense. |
| Islamic | Zakat (obligatory almsgiving) and ‘adl (justice) are foundational; Qur’anic warnings against short-measuring merchants (cf. Surah al-Mutaffifin) closely parallel Amos’s false-balances oracles. Strong resonance, though Amos itself carries no scriptural authority in Islam. |
| Hindu | Charitable giving (dāna) is a recognized duty, but popular Hindu thought often explains poverty through karma from past lives — a significant divergence risk, since Amos locates the injustice in the oppressor’s sin against a personal God, never in the victim’s own prior moral debt. |
| Chinese Confucian/Daoist/Folk (destination) | Confucian benevolent governance (仁政, Mencius) and the virtue of 仁 (ren) offer a partial structural analogy — rulers/elites owe care to the people — but as a self-cultivated virtue within a hierarchical relational order, not a covenant demand from a sovereign God. Folk-Buddhist-influenced popular religion often explains poverty via karma and treats charitable giving as merit-accumulation (功德) benefiting the giver, not primarily as justice owed to the poor. Key risk: translation must not let 公平/公义 read as an achieved Confucian social virtue, nor let care for the poor read as karma-driven private merit-giving; Amos frames poverty caused by human oppression as sin against God requiring covenant-legal redress. |
| Buddhist | Compassion (慈悲, karuṇā) toward suffering is central, but oriented toward alleviating suffering generally and generating merit, not toward a legal-covenantal demand issued by a personal God. Popular Buddhism frequently explains poverty via karma. |
| Secular | Read as an ancient precursor to modern distributive-justice/human-rights discourse and structural economic critique (an ally-text for liberation theology and some secular social-ethics movements); risk of stripping the divine-command grounding so that justice becomes a policy preference rather than a claim on the poor’s inherent worth before God. |
Misunderstandings to avoid: (1) poverty as the poor person’s own moral/karmic fault; (2) justice as a self-cultivated virtue achievable by ritual/moral effort (Confucian collision); (3) care for the poor as meritorious almsgiving that benefits the giver’s spiritual ledger (Buddhist/folk collision) rather than a debt owed to God’s own justice.
Sensitive terminology: 公平, 公义 (Confucian 义 collision — flagged Critical in glossary); 困苦人/贫穷人 (karma/merit-object collision); 诡诈的天平/升斗/银钱 (must stay concrete, not abstracted into 公平交易).
2. Judgment on Empty Religious Ritual (Amos 4:4–5; 5:21–24; 5:25–27; 7:10–13)
| Tradition | Interpretation |
|---|---|
| Protestant | Read as support for internal, heart-oriented religion over dead ritualism, resonant with Reformation critique of externalism; low-church traditions risk over-reading this as anti-liturgical/anti-sacramental as such. |
| Catholic | Liturgy and sacraments are understood as genuine means of grace; Amos is read as condemning worship divorced from charity/justice, not liturgical worship itself — parallel to Catechism teaching that true worship and justice are inseparable. |
| Orthodox | High view of liturgy as “right glory/right worship”; patristic tradition (again Chrysostom) insists true liturgy is united with almsgiving and right living; Amos read as warning against divorcing the two, not opposing liturgy. |
| Jewish | Read within the classic prophetic-critique tradition (cf. Isaiah 1, Micah 6:6–8) of Temple worship divorced from ethics; post-Temple rabbinic Judaism affirms both mitzvot “between man and God” and “between man and neighbor” as jointly required, closely matching Amos’s own logic. |
| Islamic | Parallels Qur’anic warnings against ritual prayer performed without sincerity or accompanying charity, and against hypocrites’ outward piety; resonant but non-scriptural connection. |
| Hindu | Ritual (pūjā, yajña) carries high intrinsic importance in most traditions; some philosophical strands (bhakti, jñāna traditions) critique empty ritualism in favor of devotion or knowledge, offering partial resonance, but the underlying metaphysics of ritual efficacy differs fundamentally from a covenant-lawsuit framework. |
| Chinese Confucian/Daoist/Folk (destination) | Confucian 礼 (li, ritual propriety) is central to social/cosmic order; the Analects itself contains an internal critique of ritual performed without genuine ren/sincerity (“礼云礼云，玉帛云乎哉？” — “‘Ritual,’ they say, ‘ritual!’ Is it just jade and silk?”), offering a resonant internal precedent. Key risk: readers may map Amos onto this Confucian self-critique of ritual-without-sincerity rather than onto the specific covenant-lawsuit structure of a broken relationship with a personal God who has actively rejected these rites. Folk-religious ritual practice (incense-burning 烧香, temple offerings) is transactional — petitioning deities for favor — and visually overlaps with Amos’s rejected sacrificial vocabulary (燔祭, 素祭, 平安祭); these must be clearly distinguished as covenant sacrifices divinely instituted but rejected for lacking justice, not folk petitionary offerings. |
| Buddhist | Ritual/merit-making practices are themselves sometimes critiqued within Buddhism (e.g., some Chan/Zen currents) as insufficient without inner realization, offering partial resonance; risk of a syncretistic reading that the problem is spiritual technique itself, rather than injustice underlying otherwise legitimate covenant worship. |
| Secular | Read generically as an ancient critique of religious hypocrisy/performative piety, resonant with modern skepticism toward “organized religion”; risk of using Amos merely as rhetorical ammunition against religion in general, rather than as a call to justice-shaped covenant worship. |
Misunderstandings to avoid: (1) Amos condemns ritual/liturgy as such; (2) the problem is spiritual technique or “religion” in general rather than injustice; (3) rejected sacrifices (燔祭/素祭/平安祭) collapse into generic folk temple-offering practice.
Sensitive terminology: 平安祭 (baseline 平安 root collision — do not flatten into Romans 5:1 relational peace); 节期, 严肃会, 圣所 (legitimate-form vocabulary requiring careful framing); 邱坛 (genuinely corrupted site, distinct from the others).
3. God’s Sovereignty over All Nations (Amos 1:3–2:3; 3:2; 4:13; 5:8; 9:5–7, 12)
| Tradition | Interpretation |
|---|---|
| Protestant | Strong doctrine of providence/sovereignty over all history and nations (cf. Reformed confessional tradition); Amos 9:7 is a key text for both universal sovereignty and Israel’s non-superior election. |
| Catholic | Affirms divine providence over all nations’ histories and natural law binding all peoples; Vatican II’s broader engagement with other nations/religions is read as compatible with, not contradicting, God’s universal governance. |
| Orthodox | Affirms the cosmic Logos/Christ’s sovereignty and God’s economy extending to all nations and all creation, tied to the doctrine of theosis available to all humanity. |
| Jewish | Absolutely central: strict monotheism with YHWH sovereign over all nations, while Israel remains uniquely elected/covenanted — Amos 9:7 is the classic text held up for this universalism-within-election tension. |
| Islamic | Strong structural parallel: Allah’s absolute sovereignty (rububiyyah, tawḥīd) over all peoples is foundational; resonant agreement on strict monotheism and universal divine governance, though Islamic theology does not affirm Israel’s ongoing unique covenant role in the way the OT text does. |
| Hindu | Polytheistic/panentheistic frameworks generally do not map onto a strict monotheistic sovereign ruling all nations’ histories; Brahman as ultimate reality is typically impersonal/immanent rather than a personal covenant God who acts in history — risk of readers equating YHWH with a supreme deva among many. |
| Chinese Confucian/Daoist/Folk (destination) | Classical 天命 (Mandate of Heaven) offers a partial structural analogy — Heaven governs the rise and fall of dynasties/nations — but 天命 is impersonal, revocable based on a ruler’s virtue, and cyclical (治乱循环), unlike YHWH’s personal, covenant-keeping, morally consistent sovereignty. Key risk (flagged Critical throughout the glossary): 万军之耶和华 must not be read through the lens of folk-Daoist celestial-military bureaucracy (天兵天将, the Jade Emperor’s court) as though YHWH were merely a commanding general within a heavenly pantheon rather than the sole Creator-sovereign. |
| Buddhist | No creator-sovereign deity governing nations’ histories in classical Buddhist metaphysics (dependent origination, anātman); devas exist within the cosmology but are not sovereign rulers of history — likely default reading is through an impersonal karmic-cosmic-law lens rather than personal governance. |
| Secular | Often read historically-critically as ancient Near Eastern henotheistic/nationalist theology projected onto geopolitics (Assyrian-era power politics); risk of reducing the doctrine to political propaganda legitimizing Israelite exceptionalism — the opposite of the text’s actual rhetorical function, which levels Israel with the very nations it once judged. |
Misunderstandings to avoid: (1) YHWH as a general within a heavenly bureaucracy (万军); (2) YHWH’s sovereignty as equivalent to a revocable, impersonal 天命; (3) sovereignty doctrine used to imply ethnic/national superiority rather than universal accountability.
Sensitive terminology: 万军之耶和华 (Critical); 神 (Critical, baseline-inherited); 古实人 comparison in 9:7 (must not soften Israel’s election nor elevate other nations to equivalent covenant status — the point is impartial governance, not equivalence of election).
4. The Day of the Lord as Judgment (Amos 5:18–20; 8:2, 9–10)
| Tradition | Interpretation |
|---|---|
| Protestant | Connected to a broader already/not-yet eschatology: initial historical fulfillment (Assyrian conquest) typologically anticipating the final Day of Christ’s return; views vary across sub-traditions on timing details but agree on personal, moral, historical-and-final judgment. |
| Catholic | Affirms both particular and general/final judgment doctrine; the Day of the Lord in Amos is read typologically as pointing toward the eschaton, integrated with Catholic eschatological teaching on judgment and purgation. |
| Orthodox | Affirms the Second Coming and general judgment but frames it more within cosmic renewal/transfiguration (“new heavens and new earth”) than forensic-legal imagery; theosis-oriented eschatology. |
| Jewish | Yom YHWH is a native prophetic category, most often read as historical judgment on Israel and the nations (invasion, exile) with eschatological hope of ultimate redemption in the Messianic Age; some readings treat Amos’s Day of the LORD as also anticipating that future redemptive horizon. |
| Islamic | Strong structural parallel: Yawm al-Qiyāmah (Day of Resurrection/Judgment) is foundational, with resonant emphasis on inescapable divine judgment on all nations and individuals; however, the fully developed apparatus (deed-books, the Ṣirāṭ bridge, etc.) is distinct from — and later than — Amos’s historically-anchored prophetic “day,” and the two should not be conflated in teaching notes. |
| Hindu | No direct equivalent to a singular historical/eschatological Day of Judgment; cyclical cosmology (yugas, kalpas, and eventual pralaya/cosmic dissolution) and karma/reincarnation present an entirely different framework — risk of mapping “the Day of the LORD” onto a kalpa-ending cosmic dissolution rather than a personal moral reckoning by a personal God. |
| Chinese Confucian/Daoist/Folk (destination) | No equivalent within classical Confucianism. Folk-religious retributive frameworks (报应, karmic retribution across a person’s fortune/lineage) and fatalistic idioms (天意难违, “Heaven’s will cannot be resisted”) provide superficial linguistic overlap but flatten Amos’s doctrine into either impersonal karma or unavoidable fate. Key risk (heavily flagged in the glossary): 耶和华的日子 must be reinforced repeatedly as the LORD’s own personal, historically specific act — reversing Israel’s presumed automatic vindication — never a generic 世界末日 or impersonal 报应之日. |
| Buddhist | No creator-judge figure; cosmology of cyclical ages and personal karmic consequence rather than one decisive divine Day. Some popular apocalyptic strands (associated with the future Buddha Maitreya, 弥勒) exist but function as an anticipated future golden age rather than a coming judgment — this distinction is doctrinally important given the baseline’s already-flagged Critical risk of Messiah/Maitreya conflation, which resurfaces here as a “coming day” conflation risk as well. |
| Secular | Frequently read historical-critically as ancient conventional judgment-oracle rhetoric anticipating a real historical catastrophe (the Assyrian conquest), a literary trope rather than transcendent claim; risk of the phrase being emptied of moral-theological content and reduced to a metaphor for any historical calamity. |
Misunderstandings to avoid: (1) Day of the LORD as impersonal karmic reckoning (报应) or unavoidable fate (天意难违); (2) conflation with a future golden age expectation (Maitreya-adjacent); (3) reduction to secular “doomsday” pop-apocalypticism (世界末日) stripped of personal moral content; (4) failure to preserve the text’s central reversal — that the Day judges Israel too, not only Israel’s enemies.
Sensitive terminology: 耶和华的日子 (Critical, new Amos term); 世界末日 and 报应之日 (both explicitly rejected alternatives).
5. The Restoration of David’s Fallen Tent — Messianic Hope (Amos 9:11–15)
| Tradition | Interpretation |
|---|---|
| Protestant | Read as messianic prophecy fulfilled in Christ, explicitly cited at the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15:16–17) to validate Gentile inclusion in the church; strong OT–NT continuity, a key bridge text in evangelical/Reformed teaching. |
| Catholic | Affirms messianic fulfillment in Christ; the Church, incorporating the Gentiles, is read as the rebuilt “tent” of David in continuity with the Acts 15 citation and magisterial typological exegesis. |
| Orthodox | Shares the messianic-typological reading; the Church is understood mystically/liturgically as the restored Davidic kingdom, tied to the eschatological Kingdom already inaugurated in Christ and consummated at his return. |
| Jewish | Read as promise of Israel’s national restoration to the land and the Davidic dynasty’s renewal; in various streams understood as still awaiting fulfillment, or as variously fulfilled in the return from exile or (in some modern readings) the modern State of Israel; does not read the passage as fulfilled in Jesus. This is a genuine, respectful point of doctrinal divergence that the translation must represent accurately for the Christian curriculum’s own confessional stance (fulfillment in Christ) without misrepresenting or erasing the historic Jewish reading as illegitimate or unintelligent. |
| Islamic | No direct doctrinal counterpart to the Davidic-messianic covenant as Christians understand it. Dawud (David) is honored as a prophet-king in Islamic tradition, but is not linked to a Messiah/Christ figure in the Christian sense; some structural echo exists in Islamic end-times expectation (the Mahdi; the return of ʿĪsā/Jesus) but the frameworks are not equivalent and should not be merged in teaching material. |
| Hindu | No structural equivalent. The avatar concept (Vishnu’s periodic incarnations to restore dharma) is the nearest functional analogy for “a coming restorer figure,” but avatars are cyclical and repeatable across ages, unlike the unique, once-for-all Davidic-messianic fulfillment claimed here — risk of readers mapping the Messiah onto an avatar framework. |
| Chinese Confucian/Daoist/Folk (destination) | Dynastic restoration is a very live cultural category in Chinese historical consciousness (e.g., the Guangwu Emperor’s restoration of the Han), but classical Chinese political theology frames legitimate rule through a revocable Mandate of Heaven (天命) within a cyclical rise-fall-restoration pattern (治乱循环) — structurally different from an unconditional, once-for-all divine promise to a single royal line. Chinese folk-religious/millenarian movements (e.g., historical White Lotus-type uprisings) have also invoked expectation of a coming king or savior-figure, which risk being conflated with this doctrine. Key risk: 大卫倒塌的帐幕 must retain its deliberately humble “tent,” never upgraded to “palace/throne” imagery, and must be firmly distinguished from both 天命-cyclical restoration and folk-millenarian king-expectation. |
| Buddhist | Maitreya (弥勒), the future Buddha expected in a coming age to renew the world, is the nearest structural analogy — an anticipated future savior-figure — but this conflation is already flagged Critical in the baseline Language Package and must be firmly avoided here as well: Christ’s messianic fulfillment is a completed past-historical event fulfilling a specific ancient covenant promise, not a future-anticipated new figure arising in an unspecified coming age. |
| Secular | Historical-critical scholarship frequently treats Amos 9:11–15 as a later, more hopeful editorial addition softening the book’s otherwise unrelieved judgment oracles; risk of the translation being received as political nostalgia for monarchy or literary-critical curiosity rather than a transcendent divine promise with a specific messianic referent. |
Misunderstandings to avoid: (1) conflation with Maitreya’s future-age expectation (Critical, baseline-flagged); (2) conflation with cyclical dynastic Mandate-of-Heaven restoration (治乱循环); (3) upgrading the humble “tent/booth” imagery to palace/throne imagery, which would undercut the text’s “restoration from real ruin” logic; (4) erasing the historic Jewish non-christological reading when representing comparative perspectives, while still faithfully conveying the curriculum’s own confessional (Christian) fulfillment claim.
Sensitive terminology: 大卫倒塌的帐幕 (Critical, new Amos term); 建立/修造 (Amos, cross-referenced to baseline 恩典/grace — restoration by divine initiative, not earned); 称为我名下的 (High, cross-referenced to baseline “unity_of_jews_and_gentiles”).
6. Supporting Doctrines — Condensed Cross-Tradition Notes
The following full-book supporting doctrines (see 11_doctrine_analysis.md) carry secondary but real comparative-theology risk and are summarized here rather than given full nine-column treatment, per the curriculum’s core-doctrine focus.
| Doctrine | Protestant/Catholic/Orthodox | Jewish | Islamic | Hindu | Chinese (destination) | Buddhist | Secular |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Divine Election and Accountability (3:1–2) | Election grounds greater responsibility, not privilege; broad Christian agreement | Central covenant category; Amos read as classic “chosen-yet-accountable” text | Parallel concept of prophetic/community accountability (umma), but not tied to Israel’s specific election | No close equivalent; risk of reading through impersonal karma-merit accumulation | Risk of conflation with revocable 天命 (Mandate of Heaven) — must be resisted; election here increases, not decreases, liability | No close equivalent; risk of karmic-merit misreading | Reads as ancient tribal-exceptionalism rhetoric absent a transcendent covenant frame |
| Certainty/Inescapability of Judgment (refrain; 7:7–9; 9:1–4) | Affirmed as God’s righteous, unretractable verdict | Affirmed; consistent with prophetic-judgment tradition | Strong resonance with Qur’anic inescapability-of-judgment themes | Risk of conflation with inexorable karmic law rather than personal moral verdict | Risk of conflation with 天意难违 (fatalistic folk idiom) — must anchor in God’s moral standard (准绳), not impersonal fate | Risk of karmic-law conflation | Read as rhetorical inevitability trope rather than a real moral claim |
| Call to Covenantal Repentance (4:6–11; 5:4–6, 14–15) | Repentance as relational return to a personal God, consistent across traditions | Foundational (teshuvah); strong resonance | Resonant (tawbah — turning back to God) | Risk of reading as self-improvement/karma-correction rather than relational return | Risk of collapsing into 改过自新 (“turn over a new leaf,” self-improvement idiom lacking a relational divine object) | Risk of self-cultivation misreading | Read as generic moral self-improvement, stripped of the personal divine object |
| Prophetic Calling and Authority (3:7–8; 7:10–17) | Direct, sovereign divine commissioning, distinct from institutional office | Strong resonance (nevi’im tradition) | Resonant (nabi/rasul concept), though final-prophet theology differs | Some resonance with guru/rishi callings but framed differently (enlightenment-attainment rather than sovereign summons) | Risk of misreading 奥秘 as esoteric technique (Daoist inner-alchemy, folk 秘术) rather than disclosed verbal revelation; 先见 vs. 先知 distinction must be preserved | Some resonance with attainment-based teacher authority, but not a sovereign external summons | Read as psychological/social phenomenon (charismatic leadership) without transcendent commissioning |
| Economic Injustice / Judicial Corruption (2:6–8; 5:7–15; 8:4–6) | Concrete ethical demand, consistent with broader biblical ethics | Strong resonance (Torah/Talmudic commercial-ethics law) | Strong resonance (Islamic commercial-ethics law, Qur’anic short-measure warnings) | Some resonance via dharmic economic ethics, but risk of karmic explanation of victims’ poverty | Risk of abstraction into secular 公平交易 framing, losing covenant-lawsuit force | Some resonance via right-livelihood ethics, but not covenant-legal framing | Read as generic anti-corruption/consumer-protection ethics |
| Universal Scope of Restoration (9:12) | Read typologically as anticipating Gentile inclusion (cf. Acts 15) | Read as promise of restored dominion/relationship extending to surrounding peoples under Davidic rule, not as Gentile-church inclusion | No direct counterpart | No direct counterpart | Risk of conflation with a this-worldly tributary-nations political order (imperial-style dominion) rather than covenant-ownership language | No direct counterpart | Read as ancient royal-expansionist rhetoric |
7. Summary: Areas of Broad Agreement vs. Sharp Divergence
Broad agreement across most traditions:
- The basic ethical demand for justice toward the poor and honest economic dealing (near-universal resonance: Jewish, Islamic, Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, and significant partial resonance in Hindu, Buddhist, and Confucian ethics).
- Some form of inescapable divine/moral reckoning for wrongdoing (widely shared intuition, though the personal-God framing is distinctively biblical/Jewish/Islamic/Christian).
Sharp, translation-critical divergence:
- Whether divine acceptance/favor can be secured or maintained through ritual performance and moral merit-accumulation (Confucian self-cultivation, Buddhist/folk merit-karma) versus received through God’s own initiative and evaluated by his covenant standard alone (biblical position, sharpened further by Romans’ baseline grace doctrine).
- Whether history’s crises are governed by a personal, covenant-keeping sovereign (Jewish/Christian/Islamic monotheism) or by an impersonal cosmic principle, cyclical fate, or karmic mechanism (Confucian 天命, Daoist Way, Buddhist/Hindu karma-cosmology).
- Whether the coming Restorer/Messiah has already come and fulfilled specific ancient covenant promises (Christian confession) or remains a still-future hope (Jewish expectation) or a different kind of anticipated figure entirely (Maitreya in Buddhist eschatology, avatar in Hindu thought) — the translation must state the curriculum’s own Christian confessional position clearly while representing other traditions’ positions accurately and respectfully rather than dismissively.
Non-negotiable translation guardrails arising from this analysis (all already encoded in translation_memory.json and 08_core_glossary.md, reaffirmed here):
- 耶和华的日子 ≠ 世界末日 / 报应之日
- 公义/公平 must never be taught as self-achieved Confucian virtue in isolation from God’s covenant standard
- 万军之耶和华 ≠ a commander within a folk-Daoist heavenly bureaucracy
- 大卫倒塌的帐幕 ≠ 弥勒 (Maitreya) expectation; ≠ 治乱循环 cyclical dynastic restoration
- 归向/寻求 ≠ 改过自新 (self-improvement) or divinatory seeking (求签/问卜)
This document extends but never contradicts the baseline Romans comparative-theology and collision analysis embedded in the baseline Language Package. It should be read together with analysis/08_core_glossary.md and analysis/11_doctrine_analysis.md before Phase 2 translation begins.