Linguistic Gap Analysis
06 Linguistic Gap Analysis — Jude (English → Mandarin)
Purpose
This analysis identifies where Mandarin Chinese has ready, safe vocabulary for the doctrinal content of Jude, where vocabulary is genuinely missing, and where existing vocabulary is dangerously “crowded” by competing meanings from Chinese folk religion, Buddhism, Daoism, and Confucian ethics. It builds directly on the Romans baseline translation_memory.json / bible_term_registry.json (Section A reuse) and anticipates the term-by-term decisions recorded in 08_core_glossary.md and the extended bible_term_registry.json for Jude. Where this document’s recommendations differ in wording from those later artifacts, the later artifacts govern; this document exists to show the reasoning trail — why each gap was identified and how each risk was weighed — as required for Phase 1 Step 6/8 audit traceability.
Full-book coverage confirmation: Jude is a single-chapter, 25-verse epistle. Every verse (1:1–1:25) has been reviewed for load-bearing vocabulary. §5 below provides a verse-range coverage table confirming no verse was silently skipped, including verses that contribute no new terminology (they are explicitly marked “reviewed — no new terms”).
1. Doctrine Vocabulary Matrix
1.1 Contending for the Faith Once Delivered (Jude 1:3, 1:5, 1:17, 1:20)
| Element | Detail |
|---|---|
| Available destination terms | 真道 (the objective apostolic deposit — CUV-attested, distinct from 信心); 竭力争辩 (contend, coined for the athletic-intensity verb ἐπαγωνίζομαι); 交付 (delivered, as a closed transmission); 一次 (once-for-all, existing word but semantically thin); 记念 (remember); 建立自己 (build up self) |
| Weaknesses | (1) Mandarin’s ordinary word for “faith,” 信心, is a personal-trust noun; Jude’s usage is almost entirely the objective content of belief, a sense for which Mandarin has no single common word — CUV supplies 真道 but this is itself a compound requiring active teaching, not an obvious folk-vocabulary match. (2) 一次 (“one time”) is read colloquially as mere frequency; it does not, on its own, communicate “closed, unrepeatable, complete.” (3) 交付 is safe but low-frequency in ordinary speech and could default to the far more natural-sounding 传承 (lineage transmission), which is doctrinally backwards for this passage. (4) 竭力争辩 is a coined compound, not an existing idiom; ordinary readers may parse it as “argue forcefully” (interpersonal debate) rather than “engage in a moral-athletic contest to defend a deposit.” |
| Recommended strategy | Fence 真道 explicitly against 信心 with a standing translator note at every occurrence (1:3, 1:20); reinforce 一次 with surrounding phrasing (“一次交付、永不改变的真道” style expansions in teaching material, not just the bare verse text) to carry the finality sense; ban 传承 outright as a forbidden substitution for 交付, parallel to the baseline’s forbidden-substitution list format; retain 竭力争辩 but pair with a first-occurrence gloss note describing the ἀγών/athletic-contest background so catechists do not flatten it to ordinary debate. |
1.2 Judgment on Ungodly False Teachers (Jude 1:4, 1:8–16, 1:18–19)
| Element | Detail |
|---|---|
| Available destination terms | 不敬虔 (ungodly); 刑罚 (κρίμα, verdict); 审判 (κρίσις, process/event); 放纵情欲 (licentiousness); 独一的主宰 (only Sovereign); 不认 (deny); 毁谤/亵渎 (blaspheme); 引人结党 (cause divisions); 属乎血气 (worldly/soulish) |
| Weaknesses | (1) 不敬虔’s natural cultural anchor point for most Mandarin readers is 孝 (filial piety) or generalized ritual/social reverence, not reverence toward a specific personal, transcendent God — the term risks being satisfied by ancestor veneration or civic deference. (2) 刑罚 and 审判 sit dangerously close to 报应 (karmic retribution), the dominant Chinese folk-Buddhist framework for “consequences follow wrongdoing” — without explicit fencing, readers will default to an impersonal cause-and-effect reading rather than a personal God’s forensic verdict. (3) 独一的主宰 uses 主宰, a word with strong “master of fate/destiny” (命运的主宰) overtones in secular Mandarin. (4) 引人结党 risks either under-translation (sounds like ordinary office politics) or over-translation toward 邪教 (“evil cult”), a legally loaded PRC term for banned religious movements — neither extreme is acceptable. (5) 属乎血气 contains 气 (qì), forbidden in isolation elsewhere in the baseline for “power of God,” creating a live risk of cross-contamination with qigong/vital-energy readings if translators are not warned this is a fixed idiom. |
| Recommended strategy | Treat 不敬虔 as requiring an explicit teaching gloss (“reverence owed to the one true God, not to ancestors or social superiors”) at first occurrence (1:4). Fence 刑罚/审判 against 报应 with a standing note at every judgment-vocabulary occurrence, following the baseline’s existing 罪/报应 fencing pattern. Retain 独一的主宰 but require the teaching note “personal sovereignty, not impersonal fate” at 1:4. Reject both 邪教 and a toothless colloquial rendering for 引人结党; keep the coined phrase 引人结党 exactly as fenced. Flag 属乎血气 with an explicit idiom note distinguishing it from bare 气 (see §2 crowded-neighborhood entry below) — this is one of the highest-density collision risks in the whole letter precisely because it reuses a forbidden character inside an otherwise safe fixed compound. |
1.3 Old Testament Warnings as Types — Israel, Angels, Sodom (Jude 1:5–7, 1:9, 1:11, 1:14)
| Element | Detail |
|---|---|
| Available destination terms | 埃及 (Egypt); 灭没 (destroyed); 天使 (angels); 自己的住处 (own dwelling); 永远的锁链 (eternal chains); 幽暗 (gloom); 所多玛和蛾摩拉 (Sodom and Gomorrah); 行邪淫 (sexual immorality); 永火 (eternal fire); 米迦勒天使长 (Michael the archangel); 魔鬼 (the devil); 该隐的道路/巴兰的错谬/可拉的背叛 (Cain/Balaam/Korah); 以诺 (Enoch) |
| Weaknesses | (1) None of the three OT types (Israel’s wilderness generation, the fallen angels, Sodom and Gomorrah) has any native narrative footing in Chinese cultural memory; the typological argument structure itself (“these three parallel warnings prove a pattern”) is unfamiliar to readers accustomed to the cyclical dynastic-rise-and-fall historiography noted in the Romans baseline, not a linear, cumulative warning-pattern reading of history. (2) 天使 has moderate overlap with folk 神仙/仙人 (immortals, capricious nature-spirits) which are morally ambiguous, unlike Scripture’s angels. (3) 魔鬼’s second character 鬼 sits inside the densest folk-religious semantic field in the whole language — wandering ghosts, hungry ghosts (饿鬼) fed at the Ghost Festival, unworshipped ancestor spirits — risking a reading of Satan as one spirit among many placatable spirits rather than the singular personal adversary of God. (4) 永远的锁链 and 幽暗 both risk light conflation with 阴间 (the folk-religious underworld bureaucracy, itself governed by a pantheon of judges and record-keepers, e.g. 城隍, 阎王). (5) Cain/Balaam/Korah require substantial narrative background (Genesis 4, Numbers 22–24, Numbers 16) that cannot be assumed; without it, the three-name list reads as an arbitrary catalogue rather than three distinct, escalating error-patterns. |
| Recommended strategy | Because none of these is a vocabulary problem in the narrow sense (Mandarin has adequate words for “angel,” “fire,” “chains”), the primary mitigation is narrative scaffolding, not term substitution: every occurrence of these OT types must be paired with a short background note in the study material itself (not merely a translator’s internal flag) explaining the underlying Genesis/Exodus/Numbers narrative. Fence 天使 against 仙人/神仙 and 魔鬼 against generic 鬼-class folk spirits at first occurrence. Treat 永远的锁链/幽暗 as requiring a one-line contrast note against 阴间 imagery. This doctrine cluster is vocabulary-adequate but background-deficient — the gap is catechetical, not lexical. |
1.4 Mercy and Rescue of the Wavering (Jude 1:2, 1:21–23)
| Element | Detail |
|---|---|
| Available destination terms | 怜悯 (mercy); 存疑心的人 (wavering); 从火中抢出来 (save from fire); 情欲沾染的衣服 (garment stained by flesh) |
| Weaknesses | (1) 怜悯’s closest and most culturally available theological neighbor is 慈悲 (Buddhist compassion, especially as embodied by Guanyin/bodhisattvas) — a term describing universal, impersonal, detachment-flowing benevolence rather than the personal compassion of a covenant God toward specific persons in specific distress. Mandarin has no equally common word that avoids this neighborhood entirely; 怜悯 is the best available option but is not risk-free. (2) 存疑心的人 is a coined descriptive phrase, not an existing single word; there is a real risk translators or catechists will collapse it into 未信的人 (“unbelievers”) or 怀疑者 in a way that erases Jude’s crucial distinction between unsettled insiders and settled outsiders — this distinction is the entire pastoral point of 1:22–23’s graduated response (mercy/fear/snatching). (3) “Save from fire” imagery, if handled loosely, could be assimilated by readers into the folk-Buddhist/Daoist practice of ritually “saving” or releasing a suffering soul (超度), which the baseline already forbids for salvation generally — the urgency-rescue image in 1:23 must be anchored to present, this-life spiritual danger. |
| Recommended strategy | Retain 怜悯 but require the standing contrast note against 慈悲 (impersonal/universal vs. personal/covenantal) at every occurrence, and additionally against 恩典 (mercy addresses misery, grace addresses guilt) — a double fencing requirement unique to this doctrine cluster. Lock 存疑心的人 as a fixed phrase and forbid collapsing it into either 未信的人 or a bare “doubter” gloss; the graduated three-part response of 1:22–23 (mercy on some; save others by snatching from fire; on others mercy mixed with fear) should be taught as a unit so the distinct addressee-categories are not flattened. Anchor 从火中抢出来 explicitly to present, active, this-life rescue language, never posthumous-rite framing. |
1.5 Kept by God and Presented Blameless (Jude 1:1, 1:6, 1:13, 1:21, 1:24)
| Element | Detail |
|---|---|
| Available destination terms | 保守 (kept, protective branch); 存留 (kept, custodial-for-judgment branch); 永生 (eternal life); 无瑕无疵 (present blameless); 不失脚 (without stumbling) |
| Weaknesses | (1) The single Greek verb τηρέω covers two theologically opposite outcomes in Jude — God’s protective preservation of believers (1:1, 1:21) versus his custodial holding of the condemned in reserve for judgment (1:6 ×2, 1:13) — and Mandarin has no single verb that naturally carries both senses without collapsing the distinction; if a translator defaults to one verb throughout, the letter’s central architecture (contrast between the kept-for-blessing and the kept-for-judgment) is destroyed. (2) 永生 is vulnerable to assimilation into 长生不老 (Daoist immortality/longevity-cultivation through elixirs, alchemy, or qigong practice) — a self-attained extension of the present body, exactly backwards from a relational, God-given resurrection-life gift. (3) 无瑕无疵 is a sacrificial-purity term whose natural reading direction in a culture saturated with self-cultivation ideals (修身, 修炼, 成圣) tends toward “achieved through discipline,” when Jude’s entire point is that this blameless status is God’s own accomplishment presented at the end of his keeping work, not the believer’s own attainment. |
| Recommended strategy | This is the single highest-density tracking gap in the letter (see also §4 below): require verse-by-verse branch-tagging of every τηρέω/φυλάσσω occurrence (protective = 保守/φυλάσσω-1:24 vs. custodial = 存留) before translation, as already flagged in the core glossary’s cross-cutting note. Fence 永生 against 长生不老 explicitly. Fence 无瑕无疵 against the Neo-Confucian self-cultivation reading already established for 成圣 in the baseline — this is a direct doctrinal extension of that existing caution, not a new category, and should be cross-referenced to it in all teaching material. |
1.6 Doxology and God’s Preserving Power (Jude 1:24–25)
| Element | Detail |
|---|---|
| Available destination terms | 独一的神我们的救主 (the only God our Savior); 荣耀 (glory); 威严 (majesty); 能力 (dominion/might); 权柄 (authority); 从万古以前，并现今，直到永永远远 (before all time, now, forever) |
| Weaknesses | (1) The fourfold list (荣耀, 威严, 能力, 权柄) has no natural single-word Mandarin equivalent structure; the four terms are close synonyms in ordinary usage and risk being read as redundant poetic stacking rather than four distinct attributes, diluting the doxology’s rhetorical force. (2) 能力 in particular risks drifting toward an impersonal cosmic-power register (paralleling the baseline’s providence/气 cautions) if not anchored as God’s own personal might. (3) 独一的神 must reinforce, not merely repeat, the monotheism-explicit teaching the baseline already requires for every occurrence of 神, since this doxology is the letter’s climactic and most theologically dense affirmation. |
| Recommended strategy | Preserve the CUV fourfold list order and require a brief distinguishing gloss for each term the first time the doxology is taught (not merely translated), so catechists do not treat the four nouns as interchangeable synonyms. Anchor 能力 explicitly to personal divine might, never impersonal cosmic force. Treat 独一的神我们的救主 as the doctrinal capstone of the entire letter’s God-vocabulary and cross-reference it back to every earlier 神 occurrence (1:1, 1:4, 1:21) as the letter’s own internal argument for monotheism. |
2. Missing Vocabulary vs. Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods
2.1 Genuinely Missing Vocabulary (no ready single Mandarin term exists)
| Concept | Gap | Resolution |
|---|---|---|
| πίστις, objective-deposit sense | Mandarin’s default “faith” word (信心) is trust-oriented, not content-oriented | Use CUV’s own 真道; treat as a distinct lexical entry, not a variant of 信心 |
| ἐπαγωνίζομαι, athletic-contest intensity | No everyday Mandarin verb carries both “strive with full exertion” and “contest/agon” senses at once | Coin 竭力争辩 with a background gloss on the Greek athletic image |
| ἅπαξ, finality/closedness (not mere frequency) | 一次 alone reads as “on one occasion” | Reinforce through surrounding teaching phrasing, not a lexical substitution |
| δεσπότης, absolute ownership distinct from κύριος’s relational lordship | Mandarin’s 主宰 leans toward impersonal fate-mastery | Use 独一的主宰 with a standing personal-sovereignty gloss |
| μεμψίμοιροι, literally “fate-blamers” | No equivalent single Mandarin idiom captures both “grumbler” and the etymological “blames their fate” nuance | Use descriptive 常发怨言的人; treat the fate-etymology as a teaching aside only, never imported into doctrine |
| θαυμάζοντες πρόσωπα, “admiring faces” for advantage | No single Mandarin idiom isolates flattery-for-gain from the broader, socially legitimate 面子 courtesy system | Use the full descriptive phrase 为得便宜说好话讨人的喜悦; never abbreviate to a single 面子-adjacent word |
| ἀγάπαι, the communal love-feast as a technical ecclesial term | 团契 (baseline “fellowship”) does not specify a shared meal; no existing word distinguishes this from ordinary a communal dinner or from an offering-feast | Coin/retain 爱席 with an explicit contrast against 祭祀宴 (offering-feast to spirits/ancestors) |
2.2 Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods Requiring Fencing
These are cases where adequate Mandarin vocabulary exists but sits inside a semantic field already occupied by a competing (Buddhist, Daoist, Confucian, or folk-religious) concept, such that unfenced use will default readers toward the wrong neighbor.
| Mandarin Term | Doctrinal Sense Required | Crowding Neighbor | Fencing Requirement |
|---|---|---|---|
| 怜悯 | Personal, covenantal mercy toward the suffering/guilty/wavering | 慈悲 (Buddhist bodhisattva/Guanyin universal compassion, impersonal, detachment-based) | Standing note at every occurrence: personal, particular, relationship-based, not universal detached benevolence |
| 刑罚 / 审判 | Personal God’s forensic verdict and judgment-event | 报应 (karmic retribution across fortune/lineage) | Standing note: verdict from a personal Judge at an appointed time, not automatic cosmic cause-and-effect |
| 魔鬼 | One specific, personal, fallen created being | 鬼 folk-class spirits (饿鬼, wandering ghosts, unworshipped ancestor spirits placated by ritual) | First-occurrence note: singular named adversary, not a placatable spirit-class |
| 天使 | Created, God-commissioned messenger-beings, morally fixed | 仙人/神仙 (Daoist immortals, folk deities — morally ambiguous, capricious, attained through cultivation) | First-occurrence note distinguishing created servant-status from cultivated immortal-status |
| 永生 | Relational, resurrection-life gift from God | 长生不老 (self-attained bodily longevity through elixir/qigong/alchemy) | Standing note: gift received, not technique attained |
| 无瑕无疵 | Status conferred entirely by God’s keeping power | 修身/修炼/成圣-as-self-cultivation (Neo-Confucian/Daoist self-perfection) | Cross-reference to the baseline’s existing 成圣 caution; explicit “God’s accomplishment, not yours” framing |
| 属乎血气 | Fixed idiom for mere natural (un-Spirit-filled) humanity | Bare 气 (qì, vital life-energy of Chinese medicine/qigong/martial-arts cosmology), forbidden elsewhere for “power of God” | Explicit idiom-boundary note: this compound is not decomposable; never gloss the 气 half independently |
| 一次 (in the 一次交付 construction) | Closed, unrepeatable, complete transmission | Ordinary frequency-only reading (“one time, but could happen again”) | Reinforce with surrounding phrase-level context in all teaching material, every occurrence |
| 交付 | Closed doctrinal deposit, non-reinterpretable | 传承 (open-ended master-disciple lineage transmission, Chan Buddhist/Confucian scholarly tradition) | Forbidden-substitution status for 传承 in this specific doctrinal role, parallel to baseline forbidden-list format |
| 引人结党 | Self-serving factional separation from genuine fellowship | 邪教 (legally/politically loaded PRC term for banned religious movements) | Explicit ban on 邪教 as over-translation; retain descriptive phrase only |
| 末世的时候 | The specific biblical eschatological last-days framework | Secular apocalyptic pop-culture 末世 (doomsday fiction/film tropes) | Anchor to the biblical framework at first occurrence |
| 流荡的星 | Moral instability imaged as errant stars | 占星 (astrological fate-reading) | Clarify the image concerns moral instability, not astrological prediction |
| 永远的锁链 / 幽暗 | Divine custodial judgment awaiting the fallen angels | 阴间 (folk-underworld bureaucracy with its own judge-pantheon) | One-line contrast note distinguishing divine judgment from folk-underworld administration |
| 犹大 (Jude, the author) | This letter’s author, brother of James | 犹大 (Judas Iscariot, the betrayer) — identical Chinese form | Mandatory disambiguation note at first mention of the book, every time it is introduced in curriculum material |
3. Transliteration vs. Paraphrase Decisions
| Term/Name | Decision | Rationale |
|---|---|---|
| 犹大 (Jude, author) | Transliterate (CUV standard) + mandatory disambiguation gloss | Established form is fixed by CUV convention; the collision with Judas Iscariot is a homonymy problem solvable only by a standing note, not by inventing a new transliteration that would break consistency with the rest of the Chinese Bible-translation tradition |
| 雅各 (James) | Transliterate (CUV standard) + clarifying gloss | Distinguish from the two other biblical Jameses at first mention |
| 米迦勒天使长 (Michael the archangel) | Transliterate name + paraphrase title | 米迦勒 has no meaningful alternative; 天使长 (“chief of angels”) clarifies rank without inventing new vocabulary |
| 所多玛和蛾摩拉 (Sodom and Gomorrah) | Transliterate (CUV standard) | No paraphrase is possible for proper place-names; risk is narrative-literacy, not lexical, and is addressed by background notes, not by translation choice |
| 该隐 / 巴兰 / 可拉 (Cain / Balaam / Korah) | Transliterate names; paraphrase the associated “way/error/rebellion” as a full descriptive phrase (该隐的道路, 巴兰的错谬, 可拉的背叛) | Names must remain fixed per CUV convention; the associated abstract noun (ὁδός/πλάνη/ἀντιλογία) benefits from a descriptive Mandarin phrase rather than a single abstract word, since no single word carries the needed typological weight |
| 以诺 (Enoch) | Transliterate (CUV standard) | Fixed proper name; the canonical-authority question (Jude citing extra-canonical Enoch material) is a teaching-note issue, not a translation-form issue |
| 埃及 (Egypt) | Transliterate (CUV standard) | No ambiguity |
| πίστις (objective-deposit sense) | Paraphrase via existing CUV compound 真道, not transliterate | A transliteration of πίστις would be meaningless to readers and would forfeit the existing, recognizable CUV rendering; paraphrase within established tradition is strictly preferred here |
| ἐπαγωνίζομαι (contend for) | Paraphrase as coined compound 竭力争辩 | No transliteration is possible for a verb; paraphrase chosen to preserve intensity over the softer alternatives (辩护/辩论) rejected in the glossary |
| ἀσέλγεια (licentiousness) | Paraphrase as 放纵情欲 | Descriptive paraphrase needed; no single Mandarin word isolates “unrestrained shameless self-indulgence” without either euphemizing or moralizing beyond the text |
| δεσπότης (only Sovereign) | Paraphrase as 独一的主宰 (not transliterate; not reuse of 主人/老爷) | Preserves the ownership/mastery sense while the 独一的 qualifier supplies the personal/relational fencing the bare word lacks |
| ἀγάπαι (love feasts) | Paraphrase/coin as 爱席 | No existing single Mandarin word for this technical ecclesial practice; coined compound preferred over transliteration (meaningless) or over reuse of 团契 (too generic, loses the meal-specific sense) |
| θαυμάζοντες πρόσωπα ὠφελείας χάριν (flattering for advantage) | Full descriptive paraphrase, not abbreviated to any single word | Any single-word rendering risks direct collision with the legitimate 面子/给面子 social-courtesy system; only a full descriptive phrase keeps the condemnation properly scoped to self-serving manipulation |
| ἄμωμος (present blameless) | Paraphrase using existing four-character idiom 无瑕无疵 | This is a pre-existing Mandarin idiom (originally describing flawless jade/objects) repurposed for sacrificial-purity theology; retained because it is already CUV-established and requires only a doctrinal fencing note, not a new coinage |
| μεγαλωσύνη / κράτος / ἐξουσία (doxological fourfold list) | Paraphrase with four distinct existing words (威严/能力/权柄), retaining 荣耀 from baseline | Transliteration is impossible for abstract nouns; the challenge is differentiation among near-synonyms, addressed by teaching glosses, not by further coinage |
General transliteration principle for Jude: transliterate all proper names (persons, places) per fixed CUV convention with no exceptions; paraphrase all abstract theological and ethical vocabulary, preferring existing CUV-established compounds where available (真道, 无瑕无疵) and coining new descriptive compounds only where no CUV precedent exists (爱席, 竭力争辩, the full flattery phrase). Never transliterate a Greek theological term directly into Mandarin phonetic characters in this curriculum; Mandarin theological register does not support bare transliteration of abstract nouns the way it supports proper names.
4. Ranked List of Jude’s Highest-Risk Ambiguities
Ranked by combined severity (doctrinal weight if mistranslated) and likelihood (how easily an unguided translator would default to the wrong rendering):
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τηρέω/φυλάσσω dual-branch tracking (1:1, 1:6 ×2, 1:13, 1:21, 1:24). The single highest risk in the letter. One Greek word-family covers two theologically opposite outcomes (protective keeping vs. custodial-for-judgment holding). A translator working mechanically from a bilingual dictionary would very plausibly render all occurrences with one Mandarin verb, silently erasing the letter’s central architecture — the same God who keeps his own is the God who keeps the condemned in reserve for judgment. Mitigation: mandatory per-verse branch-tagging before translation (already required in the core glossary’s cross-cutting note; this analysis independently confirms it as the top-ranked risk).
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πίστις sense-collision with the Romans baseline (1:3, 1:20). Because 信心 is already a Critical/High-risk, heavily reinforced baseline term, there is a strong “gravitational pull” for translators trained on Romans to default to 信心 in Jude, especially since no morphological signal in the English source (“the faith,” “your… faith”) flags the sense-shift as clearly as Greek’s single lexeme might for a Greek-literate reviewer. Getting this wrong either turns “the faith once delivered” into “the trust once delivered” (incoherent) or teaches that personal trust in Christ is a fixed, memorizable rule-set (also wrong). Mitigation: explicit “faith_deposit” registry entry (already drafted) with mandatory translator notes at both occurrences.
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恩典 (grace) contextual inversion at 1:4. Every other occurrence of 恩典 in the corpus (Romans + Jude’s own greeting, implied) presents grace as the solution; Jude 1:4 uniquely presents grace perverted into license. A translator or catechist skimming for the familiar Critical-risk pattern (“grace = good, defend against 功德”) could miss that this specific verse requires the opposite defensive framing — defending grace’s true meaning against its abuse by false teachers, not merely against Buddhist merit-theology. Mishandling risks either (a) implying grace itself is dangerous, or (b) softening the false teachers’ culpability. Mitigation: explicit note that 1:4 is teaching about abuse-of-grace, not redefining grace.
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魔鬼’s 鬼-character folk-ghost collision (1:9). Given the density and vividness of Chinese ghost-festival and ancestor-spirit culture, this is a high-likelihood default-error risk even for experienced Christian translators working under time pressure, precisely because 魔鬼 is otherwise a “safe,” fixed, low-visible-risk compound elsewhere in Chinese Christian usage — its risk is easy to overlook because it does not trigger the same alarm as an obviously novel term would.
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怜悯 vs. 慈悲 (1:2, 1:21–23). High likelihood because 慈悲 is arguably the single most culturally salient “compassion” word in Mandarin (via Guanyin devotion, present even among largely secular readers), making it a strong unconscious associative pull whenever “mercy” is discussed, especially in the emotionally warm register Jude 1:22–23 calls for.
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存疑心的人 collapse into 未信的人 (1:22). Medium-high likelihood: without the explicit insider/outsider distinction being actively taught, a natural-language instinct to simplify “those who waver” into “unbelievers” is strong, and the entire pastoral logic of 1:22–23’s graduated response depends on this distinction being preserved.
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一次/交付 finality-erosion (1:3, 1:5). Medium likelihood: no single wrong word is likely to be substituted, but cumulative semantic erosion (translators treating 一次 as flexible, glossing 交付 loosely toward 传承-adjacent language in surrounding commentary) is a real risk across a full curriculum’s worth of derivative teaching materials, even if the core verse translation itself stays correct.
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属乎血气’s embedded 气 (1:19). Medium likelihood, high severity if triggered: unlikely to be mishandled in the base translation (it is a fixed CUV idiom), but high risk in secondary teaching materials (sermons, study notes) that might explain the phrase by unpacking 气 independently and inadvertently reconnect it to qigong/vital-energy concepts the baseline works hard to keep away from “power of God” language elsewhere.
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独一的主宰’s 主宰-fate overtone (1:4). Medium likelihood: 主宰 is common in secular Mandarin as “master of one’s fate” phrasing (命运的主宰是自己 is a popular self-help slogan); Jude’s usage risks being read through that secular self-determination lens rather than as submission to Christ’s actual sovereign ownership.
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面子-adjacent flattery language (1:16). Lower likelihood of mistranslation (the descriptive phrase is safely non-collapsible) but flagged for completeness because of its high potential for pastoral misapplication if abbreviated in derivative teaching materials — condemning ordinary Chinese face-giving courtesy rather than the specific self-serving manipulation Jude targets.
5. Full-Book Verse-Range Coverage Table
| Verse Range | Coverage Status | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1:1 | Reviewed — new terms | 犹大 (disambiguation), 仆人, 雅各, 蒙爱的, 蒙召的 (reused), 保守 (protective branch) |
| 1:2 | Reviewed — new terms | 怜悯, 平安 (reused) |
| 1:3 | Reviewed — new terms | 亲爱的, 救恩 (reused), 真道, 竭力争辩, 交付, 一次 |
| 1:4 | Reviewed — new terms | 不敬虔, 恩典 (reused, inverted context), 放纵情欲, 独一的主宰, 主 (reused), 基督 (reused), 不认, 刑罚 |
| 1:5 | Reviewed — new terms | 一次 (second occurrence), 埃及, 灭没 |
| 1:6 | Reviewed — new terms | 天使, 自己的住处, 存留 (×2, custodial branch), 永远的锁链, 幽暗, 审判 |
| 1:7 | Reviewed — new terms | 所多玛和蛾摩拉, 行邪淫, 永火 |
| 1:8 | Reviewed — new terms | 污秽身体, 轻慢主治的, 毁谤, 荣耀 (reused, “glorious ones”) |
| 1:9 | Reviewed — new terms | 米迦勒天使长, 魔鬼, 争辩, 责备 |
| 1:10 | Reviewed — new terms | 无灵性的畜类 |
| 1:11 | Reviewed — new terms | 有祸了, 该隐的道路, 巴兰的错谬, 可拉的背叛 |
| 1:12 | Reviewed — new terms | 爱席, and figurative cluster (暗礁、无水的云、没有果子的树、死而又死、拔了根) |
| 1:13 | Reviewed — new terms | 狂浪、污秽的沫子、流荡的星, 存留 (custodial branch, third occurrence), 幽暗 (second occurrence) |
| 1:14 | Reviewed — new terms | 以诺, 亚当, 千万圣者 |
| 1:15 | Reviewed — new terms | 审判 (second occurrence), 证实…的罪, 不敬虔 (second occurrence) |
| 1:16 | Reviewed — new terms | 常发怨言的人, 为得便宜说好话讨人的喜悦 |
| 1:17 | Reviewed — new terms | 使徒 (reused), 记念 |
| 1:18 | Reviewed — new terms | 末世的时候, 讥诮的人, 不敬虔 (third occurrence) |
| 1:19 | Reviewed — new terms | 引人结党, 属乎血气, 圣灵 (reused, negated clause) |
| 1:20 | Reviewed — new terms | 亲爱的 (second occurrence), 至圣的真道, 圣灵 (reused), 建立自己 |
| 1:21 | Reviewed — new terms | 保守 (second occurrence, protective branch), 恩典 (reused), 怜悯 (second occurrence), 永生 |
| 1:22 | Reviewed — new terms | 怜悯 (third occurrence), 存疑心的人 |
| 1:23 | Reviewed — new terms | 从火中抢出来, 怜悯 (fourth occurrence, “with fear”), 情欲沾染的衣服 |
| 1:24 | Reviewed — new terms | 保守 (φυλάσσω, third protective occurrence), 不失脚, 无瑕无疵, 荣耀 (reused, doxological) |
| 1:25 | Reviewed — new terms | 独一的神我们的救主, 荣耀 (reused), 威严, 能力, 权柄, 从万古以前并现今直到永永远远 |
No verse in Jude 1:1–25 was found to contribute zero load-bearing vocabulary; the letter is unusually dense for its length, consistent with its polemical, list-driven rhetorical style. This full-coverage sweep confirms the term inventory in 08_core_glossary.md and bible_term_registry.json (Jude extension) is complete relative to the source text.
This gap analysis precedes and informs the term-by-term decisions recorded in 08_core_glossary.md and the Jude extension of bible_term_registry.json. It must be read alongside the Romans baseline translation_memory.json and doctrine_risk_registry.json, which govern all Section-A-equivalent reused terms and the overall risk-tier framework applied throughout.