Linguistic Gap Analysis
06 — Linguistic Gap Analysis: Judges — English → Mandarin
Purpose
This document executes Phase 1 Step 8 (linguistic gap analysis) for the Judges curriculum, extending the Romans baseline Language Package to the full text of Judges 1–21, anchored on the core passage Judges 2:6-19. It identifies (a) where Mandarin has no ready equivalent for a Judges-specific concept and must construct one, (b) where Mandarin has too many overlapping candidate terms clustered around folk-religious, Confucian, or Buddhist/Daoist concepts and therefore needs deliberate semantic “fencing,” (c) transliteration-vs-paraphrase decisions and their rationale, and (d) a ranked list of the highest-risk ambiguities this letter of the curriculum introduces. This analysis governs and is fully consistent with the term-level decisions already recorded in assets/bible_term_registry.json and analysis/08_core_glossary.md; it documents the reasoning behind those decisions and extends the analysis across every chapter of the book, per the FULL-BOOK COVERAGE mandate.
The baseline Romans Language Package (translation_memory.json, bible_term_registry.json, doctrine_risk_registry.json) is the governing authority. Nothing below contradicts it; all new terms extend it under the same risk-tier and forbidden-substitution conventions.
1. Doctrine Vocabulary Matrix
| Doctrine | Available Mandarin Terms | Weaknesses / Collision Risk | Recommended Strategy |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Cycle of Sin, Judgment, and Deliverance | 行耶和华眼中看为恶的事 (did-evil formula); 交在…手中 (sold into hand); 急难 (distress); 呼求耶和华 (cried out); 拯救/拯救者 (saved/deliverer); 兴起 (raised up); 国中太平 (land had rest); 转去 (turned back) | No single Mandarin noun cleanly names “the cycle” as a structural concept. The natural candidate, 循环 (xúnhuán, “cycle/circulation”), risks bleeding into 轮回 (reincarnation) — a term the baseline already forbids for “resurrection” — and into 治乱循环 (the cyclical dynastic-order-and-chaos pattern of Chinese historiography, already flagged in the baseline’s Fulfillment of Prophecy doctrine). Both associations would reframe Judges’ cycle as an impersonal, self-perpetuating cosmic pattern rather than a covenant-lawsuit sequence under a personal God’s judicial governance. | Reserve 循环 strictly as a descriptive/structural label for teaching material (e.g., “士师记的循环模式”), never as a theological category. Anchor the doctrine itself entirely on the chain of already-glossed formulaic verbs (行恶→离弃→发怒→交在手中→呼求→兴起拯救者→太平→转去→再行恶), each individually fenced against its own folk-religious neighbor. Every teaching unit must state explicitly that each turn of the cycle is a personal covenant-lawsuit response by God, not a mechanical wheel. |
| The Absence of a Righteous King | 王 (king); 耶和华必管理你们 (“the LORD shall rule over you”); 各人任意而行 (“everyone did right in his own eyes”); 那时以色列中没有王 (“no king in Israel”); 神的国 (kingdom of God, baseline) | 王 alone, read through the historic Chinese framework of dynastic legitimacy (Mandate of Heaven), risks making “Israel needs a king” sound like a call for a new dynasty rather than a Godward covenant-governance need. No existing compound in the glossary yet names the positive concept “a righteous king” that the book is building toward. | Coin the forward-pointing compound 公义的王 (gōngyì de wáng) for teaching material that bridges Judges to the Davidic/messianic hope, applying the same Critical-risk fencing note already required for 义 (righteousness) in the baseline whenever it appears in this compound — i.e., always state this is not Confucian-virtue kingship or Mandate-of-Heaven legitimacy, but covenant kingship under God. Never allow 王 alone to imply a political solution sufficient in itself; always pair with 耶和华必管理你们. |
| God’s Grace through Flawed Deliverers | 恩典 (grace, baseline Critical); 怜恤 (moved to pity); 拯救者 (deliverer); 慈爱 (chesed/kindness) | Three related-but-distinct terms (恩典, 怜恤, 慈爱) risk collapsing into one generic “God is kind” impression, losing the specific doctrinal shape: 恩典 = unmerited saving favor; 怜恤 = God’s relenting compassion triggered by suffering, not merit; 慈爱 = covenant loyalty exchanged between persons. Additional risk: readers may assume a judge’s usability implies personal merit (功德-style worthiness) — precisely reversed by Gideon’s fear, Jephthah’s rash vow, and Samson’s moral failures. | Maintain the three-term distinction exactly as recorded in the registry; never substitute one for another. For every flawed judge (Gideon, Jephthah, Samson), the accompanying teaching note must state explicitly that God’s use of a flawed deliverer is itself an illustration of 恩典, not a reward for the judge’s righteousness or accumulated merit. |
| Apostasy and Covenant Unfaithfulness | 离弃 (forsook); 别神 (other gods); 巴力 (Baal); 亚斯她录 (Ashtaroth); 随从别神行邪淫 (whored after); 叩拜/跪拜 (bowed down); 惹耶和华发怒 (provoked to anger); 雕刻的像/铸造的像/偶像 (idol); 家中的神像 (household gods/teraphim); 事奉 (served) | This is the most densely populated semantic field in the whole curriculum. The risk is not absence of vocabulary but collapse: if all these distinct terms are casually paraphrased down to one generic “idol worship is wrong” gloss, the text’s specific rhetorical structures are lost — the deliberate verb-echo of 事奉 (same verb for YHWH and Baal), the marital-infidelity shock of 随从别神行邪淫, and the domestic-shrine parallel of 家中的神像. | Preserve every term individually with its registry-recorded teaching note. Prohibit any single-gloss simplification (“拜偶像” alone) as a replacement for the specific terms; 拜偶像 may be used only as a summary label after the specific terms have already been taught. |
| The Spirit’s Empowering of Judges | 耶和华的灵 (Spirit of the LORD); 耶和华的灵大大充满他 (Spirit rushed upon); 兴起 (raised up); 拿细耳人 (Nazirite) | This is the single highest-collision-risk doctrine in the curriculum. The Mandarin “spirit/energy” semantic field (灵, 气, 法力, 神通, 附身/附体) is saturated with folk-religious, martial-arts, and qigong associations, and Samson’s narrated physical feats (14:6; 15:14; 16) are exactly the kind of content most likely to be assimilated to that field by readers with no other interpretive frame. | Absolute-fencing rule: compound-only (耶和华的灵), theological-continuity note with 圣灵 required at every occurrence, and explicit prohibition of all folk-possession/internal-energy vocabulary at every occurrence — not merely at first mention. Samson passages require the strongest form of this note given the vividness of the physical imagery. |
| Moral Decline and the Need for a Righteous King | 败坏 (corrupt, comparative); 恶事/丑事 (outrage); 各人任意而行; 那时以色列中没有王 | 败坏 alone, without its comparative grammatical frame, reads as a static description (“they were corrupt”) rather than the generational downward trajectory the book actually asserts (“more corrupt than their fathers”). Readers may miss that decline accelerates across the book (compare Gideon’s flawed but faithful obedience with Micah’s private religion and the Gibeah atrocity). | Always pair 败坏 with explicit comparative markers (比…更败坏) and generational language (世代, already glossed) in teaching material; never allow 败坏 to stand as a flat, one-time judgment disconnected from the book’s overall arc toward chs. 17–21. |
2. Missing Vocabulary Analysis
The following concepts have no existing single-word or established-compound Mandarin equivalent in either the Romans baseline or standard Bible Chinese and require either periphrastic construction (preferred) or a carefully fenced new coinage:
| Missing Concept | Why No Ready Equivalent Exists | Recommended Handling |
|---|---|---|
| ”The cycle” (as a structural/doctrinal label) | 循环 collides with 轮回/治乱循环 (see Matrix above) | Use only descriptively, never as a doctrinal noun standing alone; construct the doctrine periphrastically from the existing verb-chain terms. |
| ”Righteous king” (positive, forward-pointing concept) | No compound yet exists distinguishing this from ordinary 王 | Coin 公义的王 for teaching material only (not for direct Scripture-text rendering, since Judges itself never uses this phrase); always fence with the baseline’s 义-note. |
| ”Flawed deliverer” / “deliverer despite flaws” | English theological shorthand with no natural one-word Mandarin analogue | Do not coin a single term; use a periphrastic teaching gloss (e.g., “有缺陷却蒙神使用的拯救者”) each time the doctrine is introduced, rather than forcing an artificial compound into the glossary. |
| ”Apostasy” (abstract noun) | The natural candidate 背道 (bèidào, “turning from the Way/Dao”) risks the same 道 collision already flagged for 道成肉身 in the baseline (Daoist metaphysical “the Way”) | Avoid coining an abstract noun; render exclusively through the verb 离弃 (“forsook,” already glossed) plus its object 约 (covenant, baseline). Do not introduce 背道 into translation memory. |
| ”Covenant unfaithfulness” (abstract noun) | The natural candidate 背约 (bèiyuē, “breach of covenant”) risks sounding like breach of a commercial contract, echoing the baseline’s caution against 合同/契约 framings of covenant | Prefer the periphrastic “离弃耶和华的约” over coining 背约 as a technical term. |
| ”Moral relativism” / “moral autonomy” (doctrine label for 17:6/21:25) | No native Mandarin term maps this modern Western ethical category without importing either a positive-sounding individualism gloss or a moralizing 道德沦丧 (“moral collapse”) that risks sounding like a secular social commentary rather than a covenant-theological verdict | Use 各人任意而行 itself (already the biblical text’s own idiom) as the doctrine’s operative vocabulary; avoid supplementing it with an external abstract label that could dilute its specifically covenantal, condemnatory sense. |
General finding: Judges introduces relatively few purely missing-vocabulary gaps compared to Romans. The larger and more consequential challenge (Section 3, below) is semantic crowding — an abundance of superficially similar existing Mandarin terms that must be carefully distinguished, not a shortage of vocabulary.
3. Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods Needing Fencing
| Semantic Family | Members | Fencing Requirement |
|---|---|---|
| Spirit (灵) family | 圣灵 (Holy Spirit, baseline) / 耶和华的灵 (Spirit of the LORD) / 祖灵 (ancestral spirit, forbidden) / 精灵 (nature spirit) / 附身·附体 (spirit possession) / 气 (qi) / 法力 (ritual power) / 神通 (cultivated supernatural power) | Highest-priority fence in the curriculum. 耶和华的灵 and 圣灵 must always appear as full compounds, never abbreviated to 灵 alone (baseline Critical rule, extended). All possession/energy-cultivation vocabulary is absolutely forbidden regardless of how vivid Samson’s feats become in narrative retelling. |
| Righteousness/duty (义) family | 义 (righteousness, baseline Critical) / 公义的王 (new teaching compound) / 义人 (righteous person) / Confucian 仁义礼智信 virtue-set | Every occurrence of 义 in a Judges kingship or judgment context requires the same distinguishing note already mandated by baseline: this is right standing/right rule under God, not Confucian moral cultivation. |
| Holy/sage (圣) family | 圣洁 (holy) / 圣徒 (saints) / 成圣 (sanctification) / 圣人 (Confucian sage, forbidden equivalence) / 拿细耳人 (Nazirite, new) | Nazirite consecration must be fenced identically to the baseline’s 成圣 caution: God-initiated task-specific consecration, not self-attained ascetic merit (cf. Buddhist monastic vows, 出家, 戒律). |
| Grace/kindness/merit (恩) family | 恩典 (grace, baseline Critical) / 恩赐 (spiritual gifts, baseline) / 慈爱 (chesed, new) / 怜恤 (moved to pity, new Critical) / 功德 (merit, forbidden) / 阴德 (hidden merit, forbidden) | Three-way distinction (恩典 / 慈爱 / 怜恤) must never collapse into one generic term, and none may absorb any merit-ledger vocabulary. |
| Worship-posture (拜) family | 敬拜 (legitimate worship of God, baseline-adjacent) / 叩拜·跪拜 (bowed down, idol-context) / 拜偶像 (idol worship, summary term only) / 祭祖·祭拜 (ancestor veneration ritual) | 敬拜 is reserved exclusively for legitimate worship of the true God; idol-directed bowing must always use 叩拜/跪拜, never 敬拜, so that the posture-vs-object distinction taught in the registry is never blurred by inconsistent verb choice. |
| Calling/destiny (命) family | 呼召 (calling, baseline High) / 蒙召的 (called, baseline High) / 拣选 (election, baseline High) / 天命 (Mandate of Heaven, forbidden) / 命运 (impersonal fate, forbidden) / 缘分 (predestined connection, forbidden) | 兴起 (“raised up,” new Judges term for judges) must be taught alongside these baseline prohibitions: God’s raising up a judge is personal sovereign appointment, not impersonal destiny-assignment, and specifically not hereditary succession (contrast Abimelech’s illegitimate self-installed kingship). |
| Lots/divination (签/卜) family | 抽签 (cast lots, new Critical) / 求签 (drawing a temple fortune-stick, forbidden framing) / 问卜·占卜 (consulting a diviner, forbidden framing) / 求问神 (inquire of God, new High) | This is the single most literal lexical collision in the entire Judges glossary: 抽签 is the exact everyday Mandarin term for temple fortune-stick divination. Absolute requirement: every occurrence in Judges 20 must carry the providence-not-technique teaching note; never permit the term to stand without it. |
| Vow (愿) family | 许愿·还愿 (vow/repay a vow, new Critical) / 发愿 (Buddhist vow to attain enlightenment, forbidden) / 起誓 (oath, adjacent) | Jephthah’s vow (11:30-31) and the Israelite vow concerning Benjamite wives (21:1,7) must both be taught as narrated, not endorsed; never let 许愿 read as a sanctioned technique for securing divine favor, given its identical everyday sense of transactional temple vow-making. |
| King/kingdom (王/国) family | 王 (king, new Medium) / 神的国 (kingdom of God, baseline) / 天下 (forbidden, baseline) / 王朝 (forbidden, baseline) / 耶和华必管理你们 (new High) | Abimelech’s kingship (ch. 9) must be explicitly taught as a cautionary counter-example lest 王 default to a positive Mandate-of-Heaven-style legitimacy reading; Gideon’s refusal (8:23) is the fence that must accompany every other kingship reference in the book. |
| Cycle/pattern (循环) family | 循环 (structural label only) / 轮回 (reincarnation, forbidden) / 治乱循环 (dynastic cycle, baseline caution) | See Matrix, Doctrine 1 above. |
4. Transliteration vs. Paraphrase Decisions
| Term | Decision | Rationale |
|---|---|---|
| יהוה (YHWH) | Transliterate: 耶和华 | Established CUV proper-name transliteration; retained in every covenant-name-specific compound (耶和华的灵, 耶和华的使者, 耶和华的仆人) rather than the generic 神, per registry note — the whole book’s apostasy is specifically disloyalty to 耶和华, not to 神 as an abstract category. |
| בַּעַל (Baal) | Transliterate: 巴力 | No functional Chinese equivalent exists that would not import a false specific identity (e.g., naming a particular existing Chinese deity); transliteration avoids false equivalence while the structural parallel to Chinese fertility/tutelary-deity worship is supplied separately as a teaching note, not by the term itself. |
| עַשְׁתָּרוֹת (Ashtaroth) | Transliterate: 亚斯她录 | Same rationale as Baal. |
| דָּגוֹן (Dagon) | Transliterate: 大衮 | Same rationale; low-risk proper noun, Philistine national deity. |
| אֵפוֹד (ephod) | Transliterate: 以弗得 | Established CUV liturgical-object transliteration with no native Chinese functional equivalent; low collision risk since it names a specific historical priestly garment/object, not a live contemporary practice. |
| נָזִיר (Nazirite) | Transliterate: 拿细耳人 | No native equivalent exists that would not misleadingly suggest an existing Chinese ascetic/monastic category (出家人, 修道者); transliteration plus a mandatory fencing note (God-initiated task consecration, not self-attained merit) is preferred over any paraphrase that could imply equivalence to Buddhist monastic vows. |
| תְּרָפִים (teraphim / household gods) | Paraphrase, deliberately NOT transliterated: 家中的神像 | This is the one place in the glossary where the general preference for transliterating cultic proper nouns is deliberately overridden. A transliteration (e.g., a phonetic “特拉芬”) would let readers mentally file this as an exotic ancient-Near-Eastern curiosity and miss the text’s confrontation with their own household religious practice. Paraphrasing it in plain, contemporary Mandarin as “household idols/images” forces the intended collision with household ancestor tablets and domestic shrines (祖先牌位, 家神) still present in many Chinese homes — the text condemns Micah’s private religion, and the translation must not let transliteration soften that confrontation. |
| גּוֹרָל (goral / cast lots) | Paraphrase using an existing native term, not a new transliteration: 抽签 | Coining a technical transliterated term would reduce accessibility and would not resolve the underlying doctrinal risk in any case, since the concept (not just the word) genuinely resembles the outward form of temple divination. The existing common word is retained deliberately so the necessary distinction (God’s providential oversight vs. fate-reading technique) is taught explicitly rather than evaded through vocabulary avoidance. |
| שֹׁפְטִים (shophtim / judges) | Retain established CUV coinage: 士师 | Already a semi-technical CUV coinage (not a literal transliteration nor a fully native word); retained as the book’s title-term rather than replaced with the more literal but misleading 审判官/法官 (courtroom magistrate), which would undercut the Spirit-empowerment doctrine by suggesting a judicial office rather than a raised-up deliverer-leader. |
| חֶסֶד (chesed) | Paraphrase: 慈爱 | An existing native compound already carries the relational “loyal kindness” sense adequately; no transliteration needed, but strict fencing against substitution with 恩典 or 功德 is required (see Section 3). |
| נַחֲלָה (nachalah / inheritance) | Paraphrase: 产业 | Standard, already-attested CUV rendering; no transliteration needed, low collision risk. |
General decision rule applied throughout: transliterate proper nouns and cultic objects that name a specific historical entity with no live functional equivalent in contemporary Chinese religious practice (Baal, Ashtaroth, Dagon, ephod, Nazirite — low-to-medium ongoing collision risk because the reader cannot mistake them for something in their own present-day life). Paraphrase with existing native vocabulary, under heavy teaching-note fencing, wherever the underlying concept has a live, present-day functional equivalent in Chinese religious life that the text is implicitly or explicitly confronting (teraphim/household gods, cast lots, vow-making) — transliteration in these cases would be a translation evasion, not a safeguard.
5. Ranked List of Highest-Risk Ambiguities
Ranked by combined severity of doctrinal distortion risk and probability of reader misapplication, drawing on and consistent with bible_term_registry.json risk tiers:
- 耶和华的灵 / “Spirit rushed upon” (Judges 14:6; 15:14; 16) — Critical. Samson’s narrated feats are the curriculum’s single most vivid occasion for a qigong/martial-arts internal-energy (气) or folk-possession (附身) misreading; requires the strongest, most repeated fencing of any term in the book.
- 抽签 / cast lots (Judges 20) — Critical. Lexically identical to the everyday Mandarin term for temple fortune-stick divination; the risk is not analogy but literal word-collision.
- 许愿 / vow and 燔祭 / burnt offering (Judges 11:30-39; 21:1,7) — Critical. Collides with the widespread transactional temple vow-repayment pattern; additionally carries the acute risk of the narrative’s human-sacrifice horror being read as tacit approval rather than as an indictment of the era’s moral collapse.
- 家中的神像 / household gods, teraphim (Judges 17–18) — Critical. Direct structural parallel to ancestor tablets and domestic shrines likely present in many readers’ own extended families; highest personal-application stakes of any term in the curriculum.
- 怜恤 / moved to pity (Judges 2:18) — Critical. The core textual anchor of the grace doctrine within the core passage itself; any drift toward merit-ledger vocabulary (功德, 阴德) would corrupt the curriculum’s central theological claim.
- 巴力 / Baal and the wider idolatry-vocabulary cluster (Judges 2, 3, 6, 8, 10) — High. Risk of exoticizing Canaanite religion as safely ancient/foreign rather than confronting the analogous transactional-fertility logic of contemporary folk practice.
- 转去 / turned back (Judges 2:19) — High. Ironic reversal of the OT’s normally positive “return/repent” verb; risk of confusion with the Buddhist-inflected idiom 回头是岸 (“turning back is the shore”), which would invert the verse’s meaning entirely.
- 拿细耳人 / Nazirite (Judges 13, 16) — High. Risk of assimilation to Buddhist ascetic/monastic vow categories, importing a self-attained-merit framework opposite to the text’s God-initiated consecration.
- 士师 / judges, the office itself (throughout) — High. Risk of default courtroom-magistrate misreading via the English loanword association with “judge,” which would undercut the entire Spirit’s-Empowering-of-Judges doctrine.
- 各人任意而行 / “everyone did what was right in his own eyes” and 那时以色列中没有王 (Judges 17:6; 18:1; 19:1; 21:25) — High. Risk of a positive-autonomy misreading (celebrating individual freedom) exactly contrary to the text’s condemnatory framing; must always be taught bracketed by “no king in Israel.”
- 王 / king and 耶和华必管理你们 (Judges 8:23; ch. 9) — High. Risk of Mandate-of-Heaven dynastic-legitimacy framing; Abimelech must be taught explicitly as a cautionary counter-example, not a model.
- 女先知 / prophetess, Deborah (Judges 4–5) — High. Risk of conflation with a trance-channeling shamaness/medium role (乩身/尪姨-type figures) attested in Chinese folk practice; Deborah’s coherent, verbal, commissioned speech must be distinguished.
- 妾 / concubine (Judges 19) — High. Risk of normalizing the historical Chinese institution of concubinage as a legitimate parallel rather than recognizing the text’s narration of an era’s moral collapse.
- 事奉 / served (Judges 2:7, 11, 13) — Medium. Subtle risk of losing the deliberate rhetorical echo (the identical verb for serving YHWH and serving Baal) if translators vary the rendering across the two contexts.
- 国中太平 / land had rest, adjacent to 平安 (Judges 3:11, 30; 5:31; 8:28) — Medium. Shared root character 平 risks blending Judges’ socio-political/military rest with the baseline’s distinct relational “peace with God” doctrine.
6. Full-Book Chapter Coverage Ledger
Per the FULL-BOOK COVERAGE mandate, every chapter of Judges has been reviewed for new vocabulary and doctrinal load. Chapters contributing new terms are marked with their principal contributions; chapters reviewed with no new vocabulary beyond what is already captured are explicitly noted as such, never silently omitted.
| Ch. | New Terms / Doctrinal Load | Status |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 产业 (inheritance), 迦南人 (Canaanites), 赶出/逐出 (drive out), 住在他们中间 (dwelt among) | New vocabulary — background to the Cycle doctrine |
| 2 | Core passage (2:6-19). 事奉, 认识, 世代, 行耶和华眼中看为恶的事, 巴力/诸巴力, 离弃, 别神, 叩拜/跪拜, 惹耶和华发怒, 亚斯她录, 交在…手中, 急难, 士师, 兴起, 拯救/拯救者, 随从别神行邪淫, 命令, 怜恤, 哀声, 欺压/虐待, 转去, 败坏, 顽梗的行为; also 耶和华的使者 (2:1-5), 试验 (2:22) | Theological anchor chapter — full new-term load |
| 3 | 国中太平 (3:11, 30), 试验 (3:1, 4), 耶和华的灵 (3:10), 呼求耶和华 (3:9, 15); judges Othniel, Ehud, Shamgar | New vocabulary — first cycle instances outside ch. 2 |
| 4–5 | 女先知 (prophetess, Deborah), 咒诅/蒙福 (curse/blessed, the Song of Deborah), 国中太平 (5:31) | New vocabulary — Divine Revelation category |
| 6–8 | 祭坛/坛 (altar), 证据 (sign, Gideon’s fleece), 耶和华的使者 (6:11-24), 耶和华的灵 (6:34), 耶和华必管理你们 (8:23), 以弗得 (ephod, 8:24-27), 网罗 (snare) | New vocabulary — Absence of Righteous King doctrine introduced explicitly at 8:23 |
| 9 | 王 (king, Abimelech), 咒诅/蒙福 (Jotham’s fable) | Reviewed — reuses ch. 4-5/8 vocabulary; Abimelech established as cautionary counter-example, no new terms required |
| 10 | 亚斯她录 (10:6, recurrence), 行耶和华眼中看为恶的事 (10:6, recurrence), 呼求耶和华 (10:10, recurrence) | Reviewed — recurrence of established cycle vocabulary; no new terms |
| 11 | 许愿 (vow), 燔祭 (burnt offering) | New vocabulary — Moral Decline doctrine, Jephthah’s rash vow |
| 12 | Minor judges (Ibzan, Elon, Abdon); intertribal conflict | Reviewed — no new theological vocabulary; confirms downward-trajectory pattern of Moral Decline doctrine using already-established terms |
| 13 | 拿细耳人 (Nazirite, Samson’s birth announcement), 耶和华的使者 (13:3-21) | New vocabulary — Spirit’s Empowering doctrine, consecration background |
| 14–15 | 耶和华的灵大大充满他 (Spirit rushed upon), 谜语 (riddle) | New vocabulary — heightened Spirit-empowerment terminology |
| 16 | 大衮 (Dagon); recurrence of 拿细耳人 and Spirit-rushed-upon vocabulary in Samson’s death | Reviewed — Dagon new; Spirit/Nazirite vocabulary already introduced in chs. 13-15 |
| 17–18 | 家中的神像 (household gods/teraphim), 雕刻的像/铸造的像/偶像 (idol, recurrence of ephod), 那时以色列中没有王 (18:1) | New vocabulary — Moral Decline doctrine’s most acute domestic-religion case study |
| 19 | 妾 (concubine), 恶事/丑事 (outrage/wickedness, Gibeah), 那时以色列中没有王 (19:1) | New vocabulary — Moral Decline doctrine, Sodom-echo atrocity |
| 20 | 会众 (assembly/congregation), 求问神 (inquire of God), 抽签 (cast lots) | New vocabulary — Absence of Righteous King doctrine’s decision-making crisis |
| 21 | 那时以色列中没有王 / 各人任意而行 (21:25, book’s closing verdict); recurrence of 许愿 (Israelite vow re: Benjamite wives, 21:1, 7) | Reviewed — closing thesis-refrain uses already-established vocabulary (17:6/18:1/19:1); vow terminology already fenced at ch. 11; no new terms required beyond confirming the book’s final doctrinal bridge toward the need for a righteous king |
Coverage confirmation: all 21 chapters of Judges have been reviewed. Chapters 9, 10, 12, 16, and 21 introduce no vocabulary beyond terms already fenced elsewhere in this analysis and are recorded above as reviewed-with-no-new-terms rather than omitted.
7. Summary and Handoff
This gap analysis confirms that Judges’ primary linguistic challenge for Mandarin is not a shortage of vocabulary but the density of crowded semantic neighborhoods shared with Chinese folk religion, Confucian ethics, and Buddhist/Daoist self-cultivation frameworks — most acutely around the Spirit, lots/divination, vow-making, and household-idol vocabulary clusters. The doctrine vocabulary matrix, missing-vocabulary findings, transliteration/paraphrase decisions, and risk ranking above are fully reflected in and consistent with analysis/08_core_glossary.md and the Judges additions to assets/bible_term_registry.json. Phase 2 processing must load this analysis alongside those artifacts and the Romans baseline translation_memory.json, resolving any apparent conflict in favor of the more restrictive (higher) risk tier and its associated forbidden-substitution list.
This document is the Phase 1 Step 8 deliverable (linguistic gap analysis) for the Judges curriculum and precedes and grounds analysis/07_semantic_analysis.md and analysis/08_core_glossary.md sign-off.