01 Executive Summary — Matthew 1–28 (English → Mandarin)

Why it matters

Matthew is the first extended Mandarin-curriculum test of the Romans Language Package’s core method — reusing a fixed, doctrinally-vetted glossary while extending it to new material — and it stresses that method harder than Romans did. The core passage, the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-12), sits at the head of the Sermon on the Mount and puts the single highest-stakes word in this whole Language Package (有福/”blessed,” built on the folk-fortune root 福) in the reader’s face nine times in twelve verses. Get this passage wrong and the entire curriculum’s opening lesson teaches the opposite of what it means to say.

Key findings

• Full-book scope confirmed. All 28 chapters were reviewed chapter by chapter; every chapter either introduces new load-bearing vocabulary or is explicitly logged as “reviewed — continuity” (no silent omissions).
• 34 curriculum doctrines identified, of which 28 (17 Critical + 11 High) require mandatory human theologian review for every occurrence — a higher Critical-doctrine density than the Romans baseline, driven by Matthew’s concentration of Christology (Son of Man, Deity/Sonship, Virgin Birth, Worship) and eschatology (Parousia, Judgment, Eternal Punishment) doctrines.
• 94 theological terms are now tracked in translation memory (47 inherited exactly from the Romans baseline + 68 newly introduced by Matthew, including two new proper names, Abraham and Moses). Of these, 52 terms (21 Critical + 31 High) require mandatory human theologian review — meaning well over half of this curriculum’s vocabulary sits at the top two risk tiers.
• Three collision clusters dominate the risk profile: (1) the 天 root (天国/kingdom of heaven, colliding with 天命/天意/天庭); (2) the 义 root (righteousness, colliding with the Confucian Five Constant Virtues, intensified by 5:20’s demand to exceed Pharisaic righteousness); (3) a coherent alternative eschatology (cyclical rebirth, kalpa cycles, provisional purgatorial hell, repeatable deity-descent) that threatens Matthew 13/24/25 as a system, not just term-by-term.
• Living devotional practices, not just historical concepts, are directly confronted: 财神 (God of Wealth) veneration collides with Mammon (6:24); Guanyin/慈悲 devotion collides with “merciful” (5:7); 长生不老 immortality-seeking collides with “eternal life” (19:16); ancestor veneration collides with “worship” (拜, applied to Jesus) and ancestor-rite “descendants” language collides with the Son of David title. These are pastoral, not merely academic, risks.

Risks

• Core-passage inversion risk (highest): 有福 without an explicit per-occurrence reversal note reads as a promise of folk-fortune luck, precisely inverting the Beatitudes’ argument.
• Two-kingdom risk: 天国 left unglossed against 神的国 risks readers imagining two different kingdoms, or absorbing 天国 into an impersonal Mandate-of-Heaven or mythological-bureaucracy framework.
• Sonship conflation risk: Matthew 5:9’s “sons of God” (believers) uses vocabulary adjacent to the Critical, Christ-exclusive “Son of God” — a single dropped clarifying note here creates a Christological error at the curriculum’s own anchor passage.
• Worldview-system risk (not just term risk): Matthew 24–25’s eschatology cluster (Son of Man, end of the age, elect, coming, judgment, eternal punishment, resurrection) maps onto an internally consistent Chinese cyclical-rebirth worldview; fixing individual forbidden words without a worldview-contrast unit leaves the underlying framework unaddressed.
• Lineage/title collapse risk: 大卫的后裔 (genealogical) and 大卫的子孙 (titular/confessional) are deliberately split renderings for what English collapses into one phrase, “Son of David” — translator unfamiliarity with this split is a realistic failure mode.

Opportunities

• Reuse discipline pays off immediately. 47 of 94 tracked terms needed zero re-negotiation — they were simply copied from the Romans baseline, confirming the Language Package’s cross-book reusability model works as designed.
• Matthew’s own narrative supplies built-in apologetics. The Sadducees’ in-text denial of resurrection (22:23-33) and the Pharisees’ own sincere-but-insufficient righteousness (ch. 5, 23) give teaching material ready-made contrast points that reinforce, rather than fight, the doctrinal notes already required.
• High disciple-formation relevance. Because 门徒/使…作门徒 anchor both the core passage’s audience (5:1) and the Great Commission’s climax (28:19), one well-taught clarifying note (relational trust and obedience, not martial-arts/Daoist lineage-technique transmission) pays dividends across the entire curriculum’s discipleship doctrine.
• Devotional-collision passages are evangelistically productive if handled well. Mammon (6:24) and eternal life (19:16) name live cultural practices familiar to the target audience; taught with the required pastoral sensitivity, these passages let the curriculum engage lived religious experience directly rather than remaining abstract.

Recommended actions

1. Route all of Matthew 5:1-12 to mandatory theologian review as a block, not per-term — the term density in the core passage makes segment-by-segment routing insufficient.
2. Require the standing “Righteousness Exceeding the Pharisees” clarifying note-block (Doctrinal Preservation Rule 4 in 12_ai_translation_requirements.md) wherever three or more of {义, 完全, 清心, 爱, 假冒为善的人, 古人的遗传, 污秽} co-occur, rather than relying on isolated term notes.
3. Build the Matthew 24-25 worldview-contrast teaching unit (linear/singular/final vs. cyclical/provisional/repeatable) before introducing individual eschatological terms in Phase 2 output.
4. Enforce strict translation-memory separation between 大卫的后裔 and 大卫的子孙 in Phase 2 QA — flag any cross-use automatically for theologian review.
5. Load this Matthew-extended translation_memory.json and 12_ai_translation_requirements.md alongside the (unmodified) Romans baseline artifacts for every Phase 2 session; do not treat either book’s package as sufficient alone once both curricula are in active use.