06 Linguistic Gap Analysis — Philippians (English–Mandarin)

Purpose and Scope

This document executes PRD Phase 1 Step 8. It analyzes the gap between the source-text theological vocabulary of Philippians 1–16 (full book: chapters 1–4) and the available Mandarin lexical resources, building directly on the term-level work already completed in 08_core_glossary.md and bible_term_registry.json. Its purpose is to give Phase 2 translators and reviewers:

1. A doctrine vocabulary matrix for each of the eight named curriculum doctrines — what Mandarin resources exist, where they fall short, and the recommended strategy.
2. A map of missing vocabulary (concepts with no ready Mandarin term) versus crowded semantic neighborhoods (concepts where Mandarin has too many competing, doctrinally loaded terms already in religious use) that require deliberate “fencing” — i.e., a term choice plus a mandatory clarifying note that walls off the wrong neighbor concept.
3. A record of transliteration vs. paraphrase decisions for terms without a natural Mandarin equivalent.
4. A ranked list of Philippians’ highest-risk ambiguities, prioritizing Phase 2 review effort.

All findings extend, and never contradict, the baseline Romans Language Package. Where a baseline term is reused, this document does not re-litigate its risk tier; it addresses only what is new in Philippians’ handling of that vocabulary. All chapters (1, 2, 3, 4) have been reviewed; every doctrine below is anchored in the core passage (2:1–11) and traced across its full distribution in the letter.

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1. Doctrine Vocabulary Matrix

For each of the eight named curriculum doctrines: the Mandarin terms currently available, their weaknesses/collision risk, and the recommended handling strategy for Phase 2.

1.1 The Incarnation and Self-Emptying of Christ (Kenosis)

Available Mandarin terms	Weaknesses	Recommended strategy
道成肉身 (incarnation, baseline Critical)	Borrows 道 (Dao), also the impersonal cosmic principle of Daoist metaphysics; risks being read as a Way “manifesting,” not a person “becoming.”	Retain (baseline-mandated); pair with clarifying note every occurrence per baseline forbidden-substitution list.
虚己 (self-emptying, new)	CUV-established but no independent doctrinal tradition of teaching it against a subtraction reading; without explanation, “emptied himself” reads naturally in Mandarin as losing something (cf. 虚 = empty/void, as in 虚脱 “to collapse/be depleted”).	Mandatory clarifying note on every occurrence: self-emptying is an act of addition (assuming servant-form/humanity), not subtraction of deity. Never allow 虚己 to stand alone in doctrinal teaching text.
神的形像 / 与神同等 (form of God / equal with God, new)	形像 (xíngxiàng) can mean “image/appearance” in ordinary usage (e.g. a company’s public image, 公司形像), risking a merely representational reading rather than essential nature.	Teach 神的形像 and 与神同等 as a fixed pair; the second term locks the first into an ontological (not merely representational) sense.
化身 / 下凡 / 转世 (rejected alternatives)	Standard Chinese vocabulary for a bodhisattva’s or deity’s temporary, repeatable manifestation into the world (e.g. Guanyin’s 化身 in folk tales) or a soul’s reincarnation. Semantically closer in everyday register to “the Word became flesh” than 道成肉身 itself — a serious false-friend risk.	Absolute forbidden-substitution status (inherited from baseline); reinforce in Phase 2 QA specifically for Philippians 2:6–7, since this is the passage where a translator might reach for 化身 as a more “natural”-sounding option.

Gap assessment: No missing vocabulary — Chinese Christian tradition already possesses a full technical vocabulary set (道成肉身, 虚己, 神的形像) forged over a century of translation. The risk is entirely in the crowded neighborhood of near-synonym folk/Buddhist terms (化身, 下凡, 转世) that sound more natural to an untrained ear. This doctrine requires fencing, not invention.

1.2 Joy in Suffering and Imprisonment

Available Mandarin terms	Weaknesses	Recommended strategy
喜乐 (joy, new baseline entry)	Distinct from 快乐 (pleasure/happiness, circumstance-contingent) and 幸福 (well-being/good fortune) — this distinction is a genuine asset, not a gap, since Chinese already has three tiers of “positive feeling” vocabulary and 喜乐 is the one reserved in Christian usage for God-grounded joy. Weakness: general readers outside church contexts may not intuitively make this distinction and default to reading 喜乐 as a slightly more formal synonym for 快乐.	Reinforce with context: pair 喜乐 explicitly with its ground (“在主里喜乐,” “joy in the Lord”) rather than leaving it unanchored, especially at 4:4.
受苦 (suffering, new baseline entry)	苦 is the operative character in 一切皆苦 (the Buddhist First Noble Truth, “all is suffering”) and in 苦海 (“sea of suffering,” a common Buddhist image for samsaric existence). Chinese religious common sense treats suffering as a problem to escape via detachment/enlightenment.	Every doctrinal occurrence (1:29–30; 3:10) requires a note: suffering here is a grace-gift (from the same root as 恩典) and an occasion for 喜乐, not a condition to transcend through spiritual technique.
捆锁 (bonds/chains)	No inherent doctrinal collision, but Chinese honor/shame conventions treat imprisonment as loss of face (面子); the term alone does not carry Paul’s explicit reversal (1:12–14, 1:18).	Preserve the reversal explicitly in surrounding text; do not let 捆锁 stand as a neutral or shameful descriptor without the joy-in-suffering frame attached.

Gap assessment: Vocabulary exists but sits in a genuinely crowded neighborhood (苦 as Buddhist soteriological category). This is the single most pervasive fencing requirement in the letter, since 受苦/喜乐 recur across all four chapters.

1.3 Unity and Humility in the Church

Available Mandarin terms	Weaknesses	Recommended strategy
谦卑 (humility, new)	Stronger and more theologically marked than 谦虚 (social-etiquette modesty), which is the default term a general Mandarin speaker reaches for. The risk is not that 谦卑 collides with a wrong religious concept, but that translators/reviewers may under-select it in favor of the weaker, secular 谦虚.	Lock 谦卑 as the required term for 2:3 and anchor it explicitly to Christ’s example (2:5–8); flag any drafted use of 谦虚 in a doctrinal context for correction.
同心 (same-mindedness, new)	Genuine crowded-neighborhood risk: 和为贵 (“harmony is to be prized,” Analects-derived) and broader Confucian social-harmony ideals pursue unity to preserve hierarchy, rank, and face — an instrumental social good. Philippians’ unity is grounded Christologically (2:5), not socially.	Every use of 同心 in 2:2/2:5 must retain the explicit anchor “以基督耶稣的心为心” (2:5) in the same teaching unit; never present 同心 as a free-standing social virtue.
慈悲怜悯 (affection and compassion, new)	Severe crowded-neighborhood risk: 慈悲 is the standard term for Buddhist/Bodhisattva compassion, especially Guanyin’s “大慈大悲” — one of the most recognizable religious phrases in Chinese popular culture.	Mandatory clarifying note on every occurrence of 2:1: this is Spirit-given, “in Christ” affection among believers, not compassion generated by spiritual cultivation or bestowed by a bodhisattva figure. Consider supplementing with 主内的慈爱怜悯 (“Christ-grounded loving-compassion”) in expanded teaching text to reduce ambiguity, while keeping 慈悲怜悯 for direct verse rendering per CUV convention.
圣灵的团契 (fellowship of the Spirit, new Critical)	Low crowded-neighborhood risk if kept as the full compound; high risk if abbreviated.	Absolute rule: never render as 灵的团契 alone.

Gap assessment: No missing vocabulary. The doctrine is served by an adequate but crowded set of terms (谦卑/谦虚 pair, 同心/和为贵 pair, 慈悲怜悯/Buddhist-compassion pair) that require active fencing at every occurrence, since Philippians 2:1–11 is the curriculum’s core passage and this doctrine’s terms cluster precisely there.

1.4 Righteousness by Faith versus the Law

Available Mandarin terms	Weaknesses	Recommended strategy
义 (righteousness, baseline Critical)	Direct overlap with one of the Confucian Five Constant Virtues (仁义礼智信) — social-ethical duty of rightness cultivated by moral effort. Philippians 3:9 is the single sharpest law-vs-faith antithesis in the whole curriculum for this term.	Maximal application of the baseline caution; every occurrence in 1:11, 3:6, 3:9 requires the distinguishing note. 3:9 in particular should carry an expanded note contrasting 从律法来的义 (achieved) against 因信基督来的义 (credited) as two grammatically parallel but doctrinally opposite phrases.
律法 (law, baseline High)	Established, but Philippians 3:5–6 personalizes it unusually strongly (Paul’s own former “confidence in the flesh”), a psychological dimension not as prominent in Romans.	No new term needed; reinforce with narrative framing that this is Paul’s personal testimony of reversal, not abstract doctrine alone.
因信基督来的义 (righteousness through faith in Christ, new compound)	Constructed compound, not itself an independent Chinese phrase with pre-existing baggage; risk is inherited entirely from its components (义, 信心, 基督).	No fencing needed beyond what 义 already requires; ensure the compound is rendered identically at every occurrence for cross-document consistency.

Gap assessment: No vocabulary gap; this doctrine relies entirely on baseline-established terms whose collision risk (Confucian 义) is already documented and requires no new fencing strategy — only heightened application at 3:9, this letter’s proof text.

1.5 Contentment in All Circumstances

Available Mandarin terms	Weaknesses	Recommended strategy
知足 (contentment, new Critical)	The single highest-priority syncretism risk newly introduced by this curriculum. 知足常乐 (“contentment brings lasting joy”) is a celebrated Daoist/folk proverb rooted in Laozi’s teaching on desirelessness and non-striving; 安分守己 (accepting one’s fixed station without complaint) is a related Confucian-flavored social ideal. Both frame contentment as self-generated — achieved by curbing desire or accepting one’s lot — the opposite of Paul’s Christ-dependent contentment.	Mandatory theologian-reviewed clarifying note on every occurrence of 4:11: anchor immediately and explicitly to 4:13 (“through him who strengthens me” / 使我有力量的). Never allow 知足 to appear in isolation from its Christ-dependent ground within the same teaching unit. Consider a supplementary gloss phrase such as “靠着基督的知足” (“Christ-enabled contentment”) for expository text, while retaining plain 知足 for direct Scripture quotation per CUV convention.
秘诀 (learned the secret, new Critical)	秘诀 collides with Chinese esoteric-transmission vocabulary: 秘传 (secretly transmitted teaching) and 口诀 (a master-to-disciple oral formula in qigong/inner-alchemy/martial-arts lineages). The Greek μεμύημαι is itself mystery-cult initiation language, so the collision is doubly apt — both source and target vocabulary independently evoke an elite, guarded transmission.	Mandatory clarifying note: this is not an esoteric technique gained through initiation into hidden knowledge, but an ordinary posture learned through common life experience, available to every believer. Flag for theologian review at every occurrence (4:12 only — single occurrence, but Critical).
忧虑 (anxiety, Medium, contrast term)	No collision risk itself; functions as contentment’s direct foil at 4:6.	Teach 忧虑 and 知足 as a contrast pair; no independent fencing required.
使我有力量的 (who strengthens me, Medium)	Draws on the baseline 神的大能 (power of God) family; risk is inherited, not new.	Reuse baseline forbidden-substitution list (never 气, never 法力).

Gap assessment: This is the curriculum’s single most acute crowded-neighborhood doctrine. Mandarin possesses a surplus of highly prestigious, quotable native philosophical vocabulary (知足常乐, 安分守己, 无欲则刚) that pre-empts the exact semantic space Paul occupies in 4:11–13, making this doctrine higher-risk than a genuine vocabulary gap would be — the danger is a term that fits too well into an existing framework Paul explicitly does not share.

1.6 Citizenship in Heaven

Available Mandarin terms	Weaknesses	Recommended strategy
天上的国民 (citizenship in heaven, new Critical)	国民 carries strong modern PRC nation-state connotations (国民 as in “citizen/national of the People’s Republic of China”; historically also 国民党, the Nationalist Party) — contemporary political resonance absent from the first-century Roman-colony backdrop of Philippi.	Mandatory theologian review every occurrence (3:20 only, but load-bearing for the whole doctrine). Clarifying note required: this names a transcendent, primary allegiance to God’s kingdom (神的国, baseline Medium), reframing but not instructing rejection of legitimate earthly civic duties (cf. Romans 13, retained in the baseline’s authority-and-government routing note).
神的国 (kingdom of God, baseline Medium)	Established; supplies the positive theological content behind 天上的国民.	Reuse exactly; teach the two terms together so 国民 is read through 神的国, not through PRC civic vocabulary.
救主 (savior, new High)	Builds cleanly on baseline 救恩/主 families; low independent collision risk.	No fencing needed beyond consistency with 救恩 and 主.

Gap assessment: This is a genuine missing-vocabulary problem in a narrow sense — Mandarin has no politically neutral word for “citizenship” that does not carry either (a) modern nation-state connotations (国民) or (b) a a weaker, non-civic sense (公民 “civil/legal citizen,” 侨民 “expatriate/diaspora resident,” neither of which carries the full weight of belonging and primary allegiance πολίτευμα intends). 国民 remains the least-bad available option (and is the existing CUV rendering), but this doctrine requires the heaviest political-sensitivity handling in the letter, comparable in gravity to the baseline’s 天子/Mandate-of-Heaven caution.

1.7 Partnership in the Gospel

Available Mandarin terms	Weaknesses	Recommended strategy
团契 (fellowship, baseline Low)	Established but historically passive/associational in Chinese Christian usage (shared spiritual participation); underrepresents the active, material, two-way partnership sense that κοινωνία carries throughout Philippians (1:5; 4:14–15).	Supplement with 伙伴 (partner)-family language in expository/teaching text; reserve unmodified 团契 for contexts closer to Romans’ more passive sense.
在福音上的伙伴关系 (partnership in the gospel, new Medium-High)	Constructed compound; CUV’s own idiomatic rendering of 1:5 (“同心合意地兴旺福音”) actually loses the partnership sense the constructed compound is trying to preserve — a case where the established Bible-translation-tradition rendering itself under-serves the doctrine.	Recommend Phase 2 use the constructed compound in expository/teaching material even where direct Scripture quotation follows CUV’s idiom, with a note explaining the fuller partnership sense recovered at 4:14–15.
通财 (account of giving and receiving, new High)	CUV’s idiom for the 4:15 bookkeeping metaphor; risks being read through 人情 (social-obligation reciprocity) culture — the practice of “还人情” (repaying a social debt), itself adjacent to the already-flagged 功德 merit-accounting collision.	Mandatory clarifying note: Paul frames the gift as gospel partnership and an offering pleasing to God (4:18), not a social debt requiring reciprocation.
一同分担患难 (shared in affliction, new Medium)	Low collision; extends the partnership theme cleanly.	No independent fencing needed.

Gap assessment: A genuine but moderate vocabulary gap: no single native Mandarin term captures κοινωνία’s full active-partnership sense (mutual, reciprocal, financially embodied co-laboring) without either flattening toward passive fellowship (团契) or drifting toward reciprocal social-debt culture (通财/人情). The recommended strategy is deliberate supplementation rather than a single-term fix.

1.8 Pressing on toward the Goal in Christ

Available Mandarin terms	Weaknesses	Recommended strategy
竭力追求 (press on/pursue, new High)	No inherent religious collision, but strong risk of being read as unaided self-effort toward moral perfection if detached from its grounding clause.	Mandatory pairing with 3:12’s “因为基督已经得着我了” (because Christ has laid hold of me) in every doctrinal use; apply the same works-righteousness safeguard used for the baseline’s sanctification note (never self-achieved 修身/修炼).
完全人 (mature/perfect, new High)	Crowded-neighborhood risk: 真人 (Daoist “perfected person/immortal,” an attained superhuman state through cultivation) and Buddhist attainment-state vocabulary both suggest a completed achievement, whereas 3:15’s τέλειος is explicitly qualified by “not yet attained” (3:12–13).	Clarifying note required: ongoing spiritual maturity in Christ, not a completed, self-cultivated perfected state.
奖赏 (prize, Medium) / 目标 (goal, Low)	Minor risk that 奖赏 reads as a merit-earned wage.	Note: this is the relational prize of fuller possession of Christ, not payment for service rendered.

Gap assessment: No missing vocabulary; adequate terms exist but require the same “grace precedes effort” fencing pattern already established in the baseline for sanctification and justification, applied here to the race-metaphor vocabulary unique to Philippians 3.

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2. Missing Vocabulary vs. Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods

2.1 Missing Vocabulary (no ready native equivalent)

Concept	Gap description	Resolution
πολίτευμα / citizenship (3:20)	No Mandarin term captures primary transcendent civic allegiance without either modern nation-state baggage (国民) or excessive weakness (公民, 侨民).	Retain 国民 (CUV-established) as least-bad option; compensate entirely through mandatory clarifying notes rather than a lexical fix. See §1.6.
κοινωνία as active, reciprocal, material partnership (1:5; 4:14–15)	团契 defaults to passive/associational; no single term carries mutual material co-laboring.	Supplement 团契 with 伙伴 language in expository material. See §1.7.
ἁρπαγμός’s genuine two-way ambiguity (2:6)	Mandarin, like most target languages, has no single word spanning both “not seizing what is not yet possessed” and “not exploiting what is already possessed.”	Retain CUV’s 强夺的 (leans toward sense a); record alternative 看为可利用的 (sense b) in segment cache per baseline ambiguity protocol; flag for mandatory theologian review regardless of chosen rendering (inherited from bible_term_registry.json).
ἀρετή as classical philosophical “virtue” (4:8)	This is Paul’s one and only NT use of this term; Mandarin’s nearest equivalent (德行/德) is itself a crowded rather than missing category — see §2.2.	See crowded-neighborhood table below.

2.2 Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods Requiring Fencing

These are concepts where Mandarin has too many available terms, all already carrying strong pre-existing religious or philosophical weight from Buddhism, Daoism, or Confucianism — the opposite problem from a missing-vocabulary gap. Each requires a “fence”: a mandated term choice plus a mandatory clarifying note that walls off the wrong neighbor.

Biblical concept	Chosen Mandarin term	Crowding neighbor(s)	Fence required
Self-emptying (2:7)	虚己	化身/下凡/转世 (deity’s temporary manifestation); 脱胎换骨 (Daoist/folk “shedding the mortal frame”)	Note: addition of servanthood, not subtraction of deity. Never permit 化身-family substitutes.
Compassion (2:1)	慈悲怜悯	慈悲 as Buddhist Bodhisattva compassion (大慈大悲, Guanyin)	Note: Spirit-given, “in Christ” affection, not cultivated Buddhist compassion.
Humility (2:3)	谦卑	谦虚 (secular etiquette modesty); Confucian face-preserving deference	Anchor explicitly to Christ’s example (2:5–8).
Same-mindedness (2:2, 2:5)	同心	和为贵 (Confucian social-harmony-for-hierarchy ideal)	Anchor explicitly to “以基督耶稣的心为心” (2:5).
Contentment (4:11)	知足	知足常乐 (Daoist desirelessness); 安分守己 (accepting fixed social station)	Anchor explicitly to 4:13 (“him who strengthens me”); never present as self-generated detachment.
Learned the secret (4:12)	秘诀	秘传/口诀 (esoteric master-to-disciple lineage transmission)	Note: ordinary, universally accessible posture, not elite initiation.
Suffering (1:29–30; 3:10)	受苦	一切皆苦 / 苦海 (Buddhist First Noble Truth, suffering-as-condition-to-escape)	Note: gracious gift and site of joy/participation in Christ, not a condition to transcend.
Sacrifice/libation language (2:17; 4:18)	浇奠 / 信心的祭物和供奉 / 馨香之祭	奠酒祭祖 (ancestor libation); 上香/祭拜 (temple incense-offering, merit-seeking)	Note: metaphorical self-giving in gospel ministry/partnership, not literal ritual offering to appease or gain merit.
Knowledge of Christ (3:8)	认识基督	悟 (Buddhist/Daoist contemplative awakening); Gnostic technical γνῶσις	Note: relational, faith-based knowing open to every believer, not esoteric attainment.
Maturity/perfection (3:15)	完全人	真人 (Daoist perfected/immortal being)	Note: ongoing maturity, explicitly “not yet attained” (3:12–13), not a completed superhuman state.
Virtue (4:8)	德行	Confucian 德/德行 as free-standing self-cultivation ethics	Anchor to 4:9’s Christ-centered framing (“what you have learned… in me”).
Book of Life (4:3)	生命册	生死簿 (Daoist/folk underworld register of fated lifespan, kept by Yama’s officials)	Note: register of the redeemed kept by God through grace, not a fatalistic bureaucratic ledger.
Citizenship in heaven (3:20)	天上的国民	国民 as PRC nation-state citizenship; 国民党 (Nationalist Party)	Note: transcendent primary allegiance to 神的国, reframing but not abolishing legitimate earthly civic duty.
Financial partnership (4:15)	通财	人情/还人情 (social-obligation reciprocity network)	Note: gospel partnership and an offering pleasing to God, not reciprocal social debt.

Observation: Philippians shows a markedly different gap profile from Romans. Romans’ highest risks cluster around soteriological vocabulary colliding with Buddhist merit-accounting (功德) and Confucian virtue-ethics (义). Philippians inherits those same risks but adds an entirely new cluster around practical Christian character and disposition vocabulary (humility, unity, contentment, compassion, virtue) colliding with Confucian social ethics and Daoist philosophical ideals — a category barely present in Romans’ more forensic/legal argument. This reflects Philippians’ distinctive character as a letter of relational and dispositional exhortation rather than doctrinal argument.

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3. Transliteration vs. Paraphrase Decisions

Per baseline convention (CUV Shen edition, Hanyu Pinyin with tone marks for transliteration entries), the following decisions were made for terms lacking natural single-word Mandarin equivalents:

Term	Decision	Rationale
Abba (reused from baseline, background to 2:1’s Spirit-fellowship)	Transliterate: 阿爸 (Ābà)	Already baseline-established; preserved for cross-document consistency though not directly re-occurring in Philippians’ text.
ἁρπαγμός (2:6)	Paraphrase, not transliterate: 强夺的	No transliteration tradition exists for this term (unlike proper nouns); Greek grammatical/lexical ambiguity is better handled through the ambiguity-flagging protocol than through a borrowed sound-form, which would communicate nothing to a Mandarin reader.
μεμύημαι / “learned the secret” (4:12)	Paraphrase: 秘诀, NOT a transliterated mystery-cult loanword	No Chinese Christian transliteration tradition exists for Greco-Roman mystery-cult vocabulary; a transliterated form would be opaque and would fail to convey Paul’s ironic reversal (borrowing initiation language for an anti-esoteric point). Paraphrase with mandatory clarifying note is the only viable strategy.
κοινωνία / partnership compound (1:5)	Paraphrase/compound construction: 在福音上的伙伴关系, supplementing rather than replacing established 团契	No single existing Chinese Christian term captures the full active-partnership sense; constructing a compound from already-established roots (团契 + 伙伴) is preferred over inventing a wholly new coinage, consistent with the baseline’s practice for other Romans-era compounds (e.g. 儿子的名分 for adoption).
πολίτευμα / citizenship (3:20)	Retain established CUV rendering (paraphrase-as-noun-phrase): 天上的国民, no transliteration considered	Proper-noun transliteration is inapplicable to an abstract civic-status term; the existing CUV phrase is retained per the baseline’s “reuse established renderings” rule, with all residual risk managed through mandatory notes rather than a new coinage.
σωτήρ / Savior (3:20)	No transliteration; use compound built from baseline roots: 救主	Follows established Chinese Bible-translation-tradition practice of building title compounds from existing morphemes (救 from 救恩, 主 from 主) rather than transliterating Greek sōtēr, which has no precedent in CUV usage.
Proper nouns (Epaphroditus, Euodia, Syntyche, Clement, Caesar)	Transliterate per CUV forms	Standard practice; low doctrinal risk. Full list to be confirmed against CUV concordance in Phase 2 segment processing; no doctrinal notes required for proper names absent from the baseline’s name table.

General principle for this letter: Philippians introduces markedly fewer transliteration decisions than a book with extensive untranslated technical vocabulary would require. Its translation challenges are overwhelmingly paraphrase-and-fence problems (choosing among competing native Chinese terms and containing their collision risk with notes) rather than transliterate-or-not problems. This is itself a notable finding: the letter’s vocabulary is pastoral and relational, and Chinese already has abundant — arguably too abundant — native resources for that register.

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4. Ranked List of Highest-Risk Ambiguities in Philippians

Ranked by combined severity of (a) doctrinal centrality, (b) collision-risk depth, and (c) likelihood of translator/reviewer error given how “natural-sounding” the wrong choice would be in ordinary Mandarin.

1. 知足 (contentment, 4:11) — Critical. Highest risk in the entire letter: the wrong reading (Daoist desireless self-sufficiency, 知足常乐) is not a fringe misreading but the default, most culturally prestigious association any Mandarin reader will bring to this exact character string. Mandatory theologian review, mandatory 4:13 anchor, every occurrence.

2. 强夺的 / ἁρπαγμός (2:6) — Critical. Genuine, unresolved Greek lexical ambiguity compounded by doctrinal weight (Christ’s pre-incarnate deity and posture toward it). Requires the baseline’s full ambiguity-handling protocol (alternatives_considered logging + mandatory theologian review) regardless of which rendering is ultimately chosen.

3. 虚己 / self-emptying (2:7) — Critical. The “natural,” more fluent-sounding wrong choice (化身/下凡) is not a rare mistranslation risk but a live temptation, since it reads more smoothly in ordinary Mandarin than the correct, slightly awkward 虚己 + servant-form construction. Core term for a named curriculum doctrine.

4. 天上的国民 / citizenship in heaven (3:20) — Critical. Combines doctrinal weight with acute, real-world political sensitivity in the mainland Chinese context (国民 = PRC national/citizen); mistranslation or under-noted teaching risks either diluting the doctrine or creating civic-loyalty confusion in a politically monitored setting.

5. 秘诀 / learned the secret (4:12) — Critical. Single occurrence but high collision depth with Chinese esoteric-lineage vocabulary (秘传/口诀); risk is concentrated rather than distributed, requiring a single but carefully constructed note.

6. 慈悲怜悯 / affection and compassion (2:1) — High. 慈悲 is arguably the most recognizable religious compound in this entire glossary to an average Mandarin speaker (via Guanyin’s “大慈大悲”), making the collision risk unusually vivid and immediate even though the term itself is CUV-established.

7. 同心 / same-mindedness (2:2, 2:5) — High. Risk is subtle rather than acute: the wrong reading (Confucian social-harmony-for-hierarchy) does not sound false to a Mandarin ear the way 化身 would for incarnation; it sounds like sound moral advice, making the error harder for reviewers to detect.

8. 义 in Philippians 3:9 — Critical (inherited). Not a new ambiguity, but this letter’s single most concentrated application of the baseline’s Confucian-virtue collision risk; the law-vs-faith antithesis is sharper here than anywhere in Romans, raising the stakes of any lapse in the mandatory distinguishing note.

9. 谦卑 vs. 谦虚 / humility (2:3) — High. Risk is one of under-selection rather than false-friend collision: translators may default to the weaker, more common 谦虚 simply because it is the everyday word, silently downgrading the doctrine’s force without introducing an overtly wrong term.

10. 受苦 / suffering (1:29–30; 3:10) — High. Distributed rather than concentrated risk: recurs across the letter, and each occurrence independently risks a Buddhist-framework reading (一切皆苦) if the clarifying note is dropped in any single instance during Phase 2 batch processing.

11. 作成你们得救的工夫 / working out salvation (2:12) — Critical (inherited, heightened). Baseline-flagged, but Philippians is the only book in the curriculum where this exact phrase occurs; isolated quotation of 2:12 without 2:13 in any devotional or study excerpt is a realistic Phase 2 failure mode given how frequently this verse is quoted independently in popular Christian usage.

12. 通财 / account of giving and receiving (4:15) — High. Risk of the gift being read through 人情 reciprocity culture is compounded by the fact that gift-giving and social-debt language is maximally salient in everyday Chinese social life, making this one of the likelier sites for an unreflective, culturally fluent but doctrinally distorting reading.

13. 完全人 / mature-perfect (3:15) — High. Moderate risk: 真人 collision is real but less culturally omnipresent than 知足常乐 or 慈悲; still requires the “not yet attained” qualifier from 3:12–13 to be retained in every teaching context.

14. 德行 / virtue (4:8) — Medium (bridge-with-caution). Lower urgency than the above because Paul’s own text gestures toward common ground with Greco-Roman virtue ethics; the risk is one of detachment from 4:9’s Christ-centered frame rather than outright doctrinal collision.

15. 生命册 / book of life (4:3) — High. Single occurrence, vivid folk-religious neighbor (生死簿), but lower doctrinal centrality than the items above since it is a passing pastoral reference rather than a load-bearing argument.

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5. Summary and Handoff to Phase 2

• No genuinely missing vocabulary blocks translation of any of the eight named doctrines. Mandarin Christian tradition, built up over more than a century of Bible translation, supplies an adequate term for every concept in Philippians.
• The dominant risk profile in this letter is crowded-neighborhood collision, not vocabulary absence — and specifically collision with prestige vocabulary (celebrated proverbs, classical virtue terms, recognizable religious compounds) rather than with obscure or marginal folk terms. This makes Philippians’ risks harder to catch than Romans’ forensic-vocabulary risks, because the wrong choices often sound more eloquent, not less, in ordinary Mandarin.
• Contentment (知足) and citizenship (天上的国民) are the two doctrines requiring the heaviest new theologian-review infrastructure beyond what the baseline Romans package already established, given their combination of doctrinal centrality, collision depth, and (for citizenship) contemporary political sensitivity.
• Transliteration plays a minimal role in this letter’s translation strategy; nearly every hard case is resolved through paraphrase-plus-mandatory-note rather than loanword adoption.
• All findings above should be loaded alongside 08_core_glossary.md, bible_term_registry.json, and the baseline translation_memory.json/doctrine_risk_registry.json before Phase 2 segment translation begins, per the baseline’s Translation Memory Load and Enforcement Instructions.