Linguistic Gap Analysis — Matthew 1–28 (English → Marathi)

Purpose

This document executes Phase 1 Step 8 of the TRI pipeline: a linguistic gap analysis of the Matthew curriculum against Marathi’s available theological vocabulary. It builds directly on the baseline Romans translation_memory.json/bible_term_registry.json (never contradicted, only extended) and on the Matthew-specific 08_core_glossary.md. Its purpose is to name, for every doctrine in this curriculum:

1. What Marathi vocabulary is available, and its specific weaknesses/collision risks;
2. Where vocabulary is genuinely missing and must be built by compound/paraphrase rather than borrowed from an existing religious register;
3. Which semantic neighborhoods are crowded (an existing Marathi word already carries strong, specific associations from Warkari bhakti, wider Hindu devotional/caste frameworks, or Navayana Buddhist teaching) and therefore need explicit fencing — teaching language that marks the boundary between the biblical sense and the neighboring sense;
4. Where transliteration is the safer strategy versus paraphrase;
5. A ranked list of this book’s highest-risk ambiguities for Phase 2 routing.

Full-book coverage is maintained: Section 6 confirms all 28 chapters were reviewed, even where a chapter’s linguistic contribution is minor or purely reinforces an already-fenced term.

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Section 1 — Doctrine Vocabulary Matrix

For each of the nine curriculum doctrines: available Marathi terms, their weaknesses, and the recommended strategy already encoded (or newly specified here) for Phase 2.

1.1 The Kingdom of Heaven

Available Marathi terms	Weaknesses	Recommended strategy
स्वर्ग (svarga)	Names a temporary, karma-earned celestial realm in popular Hindu cosmology — a way-station within the rebirth cycle, not a final, eternal state. Also carries a folk-Buddhist afterthought sense (a pleasant but impermanent rebirth-destination) rather than final liberation.	Never use स्वर्ग alone for the theological “kingdom of heaven.” Always compound as स्वर्गाचे राज्य (baseline-established pattern) and teach it as strictly synonymous with देवाचे राज्य (God’s reign), reinforced every occurrence — not a one-time footnote, given ~32 occurrences across the book.
राज्य (rājya, “kingdom/reign”)	Politically neutral on its own but can default to a territorial/political reading (a raja’s rājya) absent qualification.	Always pair with देवाचे/स्वर्गाचे; never leave bare राज्य to stand for the theological kingdom.
मोक्ष / मुक्ती / निर्वाण	Forbidden baseline substitutions; each names a final released state attained by the practitioner’s own bhakti devotion or self-cultivation, not entrance into a personal Sovereign’s reign as a subject/child.	Absolute prohibition carried forward from baseline; applies with full force to every Kingdom-of-Heaven occurrence.

1.2 Jesus as the Promised Messiah and Son of David

Available Marathi terms	Weaknesses	Recommended strategy
मसीहा (transliterated)	No native collision; the gap is not lexical but catechetical — Marathi readers, especially Navayana Buddhist background, have no ready category for “the one OT-promised, uniquely-anointed deliverer.”	Retain transliteration (baseline); pair consistently with teaching material explaining the OT expectation, not a lexical substitute.
अवतारी पुरुष	Rejected alternative; casts Jesus as one avatar-descent among Vishnu’s many (Rama, Krishna, and — regionally — Vitthal).	Forbidden; never used for मसीहा or ख्रिस्त.
दावीदाचा पुत्र (Son of David)	No lexical collision, but a structural gap: Marathi has no indigenous “royal covenant lineage” concept parallel to the Davidic covenant.	Requires scaffolded catechesis (OT background), not a different word; term itself (दावीदाचा पुत्र) is linguistically sound.
यहूद्यांचा राजा (King of the Jews)	No collision risk; the translation challenge is purely one of cross-passage consistency (2:2 sincere homage vs. 27:11-37 mockery) so the dramatic irony survives.	Render identically in both contexts; do not vary wording for stylistic reasons.

1.3 Fulfillment of Old Testament Prophecy

Available Marathi terms	Weaknesses	Recommended strategy
पूर्ण होणे / पूर्ण करणे (fulfilled)	No inherent collision, but risk of assimilation to Hindu cyclical yuga-cosmology (where “fulfillment” of an age simply cycles into the next) or Buddhist dependent-origination’s endless repetition, both of which deny any single, unrepeatable historical climax.	Consistent use of पूर्ण होणे with explicit teaching that this marks linear, one-time, unrepeatable fulfillment — the term itself is adequate, but the framing must be actively defended in every one of Matthew’s ~12 fulfillment-formula occurrences.
भविष्यवाणी (prophecy) / संदेष्टा (prophet)	Low risk; established, baseline-reused terms with no live cross-tradition collision beyond avoiding ज्योतिषी (astrologer/fortune-teller).	Baseline reuse, unchanged.
योनाचे चिन्ह (sign of Jonah)	Requires OT narrative literacy Marathi readers (especially converts) may lack; not a lexical gap but a background-knowledge gap.	Retain literal rendering; supply OT scaffolding in teaching notes rather than substituting a culturally “equivalent” sign, which does not exist.

1.4 The Authority of Jesus’ Teaching

Available Marathi terms	Weaknesses	Recommended strategy
अधिकार (authority)	Adequate core term, but risk of quiet slippage toward two false-friend readings: (a) a scribe’s derived, citation-based authority; (b) a guru’s attained authority through spiritual accomplishment or lineage (paramparā).	Render अधिकार consistently at every occurrence (7:29, 8:9, 9:6, 21:23-27, 28:18) with teaching language stressing this is Jesus’ own inherent authority — neither derived nor attained.
शक्ती	Baseline-forbidden for “power of God” due to Shakti/mother-goddess (Tuljabhavani) associations; risk extends to any Matthew passage rendering Jesus’ authority-in-action.	Never used; always सामर्थ्य where “power” (as opposed to “authority”) is meant.
वडीलधाऱ्यांची परंपरा (tradition of the elders)	No collision risk; correctly names human interpretive tradition as distinct from नियमशास्त्र (the Law itself).	Retain as-is; keep the two nouns visibly distinct in every 15:1-9 rendering.

1.5 Righteousness Exceeding the Pharisees

Available Marathi terms	Weaknesses	Recommended strategy
नीतिमत्त्व (righteousness)	Baseline-established, Critical risk. The specific Matthew-added danger: 5:20’s “exceeding” (अधिक) can be silently read as “accumulate more religious merit/deeds,” collapsing Jesus’ point (a different kind of righteousness — transformed heart) into a quantity-based, karma-merit-compatible reading.	Render नीतिमत्त्व शास्त्री व परूश्यांपेक्षा अधिक (as recorded in glossary) and require an explicit teaching gloss on every occurrence distinguishing “different in kind” from “more in amount.”
धर्म	Baseline-forbidden; caste-linked Hindu dharma-order term, doubly dangerous here since 5:20 is precisely about not reducing righteousness to rule-compliance.	Absolute prohibition, carried forward and reinforced for this doctrine specifically.
परिपूर्ण (perfect, 5:48)	Risk of collision with सिद्धी (a yogic/ascetic self-attained perfection).	Render परिपूर्ण but frame explicitly as relational Godlikeness received/modeled, never private spiritual achievement.
अशुद्ध करणे (defile, 15:11)	Risk of collapsing into ritual-pollution/purity (विटाळ) categories familiar from Hindu practice, which are entirely external.	Retain अशुद्ध करणे but require the teaching material to make explicit Jesus’ move from external/ritual to internal/moral defilement.

1.6 The Church and Church Discipline

Available Marathi terms	Weaknesses	Recommended strategy
मंडळी (church)	Baseline-established, Medium risk; established Marathi Christian term with no live collision (contrast with देऊळ/मंदिर, which name a Hindu/literal temple building).	Baseline reuse, unchanged.
राज्याच्या किल्ल्या (keys of the kingdom)	No direct lexical collision, but a real doctrinal risk: could be misread as granting the church/Peter an independent priestly power detached from Christ, echoing familiar priestly-intermediary patterns from both Hindu temple ritual and (structurally) Roman Catholic keys-doctrine controversies known in some Marathi Christian circles.	Frame consistently as delegated authority under Christ’s own supreme authority (28:18); never imply autonomy.
बांधणे / मोकळे करणे (bind and loose)	Risk of a “magical” reading (words themselves effecting spiritual change) absent framing.	Retain literal rendering; require teaching gloss anchoring the act in the gathered church under Christ’s headship (18:20), not autonomous verbal power.
मंडळीला सांग (शिस्तपालन प्रक्रिया)	The 18:15-17 graduated procedure (private → witnesses → church → outsider) has no ready single Marathi idiom; risk is compression — a translator collapsing the four distinct steps into a vaguer general exhortation.	Render each step as a separate, sequential clause; do not paraphrase into a single summary sentence.

1.7 The Great Commission

Available Marathi terms	Weaknesses	Recommended strategy
शिष्य करा (make disciples)	शिष्य is the ordinary word for a guru’s student, obtained through the student’s own initiative toward self-attained wisdom (guru-shishya paramparā) — a live, active category in both Hindu and Buddhist teaching-lineage contexts in Maharashtra.	Retain शिष्य (established Marathi Christian usage), but every occurrence in Matthew must be explicitly anchored to Jesus as the sole, specific object of discipleship — never a generic transmission-of-wisdom relationship.
सर्व राष्ट्रे (सर्व लोक) (all nations, 28:19)	Genuine terminological gap: baseline’s अन्यजातीय (Gentiles, narrower — contrasted with Israel) is too narrow for the Commission’s πάντα τὰ ἔθνη, which explicitly includes Israel. Using अन्यजातीय here would silently narrow the Commission’s scope.	New, non-baseline-conflicting term सर्व राष्ट्रे / सर्व लोक established specifically for 28:19; अन्यजातीय retained only for its narrower Romans-pattern contexts (4:15, 6:32, 10:5, 12:18, etc.).
पिता, पुत्र आणि पवित्र आत्मा ह्यांच्या नावाने बाप्तिस्मा (baptismal formula)	Grammatical risk: Marathi’s natural rendering could pluralize “name(s)” (नावांनी) for the three Persons, silently suggesting three separate names/deities rather than the Greek’s singular ὄνομα (one shared, undivided name).	Render with a single, undivided “नावाने” (singular) exactly as recorded in the glossary; flag any back-translation returning a plural form.
मिशन / सुवार्ता प्रसार	मिशन carries colonial-era and (in contemporary Maharashtra) conversion-controversy connotations.	Prefer सुवार्ता प्रसार in most running text; मिशन retained only where a technical/organizational sense is unavoidable (baseline pattern, unchanged).

1.8 Judgment and the End of the Age

Available Marathi terms	Weaknesses	Recommended strategy
युगाचा शेवट (end of the age)	युग (yuga) directly names the Hindu cyclical cosmological ages (Satya/Treta/Dvapara/Kali yuga), a sequence with no final terminus — the opposite of Matthew’s claim.	Retain युगाचा शेवट (the Marathi Bible-tradition term) but require sustained teaching reinforcement at every occurrence (13:39-40, 13:49, 24:3, 28:20) that this is a single, final, linear terminus, not a transition to a new cycle.
मनुष्याच्या पुत्राचे येणे / पुनरागमन (parousia)	पुनरागमन (“coming again”) risks a surface reading of repeated/cyclical returning if left unglossed.	Pair with explicit “singular, future, visible, bodily” framing every occurrence; never imply a repeatable event.
सार्वकालिक जीवन / सार्वकालिक शिक्षा (eternal life / eternal punishment)	Direct collision risk with मोक्ष/मुक्ती/निर्वाण (final release from an impersonal cycle or extinguishing of craving) on the “life” side, and with karma-exhaustion/rebirth-based temporary consequence on the “punishment” side.	Baseline-forbidden substitutions apply with full force; teach both as final, unending, personal, relational destinies determined by relationship to Christ, contrasted explicitly with cyclical/impersonal frameworks.
नवनिर्माण (सृष्टीचे नवीकरण) (regeneration/new world, 19:28)	The single sharpest false-friend risk in this doctrine: the Greek παλιγγενεσία literally means “again-birth,” making पुनर्जन्म (Hindu individual rebirth) an almost irresistible literal-translation temptation.	Absolute prohibition of पुनर्जन्म here; नवनिर्माण names one final, cosmic renewal of all things, never a repeating cycle of individual rebirths.
ही पिढी (this generation, 24:34)	Genuinely ambiguous in the source itself (scholarly debate over referential scope), not merely a translation problem.	Do not resolve the ambiguity in translation; flag for theologian review and record both readings considered rather than silently choosing one.

1.9 Discipleship and the Cost of Following Jesus

Available Marathi terms	Weaknesses	Recommended strategy
वधस्तंभ (cross, discipleship metaphor)	Risk of softening to ओझे (mere “burden”) in idiomatic paraphrase, losing the metaphor’s lethal, historically concrete weight.	Retain literal वधस्तंभ even in the metaphorical 10:38/16:24 uses; never substitute a generic hardship word.
अनुसरणे (follow)	No direct collision, but risk of reading as mere intellectual admiration of a teacher (as in loose guru-devotee patterns) rather than total, costly, life-reordering allegiance.	Retain अनुसरणे; require teaching framing of cost/exclusivity at every occurrence (4:19-22, 16:24, 19:27-28).
जीव (आत्मा) (soul/life, 10:39, 16:25-26)	आत्मा alone risks importing Vedantic ātman-metaphysics (an eternal, impersonal Self common to all beings) into a passage about a particular person’s whole life and destiny.	Prefer जीव as the primary rendering; retain आत्मा only in parentheses as clarifying gloss, never as the sole term.
खंडणी (ransom, 20:28)	Direct collision risk with मुक्ती (baseline-forbidden liberation term), which would misread Christ as a guru/avatar-liberator granting release rather than one who pays a specific price on others’ behalf.	Absolute prohibition of मुक्ती here; खंडणी (a paid price) is the required rendering.

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Section 2 — Missing Vocabulary: Genuine Lexical Gaps

These are concepts for which Marathi has no existing single word or fixed phrase that safely carries the biblical sense; a compound or descriptive paraphrase must be constructed and then fixed as the standard rendering.

Concept	Gap	Constructed Marathi rendering	Rationale
παλιγγενεσία — cosmic regeneration (19:28)	No Marathi word names a one-time, final cosmic renewal distinct from cyclical rebirth.	नवनिर्माण (सृष्टीचे नवीकरण)	Compound built from “new” + “creation/making,” deliberately avoiding the “-जन्म” (birth) root that would trigger rebirth associations.
Righteousness “exceeding” in kind, not amount (5:20)	Marathi has no ready idiom distinguishing kind-superiority from quantity-superiority in a religious-merit context.	नीतिमत्त्व…पेक्षा अधिक + mandatory teaching gloss	The phrase alone is insufficient; the gap is conceptual as much as lexical and must be closed by explanatory material every occurrence.
τὰ μυστήρια τῆς βασιλείας (mysteries of the kingdom, 13:11)	No Marathi phrase distinguishes “graciously revealed truth” from “esoteric knowledge attained by initiation” (a live category in both tantric/yogic and some Buddhist teaching traditions).	राज्याची रहस्ये + explicit “given by revelation, not discovered by effort” gloss	Bare रहस्ये risks a गुप्त विद्या (occult secret-knowledge) reading.
πάντα τὰ ἔθνη in its Commission-specific, Israel-inclusive sense (28:19)	Baseline’s अन्यजातीय is fixed to the narrower Gentiles-vs-Israel contrast; no existing Marathi phrase was available for the broader universal sense until this curriculum.	सर्व राष्ट्रे (सर्व लोक)	Newly constructed for Matthew; must never be confused with, or substituted for, अन्यजातीय.
ἡ βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν βιάζεται — the kingdom “suffers violence”/“advances forcefully” (11:12)	The English itself represents two competing valid readings (violent opposition to the kingdom vs. urgent, forceful entry into it); Marathi has no idiom that preserves this same double possibility.	स्वर्गाचे राज्य बलाने पुढे जात आहे, flagged with both readings recorded	Genuine crux; paraphrase chosen leans toward the “advances forcefully” reading but must be flagged, not silently resolved.
υἱοὶ θεοῦ κληθήσονται — plural, corporate “sons of God” for peacemakers (5:9)	Marathi’s most natural rendering of “sons of God” (देवाचा पुत्र) is already fixed, Critical-risk, singular vocabulary for Christ’s unique Sonship; no separate existing phrase cleanly marks the plural, corporate, derivative sense.	देवाचे पुत्र (देवाची लेकरे)	Constructed distinction (लेकरे, “children,” as a softening/pluralizing gloss) to prevent any reader inferring shared, Christ-level divine Sonship.
εὐλογημένος (Ps 118:26 “blessed is he who comes,” 21:9/23:39) vs. μακάριος (Beatitudes, 5:3-11)	Marathi’s single common word for “blessed” (धन्य) does not naturally split into two families the way Greek does; without deliberate fencing the two roots collapse into one Marathi word.	धन्य reserved exclusively for μακάριος; धन्यवादित/आशीर्वादित reserved exclusively for εὐλογέω	A distinction manufactured for translation purposes since Marathi itself does not lexically require it — necessary to keep Matthew’s two Greek word-families traceable.

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Section 3 — Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods Requiring Fencing

Unlike Section 2’s genuine gaps, these are cases where Marathi vocabulary is abundant — often too abundant, because the available word already has a strong, specific home in Warkari bhakti devotion, wider Hindu cosmology/caste theology, or Navayana Buddhist teaching. Each needs active “fencing”: teaching language that draws a visible boundary rather than letting the existing association bleed into the biblical sense.

Marathi term/root	Occupying neighbor tradition(s)	Fence required
स्वर्ग	Hindu cosmology: a temporary, karma-earned celestial way-station, not final destiny	Always compound (स्वर्गाचे राज्य); teach as identical to देवाचे राज्य; never allow स्वर्ग to stand alone as the theological “kingdom.”
कृपा	Warkari bhakti: Vitthal’s devotional favor on a devotee, already familiar and therefore under-marked as unearned	Every Matthew occurrence (esp. the vineyard parable, 20:1-16) must reinforce non-proportional, unearned gift against a karma-merit reading of reward.
शिष्य	Guru-shishya paramparā (Hindu and Buddhist teaching lineages): a student’s self-initiated pursuit of a teacher’s wisdom	Anchor exclusively and repeatedly to Jesus as sole object; never allow a generic “wise teacher and student” reading to stand unqualified.
मुक्ती / मोक्ष / निर्वाण	Baseline-forbidden; Warkari-Hindu liberation and Buddhist cessation	Forbidden throughout Matthew for तारण, सार्वकालिक जीवन, and खंडणी (ransom) alike — the collision risk is not confined to “salvation” alone but recurs wherever release/liberation vocabulary might tempt a translator.
अवतार	Vaishnav avatar-descent (Vitthal, Krishna, Rama)	Forbidden for देहधारण (incarnation) and for कुमारी/इम्मानूएल passages (1:18-25); Christ’s incarnation is one-time and unique, not a repeatable divine descent.
पुनर्जन्म / पुनर्भव	Hindu individual rebirth / Buddhist technical arising-of-aggregates	Forbidden for पुनरुत्थान (resurrection) and, newly and acutely, for नवनिर्माण (regeneration, 19:28) — the “-birth” root in παλιγγενεσία makes this collision especially tempting for translators working word-by-word.
शक्ती	Shakti/mother-goddess tradition (Tuljapur’s Tuljabhavani)	Forbidden for देवाचे सामर्थ्य (God’s power) and for अधिकार (Jesus’ authority) wherever “power” rather than “authority” is intended.
संत	Warkari poet-saint elite (Dnyaneshwar, Tukaram, Namdev, Eknath, Chokhamela)	Forbidden for पवित्र जन (saints, corporate believer-status) — carried forward from baseline; equally relevant wherever Matthew speaks of “the righteous”/believing community generally.
धर्म / धम्म	Caste-linked Hindu dharma order / Ambedkar’s reinterpreted Dhamma	Forbidden for नियमशास्त्र (Law) and नीतिमत्त्व (righteousness); doubly salient in Matthew 5:17-20, where Jesus is explicitly redefining righteousness away from rule-multiplication.
मानव	Generic, flattening rendering	Forbidden as a substitute for मनुष्याचा पुत्र (Son of Man); must never collapse Daniel 7’s exalted judicial-messianic title into ordinary humanity language.
कर्मफळ / पुण्य / प्रतिफळ-as-merit-ledger	Karma-merit accounting frameworks	Fence around “reward” language (5:12, 6:1-6, 19-21) — प्रतिफळ is retained but must be taught as gracious divine response, not accumulated merit-credit.
नशीब / दैव / कर्मफळ	Fate/destiny/karma vocabulary	Forbidden for देवाची निवड (election) and देवाचे विधान (providence) — especially acute at 22:14 (“many called, few chosen”) and 8:28-30-style providence passages, given Ambedkarite Buddhist communities’ explicit historical rejection of birth-karma explanations of social status.
विटाळ	Ritual/ceremonial impurity-pollution	Fence around अशुद्ध करणे (defile, 15:11) — must be taught as heart-centered moral defilement, not the external food/touch-contact pollution categories familiar from caste-purity practice.

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Section 4 — Transliteration vs. Paraphrase Decisions

Term	Decision	Rationale
मसीहा (Messiah)	Transliterate	Baseline-established; no native equivalent avoids avatar-associations as safely as the transliterated proper term.
इम्मानूएल (Emmanuel)	Transliterate + mandatory gloss (परमेश्वर आपल्याबरोबर) every occurrence	A proper name meaning “God with us”; transliteration preserves its name-status while the gloss carries the doctrinal content, avoiding a translated common-noun phrase standing alone as if merely descriptive.
कुमारी (virgin)	Paraphrase/translate (not transliterate)	Ordinary vocabulary item, not a proper name; must be the precise term (never तरुणी, “young woman”) but does not require transliteration.
होसान्ना (Hosanna)	Transliterate	A Hebrew liturgical acclamation quoting Psalm 118; translating it literally (“save now!”) would obscure its quotation-based, worship-acclamation character recognized across Christian tradition.
बाप्तिस्मा (baptism)	Transliterate	Established Marathi Christian usage; keeps the rite visibly distinct from स्नान (ritual bathing/purification).
अब्बा (Abba, 8:15 — carried in Romans, referenced by Matthean “Father” passages)	Transliterate alongside पिता	Baseline pattern; preserves Aramaic filial intimacy untranslatable by पिता alone.
एली, एली, लमा सबखथानी (27:46)	Transliterate + parenthetical Marathi gloss	Preserves the Aramaic cry’s raw, historically specific character (as with baseline’s Abba treatment) while making the Psalm 22 quotation’s meaning accessible.
दावीदाचा पुत्र / यहूद्यांचा राजा	Paraphrase (translate fully)	These are meaningful royal-messianic titles built from ordinary Marathi vocabulary (David’s name + “son”; “Jews’ king”); no transliteration is needed or would even be possible without losing sense.
मनुष्याचा पुत्र (Son of Man)	Paraphrase (translate fully), never abbreviated	Requires the full compound at every occurrence to retain Daniel 7 messianic-judicial freight; transliterating the underlying Semitic idiom is not an available option and would communicate nothing to a Marathi reader.
नवनिर्माण, राज्याची रहस्ये, राज्याच्या किल्ल्या	Paraphrase (constructed compounds)	No single Marathi word exists; safer to build a compound under close doctrinal control than to transliterate a Greek term with no established Marathi Christian precedent.
मागी (Magi)	Transliterate (as proper/technical term for the historical group)	Avoids ज्योतिषी (astrologer/fortune-teller), which would wrongly frame the Magi’s vocation as illegitimate divination rather than a specific historical group whom God providentially led.

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Section 5 — Ranked List of Highest-Risk Ambiguities (Matthew-Specific)

Ranked by combined doctrinal severity and probability of translator/reader misfire, beyond what the baseline Romans package already covers. All are Critical or High risk per doctrine_risk_registry.json/bible_term_registry.json conventions; all require human theologian review per the escalation rules in 12_ai_translation_requirements.md.

1. Kingdom of Heaven vs. स्वर्ग-as-Hindu-afterlife (Critical). The single highest-frequency risk in the book (~32 occurrences); a bare स्वर्ग in any one instance silently reopens the entire doctrine to a karma-earned-way-station reading.
2. Son of Man flattened to मानव (Critical). A single lazy rendering at any of ~30 occurrences erases Daniel 7’s judicial-messianic authority and reduces Christ’s own preferred self-title to a bare species-noun.
3. Incarnation/virgin conception vs. अवतार and Bodhisattva-rebirth imagery (Critical, 1:18-25). Two distinct false-friends (Vaishnav avatar-descent; Ambedkar’s own Bodhisattva-postponement image) converge on the same two verses, doubling the risk surface.
4. Regeneration παλιγγενεσία vs. पुनर्जन्म (Critical, 19:28). The Greek’s own “-birth” root makes this the single most literal-translation-tempting forbidden substitution in the book.
5. Righteousness “exceeding” read as merit-quantity rather than merit-kind (Critical, 5:20). Directly undermines the doctrine the passage exists to teach; risk is conceptual, not merely lexical, and survives even a technically correct word choice absent a teaching gloss.
6. Eternal life / eternal punishment vs. मोक्ष/मुक्ती/निर्वाण and karma-exhaustion (Critical, 19:16-29, 25:46). Both poles of the final-destiny pair face independent collision risks with two different neighboring frameworks.
7. Ransom (खंडणी) vs. मुक्ती (Critical, 20:28). A single-word substitution would silently recast Christ as guru/avatar-liberator rather than price-payer.
8. Great Commission “all nations” narrowed to अन्यजातीय (Critical, 28:19). Reuse of the baseline Gentiles-term here would silently exclude Israel from the Commission’s scope, contradicting Matthew’s own usage.
9. Trinitarian baptismal formula’s singular “name” pluralized (Critical, 28:19). A natural but doctrinally destructive grammatical drift toward three separate names/deities.
10. Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit (Critical, 12:31-32). Requires unusually careful pastoral framing; mistranslation risks either trivializing the warning or inducing unwarranted fear in believers not guilty of it.
11. “Many called, few chosen” / election vs. karma-birth status (High, 22:14; cf. 24:22-31). Acute sensitivity given Ambedkarite Buddhist communities’ explicit historical rejection of birth-karma explanations of social standing.
12. Persecuted for righteousness vs. karma-explained suffering (High, 5:10-12). Same karma-birth sensitivity as above, applied to the Beatitudes’ climactic promise.
13. Poor in spirit vs. literal social/caste poverty (High, 5:3). Risk of either spiritualizing away real social conditions or, conversely, being read as endorsing caste-linked low status as itself spiritually meritorious.
14. Kingdom “suffers violence” crux (High, 11:12). Genuinely ambiguous in the source; must be flagged rather than silently resolved in either direction.
15. “This generation” referential scope (High, 24:34). Same category of genuine source-ambiguity as #14; requires recorded alternatives rather than a confident single rendering.
16. धन्य / धन्यवादित two-Greek-root distinction (High, 5:3-11 vs. 21:9/23:39). Marathi does not require this distinction on its own; failure to maintain it collapses two theologically distinct pronouncements (declared blessedness vs. acclamatory praise) into one Marathi word.
17. Keys of the kingdom / bind-and-loose read as independent priestly power (High, 16:19, 18:18). Risk of a magical or autonomous-authority misreading absent the “delegated under Christ” fence.

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Section 6 — Full-Book Chapter Coverage Confirmation

Every chapter of Matthew was reviewed for linguistic-gap-relevant vocabulary. Chapters not separately itemized above contributed terms already captured in the doctrine matrix, crowded-neighborhood table, or 08_core_glossary.md; none are silently omitted.

Ch.	Linguistic gap relevance
1	Genealogy/दावीदाच्या वंशातून (§1.2); कुमारी, इम्मानूएल transliteration decisions (§4); देहधारण vs. अवतार fencing (§3).
2	यहूद्यांचा राजा cross-reference consistency (§1.2); मागी transliteration (§4); भविष्यवाणी fulfillment formulas (§1.3).
3	स्वर्गाचे राज्य introduced (3:2, §1.1); पश्चात्ताप (repentance) vs. ritual purification fencing; बाप्तिस्मा transliteration (§4).
4	देवाचे विधान/providence groundwork; सैतान personal-being fencing; स्वर्गाचे राज्य (4:17) reinforced.
5	Core passage. Beatitudes (धन्य/§2 gap on μακάριος vs. εὐλογέω); नीतिमत्त्व शास्त्री व परूश्यांपेक्षा अधिक (§1.5, #5 ranked risk); देवाचे पुत्र (देवाची लेकरे) plural-sonship gap (§2); पूर्ण होणे/रद्द करणे fulfillment-not-abolition (§1.3); नियमशास्त्र vs. धर्म fencing.
6	मॅमन/धन personification; देवाचे विधान (providence, 6:25-34); पवित्रीकरण in Lord’s Prayer (“hallowed”); ढोंगी (hypocrite) fencing.
7	अधिकार introduced (7:29, §1.4, ranked risk precursor); न्याय करणे vs. अंतिम न्यायनिवाडा distinction seeded (see ch. 25).
8	मनुष्याचा पुत्र established usage (8:20, §2/#2 ranked risk); विश्वास (faith) occurrences; अधिकार reinforced (8:9).
9	पापांची क्षमा (forgiveness, divine prerogative); जकातदार व पापी (marginalization/universal scope); विश्वास; बोलावलेले (calling, 9:13).
10	प्रेषित (apostle); शिष्य (discipleship term, guru-shishya fence, §3); देवाचे विधान (10:29-31); वधस्तंभ/अनुसरणे discipleship-cost pairing (10:38); कापणी विपुल mission motif.
11	स्वर्गाचे राज्य बलाने पुढे जात आहे crux (§2, #14 ranked risk); येणारा (the one to come, evidentiary framing); धन्य (11:6) reinforced.
12	पवित्र आत्म्याविरुद्ध निंदा (#10 ranked risk); योनाचे चिन्ह (sign of Jonah); देवाचे राज्य (12:28) synonym confirmed.
13	राज्याची रहस्ये (§2 gap); parables establishing दाखला; युगाचा शेवट first appearances (13:39-40, 13:49, §1.8).
14	विश्वास/अल्पविश्वासी (little faith); देवाचा पुत्र confession (14:33); नमन करणे (worship) fencing vs. bhakti darshan gestures.
15	अशुद्ध करणे (defile, §1.5 fencing, #ranked); वडीलधाऱ्यांची परंपरा vs. नियमशास्त्र distinction; इस्राएलाच्या घराण्यातील हरवलेली मेंढरे (mission priority).
16	तू ख्रिस्त, जिवंत देवाचा पुत्र आहेस fixed-wording confession (Critical, structural counterpart to Romans 10:9); योनाचे चिन्ह repeated; वधस्तंभ/अनुसरणे (16:24) reinforced; कापणी/राज्याच्या किल्ल्या (16:19, §1.6).
17	रूपांतर/transfiguration — गौरव fencing against light-metaphor collision with bodhi/enlightenment associations; पुनरुत्थान anticipation (17:9, 17:23).
18	राज्याच्या किल्ल्या/बांधणे-मोकळे करणे (§1.6, #17 ranked risk); मंडळीला सांग church discipline sequence (§1.6, gap on compression risk); हे लहानथोर/अडखळण; जेथे दोन किंवा तीन… presence promise.
19	नवनिर्माण (§2/#4 ranked risk, sharpest false-friend in the book); सार्वकालिक जीवन (19:16, 19:29); परिपूर्ण (19:21).
20	खंडणी (ransom, §1.9/#7 ranked risk); grace/कृपा reinforcement via vineyard parable (§3 fencing); दावीदाचा पुत्र (20:30-31).
21	होसान्ना transliteration (§4); धन्यवादित/आशीर्वादित vs. धन्य two-root distinction (§2 gap, #16 ranked risk); बांधणाऱ्यांनी नाकारलेला दगड…cornerstone (OT-background gap); यहूद्यांचा राजा echo groundwork for ch. 27.
22	पुष्कळ बोलावलेले…थोडे निवडलेले (§3 fencing, #11 ranked risk); सर्वात मोठी आज्ञा (greatest commandment, ties to ch. 5 righteousness doctrine); दावीदाचा पुत्र (22:42-45).
23	ढोंगी/शास्त्री व परूशी recurring foils; धिक्कार असो (woe) as structural mirror of धन्य.
24	युगाचा शेवट (24:3, reinforced); मनुष्याच्या पुत्राचे येणे/पुनरागमन (§1.8/#ranked); उजाड करणारी अमंगळ वस्तू (Daniel-background gap); ही पिढी (§2/#15 ranked risk); देवाची निवड (24:22, 24:24, 24:31).
25	अंतिम न्यायनिवाडा vs. everyday न्याय करणे (7:1) distinction; सार्वकालिक जीवन/सार्वकालिक शिक्षा (25:46, §1.8/#6 ranked risk); तालांत, वर (bridegroom) — low-risk supporting imagery.
26	करार/पापांची क्षमा — Lord’s Supper institution (Critical, high-stakes reuse of baseline करार and पाप); एली एली लमा सबखथानी transliteration (§4); माझ्या इच्छेप्रमाणे नाही तर तुझ्या इच्छेप्रमाणे (discipleship-cost model); वधस्तंभावर खिळणे (crucify, literal).
27	यहूद्यांचा राजा mockery-echo (ironic-link consistency, §1.2); मंदिराचा पडदा फाटला (temple veil torn); खरोखर हा देवाचा पुत्र होता (Gentile confession, Critical fixed wording); मंदिर strictly literal-building fencing vs. मंडळी.
28	पुनरुत्थान (resurrection, reinforced); शिष्य करा/सर्व राष्ट्रे/बाप्तिस्मा formula (§1.7, #8-#9 ranked risks — the chapter’s highest concentration of Critical risk in the book); मी तुमच्याबरोबर…युगाच्या शेवटापर्यंत आहे closing promise.

No chapter of Matthew was found to contribute zero linguistic-gap-relevant material; every chapter is represented above either through a newly analyzed term or through explicit confirmation that its vocabulary reinforces an already-fenced or already-gapped item documented elsewhere in this report.

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Section 7 — Governance Notes

1. This analysis extends, and never contradicts, the baseline Romans translation_memory.json forbidden-substitution list (मोक्ष, मुक्ती, निर्वाण, धर्म, धम्म, पुनर्जन्म, पुनर्भव, अवतार, शक्ती, कर्मफळ, पुण्य, परमात्मा, ब्रह्म). All apply throughout Matthew with equal or, in several cases (नवनिर्माण, खंडणी, स्वर्गाचे राज्य), heightened force given this book’s specific vocabulary.
2. New Matthew-specific forbidden substitutions established by this analysis: अन्यजातीय must never stand for the Great Commission’s broader “all nations” (28:19); मानव must never stand for मनुष्याचा पुत्र; धन्य and धन्यवादित/आशीर्वादित must never be interchanged.
3. All constructed compounds in Section 2 (नवनिर्माण, राज्याची रहस्ये, सर्व राष्ट्रे, देवाचे पुत्र/देवाची लेकरे) must be entered into the Matthew-specific translation memory extension prior to Phase 2, per 08_core_glossary.md Section 3 governance notes.
4. Items flagged in Section 5 as genuinely ambiguous in the source (kingdom suffers violence, 11:12; this generation, 24:34) must never be silently resolved by any Phase 2 worker; both readings considered must be recorded in the segment cache per the baseline ambiguity-handling protocol.

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This document must be loaded alongside analysis/08_core_glossary.md, the baseline translation_memory.json, and assets/bible_term_registry.json before Phase 2 segment translation of Matthew begins.