Linguistic Gap Analysis — 1 John (English → Nepali)

Purpose and Method

This analysis identifies where Nepali’s existing theological vocabulary — inherited from the Romans baseline (translation_memory.json, bible_term_registry.json) and extended by 08_core_glossary.md — is adequate, where it is missing entirely, and where it is dangerously “crowded” by pre-existing Hindu, Buddhist, Tantric, folk-religious (jhankri/dhami), or former-monarchical usage that must be actively fenced off. It covers the full letter, first chapter to last, with concentrated attention on the core passage (4:7–21), which is the theological hinge of the letter’s two great essence-statements: “God is Light” (1:5) and “God is Love” (4:8, 16).

1 John presents a distinct linguistic-gap profile from Romans. Romans’ battlegrounds were largely forensic/soteriological (righteousness, justification, grace). 1 John’s battlegrounds are largely ontological and relational (God’s essence as Light/Love; birth-language; spirit-testing; a personal Advocate) — which means it collides with a different, often more experiential and devotional layer of Nepali religious vocabulary: bhakti devotion, Tantric consecration and seed-syllables, Vedantic non-dual absorption, and living shamanic (jhankri/dhami) spirit-practice, alongside the baseline’s already-documented Hindu-Kingdom/caste-code and Buddhist-rebirth collision zones.

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Section A — Doctrine Vocabulary Matrix

Doctrine	Available Nepali Term(s)	Weaknesses / Collision Risks	Recommended Strategy
God is Light and God is Love	परमेश्वर प्रेम हुनुहुन्छ (4:8,16); ज्योति (1:5,7); अन्धकार (1:5-6; 2:9-11)	(a) प्रेम alone reads as generic affection or bhakti-style devotional love directed toward a deity, not love originating in God’s nature. (b) परमेश्वरले प्रेम गर्नुहुन्छ (“God does love”) reduces an essence-claim to an activity-claim — theologically insufficient for an identity predication. (c) ज्योति risks assimilation to the widespread Hindu/Buddhist “enlightenment” metaphor (attained inner illumination through practice) rather than received, revealed truth about God’s nature.	Fix परमेश्वर प्रेम हुनुहुन्छ and परमेश्वर ज्योति हुनुहुन्छ as parallel, unqualified identity-copula statements (same grammatical treatment as the Romans baseline’s येशू प्रभु हुनुहुन्छ). Never substitute an activity-verb form. Teaching notes must state both are essence-claims, not one virtue among several.
Fellowship with God and One Another	सहभागिता (1:3); रहनु (2:6,24,27-28; 3:24; 4:12-13,16)	सहभागिता alone (baseline Low risk) under-signals the letter’s programmatic weight; रहनु risks being read through Vedantic advaita (non-dual absorption/dissolution of self into Brahman) or Buddhist non-dual meditative union if not anchored relationally.	Elevate सहभागिता to High risk for this curriculum (already done in 08). Consistently render रहनु as ongoing personal, relational communion between two distinct persons (God and believer / believer and believer) — never merge with सहभागिता’s more corporate/participatory sense; keep both terms terminologically distinct but doctrinally coordinated.
Confession and Forgiveness of Sin	स्वीकार गर्नु (1:9; 4:2-3,15); शुद्ध पार्नु (1:7,9); पाप; अधार्मिकता (1:9); रगत (1:7; 5:6-8); प्रायश्चित्तको बलिदान (2:2; 4:10); मध्यस्थ (2:1); विश्वासयोग्य (1:9); धर्मी (1:9; 2:1,29)	शुद्ध पार्नु shares a root the baseline explicitly avoided for “holy” (शुद्ध = ritual purity); प्रायश्चित्त alone is a live Hindu self-performed-penance term (fasting, pilgrimage); मध्यस्थ risks collapse into the Mahayana bodhisattva merit-transfer figure.	Retain शुद्ध पार्नु only as a verb of Christ’s atoning action (never a noun implying repeatable ritual bathing/snana); always keep प्रायश्चित्त bound to बलिदान to preserve God’s initiative/direction; always anchor मध्यस्थ to Christ’s unique, finished, once-for-all sacrifice, never presented as one compassionate intercessor among several.
Love for the Brethren as Evidence of New Birth	प्रेम; भाई (भाइबहिनी); परमेश्वरका सन्तान (3:1-2,10); परमेश्वरबाट जन्म पाएका (2:29; 3:9; 4:7; 5:1,4,18); परमेश्वरको बीज (3:9); धार्मिकता (2:29; 3:7,10)	जन्म-vocabulary sits directly beside Nepal’s dominant cyclical-rebirth (karma-driven पुनर्जन्म) worldview; बीज carries Tantric बीज मन्त्र (seed-syllable of inherent power) resonance; भाई risks being read within caste/kin categories still socially live in parts of Nepal.	Always bind जन्म to परमेश्वरबाट or पवित्र आत्माद्वारा (never bare जन्म); teach परमेश्वरको बीज as Spirit-given regenerating life, not a self-potent syllable; teach भाई explicitly as constituted by common new birth, transcending caste/ethnicity/biological family — this doctrine is where 1 John’s love-command most directly confronts residual Muluki Ain-era caste hierarchy.
The Incarnation and Antichrist	देहमा आउनुभयो / देहधारण (4:2-3); एकमात्र पुत्र (4:9); मसीह; ख्रीष्ट-विरोधी (2:22; 4:3); प्रकट हुनु (1:2; 3:5,8; 4:9); परमेश्वरका पुत्र	Direct extension of the Romans baseline’s देहधारण-vs-अवतार fault line, now sharpened because 1 John makes denial of this doctrine the very definition of antichrist; एकमात्र पुत्र risks assimilation to the Himalayan Buddhist tulku (recognized reincarnate-lineage successor) framework if uniqueness-of-relationship is not distinguished from mere numerical singularity.	Treat 4:2-3’s confession test with the same fixed, unqualified-confession discipline the baseline applies to Romans 10:9. Never render ख्रीष्ट-विरोधी generically or map it onto Hindu epic demonology (Ravana) or Buddhist Mara-figures. Teaching notes must state एकमात्र पुत्र does not imply a beginning in time and is not a lineage-succession title.
Assurance of Salvation and Eternal Life	अनन्त जीवन (1:2; 2:25; 3:15; 5:11,13,20); निर्धक्कता (3:21; 5:14); डर (4:18); पूर्ण (2:5; 4:12,17-18); गवाही दिनु (1:2; 4:14; 5:6-11)	अनन्त जीवन inherits the baseline’s full मोक्ष/मुक्ति/निर्वाण fault line, sharpened by 5:13’s claim to knowable, present possession — a direct contradiction of the inherently uncertain, multi-lifetime progress-toward-liberation shared by Hindu and Buddhist frameworks; पूर्ण must resist drift toward सिद्ध (Tantric/yogic self-attained perfection); गवाही दिनु must resist drift toward jhankri/dhami channeled-oracle testimony.	Teach अनन्त जीवन as present, relational, and knowable now (5:13), not a future attainment contingent on accumulated merit across lifetimes. Keep पूर्ण strictly as “brought to completeness by God,” never “self-achieved.” Keep गवाही दिनु forensic/eyewitness in register.
Overcoming the World	जित्नु / जीत (2:13-14; 4:4; 5:4-5); संसार (throughout); विश्वास	संसार is simultaneously the correct, established Bible term and the exact word for Hindu/Buddhist saṃsāra, the rebirth-cycle from which मोक्ष/निर्वाण offer escape — an unusually direct term-level collision, not merely conceptual; जित्नु risks assimilation to yogic/Buddhist self-effort conquest of desire (taṇhā).	Retain संसार (no viable substitute exists in the established Bible tradition) but pair every doctrinally weighted occurrence with explicit teaching-note framing: a moral-relational system in rebellion against a personal God, not created existence itself, and not something escaped by renunciation (vairāgya). Teach जित्नु as victory granted through faith-union with the already-victorious Christ (5:4-5), never self-achieved discipline.
Testing the Spirits	आत्माहरूलाई जाँच्नु (4:1); आत्मा (unqualified, 4:1,3,6); पवित्र आत्मा (only 3:24; 4:13); झूटा अगमवक्ता (4:1); अगमवक्ता; बहकाउनु	The single most acute disambiguation problem in the letter: unqualified आत्मा collides with (a) Vedantic Ātman (the eternal universal Self) and (b) folk ancestral/malevolent spirits addressed by jhankri/dhami ritual specialists — a live, currently-practiced parallel, including among some rural professing Christians.	Every occurrence of πνεῦμα in chapters 3–5 must be individually tagged before translation as either God’s own Spirit (→ पवित्र आत्मा) or a created/tested spirit (→ plain आत्मा, never पवित्र). Teach आत्माहरूलाई जाँच्नु strictly as a doctrinal/Christological test (confessing Christ come in the flesh), never as an assessment of comparative ritual power, trance-authenticity, or spiritual efficacy as practiced in jhankri/dhami consultation.

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Section B — Missing Vocabulary vs. Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods

B.1 Missing Vocabulary (no established Nepali Bible rendering; new coinage required)

These terms have no existing fixed rendering in the Romans-baseline translation memory and must be formally added as new entries before Phase 2 begins. Each is a genuine lexical gap, not merely a collision risk.

Term	Gap Type	Proposed Coinage	Rationale for New Coinage
Unrighteousness (ἀδικία)	No prior negation of धार्मिकता existed in baseline	अधार्मिकता	Built as direct negation of established धार्मिकता rather than the more available अधर्म, which reintroduces the excluded धर्म root.
Lawlessness (ἀνομία)	No prior negation of व्यवस्था existed in baseline	व्यवस्थाहीनता	Same धर्म-avoidance principle, built on baseline’s व्यवस्था rather than अधर्म.
Advocate (παράκλητος)	Romans never required a personal-intercessor Christological title	मध्यस्थ	Built on baseline’s मध्यस्थता (intercession) root, but this is a genuinely new personal-title coinage requiring theologian sign-off given the bodhisattva collision (see B.2).
Propitiation (ἱλασμός)	Romans used आरोपित धार्मिकता/धर्मी ठहराइने कार्य for adjacent forensic concepts but had no term for the atoning-sacrifice-as-object concept	प्रायश्चित्तको बलिदान	Compound coinage required specifically to reverse the self-performed-penance direction of the available root प्रायश्चित्त (see B.2).
Antichrist (ἀντίχριστος)	Not present in Romans vocabulary at all	ख्रीष्ट-विरोधी	Transparent compound (Christ + opposed-to); no existing Nepali Christian term to reuse.
Children of God — new-birth sense (τέκνα θεοῦ)	Romans has दत्तक पुत्रता (legal adoption) but no birth-nature/family-likeness term	परमेश्वरका सन्तान	New coinage needed to carry a distinct nuance (shared nature by birth) from the legal-transaction नuance already fixed for दत्तक पुत्रता.
Born of God (γεννάω ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ)	Romans has no new-birth verb construction	परमेश्वरबाट जन्म पाएका	Must be built fresh, always anchored to परमेश्वरबाट/पवित्र आत्माद्वारा (see B.2 for the reason this cannot stand alone).
Seed of God (σπέρμα αὐτοῦ)	Romans’ दाऊदको वंश (“seed of David”) is a lineage metaphor; 1 John’s is a regeneration metaphor	परमेश्वरको बीज	Distinct metaphor requiring a distinct coinage, deliberately parallel in form to दाऊदको वंश for teachability but doctrinally distinguished.
Only-begotten/unique Son (μονογενής)	Romans’ परमेश्वरका पुत्र covers eternal Sonship generally but not this specific uniqueness-claim	एकमात्र पुत्र	New coinage to carry the “one-of-a-kind relationship” nuance Romans did not need to isolate.
The Holy One — singular title (ὁ ἅγιος)	Romans’ पवित्र जन is plural/corporate; no singular divine title existed	पवित्र प्रभुबाट / पवित्र हुनुहुनेबाट	Must not reuse the plural corporate baseline term; referent (Christ vs. Father) requires theologian confirmation before this coinage is finalized.
Word of Life (ὁ λόγος τῆς ζωῆς)	Romans never required a “Logos” title	जीवनको वचन	New compound; carries its own distinct collision risk (see B.2).
Anointing (χρῖσμα)	Romans never required this noun	पवित्र आत्माको अभिषेक	Must always appear as the full qualified phrase, never bare अभिषेक (see B.2).

Process note: Per the baseline’s Translation Memory Load and Enforcement Instructions, all eleven coinages above must be written into an updated translation_memory.json (version increment) and flagged for theologian review (Critical/High tier) before any Phase 2 segment translation of 1 John proceeds — none may be improvised mid-segment.

B.2 Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods (existing vocabulary, but occupied by competing traditions — require active fencing)

Unlike B.1, these terms are not missing — Nepali has ready, natural-sounding words available. The risk is the opposite: the natural word is already doctrinally “occupied” by a live, currently-practiced tradition, and will be misheard by default unless fenced with explicit teaching notes and, where possible, qualifying compounds.

Term	Occupying Neighbor Concept(s)	Why It Is a Live Risk (Not Merely Textual)	Fencing Strategy
आत्मा (spirit)	Vedantic Ātman (universal Self); folk ancestral/malevolent spirits addressed by jhankri/dhami	Jhankri and dhami spirit-consultation is an actively practiced rural tradition, including reportedly among some professing Christians. Unqualified आत्मा in 4:1-6 will default to this frame.	Never render as पवित्र आत्मा unless the referent is unambiguously God’s own Spirit (3:24; 4:13). Every other occurrence stays plain आत्मा with a translator note distinguishing it from both Ātman and folk spirit-classes.
संसार (world)	Hindu/Buddhist saṃsāra — literally the same word, the rebirth-cycle escaped by मोक्ष/निर्वाण	This is a same-word collision, the most direct of any in the letter — not an adjacent concept but the identical lexical item carrying the opposite soteriology.	Retain संसार (no substitute exists) but require a companion teaching note at every doctrinally weighted occurrence (2:15-17; 4:4-5; 5:4-5,19): a moral system opposed to God, not the created order or a cycle to be escaped by renunciation.
ज्योति (light)	Hindu/Buddhist “enlightenment” (illumination attained through meditative practice, e.g., bodhi, moksha-via-jnana)	Widely used devotionally and philosophically in Nepali religious speech for self-attained inner illumination.	Teach ज्योति in 1:5,7 as revealed, received truth about God’s unchanging nature — never an inner state attained through practice. Avoid pairing with meditation/practice-oriented verbs.
प्रेम (love)	Bhakti-style devotional love offered upward to a deity in expectation of favor/darshan; sentimental romantic/familial प्रेम without moral content	प्रेम is used constantly in both registers in ordinary Nepali speech and devotional bhakti poetry/kirtan.	Anchor प्रेम consistently to God’s self-giving, initiating pattern (4:10,19 — “he loved us first… sent his Son”) rather than upward devotional longing or human sentiment alone.
अभिषेक (anointing)	Ritual consecration of deity images; historically, the Shah-dynasty royal coronation-consecration rite (kings venerated as living Vishnu avatars until 2008)	This is recent, concrete political memory, not abstract myth — most adult Nepalis have living memory of royal अभिषेक ceremonies.	Never leave bare; always the full compound पवित्र आत्माको अभिषेक, with explicit teaching note that this gift belongs to every ordinary believer (2:20,27), the reverse of an elite royal/priestly rite.
प्रायश्चित्त (root of propitiation)	Self-performed Hindu penance/expiation (fasting, pilgrimage, ritual acts performed by the sinner)	Actively practiced, especially around festivals and at shrines such as Pashupatinath.	Never use प्रायश्चित्त alone; always बलिदान-anchored (प्रायश्चित्तको बलिदान) to keep the initiative and direction with God, not the sinner.
सिद्ध (root avoided for “perfected”)	Tantric/yogic siddha — an adept who attains supernatural power/liberation through disciplined self-effort	Actively invoked in Nepali Tantric Buddhist and Hindu contexts (e.g., the 84 Mahasiddhas tradition, present in Himalayan Buddhist heritage communities).	Confirmed exclusion already made in 08_core_glossary; this analysis reaffirms पूर्ण as the only acceptable rendering, with a standing note never to substitute सिद्ध even for stylistic variation.
बीज (seed, in परमेश्वरको बीज)	Tantric बीज मन्त्र (bīja mantra) — a seed-syllable believed to carry inherent, self-propagating spiritual power	Actively used in Newar Tantric Buddhist and Hindu ritual practice in the Kathmandu Valley.	Teach परमेश्वरको बीज strictly as Spirit-implanted new-birth life, not a mystically potent syllable or self-propagating force; avoid any phrasing that could be read as a mantra-like formula.
जन्म (root of “born of God”)	Karma-driven पुनर्जन्म — cyclical rebirth across lifetimes (Hindu) and across six realms (Buddhist), including the tulku recognized-reincarnation tradition	This is 1 John’s single most repeated new theological claim (2:29; 3:9; 4:7; 5:1,4,18) sitting directly beside Nepal’s dominant cosmological frame.	Never allow bare जन्म in a soteriological sentence; always bind to परमेश्वरबाट or पवित्र आत्माद्वारा, and teach as one decisive, non-repeatable event, never a cycle.
चिन्नु (relational “know”)	Esoteric/initiatory guru-transmitted knowledge in Nepali Tantric practice; loosely, Gnostic-style secret knowledge that the letter itself opposes	This is not merely a foreign historical Gnosticism risk — Nepal’s living guru-initiation traditions provide a real local analogue that could reframe चिन्नु as secret/initiatory rather than relational/ethical.	Teach चिन्नु as knowledge inseparable from obedience and love (2:3-4; 4:7-8) — open, ethical, and relational, never secret or initiatory.

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Section C — Transliteration vs. Paraphrase Decisions

Term	Decision	Nepali Form	Rationale
Messiah/Christ (Χριστός)	Transliterate (baseline-fixed)	मसीह / ख्रीष्ट	Already established across the Nepali Bible tradition; transliteration avoids inventing a descriptive paraphrase for a proper title that must stay recognizably singular and untranslated.
Jesus (Ἰησοῦς)	Transliterate (baseline-fixed)	येशू	Established standard form; must not shift to a form associated with another tradition’s account of this figure.
Antichrist (ἀντίχριστος)	Paraphrase (compound), not transliterate	ख्रीष्ट-विरोधी	A transliterated “एन्टिक्राइस्ट” would be opaque to a reading-level-8–10 audience and would forfeit the built-in Christological content (denial of Christ) that the Greek compound itself carries. Paraphrase preserves meaning transparency.
Advocate/Paraclete (παράκλητος)	Paraphrase, not transliterate	मध्यस्थ	A transliterated “पाराक्लेट” would be meaningless to the target audience and would forfeit the opportunity to root the term in the baseline’s existing मध्यस्थता (intercession); paraphrase carries doctrinal content into an ordinary word, then fences it against the bodhisattva collision with teaching notes.
Propitiation (ἱλασμός)	Paraphrase (compound), not single-word transliteration or single-word paraphrase	प्रायश्चित्तको बलिदान	Neither a bare transliteration nor the single available native word (प्रायश्चित्त alone) is safe; the compound paraphrase is required specifically to reverse the self-performed-penance direction of the root word.
Anointing (χρῖσμα)	Paraphrase (qualified compound), not bare native term	पवित्र आत्माको अभिषेक	The bare native term अभिषेक is unsafe alone (royal/ritual consecration); the compound paraphrase both uses ordinary vocabulary and fences it.
Abba (Ἀββά) — cross-referenced from Romans 8:15, not itself in 1 John	N/A for this letter	—	Noted only to confirm 1 John does not require this decision; no Aramaic terms of address occur in 1 John.
Amen/Hallelujah — cross-referenced from baseline transliteration standards	Transliterate if/when encountered	आमेन, हल्लेलूयाह	1 John’s canonical text does not contain these forms, but the baseline’s transliteration standard is confirmed as still applicable if any liturgical framing material introduces them in study-guide content.
Word of Life (ὁ λόγος τῆς ζωῆς)	Paraphrase (compound), not single-word transliteration	जीवनको वचन	A bare वचन transliteration-adjacent choice would leave the term dangerously open to the Vedic वाक्/शब्द ब्रह्म (Shabda Brahman) neighborhood; the qualified compound anchors it to “life” and requires teaching notes identifying this as the personal, eternal Son, physically encountered — never an impersonal cosmic sound-principle.
Devil (διάβολος)	Transliteration-adjacent loan retained, not paraphrased	दियाबल	Nepali Christian usage already has this loanword distinct from Hindu/Buddhist demon classes (rakshasa, asura, Mara) and from folk भूत-प्रेत; retaining it (rather than paraphrasing into a native demon-class word) is itself the fencing strategy — it deliberately does NOT map onto any existing category.
The Holy One (ὁ ἅγιος)	Paraphrase, not reuse of an existing single word	पवित्र प्रभुबाट / पवित्र हुनुहुनेबाट	No safe single existing word exists (पवित्र जन is corporate and wrong here); paraphrase is required to keep the singular, elevated referent (likely Christ) distinct from the corporate baseline term.

General principle applied: transliteration is reserved for proper names and already-fixed liturgical forms (Jesus, Messiah, Amen); paraphrase/compounding is used wherever a bare native word would default to an occupied neighboring concept, following exactly the precedent the Romans baseline set with देहधारण (paraphrase) over अवतार (rejected transliteration-adjacent loan).

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Section D — Ranked List of Highest-Risk Ambiguities in 1 John

Ranked by combination of (a) doctrinal centrality, (b) frequency/spread across the letter, and (c) strength and currency of the competing Nepali cultural referent. All Rank 1–9 items require Critical-tier, per-occurrence human theologian review; Rank 10–15 require High-tier theologian review; Rank 16–18 are native-speaker-review items included for completeness of full-book coverage.

1. πνεῦμα disambiguation (4:1,3,6 vs. 3:24; 4:13) — Whether to render पवित्र आत्मा or plain आत्मा must be individually judged verse-by-verse. Highest risk because a single wrong tag could either (a) imply multiple “holy spirits,” or (b) strip the Holy Spirit’s deity by treating God’s Spirit as one among the tested/created spirits. Compounded by the live jhankri/dhami spirit-consultation practice.
2. “God is Love” / “God is Light” essence-statements (4:8,16; 1:5) — Risk of collapsing an identity-copula predication into an activity-statement (परमेश्वरले प्रेम गर्नुहुन्छ), which would theologically demote God’s nature to one behavior among many, paralleling but distinct from the Romans 10:9 confession-fixing precedent.
3. “Come in the flesh” / denial as the mark of antichrist (4:2-3) — The single passage where a translation error would not merely obscure but actively invert the letter’s central polemic; must never soften toward language compatible with docetism or avatar-style temporary divine appearance.
4. Advocate/Paraclete (2:1-2) — Direct, currently-practiced collision with the Mahayana bodhisattva merit-transfer intercessor; risk of implying Christ is one exceptionally compassionate intercessor among many rather than the unique, deity-incarnate mediator.
5. Propitiation (2:2; 4:10) — Risk of directionally inverting the doctrine (self-performed penance vs. God-provided/God-initiated sacrifice) if the compound प्रायश्चित्तको बलिदान is ever shortened.
6. Born of God / new birth (2:29; 3:9; 4:7; 5:1,4,18) — The letter’s single most repeated theological claim, sitting directly beside Nepal’s dominant karma-driven rebirth cosmology (Hindu and Buddhist, including the tulku reincarnate-lineage tradition); any bare जन्म risks total doctrinal collapse into cyclical rebirth.
7. Only-begotten Son (4:9) — Risk of implying either a beginning in time or an inheritable/successor relationship if collapsed toward tulku-adjacent framing.
8. Overcoming the world (2:13-14; 4:4; 5:4-5) — Risk of reframing Christ-secured victory as self-achieved yogic/Buddhist conquest of desire, especially given जित्नु’s ordinary-language overlap with disciplined-practice contexts.
9. World / κόσμος (throughout, esp. 2:15-17; 4:4-5; 5:4-5,19) — The most acute same-word collision in the letter (संसार = saṃsāra); risk of implying believers are called to Hindu/Buddhist-style renunciation of embodied existence rather than rejection of a moral system in rebellion against God.
10. Anointing (2:20,27) — Risk of implying an elite, royal/priestly consecration (echoing the still-remembered Shah-dynasty royal अभिषेक) rather than a gift given to every ordinary believer.
11. Perfected love (4:12,17-18) — Risk of drifting toward सिद्ध-style self-attained spiritual perfection if पूर्ण is ever paired with practice/effort language.
12. Seed of God (3:9) — Risk of Tantric बीज मन्त्र (seed-syllable with inherent power) misreading if the metaphor is presented as a formula rather than implanted new life.
13. Confess (1:9; 4:2-3,15) — Risk of assimilation to ritual/penitential confession-practices (rather than public, verbal, once-for-all acknowledgment) if not held to the same fixed-confession discipline as the doctrinal test in 4:15.
14. Word of Life (1:1) — Risk of Vedic वाक्/शब्द ब्रह्म (Shabda Brahman) misreading of वचन as impersonal cosmic sound-principle rather than the personal, physically-encountered Son.
15. Cleanse (1:7,9) — Risk of the शुद्ध root (already flagged as unsafe for “holy” in the baseline) being heard as repeatable ritual bathing/purification rather than a once-for-all forensic/moral act of Christ.
16. The Holy One — referent ambiguity (2:20) — Uncertainty whether this singular title refers to Christ or the Father requires theologian confirmation before the coinage पवित्र प्रभुबाट is finalized; secondary risk of confusion with baseline’s plural पवित्र जन.
17. Testify / testimony (1:2; 4:14; 5:6-11) — Risk of assimilation to jhankri/dhami channeled-oracle testimony rather than remembered apostolic eyewitness report.
18. Know — relational (2:3-4; 3:1,6; 4:7-8) — Risk of drift toward esoteric guru-initiated secret knowledge rather than ethical/relational knowledge evidenced by obedience and love.

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Summary for Phase 2 Preparation

• 11 new coinages (Section B.1) must be added to an updated translation_memory.json before any Phase 2 segment translation begins.
• 9 crowded semantic neighborhoods (Section B.2) require standing translator notes/fencing language attached to every doctrinally weighted occurrence, not just a one-time glossary definition.
• πνεῦμα disambiguation (Rank 1) is the single highest-priority pre-translation task: every occurrence across chapters 3–5 must be individually tagged before segment translation proceeds, consistent with the baseline’s existing per-occurrence review discipline for Critical-tier terms.
• The core passage (4:7–21) contains four of the top five ranked ambiguities (God is Love, propitiation, born of God via 4:7, and the Spirit/testing-adjacent material bleeding in from 4:1-6) and should be treated as the highest-density review zone in the entire letter for Phase 2 Step 17 routing.