Linguistic Gap Analysis — Ephesians (Nepali)

Purpose and Method

This document performs the Phase 1 linguistic gap analysis for the Ephesians curriculum, in Nepali. Its job is to answer, for every doctrine named in the curriculum parameters and for the full sweep of Ephesians 1–6, three questions:

1. Does Nepali already have an adequate, doctrinally-safe word for this concept? (Reuse from the Romans baseline.)
2. Where Nepali has NO adequate word (a true gap), what strategy — compounding, paraphrase, transliteration, or coinage — best carries the concept without either flattening it or importing a foreign frame?
3. Where Nepali has TOO MANY candidate words, each pulling toward a different, doctrinally dangerous semantic neighborhood (a “crowded neighborhood”), which single term should be selected and what fencing (mandatory clarifying notes, forbidden-substitution rules) must surround it?

This analysis was conducted against the full text of Ephesians 1–6, cross-checked chapter by chapter, and against the Romans baseline’s established risk conventions. Findings here are carried forward into the semantic analysis (Step 7) and finalized in the core glossary (Step 8) and the updated translation memory / term registry / doctrine risk registry.

Every one of Ephesians’ 6 chapters was reviewed for gap analysis purposes:

• Ch. 1 — election, predestination, headship, fullness, heavenly places, power/might vocabulary cluster.
• Ch. 2 — the core passage (2:1–10): grace/works antithesis, mercy, trespass, age, desire, nature, union-with-Christ compounds; also 2:11–22: dividing wall, one new humanity, reconciliation, access, temple metaphor.
• Ch. 3 — mystery, revelation, knowledge, stewardship, fellow heirs, cosmic powers.
• Ch. 4 — calling/unity vocabulary, ascension gifts, mature man, old/new man, walk.
• Ch. 5 — children of light, idolater, sacrificial love, household submission introduction, sanctify-by-washing, one flesh.
• Ch. 6 — household codes conclusion (slaves/masters, impartiality), armor of God, spiritual-warfare power vocabulary, wrestle-not-against-flesh, intercession.

No chapter contributes zero new terms; all six are represented in the sections below.

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Section 1 — Doctrine Vocabulary Matrix

For each of the nine curriculum doctrines: the Nepali terms already available (mostly via the Romans baseline), their weaknesses when stretched to cover Ephesians’ specific claims, and the recommended strategy.

1. Salvation by Grace through Faith

Available terms	Weaknesses when applied to Ephesians	Recommended strategy
अनुग्रह (grace, baseline High), विश्वास (faith, baseline High), उद्धार (salvation, baseline Critical), पाप (sin, baseline High)	These baseline terms were fixed against Romans’ argument (justification as forensic verdict). Ephesians 2:1-10 adds a cluster of supporting vocabulary the baseline never had to render: ἔργον (“works,” contrasted with grace at 2:9), χάρις-adjacent ἔλεος (“mercy,” 2:4), δῶρον (“gift,” 2:8), ποίημα (“workmanship,” 2:10), παράπτωμα (“trespass,” 2:1/2:5). None of these has an established Nepali Bible-translation slot from the Romans baseline.	GAP. Requires new coinage decisions (see Section 2.1: काम for ἔργον, दया for ἔλεος, उपहार for δῶρον, रचना for ποίημα, अपराध for παράπτωμα). अनुग्रह/विश्वास/उद्धार/पाप are reused unchanged.

2. Election and Predestination in Christ

Available terms	Weaknesses	Recommended strategy
परमेश्वरको छनोट (election, baseline High) covers ἐκλέγομαι (1:4) adequately.	Baseline has NO term at all for προορίζω (“predestine,” 1:5, 1:11) — this specific compound verb never occurs in Romans’ vocabulary set the baseline was built from (Romans uses more general “foreknew/predestined” language at 8:29-30 but the baseline glossary did not isolate a dedicated term). Ephesians makes προορίζω a headline verb, naming the curriculum doctrine directly.	GAP. Coin पूर्वनिर्धारण गर्नु (“to determine beforehand”) as a new Critical-risk entry, fenced against भाग्य/किस्मत (fate) exactly as election already is.

3. The Church as the Body of Christ

Available terms	Weaknesses	Recommended strategy
मण्डली (church, baseline Medium), शरीर (generic word, not yet assigned a doctrinal sense)	Baseline’s मण्डली was fixed for ἐκκλησία generically; Romans never required a developed body-metaphor vocabulary (κεφαλή “head,” σῶμα “body,” πλήρωμα “fullness,” ἀνακεφαλαιόω “sum up”). Ephesians is the NT’s densest concentration of body-of-Christ organic-union language.	CROWDED NEIGHBORHOOD for κεφαλή (शिर vs. टाउको vs. मालिक-adjacent domination readings) and for πλήρωμα (पूर्णता vs. Upanishadic pūrṇa). Requires fencing, not mere reuse. See Section 2.2.

4. Unity of Jews and Gentiles in One New Humanity

Available terms	Weaknesses	Recommended strategy
अन्यजाति (Gentiles), व्यवस्था (law), करार (covenant) — all baseline High/Medium, transfer cleanly.	Romans’ unity-of-Jew-and-Gentile doctrine (3:29-30, 11:17-24) never required a term for a literal, named, physically-torn-down architectural barrier. Ephesians 2:14’s μεσότοιχον τοῦ φραγμοῦ (“dividing wall”) and 2:15’s καινὸς ἄνθρωπος (“one new humanity”) are new images with no baseline equivalent, and both map onto Nepal’s caste history with unusual precision — a resonance the baseline never had occasion to name because Romans does not use this specific architectural metaphor.	GAP with high doctrinal payoff. New terms बीचको पर्खाल and एक नयाँ मानिस required; both should be flagged for theologian review given their direct resonance with the Muluki Ain’s caste code (in force until 1963).

5. The Mystery of Christ Revealed

Available terms	Weaknesses	Recommended strategy
प्रकाशन-adjacent vocabulary exists nowhere in the baseline; अगमवाणी (prophecy) and अगमवक्ता (prophet) are the nearest baseline neighbors but describe a different concept (predictive/declarative speech, not “a hidden thing now disclosed”).	Romans never uses μυστήριον as a major structural term (it occurs but is not load-bearing the way it is in Ephesians 1:9, 3:3-6, 3:9, 5:32, 6:19). This is a genuine gap: no baseline decision exists to reuse.	GAP + CROWDED NEIGHBORHOOD simultaneously. रहस्य is the only natural Nepali candidate, but it sits inside a semantic neighborhood dominated by Newar Tantric and Hindu Tantric esoteric “secret knowledge for initiates only” associations — precisely the OPPOSITE of Paul’s point (formerly hidden, now openly proclaimed to all). Requires mandatory fencing at every occurrence. See Section 2.2 and Section 4 (ranked #1 risk).

6. Spiritual Warfare and the Armor of God

Available terms	Weaknesses	Recommended strategy
परमेश्वरको सामर्थ्य (power of God, baseline High, शक्ति forbidden) transfers directly.	Romans’ power vocabulary is not stacked in “rank” terms the way Ephesians piles up ἀρχή/ἐξουσία/δύναμις/κυριότης (1:21) and κράτος/ἰσχύς (1:19-20, 6:10), nor does Romans have a hostile-power vocabulary requiring the studied exception of शक्ति used FOR evil forces (6:12). Nor does Romans contain literal armor-piece compounds.	GAP (no baseline terms for cosmic-rank vocabulary or armor-piece compounds) requiring a full new sub-glossary, built carefully on already-fixed Critical/High roots (धार्मिकता, सुसमाचार, शान्ति, विश्वास, उद्धार) so the compounds inherit existing protections rather than requiring fresh decisions.

7. Household Codes and Christ-Centered Relationships

Available terms	Weaknesses	Recommended strategy
प्रभु (Lord, baseline Critical, reserved for Christ)	Ephesians 6:5, 6:9 uses the SAME Greek word κύριος for a human slave-owner — a usage Romans never requires the baseline to handle, since Romans has no household-code section. Naively reusing प्रभु for “master” would breach the baseline’s own Critical reservation.	GAP requiring a deliberate SPLIT decision: मालिक for the human sense, प्रभु retained only for the divine referent even within the same verse (6:9). Also new: दास (slaves) — a term with unusually recent living-memory weight in Nepal (kamaiya system abolished 2000, haliya system abolished 2008) that Romans never had occasion to introduce.

8. Gifts for Building Up the Church

Available terms	Weaknesses	Recommended strategy
आत्मिक वरदान (spiritual gifts, baseline Medium), प्रेरित (apostle, baseline Medium) transfer cleanly.	Baseline’s आत्मिक वरदान was fixed for χάρισμα (general Spirit-given ability, Romans 12:6-8). Ephesians 4:7-11 uses a DIFFERENT Greek word family (δόμα/δωρεά) for OFFICE-gifts (apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, teacher) — a distinction Romans’ vocabulary set never forced the baseline to draw.	GAP requiring a person/office vs. ability distinction to be newly drawn in Nepali, using वरदान for the office-gifts while keeping आत्मिक वरदान reserved for general ability-gifts, to avoid collapsing two different Pauline categories into one Nepali phrase.

9. Walking in Newness of Life

Available terms	Weaknesses	Recommended strategy
पवित्रीकरण (sanctification, baseline High) transfers for the general doctrine, but Romans never needed a term for the CONDUCT-METAPHOR verb περιπατέω (“walk,” used as the letter’s structuring ethical inclusio at 2:2/2:10/4:1/4:17/5:2/5:8/5:15) nor for the compound ἀνανεόω/ἀνακαινόω (“renewed,” 4:23).	Both are gaps. चालचलन गर्नु sits in a crowded neighborhood shared with व्यवस्था/धर्म’s “path of duty” connotations; नवीकरण गर्नु sits adjacent to the Critical-fenced पुनर्जन्म prohibition already established for resurrection.	GAP + adjacency to an existing CROWDED/FORBIDDEN neighborhood. New terms required, with नवीकरण गर्नु explicitly cross-referenced to the existing पुनर्जन्म ban so translators do not accidentally drift toward rebirth-adjacent phrasing when rendering “renewal.”

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Section 2 — Missing Vocabulary vs. Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods

2.1 True Gaps (no existing Nepali Bible-translation term; new coinage/compound required)

These concepts have no established Nepali Christian rendering to draw on from the Romans baseline, because Romans’ argument never required them. Each needs a first-time decision:

Concept	Greek	Gap type	Chosen strategy
Works (as excluded basis)	ἔργον	No prior Pauline-antithesis term fixed	Plain, doctrinally-unloaded काम (never कर्म)
Good works (as fruit)	ἔργα ἀγαθά	Must share root with ἔργον above	असल काम — same root, preserving Paul’s 2:9→2:10 wordplay
Predestination	προορίζω	Never isolated as its own term in Romans baseline	पूर्वनिर्धारण गर्नु (coined compound, Critical)
Dividing wall	μεσότοιχον τοῦ φραγμοῦ	No architectural-barrier metaphor in Romans	बीचको पर्खाल
One new humanity	καινὸς ἄνθρωπος (εἷς)	Distinct from generic “new man”	एक नयाँ मानिस
Mystery (technical NT sense)	μυστήριον	Not load-bearing in Romans	रहस्य + mandatory note (see 2.2 below — also crowded)
Ascension-gift offices	δόμα/δωρεά	Distinct Greek family from χάρισμα	वरदान (office-gift), distinguished from आत्मिक वरदान (ability-gift)
Mature/complete man	τέλειος ἀνήρ	No Romans equivalent	परिपक्व मानिस (सिद्ध forbidden)
Cosmic-rank powers	ἀρχή/ἐξουσία/δύναμις/κυριότης	Romans never stacks these four	अधिपति / अधिकार / सामर्थ्य / प्रभुत्व
Armor-piece compounds	θώραξ, ὑπόδημα, θυρεός, περικεφαλαία, μάχαιρα	No military-metaphor vocabulary in Romans	Fixed compounds built on existing Critical/High roots
Human “master” (household)	κύριος (human sense)	Romans has no household-code section	मालिक (never प्रभु)
Slaves	δοῦλος	Romans never addresses bonded labor directly	दास, with mandatory relativizing teaching note
Walk (conduct metaphor)	περιπατέω	Romans uses this verb far less structurally	हिँड्नु / चालचलन गर्नु, fenced against dharma-path readings
Renewal (of mind)	ἀνανεόω/ἀνακαινόω	Distinct from baseline resurrection vocabulary	नवीकरण गर्नु, explicitly distanced from पुनर्जन्म
Children of light	τέκνα φωτός	Hebraic idiom absent from Romans	उज्यालोका सन्तान (not ज्योतिका सन्तान)
Union-with-Christ compounds	συζωοποιέω/συνεγείρω/συγκαθίζω	Romans 6 has union-with-Christ language but not these exact three stacked compounds at 2:5-6	ख्रीष्टसाथ जीवित बनाइनु / उठाइनु / बसाइनु

Observation: the density of true gaps in Ephesians is markedly higher than would be expected from a “sister Pauline letter” already covered by the Romans baseline. This is because Ephesians 1–3 is doxological/cosmic in register (predestination, cosmic powers, mystery, heavenly places) while Romans’ argument is forensic/covenantal — the two letters simply do not overlap in vocabulary as much as their shared authorship might suggest. Phase 2 translators should not assume Romans-derived fluency automatically extends to Ephesians; roughly 40% of this glossary’s Section B entries are genuinely new coinages, not baseline extensions.

2.2 Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods (multiple candidate words, each historically pulled toward a different competing frame; fencing required)

These are the inverse problem: Nepali is NOT short of words, but every available word carries some pre-existing weight from Nepal’s Hindu, Buddhist, or historically state-Hindu-monarchy context that risks smuggling in the wrong doctrine.

Concept	Candidate Nepali words	Competing frame each pulls toward	Fence required
Mystery (μυστήριον)	रहस्य (chosen), गुप्त ज्ञान (rejected)	Newar Tantric/Hindu Tantric initiated-elite secret-knowledge tradition (mantras, guru-transmitted rites reserved for initiates)	Mandatory clarifying note at EVERY occurrence (1:9, 3:3-6, 3:9, 5:32, 6:19): formerly hidden, now OPENLY proclaimed to ALL — the opposite structure of an esoteric mystery
Knowledge (ἐπίγνωσις)	ज्ञान (chosen, fenced), चिनजान (lower-risk alt.)	Jnana-marga / Buddhist prajñā — self-attained liberating knowledge through one’s own contemplative discipline	Mandatory note distinguishing REVEALED, RELATIONAL, Spirit-given knowledge from self-attained gnosis; प्रयोग चिनजान in catechetical/lower-register contexts
Head (κεφαλή)	शिर (chosen), टाउको (rejected as too colloquial/anatomical)	Caste- and patriarchy-inflected domination/rank reading, given Nepal’s historically hierarchical social structures	Every occurrence (1:22, 4:15, 5:23) must be taught alongside 5:25/5:29’s self-giving, life-sustaining sense — never rank alone
Fullness (πλήρωμα)	पूर्णता (chosen)	Upanishadic pūrṇa — the Shanti mantra’s impersonal metaphysical totality (Brahman as self-sufficient, undifferentiated whole)	Mandatory note: Christ’s PERSONAL, relational filling of a people who remain distinct persons, not an impersonal totality absorbing distinction
Heavenly places (ἐπουράνιος)	स्वर्गीय स्थान (chosen)	Hindu svarga — a TEMPORARY merit-realm one eventually falls from and re-enters the rebirth cycle	Standing note: secure, PERMANENT position in Christ, already-and-not-yet, never provisional
Nature (φύσις, “by nature”)	स्वभाव (chosen)	jāti-svabhāva — the idea that different castes/classes possess different inborn natures by birth	Note: applies EQUALLY and UNIVERSALLY to all humanity regardless of caste/birth — reinforces rather than undermines caste-unity doctrine
Desire (ἐπιθυμία) vs. Will (θέλημα)	लालसा / इच्छा (chosen split)	Both could collapse to इच्छा; वासना (rejected for ἐπιθυμία) is a technical Yogācāra Buddhist term for karmic impressions carried across lives	Fixed split required: इच्छा reserved for God’s will/purpose, लालसा for sinful craving — never वासना
Walk (περιπατέω)	चालचलन गर्नु (chosen)	व्यवस्था/धर्म-adjacent “path of duty” — dharma-marga, the Buddhist eightfold PATH	Standing note: conduct FLOWS FROM grace-given identity, not a self-directed path of religious merit
Idolater (εἰδωλολάτρης)	मूर्तिपूजक (chosen, unavoidable)	Names mainstream, widely-honored Hindu/Buddhist devotional image-veneration practice directly, not a fringe practice	Mandatory pastoral-tone note: diagnoses covetousness as a spiritual condition, not an ethnographic condemnation of neighbors’ religious practice
Blessing (εὐλογία)	आशिष् (chosen) vs. आशीर्वाद (rejected)	आशीर्वाद carries ritual weight (elder/guru blessing via foot-touching, a hierarchical mediated ritual act)	आशिष् avoids the human-mediated-ritual association; God’s DIRECT gift, no intermediary
Church-as-temple metaphor (ναός)	पवित्र मन्दिर (narrow exception) vs. मण्डली (baseline default)	मन्दिर is otherwise fully banned (Hindu temple); relaxing the ban even narrowly risks bleeding into the general church term	Exception restricted to ναός’s specific metaphorical use (2:21) only; mandatory clarifying note every time; flagged for theologian review
Power/Might cluster (δύναμις, ἐνέργεια, κράτος, ἰσχύς, and the hostile 6:12 πνευματικὰ τῆς πονηρίας)	सामर्थ्य / पराक्रम / बल (chosen) vs. शक्ति (banned for God, narrowly permitted only for HOSTILE forces at 6:12)	शक्ति’s Newar Tantric Shakta/Kumari living-goddess cult association, centered in the Kathmandu Valley	शक्ति permitted ONLY when explicitly naming the ENEMY to be resisted (6:12), never God’s own power; flagged for theologian review whenever शक्ति appears at all

General principle emerging from this analysis: Ephesians’ cosmic, doxological register (chapters 1 and 3 especially) surfaces MORE crowded-neighborhood risk than Romans did, because Romans’ forensic/legal register (justification, law, works) maps onto legal/social categories (caste law) more than onto Nepal’s devotional and Tantric religious vocabulary. Ephesians, by contrast, repeatedly brushes against Hindu/Buddhist devotional and esoteric vocabulary (mystery, fullness, heavenly places, gnosis, idol-worship) that the Romans baseline was never tested against. Phase 2 reviewers should expect a higher density of mandatory clarifying notes per chapter in Ephesians 1, 3, and 5 than was typical in Romans.

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Section 3 — Transliteration vs. Paraphrase Decisions

Nepali Bible tradition already transliterates a small, fixed set of terms (मसीह, आमेन, हल्लेलूयाह, अब्बा) where no native paraphrase adequately carries the term’s force, or where the transliteration itself has become the established liturgical form. This section evaluates each Ephesians-specific candidate for the same treatment.

Term	Transliterate?	Decision	Rationale
μυστήριον (mystery)	Considered	Paraphrase (रहस्य), NOT transliterate	A Nepali transliteration (मिस्टेरियन) would be unintelligible to the target reading level (Class 8-10) and would forfeit the chance to teach the term’s meaning through a familiar word placed under careful fencing. Paraphrase + mandatory note is more pedagogically effective than a foreign-sounding loanword here.
ἀββά (Abba)	Already fixed in baseline	Retain transliteration (अब्बा) — Ephesians does not use this word, but 1:2/1:17/2:18/3:14 Father-language is adjacent; confirming baseline treatment is unaffected by Ephesians.	No change; baseline decision stands.
πανοπλία (armor)	Considered	Paraphrase (हातहतियार, “weapons/equipment”), NOT transliterate	Military equipment has a natural, non-loaded Nepali vocabulary; no collision risk requiring foreignizing treatment.
κοσμοκράτωρ (world-ruler)	Considered	Paraphrase (यस अन्धकारका शासकहरू), NOT transliterate	A NT-unique compound; transliteration would obscure rather than clarify meaning to first-time readers; a descriptive phrase communicates the hostile-cosmic-rank sense directly.
ἐπίγνωσις (fuller knowledge)	Considered	Paraphrase with fenced native term (ज्ञान + note; चिनजान as alt.), NOT transliterate	The term’s power lies precisely in contrast with existing Nepali religious vocabulary (Jnana-marga); a transliteration would sidestep the necessary confrontation with that vocabulary rather than reclaim it under a fence, as गोठाला/भजन have already been successfully “won” for Christian use elsewhere in this glossary.
δόμα / δωρεά (ascension-gift offices)	Considered	Paraphrase (वरदान, reusing existing root), NOT transliterate	No collision requiring foreignization; reuse of an already-domesticated root is preferable to introducing a new loanword.
Χριστός in the compound “in Christ” formula	Already Nepali Bible standard	Retain transliteration (ख्रीष्ट)	Already the established form; Ephesians’ heavy structural reliance on “in Christ Jesus” (occurring far more densely than in Romans) makes CONSISTENCY of this transliterated form, not a new decision, the operative requirement.
σιδ- root risk term “mature”	N/A (this is a REJECTED Nepali term, not a Greek transliteration decision)	Reject सिद्ध; use परिपक्व	Recorded here for completeness: this is a case where a paraphrase using a NON-transliterated, non-loaded native word (परिपक्व) was deliberately chosen over an available but doctrinally dangerous native alternative (सिद्ध) — the opposite direction of the transliteration question, but the same fencing logic.

General finding: Ephesians requires zero new transliteration decisions beyond what the Romans baseline already fixed (मसीह, आमेन, हल्लेलूयाह, अब्बा, ख्रीष्ट, येशू). Every new Ephesians-specific concept is better served by a paraphrase-plus-fence strategy than by importing a foreign-sounding term, because Ephesians’ distinctive vocabulary (mystery, fullness, headship, cosmic powers) gains its rhetorical force specifically from confronting and redefining existing Nepali religious vocabulary — a rhetorical move that transliteration would forfeit.

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Section 4 — Ranked List of Ephesians’ Highest-Risk Ambiguities

Ranked by combined severity (doctrinal centrality × likelihood of misreading through an available competing Nepali religious frame). All rank-1 through rank-8 items require mandatory human theologian review per the doctrine risk registry’s Critical/High routing convention.

1. μυστήριον / रहस्य (“mystery,” 1:9, 3:3-9, 5:32, 6:19) — Highest risk. The single Nepali candidate word carries the OPPOSITE structural meaning (elite, initiated, secret-forever) from the biblical concept (formerly hidden, now openly proclaimed to all). No synonym escapes this collision; only a mandatory note at every occurrence mitigates it. Directly touches the curriculum’s “Mystery of Christ Revealed” doctrine by name.

2. προορίζω / पूर्वनिर्धारण गर्नु (“predestined,” 1:5, 1:11) alongside ἐκλέγομαι / परमेश्वरको छनोट (“chose,” 1:4) — Both terms sit immediately adjacent to Nepal’s dominant भाग्य/किस्मत (fate) and कर्मको नियम (law of karma) frameworks. Because Ephesians states this doctrine even more emphatically and repeatedly than Romans 8-9, the risk of a fatalistic misreading — read as “your karma/destiny was already fixed” rather than “a personal, loving God chose you” — is elevated relative to the baseline.

3. ἔργον / काम vs. κάρμα (“works,” 2:9 excluded / 2:10 affirmed) — The core passage’s central antithesis. If a translator or reviewer unconsciously reaches for कर्म (an extremely natural, high-frequency Nepali word for “deed/action”), the ENTIRE core-passage argument collapses into a philosophical anti-karma statement rather than a positive grace-claim. The wordplay linking v.9 and v.10 (same root, opposite theological function) doubles the risk: two separate but linked failure points in a single ten-verse unit.

4. κεφαλή / शिर (“head,” 1:22, 4:15, 5:23) — Both an ecclesiological term (Christ as head of the church) and a household term (husband as head of wife) use the identical Nepali word, compounding two separate collision risks (caste-hierarchy misreading for the ecclesial sense; patriarchal-domination misreading for the household sense) onto one lexical item.

5. κύριος applied to a human “master” (6:5, 6:9) vs. κύριος reserved for Christ (throughout) — A single Greek word requiring a hard Nepali split (मालिक vs. प्रभु) specifically to protect the baseline’s Critical Christological reservation. The risk is not primarily cultural-religious collision but INTERNAL CONSISTENCY failure: a translator working quickly through 6:5-9 could easily default to प्रभु for “masters” by habit, breaching the baseline’s most tightly guarded Critical term.

6. πλήρωμα / पूर्णता (“fullness,” 1:23, 3:19, 4:13) — Direct lexical overlap with the Sanskrit/Nepali Hindu philosophical vocabulary of Upanishadic pūrṇa (the Shanti mantra’s impersonal, self-sufficient totality). Risk is compounded by the term’s repeated, structurally significant use across three separate chapters.

7. μεσότοιχον τοῦ φραγμοῦ / बीचको पर्खाल (“dividing wall,” 2:14) and καινὸς ἄνθρωπος / एक नयाँ मानिस (“one new humanity,” 2:15) — High doctrinal payoff paired with high misapplication risk: if taught without care, this could be flattened into a purely social/political statement about Nepal’s own caste history, detached from its specifically Christological ground (Christ’s own body breaking the wall, not merely an ethical ideal of tolerance).

8. δοῦλος / दास and κύριος(human) / मालिक (“slaves and masters,” 6:5-9) — Given the unusually RECENT abolition of Nepal’s own bonded-labor systems (kamaiya, 2000; haliya, 2008), this passage carries live social memory risk: readers may hear either an endorsement of bonded labor or an anachronistic political statement unless the passage is carefully framed as addressing (and relativizing under Christ) a pre-existing first-century institution.

9. ἐπίγνωσις / ज्ञान (“knowledge of the Son of God,” 4:13; cf. 1:17) — Direct terminological overlap with the primary Hindu/Buddhist word for self-attained liberating knowledge (jñāna, prajñā); Ephesians’ insistence that this knowledge is revealed and relational, not self-attained, runs directly against the grain of the word’s dominant cultural usage.

10. ἐπουράνιος / स्वर्गीय स्थान (“heavenly places,” 1:3, 1:20, 2:6, 3:10, 6:12) — Repeated five times across the letter, each occurrence risks importing the Hindu svarga’s TEMPORARY, fall-from-able quality into what Ephesians presents as a secure, permanent position in Christ.

11. εἰδωλολάτρης / मूर्तिपूजक (“idolater,” 5:5) — Lower doctrinal-centrality risk than items 1-10, but higher social-relational risk: this word names practices that are mainstream, majority, and honored (not fringe) in Nepali religious life, requiring exceptionally careful pastoral framing to avoid reading as ethnographic condemnation of neighbors and family members.

12. πνευματικὰ τῆς πονηρίας / दुष्ट आत्मिक शक्तिहरू (“spiritual forces of evil,” 6:12) — The narrow, deliberately-fenced exception permitting शक्ति (otherwise Critically banned for God’s power) to be used for HOSTILE forces. Risk: if the fencing note is dropped in any downstream teaching material, शक्ति could be read as naming a legitimate, invokable power rather than an enemy to be resisted — precisely inverting the doctrine.

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Recommendations Carried Forward to Step 7 (Semantic Analysis) and Step 8 (Core Glossary)

1. Every “true gap” term in Section 2.1 requires a first-time risk-tier assignment and rejected-alternatives list, to be finalized in the core glossary and then merged into translation_memory.json/bible_term_registry.json before Phase 2 begins.
2. Every “crowded neighborhood” term in Section 2.2 requires a standing mandatory clarifying note, to be encoded as a reusable footnote template in Phase 2 tooling so reviewers do not have to re-derive the fencing language at each occurrence.
3. The ranked list in Section 4 should directly determine review-queue priority in Phase 2 Step 17 (Doctrinal Fidelity Review): items 1-8 require human theologian review at every occurrence without exception; items 9-12 require at minimum native-speaker review with theologian escalation on any ambiguous rendering.
4. No new transliteration decisions are needed; all new Ephesians vocabulary should be handled through native paraphrase plus fencing, consistent with Section 3’s findings.
5. Because Ephesians’ register is more doxological/cosmic than Romans’ forensic/legal register, Phase 2 QA should expect a higher density of flagged segments per chapter in Ephesians 1, 3, and 5 than was typical for the Romans curriculum, and should staff theologian review capacity accordingly.