Linguistic Gap Analysis
Linguistic Gap Analysis: Matthew 1–28 (Persian Destination Language)
Purpose and Method
This document executes Phase 1 Step 8 for the Matthew curriculum. It does not re-derive terms already fixed by the Romans baseline or already catalogued in 08_core_glossary.md / bible_term_registry.json; it instead analyzes the shape of the Persian lexical field those terms sit inside — where Persian is vocabulary-rich but theologically crowded (multiple candidate words, each dragging in unwanted doctrinal baggage from Islam, Shia devotional practice, Zoroastrianism, or Sufi mysticism), and where Persian is genuinely vocabulary-poor (no existing term carries the needed doctrinal freight at all, forcing either a compound, a transliteration, or a heavily-glossed paraphrase).
Four outputs follow, per the Step 8 mandate:
- Doctrine Vocabulary Matrix — the nine curriculum doctrines, their available Persian term options, weaknesses, and recommended strategy.
- Missing Vocabulary vs. Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods — a structural map of where Persian has too many options (fencing required) versus too few (coinage/compounding required).
- Transliteration vs. Paraphrase Decisions — a term-by-term rationale for which Matthew-specific vocabulary should be transliterated, translated, or compounded, extending baseline precedent (عمانوئیل, ابا).
- Ranked List of Highest-Risk Ambiguities — the curriculum’s most dangerous collision points, ordered by combined doctrinal centrality, collision severity, and frequency of occurrence.
1. Doctrine Vocabulary Matrix
| Doctrine | Available Persian term(s) | Weaknesses of each option | Recommended strategy |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Kingdom of Heaven | ملکوت آسمان (new); ملکوت خدا (baseline) | ملکوت carries genuine, positive royal-court resonance in Persian (also used of the Achaemenid/Sasanian ideal of just kingship), which helps — but “heaven” as a place-word (آسمان) risks a literal sky/afterlife-only reading; both phrases also sit uncomfortably close to Iran’s own explicitly religious-political state model (Velayat-e Faqih), where clerical rule claims divine sovereignty over an actual nation-state | Use ملکوت آسمان as Matthew’s dominant idiom, teach explicit synonymy with baseline’s ملکوت خدا at first occurrence (3:2) and repeat the synonymy note at major turning points (4:17; 13:1-52; 19:23-24), and explicitly distinguish God’s present, spiritual, already-and-not-yet reign from any territorial-political state claiming divine mandate |
| Jesus as the Promised Messiah and Son of David | مسیح (baseline); پسر داوود (new); نسل داوود (baseline, descriptive-only) | مسیح carries pre-loaded Quranic content and Shia Mahdi-centered displacement (per baseline); پسر داوود as a vocative acclamation (crowds shouting it, 9:27; 21:9) risks being heard as mere royal-lineage praise-title rather than an exclusive salvation-claim, especially given that Davud in the Quran lacks covenant-king/messianic-heir typology | Every acclamation-use of پسر داوود must be paired, within the same teaching unit, with an explicit statement of Christ’s unique redemptive sufficiency — not left to stand as an honorific alone; supply the covenant-king typology (2 Samuel 7) Persian readers do not already possess |
| Fulfillment of Old Testament Prophecy | تحقق یافت (fulfilled); نبوت (prophecy, baseline) | Persian/Shia religious culture has a ready-made competing framework — naskh (نسخ), abrogation, where later revelation replaces rather than completes earlier revelation; “fulfillment” risks being silently reprocessed as “replacement” | Consistently use تحقق یافت (“has come to pass / been realized”) rather than any term suggesting cancellation; pair each of Matthew’s ten formal fulfillment-quotations (1:22-23; 2:15; 2:17-18; 2:23; 4:14-16; 8:17; 12:17-21; 13:35; 21:4-5; 27:9-10) with an explicit contrast note against naskh |
| The Authority of Jesus’ Teaching | اختیار (new, inherent authority); قدرت خدا (baseline, raw power); یک نظر فقهی/اجتهاد (juristic-opinion register, rejected) | قدرت خدا conflates raw power with the distinct legal/moral standing Matthew means; a juristic-opinion register would reduce “you have heard… but I say” (5:21-48) to one ijtihad among competing scholarly opinions, exactly the opposite of Matthew’s point; اختیار itself can, in bureaucratic/legal registers, sound merely administrative | Reserve اختیار specifically for Jesus’ inherent teaching/forgiving/judging authority (7:29; 9:6; 21:23-27; 28:18); never render 5:21-48’s antitheses in a way that frames Jesus as offering an alternative juristic ruling alongside existing ones |
| Righteousness Exceeding the Pharisees | عدالت (baseline); تقوا (piety, rejected); پارسایی (rejected per baseline) | تقوا is the load-bearing Quranic virtue-term for God-consciousness/piety and would import an achievement-of-piety framework Matthew’s whole 5:20/6:1-18 argument is dismantling; پارسایی remains rejected for its Zoroastrian ethical-purity loading per baseline | Retain baseline’s عدالت throughout (5:6,10,20; 6:33); explicitly teach 5:20 (“exceed the righteousness of the Pharisees”) as a righteousness of the heart flowing from relationship with God, not superior external performance of the same category the Pharisees practiced |
| The Church and Church Discipline | کلیسا (baseline); بستن و گشودن (new); کلیدهای ملکوت (new) | کلیسا’s real referent for Persian speakers today is the underground house-church, not an institution with visible legislative-doctrinal authority; “binding and loosing” and “keys” risk being read as an independent, infallible, transferable religious-legal office — structurally identical in shape to the Imamate/velayat-e faqih model of ongoing authoritative succession | Teach 16:18-19 and 18:15-20 as the church’s Spirit-guided recognition of gospel truth already established in Christ, never as an independently generative or infallible legislative authority parallel to clerical succession; keep church discipline procedural language (18:15-17) concrete and pastoral, not juridical-institutional |
| The Great Commission | ماموریت (baseline); همه ملتها (new, inclusive); تعمید (new); به نام پدر و پسر و روحالقدس (new) | ماموریت is safely neutral, but the Trinitarian baptismal formula (28:19) is the single sharpest tawhid-collision point in the whole book, and open evangelistic “mission” language carries genuine legal/social danger for underground house-church readers under Iran’s apostasy norms | Teach 28:19-20 with the “one name, three Persons” clarification every time; frame the Commission pastorally as the church’s own calling rather than an open missionary-activism directive, explicitly naming (without sensationalizing) the real safety stakes for both speaker and hearer |
| Judgment and the End of the Age | پایان این دوران (new, preferred); آخرالزمان (rejected); جهنم (baseline-established, retained); ظهور (rejected); آمدن دوباره/بازگشت (new, preferred) | آخرالزمان and ظهور are not neutral synonyms available for free substitution — they are the specific, load-bearing technical vocabulary of Twelver Shia Mahdist eschatology (concealment/ghaybat, reappearance/zohur); جهنم is retained per established Bible-translation precedent but is textually identical to the Quranic term for Hell | Use پایان این دوران and آمدن دوباره/بازگشت exclusively for Matthew’s eschatology (ch. 24-25); retain جهنم but require theologian review at every occurrence to confirm judgment is framed within the gospel’s grace-then-fruit structure, not a bare mizan deeds-weighing outcome |
| Discipleship and the Cost of Following Jesus | شاگرد (baseline); پیروی کردن (new); یوغ (new); مصلوب کردن/صلیب (new) | شاگرد/پیروی کردن risk defaulting to the familiar Sufi pir-o-morid (master-disciple) hierarchical model, where the human master mediates a transferable spiritual authority; the cross-bearing metaphor (10:38; 16:24) must not be softened into generic “suffering” or “sacrifice” language that avoids the specific crucifixion-denial collision | Teach discipleship explicitly as allegiance to a living, resurrected, divine Lord — not imitation of a departed teacher’s recorded sunnah-like example; retain the concrete cross/crucifixion vocabulary rather than euphemism, even where it is costlier to teach |
2. Missing Vocabulary vs. Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods
Persian’s relationship to Matthew’s vocabulary is not uniform. Two structurally different problems recur throughout the book, and they require opposite editorial responses.
2A. Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods (too many candidate words; each one imports unwanted doctrinal content — requires fencing, i.e., picking one term and explicitly ruling the others out)
These are areas where Persian is lexically rich but theologically contested — multiple live, fluent, everyday-usable words exist, and the danger is not obscurity but silent doctrinal substitution, because every available word already has a settled home in Islamic, Shia-devotional, Zoroastrian, or Sufi vocabulary.
| Concept | Crowded field | Fence drawn |
|---|---|---|
| Mercy | رحمت (Al-Rahman/Al-Rahim root) vs. no clean secular alternative | Keep رحمت (only real option) but mandate embodied-ethic teaching notes at every occurrence (5:7; 9:13; 18:33; 23:23; 25:31-46) so it does not remain a formulaic devotional recitation |
| Repentance | توبه (the load-bearing Islamic term) vs. no established Bible-tradition alternative | Keep توبه (established) but mandate Spirit-enabled/Christ-oriented framing at every occurrence (3:2; 4:17) — fencing here is not lexical substitution but mandatory doctrinal qualification |
| Mourning/Beatitude 2 | اندوهگینان (preferred) vs. ماتم (Muharram ritual-mourning technical term) vs. عزاداری (related ritual term) | Fence ماتم/عزاداری out entirely as primary renderings; reserve them only for explicit contrast notes distinguishing godly sorrow from ritualized Karbala lamentation |
| Meekness/Beatitude 3 | فروتن (preferred) vs. حلیم (a Divine Name, Al-Halim, and an unrelated dish-name) | Fence حلیم out; the theological-attribution collision (ascribing a Divine Name to human disciples) and the comic food-homonym both disqualify it |
| Love | محبت (established NT term) vs. عشق (Sufi mystical/erotic devotional vocabulary) | Fence عشق out for agapē; reserve محبت throughout (5:43-48; 22:37-39), with explicit contrast to eshq’s self-dissolving mystical register where the text is taught pastorally |
| Perfect | کامل (preferred, plain) vs. انسان کامل (the Sufi/Shia “Perfect Human” mystical-attainment station) | Use کامل but explicitly fence off the انسان کامل station-of-attainment reading at 5:48; this is a call to ordinary Spirit-empowered obedience, not an elite mystical rank |
| Almsgiving | صدقه (the exact, only fluent Persian word; also the precise Islamic voluntary-charity category) | No viable substitute exists — fencing is doctrinal, not lexical: teach 6:1-4’s secrecy principle as a direct, deliberate confrontation with sadaqeh’s public, socially-visible, merit-accruing character |
| Fasting | روزه (the exact, only fluent word; also THE Ramadan/Five-Pillars term) | Same pattern as almsgiving — no lexical alternative; fence via mandatory private/voluntary framing against public/obligatory/communal Ramadan practice |
| Worship (toward Jesus) | پرستش کردن (preferred, general adoration) vs. سجده کردن (exact Islamic ritual prostration reserved for Allah alone) | Fence سجده out entirely for proskyneō toward Jesus (2:11; 14:33; 28:9,17); flag every occurrence of پرستش کردن toward Jesus for theologian review since deity-of-Christ is the very thing at stake |
| Blasphemy against the Spirit | کفر (the foundational Islamic disbelief/apostasy category) vs. کفرگویی به روحالقدس (descriptive-phrase variant) | Prefer the fuller descriptive phrase where space allows, to reduce contamination from the kafir identity-category (with its social/legal apostasy consequences) that bare کفر would otherwise import wholesale |
| End of the age / Second Coming | آخرالزمان / ظهور (both the precise, popularly-anticipated Twelver Shia Mahdist package) vs. پایان این دوران / آمدن دوباره (literal, less loaded) | Hard fence: آخرالزمان and ظهور are forbidden substitutions (see Section 4, rank #1-2); no exceptions, no stylistic variation permitted |
| Retaliation | چشم به چشم (literal, only real option) — the underlying principle (qisas) is a live Iranian penal-code category, not a lexical crowding problem | No lexical fencing needed; pastoral-framing caution required instead, since 5:38-42 confronts a present legal reality, not merely an ancient one |
| Divorce | طلاق (the exact, only fluent word; also the precise, largely male-unilateral classical-fiqh legal category) | No lexical alternative exists; fence via explicit contrast with Iranian family-law defaults when teaching 5:31-32 and 19:3-9 |
2B. Missing Vocabulary (no existing Persian term carries the needed doctrinal freight at all; requires compounding, transliteration-plus-gloss, or a wholly new descriptive phrase)
These are areas where Persian’s problem is not too many competing words but none — Matthew introduces content with no ready-made Persian theological home.
| Concept | Why nothing exists | Strategy adopted |
|---|---|---|
| Son of Man’s Danielic authority-claim | Persian has پسر انسان as a literal calque, but nothing in Persian religious vocabulary carries Daniel 7:13-14’s specific “exalted, enthroned, universally-ruling figure who nonetheless appears humanly ordinary” paradox | Retain the literal compound پسر انسان but mandate an explanatory Danielic-background note at first occurrence (8:20) and at every Critical-tier use (9:6; 25:31; 28:18), so the title is not flattened into humility-language alone |
| Immanuel / “God with us” as a proper-name fulfillment-formula | No existing Persian term functions as a name that simultaneously asserts the Incarnation | Transliterate عمانوئیل with an explicit gloss (خدا با ما) attached at both bookend occurrences (1:23; echoed 28:20), following baseline’s precedent for retained transliteration-plus-gloss (cf. ابا) |
| “Fulfill” vs. “abolish” the Law as a single technical antithesis | Persian has words for “complete” and “cancel” separately, but no single established compound distinguishing fulfillment-as-completion from naskh-style abrogation in a Bible-translation register | Adopt the compound به کمال رساندن (“bring to completion/perfection”) rather than a single verb, paired with an explicit naskh-contrast note at 5:17-19 |
| ”Mysteries of the kingdom” as now-revealed (not perpetually hidden) truth | Persian’s existing esoteric-knowledge vocabulary (رازها, اسرار) is already claimed by Shia ilm-e batin doctrine, which specifically frames such knowledge as perpetually transmitted through a concealed chain of authority | Use رازهای ملکوت but attach a mandatory “now revealed, not perpetually hidden” teaching note at every occurrence (13:11), reversing rather than adopting the existing esoteric-transmission connotation |
| ”Binding and loosing” / “keys of the kingdom” as declarative recognition rather than legislative or infallible clerical authority | No existing Persian ecclesiological vocabulary distinguishes “recognizing a truth already established by Christ” from “authoritatively legislating a new truth” — the only readily available authority-vocabulary in the culture (fatwa-issuing, velayat) is legislative/infallible in character | Retain the literal compound بستن و گشودن / کلیدهای ملکوت but require an explicit “recognition, not independent legislation” clarification at every occurrence (16:19; 18:18) |
| Ransom (lytron) as unique, sufficient, once-for-all substitutionary payment | فدیه is a real word but denotes a bounded legal/ritual transaction (e.g., missed-fast compensation); nothing in Persian vocabulary natively conveys “a payment that is also uniquely, permanently, cosmically sufficient” | Retain فدیه as the closest available bridge term but mandate explicit linkage to baseline’s Salvation doctrine note distinguishing Christ’s atonement from bounded ritual-payment categories and from the Karbala/Hussein intercession pattern |
| ”Poor in spirit” as confessed spiritual bankruptcy (not an achieved ascetic virtue) | Persian’s closest available register (فقر/درویشی) is already claimed by Sufi faqr as a cultivated attainment-stage | No existing unclaimed term; retain فقیران در روح as a literal, slightly unfamiliar-sounding compound specifically because its relative unfamiliarity avoids default absorption into the darvish/faqr script, and attach the contrast note at first occurrence (5:3) |
3. Transliteration vs. Paraphrase Decisions
Extending baseline precedent (which transliterates ابا/Abba to preserve Aramaic intimacy, and آمین/هللویاه as settled loanwords), the following table sets the rule for each Matthew-specific case: transliterate (preserve the foreign form, gloss if needed), translate/paraphrase (render the meaning in native Persian vocabulary), or retain established loanword (already fixed in Persian Bible tradition, do not re-translate).
| Term | Decision | Rationale |
|---|---|---|
| Immanuel (Ἐμμανουήλ) | Transliterate + mandatory gloss (عمانوئیل + خدا با ما) | A proper name functioning as a doctrinal assertion; transliteration preserves its name-status while the gloss carries the content — matches baseline’s treatment of Abba |
| Son of Man (ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου) | Paraphrase (literal calque) + explanatory note, not transliteration | This is a title, not a foreign proper name; a Greek/Aramaic transliteration would be meaningless to readers, so literal compounding (پسر انسان) plus mandatory Danielic background note is required instead |
| Son of David (υἱὸς Δαυίδ) | Paraphrase (established compound), no transliteration | داوود is already the settled Persian Bible form of David; the title is a native-language compound, not a loanword |
| Amen / Hallelujah | Retain established loanword (آمین / هللویاه) | Already fixed in Persian Christian liturgical tradition per baseline; no Matthew-specific change needed |
| Gehenna (γέεννα) | Retain established loanword (جهنم), NOT re-transliterated as a Greek/Hebrew form | Persian Bible tradition already uses جهنم; introducing a fresh transliteration (e.g., “geyna”) would create an unfamiliar novel coinage baseline’s own instructions caution against, and would forfeit the term’s real, useful familiarity — the risk here is doctrinal framing, not lexical form |
| Sabbath (σάββατον) | Retain established loanword-derived term (سبت) | Already the settled technical Biblical-Persian term; low collision risk, no Islamic ritual equivalent to confuse it with |
| Parousia (παρουσία) | Paraphrase only (آمدن دوباره / بازگشت); NEVER transliterate as “پاروسیا” and NEVER substitute the existing Persian religious loanword ظهور | Transliterating the Greek would be unreadable to the target audience; using the existing Persian religious term ظهور would be catastrophic, since it is Twelver Shia Islam’s own specific technical term for the Hidden Imam’s reappearance — paraphrase is the only safe option |
| End of the age (συντέλεια τοῦ αἰῶνος) | Paraphrase only (پایان این دوران); NEVER substitute the existing Persian religious loanword آخرالزمان | Same logic as Parousia — آخرالزمان is not a neutral dictionary synonym but a loaded, popularly-anticipated Mahdist-package term |
| Messiah / Christ (Χριστός) | Retain established loanword (مسیح) | Fixed by Romans baseline; already the settled Persian Bible and Quranic-cognate form; re-deriving it would fragment consistency across the whole curriculum |
| Ransom (λύτρον) | Translate using existing Persian legal-ritual term (فدیه), not transliterated | فدیه is a genuine, comprehensible bridge word; transliterating the Greek would abandon a useful (if imperfect) bridge concept |
| Cornerstone (κεφαλὴ γωνίας) | Paraphrase (descriptive compound) (سنگ زاویه / سر زاویه) | Architectural metaphor with no single settled Persian Bible-tradition term; descriptive compounding is clearer than any single-word coinage |
| Yoke (ζυγός) | Paraphrase (literal) (یوغ) + mandatory explanatory note | یوغ exists as a literal agricultural term but requires explanatory framing since the metaphor itself, not the word, is unfamiliar to urban readers |
| Trinitarian baptismal formula | Paraphrase (literal rendering of the Greek structure) (به نام پدر و پسر و روحالقدس), never restructured into three separate names/deities | Preserve the grammatically singular “name” (ὄνομα) governing three Persons exactly as the source text structures it; this grammatical fidelity is itself doctrinally load-bearing |
4. Ranked List of Highest-Risk Ambiguities
Ranked by a composite of (a) doctrinal centrality to the nine curriculum doctrines, (b) severity of potential syncretism or distortion if mishandled, and (c) frequency/prominence of occurrence across Matthew. Rank 1 is the single highest-priority risk requiring absolute, non-negotiable enforcement; risk decreases moving down the list, though all items below warrant Critical- or High-tier review routing.
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Parousia rendered as ظهور — the single highest-priority forbidden substitution in the entire curriculum. Using Twelver Shia Islam’s own specific technical term for the Hidden Imam’s reappearance for Christ’s second coming would not merely risk confusion but actively graft Matthew’s eschatology onto a live, popularly-anticipated competing messianic framework. (ch. 24-25)
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End of the age rendered as آخرالزمان — same category of risk as #1, one tier down in specificity; pre-loads the entire Olivet Discourse with Mahdist chaos-and-collapse expectation before Christ’s own teaching can be heard on its own terms. (13:39-40,49; 24:3,14; 28:20)
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Kingdom of Heaven read as a territorial-political claim — given Iran’s own explicitly religious-political state structure (Velayat-e Faqih) claiming divinely-derived sovereignty, Matthew’s ~32 uses of this dominant idiom carry unusually sharp live political resonance; misreading risks either (a) hearing Jesus as a political revolutionary rival to the state, or (b) collapsing the doctrine into an approving analogy for clerical rule. (throughout, esp. 3-25)
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Son of Man misheard as a lesser Christological claim than “Son of God” — because the surface English/Persian phrase suggests mere humanity, readers may unconsciously rank it below پسر خدا, inverting Matthew’s actual usage, where Son of Man carries Daniel 7’s highest-authority claim (forgiving sins, judging nations, universal dominion). (8:20; 9:6; 25:31; 26:64; 28:18)
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Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit rendered with bare کفر — risks importing the entire Islamic apostasy/kafir social-legal framework (with its severe real-world consequences for the target readership) onto a narrower NT category; requires the most careful descriptive-phrase mitigation in the whole glossary. (12:31-32)
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Binding/loosing and the keys of the kingdom read as infallible clerical succession — structurally parallel in shape to the Imamate/velayat-e faqih model of ongoing, authoritative, quasi-infallible succession; mishandling this risks either legitimizing an unwarranted clerical-authority claim within the church or, conversely, provoking unnecessary political suspicion of house-church leadership structures. (16:19; 18:18)
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“Fulfill the Law” read as abrogation (naskh) or as a challenge to Iran’s shari’a-based state legal system — 5:17-19 is a single verse capable of being catastrophically misheard in either of two opposite directions: as Jesus claiming authority to cancel/amend a legal-political system (dangerous political reading), or as Jesus merely affirming the Law’s continuing direct legal force today (theologically incorrect reading). Requires the most carefully calibrated framing in the Sermon on the Mount.
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Worship (proskyneō) toward Jesus rendered with سجده — سجده’s exclusive reservation for Allah in Islamic ritual practice makes every occurrence toward Jesus (2:11; 14:33; 28:9,17) a direct deity-of-Christ flashpoint; even the safer پرستش کردن requires mandatory theologian review at each occurrence to confirm the intended affirmation is actually landing.
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Ransom (λύτρον/فدیه) reduced to a bounded legal/ritual transaction — risks flattening the atonement (20:28) into a fidya-style bounded payment rather than a unique, once-for-all, sufficient sacrifice, and risks conflation with the Karbala/Hussein martyrdom-intercession pattern baseline already flags Critical.
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Trinitarian baptismal formula (28:19) — the most concentrated, explicit Trinitarian statement in the book, standing in the most direct possible tension with tawhid theology; the grammatical “one name, three Persons” structure must be actively taught, not merely translated and left for readers to reconcile unaided.
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Repentance (توبه) read as a self-sufficient human act that independently secures forgiveness — because توبه is itself the load-bearing Islamic doctrinal term, every occurrence (3:2; 4:17) risks being heard as confirming, rather than reframing, an existing self-directed theological category.
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“Poor in spirit” absorbed into Sufi faqr as a cultivated ascetic attainment — inverts Jesus’ meaning from confessed, un-achieved spiritual destitution answered by grace into an accomplished virtue-stage that itself earns spiritual standing. (5:3)
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Mercy (رحمت) remaining a formulaic devotional recitation rather than an embodied ethic — genuine bridge concept but risks staying at the level of Quranic Divine-Name invocation rather than becoming Matthew’s repeatedly concretized ethical demand. (5:7; 9:13; 18:33; 23:23; 25:31-46)
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Divorce (طلاق) and retaliation (چشم به چشم/qisas) teaching heard as direct commentary on present Iranian family/penal law — both terms name live, present legal categories, not merely ancient ones; mishandling risks either defusing Jesus’ actual ethical challenge or provoking unintended present-day political/legal offense. (5:31-32,38-42; 19:3-9)
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Son of David acclamation (پسر داوود) left as honorific praise without asserting exclusive redemptive sufficiency — risks being absorbed into the same Shia Mahdi-centered messianic displacement baseline flags for مسیح generally, since the title’s vocative/acclamatory force in Matthew is easily heard as respectful honor alone. (9:27; 12:23; 15:22; 20:30-31; 21:9,15; 22:41-45)
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Almsgiving (صدقه) and fasting (روزه) taught without the secrecy/voluntariness contrast — both are exact, load-bearing, highly visible Islamic practice-categories (voluntary charity; the Ramadan Pillar); omitting the explicit private/voluntary contrast leaves Jesus’ teaching (6:1-4, 16-18) reading as simple endorsement of existing public/obligatory practice.
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“Perfect” (کامل) absorbed into the insan-e kamil mystical-attainment station — risks turning 5:48’s call to ordinary Spirit-empowered obedience into an elite mystical rank associated with great saints and the Imams.
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Cross-bearing and crucifixion vocabulary softened into generic suffering language — avoiding the concrete مصلوب کردن/صلیب vocabulary in favor of euphemism would sidestep, rather than confront, the single highest-density collision with Quran 4:157’s crucifixion-denial. (10:38; 16:24; ch. 26-27)
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“Mysteries of the kingdom” (رازهای ملکوت) absorbed into Shia ilm-e batin esoteric-transmission doctrine — risks 13:11 being read as confirming an ongoing, perpetually-concealed knowledge-chain rather than gospel truth now openly revealed and offered to all who receive it by faith.
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Hell/Gehenna (جهنم) judgment criterion read in isolation as confirming a pure mizan deeds-weighing framework — the Sheep and Goats passage (25:31-46) shares enough surface vocabulary with Islamic Paradise/Hell categories that, absent deliberate framing, it risks reinforcing rather than reframing the existing deeds-weighing default.
Summary and Handoff
This analysis identifies no term in the Matthew curriculum that requires overturning established Romans baseline precedent; all baseline forbidden substitutions (برگزیده خدا, شریعت, پارسایی, سرپرستی, unqualified فیض, bare آرامش, عدالت کسبشده, امتها) remain in force and are extended by two new curriculum-specific forbidden substitutions of equal non-negotiable priority: آخرالزمان (for end of the age) and ظهور (for the second coming/parousia). The crowded-neighborhood terms in Section 2A (رحمت, توبه, صدقه, روزه, کفر, جهنم) have no available lexical substitute and must instead carry mandatory doctrinal-framing notes at every occurrence, rather than being solved by word-choice alone. The missing-vocabulary terms in Section 2B (Son of Man, Immanuel, fulfill-the-law, mysteries of the kingdom, binding/loosing, ransom, poor in spirit) require the compounding and transliteration-plus-gloss strategies fixed in Section 3. This document, together with 08_core_glossary.md, supplies the full term inventory for Step 2’s translation_memory.json / bible_term_registry.json update and Step 3’s doctrine_risk_registry.json update.