Linguistic Gap Analysis
Linguistic Gap Analysis — Philemon (English → Spanish)
Purpose and Scope
This analysis identifies where standard Bible Spanish (Reina-Valera-anchored, per the baseline 12_ai_translation_requirements.md register standard) has gaps, collisions, or crowded semantic neighborhoods when carrying Philemon’s vocabulary and doctrine set: Forgiveness and Reconciliation (F/R), Christian Brotherhood across Social Status (CB), Slavery and the Gospel’s Transforming Power (SGP), Intercession and Appeal on Behalf of Another (IA), and Grace-Motivated Obedience (GMO). The core passage is Philemon 1:8–21, but per the full-book coverage mandate, every verse of this one-chapter, 25-verse letter has been reviewed for load-bearing vocabulary. This document precedes and grounds the term choices already reflected in 08_core_glossary.md and the Philemon additions to bible_term_registry.json; it exists to make explicit why those choices were made, what alternatives were weighed, and what residual risk remains for Phase 2 enforcement.
Full-Book Coverage Checklist (Philemon 1:1–25)
| Verses | Content | New terms/doctrine load? | Disposition |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1:1–3 | Salutation: Paul/prisoner, Timothy/brother, Filemón/beloved-fellow worker, Apia/sister, Arquipo/fellow soldier, church-in-house, grace/peace | Yes — δέσμιος, ἀδελφός, ἀγαπητός, συνεργός, ἀδελφή, συστρατιώτης, ἐκκλησία, χάρις, εἰρήνη | Covered in glossary and matrix below |
| 1:4–7 | Thanksgiving, faith, love, sharing of faith, refreshing the saints | Yes — εὐχαριστία, πίστις, ἀγάπη, κοινωνία, ἅγιοι, σπλάγχνα, ἀναπαύω | Covered |
| 1:8–9 | Boldness set aside for appeal; Paul as old man/ambassador and prisoner | Yes — παρρησία, ἐπιτάσσω, παρακαλέω, πρεσβύτης/πρεσβευτής | Covered — core passage |
| 1:10–14 | Onésimo as spiritual child; useless/useful wordplay; sending back; consent vs. compulsion | Yes — τέκνον, γεννάω, ἄχρηστος/εὔχρηστος, ἀναπέμπω, γνώμη, ἀνάγκη, ἑκούσιον | Covered — core passage, highest-density doctrinal vocabulary in the letter |
| 1:15–16 | Separation reframed providentially; slave-to-brother reclassification | Yes — χωρίζω, αἰώνιος, ἀπέχω, δοῦλος, ἀδελφός, ἀγαπητός, σάρξ | Covered — core passage, highest cultural-risk vocabulary in the letter |
| 1:17–19 | Partnership; receiving; debt/wrong named; charged to Paul’s account; repayment | Yes — κοινωνός, προσλαμβάνω, ἀδικέω, ὀφείλω, ἐλλογάω, ἀποτίνω, προσοφείλω | Covered — core passage, highest legal-metaphor density in the letter |
| 1:20–21 | Benefit wordplay; refreshment inclusio; confidence; obedience | Yes — ὀνίναμαι, ἀναπαύω, πείθω, ὑπακοή | Covered — core passage close |
| 1:22 | Hospitality request; prayer; hoped-for release “granted” | Yes — ξενία, προσευχή, χαρίζομαι | Covered |
| 1:23–24 | Greetings from fellow prisoner and fellow workers | Yes — συναιχμάλωτος, συνεργός (recurrence) | Covered; no new doctrinal load beyond 1:1 |
| 1:25 | Closing benediction: grace | No new term — χάρις (baseline TM-reused) | Reviewed, no gap; standard Pauline closing, identical register to 1:3 |
No verse in Philemon was found to contribute zero reviewable content; even the closing greetings (1:23–25) recur previously analyzed terms (συναιχμάλωτος, συνεργός, χάρις) rather than introducing unreviewed material. Full-book coverage is therefore satisfied by the term-by-term treatment below, organized by doctrine rather than by verse, per this document’s analytical purpose.
Part 1: Doctrine Vocabulary Matrix
For each of the five curriculum doctrines, this matrix lists the Spanish candidate terms considered, their specific weaknesses in the destination-language/culture context, and the recommended strategy actually adopted (cross-referenced to the glossary/registry entries).
1. Forgiveness and Reconciliation (F/R)
| Candidate Spanish term(s) | Weakness | Recommended strategy |
|---|---|---|
| perdón / perdonar (generic forgiveness vocabulary) | Not actually present in the Greek text. Philemon never uses ἀφίημι/ἄφεσις. Defaulting to “perdón” in teaching materials imports a generic forgiveness frame and erases the letter’s specific legal-commercial argument (debt, account, repayment). | Do NOT introduce “perdón” as the primary doctrinal term for this letter’s F/R content. Carry the doctrine through the actual commercial-debt chain: deber (ὀφείλω) → agraviar/hacer injusticia (ἀδικέω) → cargar a cuenta / imputar (ἐλλογάω) → pagar/reembolsar (ἀποτίνω) → deber además (προσοφείλω). Teaching notes may use “perdón/reconciliación” as descriptive category labels but must not substitute them into the translated text itself. |
| reconciliación | Accurate as a category label but not a term Philemon itself uses; risk of theologians over-relying on it as a gloss that flattens the specific vv.18–19 legal-substitution structure into generic relational repair. | Retain as the doctrine’s name (as in the doctrine risk registry naming convention) but not as a lexical substitute for ἐλλογάω or ὀφείλω in-text. |
| cargar a cuenta / poner en cuenta / imputar (ἐλλογάω) | No single Spanish word carries this rare Greek legal-accounting verb; any rendering is a multi-word paraphrase. Risk of drifting toward vague “no te preocupes por eso” (loses legal-substitution structure) OR overclaiming technical identity with “justicia imputada” (λογίζομαι, baseline Critical term) when the Greek verbs are cognate-adjacent but not identical. | Critical risk. Human theologian review required at every occurrence (per glossary). Use “cárgalo a mi cuenta / imputa esto a mí”; teach the Romans 5:13 typological echo explicitly as thematic, never lexical, parallel to imputed righteousness. |
| conceder / dar como una gracia (χαρίζομαι, v.22) | Superficially “grace” vocabulary that could be mistaught as Philemon’s own forgiveness-word; but in this letter χαρίζομαι describes Paul’s hoped-for release from prison, not Onésimo’s forgiveness. | Fence this term explicitly: teaching notes must state that this occurrence is NOT the letter’s forgiveness vocabulary; that sense is imported from Ephesians 4:32/Colossians 3:13, elsewhere in Paul. Flag for native speaker review. |
2. Christian Brotherhood across Social Status (CB)
| Candidate Spanish term(s) | Weakness | Recommended strategy |
|---|---|---|
| hermano (ἀδελφός) | Crowded semantic neighborhood. In everyday Latin American and Peninsular Spanish, “hermano” (and especially “hermano” as vocative — “oye, hermano”) is common casual camaraderie address between men with no kinship or ecclesial content at all, and is also used loosely in some Evangelical/Pentecostal cultures as generic congregational address stripped of its radical force. This risks flattening Philemon’s actual claim — that a legally owned human being is to be reclassified into the master’s own kinship category — into a throwaway pleasantry. | Retain “hermano” (no viable substitute exists and it is the correct lexical choice) but MANDATE a teaching note at every occurrence in this letter (1:16, 1:20) making the social radicalism explicit: this is a slave being named literal family, not a friendly form of address. High risk per glossary. |
| amado / querido (ἀγαπητός) | Two near-synonyms exist in Spanish with no doctrinal difference between them; the risk is not meaning but consistency — if translators alternate between “amado” for Filemón (1:1) and “querido” for Onésimo (1:16), or vice versa, the letter’s deliberate rhetorical parallel (master and slave equally beloved) becomes invisible to the Spanish reader. | Fence by consistency rule, not lexical choice: select ONE rendering and use it at both occurrences. Medium risk, cross-reference rule already recorded in glossary. |
| carne (σάρξ, neutral sense) | Crowded neighborhood: “carne” in this curriculum’s own baseline package (Romans 7–8) carries a strongly negative fallen-nature theological charge (“los deseos de la carne”). A Spanish reader trained on Romans will default to that negative sense unless fenced. | Explicit teaching note required at 1:16: “en la carne” here = ordinary social/human relations, a neutral sense, NOT the Romans flesh-vs-Spirit antithesis. |
| igualdad (not a term in the text, considered as a possible doctrinal gloss) | Risk of over-modernizing the doctrine into a contemporary social-equality framework the text itself does not use — Philemon does not abolish the institution or assert political/legal equality, only new-family status “in the Lord.” | Rejected as an in-text substitute; may appear in teaching commentary only with care to distinguish relational/spiritual kinship from institutional abolition, which the letter does not enact. |
3. Slavery and the Gospel’s Transforming Power (SGP)
| Candidate Spanish term(s) | Weakness | Recommended strategy |
|---|---|---|
| esclavo (δοῦλος) | The single highest cultural-collision term in this curriculum. Standard Spanish Bible translations (RV1960, RVA2015, Biblia de las Américas) all use “esclavo” here, so there is no lexical alternative within Bible-translation tradition. But “esclavo” in the Americas and the Caribbean carries direct, living historical memory of the transatlantic slave trade and racially coded chattel slavery — a categorically harsher, race-based institution than Greco-Roman household slavery. Teaching without this awareness risks either (a) appearing to soften/rationalize chattel slavery’s legacy, or (b) importing anachronistic modern abolitionist categories the text does not use, or (c) being read by descendant communities as trivializing their own history. | Critical risk; human theologian review required at every occurrence. Mandatory teaching note per glossary: Paul transforms the relationship from within by gospel logic (cf. 1 Corintios 7:21–23) rather than issuing an institutional abolition decree; the text must never be taught in a way that appears to endorse or minimize chattel slavery or its legacy in the Americas. |
| siervo | Softer, more comfortable alternative sometimes used in devotional paraphrase — REJECTED. Obscures the actual legal-ownership reality that the gospel’s transforming claim depends on; if Onésimo is merely a “servant,” the radicalism of v.16’s “ya no como esclavo sino… como hermano” collapses. | Explicitly rejected as a substitute for δοῦλος; may be used only for διακονέω (“servir,” a genuinely different, lower-stakes verb at 1:13). |
| inútil / útil (provechoso) — Onésimo wordplay | Spanish “Onésimo” as a proper name carries no transparent meaning to a Spanish reader (unlike the Greek, where the audience would hear the name and immediately recognize “profitable/useful”). The pun is untranslatable without a gloss. | Not a lexical gap but a transliteration/paraphrase decision — see Part 3 below. Mandatory translator/teaching note required at 1:11 and 1:20, or the letter’s central rhetorical device (a runaway slave “living up to his name” through gospel transformation) is entirely lost. |
| engendrar (γεννάω) | Correct but stylistically uncommon in everyday devotional Spanish register, risking either confusion or an overly clinical/biological reading if left unglossed. | Retain “engendrar” with a brief gloss (“a quien llevé a la fe” or similar) rather than substituting a vaguer verb like “convertir,” which loses the personal-paternity metaphor Paul is building toward the kinship argument of v.16. |
4. Intercession and Appeal on Behalf of Another (IA)
| Candidate Spanish term(s) | Weakness | Recommended strategy |
|---|---|---|
| exhortar (παρακαλέω) | Baseline TM fixes this term for Romans’ public-teaching register (exhortation of the church). Philemon uses the same Greek word but in an intensely personal, vulnerable, one-on-one entreaty register (“te ruego,” “apelo a ti”). If Phase 2 mechanically reuses the Romans register cues alongside the fixed term, Spanish readers will hear a directive rather than a personal appeal — precisely inverting the letter’s rhetorical strategy (v.8’s boldness deliberately set aside). | Reuse the fixed TM term “exhortar” exactly (hard rule), but attach a MANDATORY translator note at every occurrence (1:9, 1:10) clarifying the personal-entreaty register. High risk, theologian review required — same lexical item, different register demand than its baseline use. |
| confianza / autoridad (παρρησία) | “Confianza” alone risks sounding like simple self-assurance rather than a named apostolic right/authority being deliberately renounced; “autoridad” alone risks sounding purely institutional/juridical and losing the rhetorical warmth of the passage. | Retain the double gloss “confianza/autoridad” and require the v.9 contrast with “exhortar” to remain visible in the same sentence — the whole doctrinal point is the juxtaposition. Reject “atrevimiento” (connotes rashness, not legitimate standing). |
| intercesión (as a doctrine-category label for IA generally) | Direct collision with the baseline’s Critical-risk term. In the Romans package, “intercesión” is flagged because Latin American/Iberian folk Catholic piety centers intercessory prayer on the saints and the Virgin Mary as necessary mediators. Philemon presents Paul himself functioning as a human intercessor/appellant on Onésimo’s behalf — structurally resembling exactly the kind of human-mediator pattern the baseline warns against overemphasizing relative to Christ’s/the Spirit’s direct intercession. | Fence carefully: Paul’s appeal in Philemon is a legitimate, ordinary instance of one believer advocating for another (a “before other believers” pattern, not a “before God” mediatory pattern). Teaching notes must distinguish this from the baseline’s Romans 8:26–27/8:34 concern (the Spirit’s and Christ’s direct-to-God intercession) so learners do not conflate Paul’s human advocacy here with a saint/Marian mediation model, nor mistakenly read Paul as a quasi-saintly go-between with God. Use “intercesión” cautiously and only with this distinction stated; prefer “apelar/interceder ante Filemón a favor de Onésimo” (interceding before a fellow believer, not before God) to keep the register distinct. |
| anciano / embajador (πρεσβύτης/πρεσβευτής, textual variant) | A genuine textual-critical ambiguity, not a translation gap — Spanish must choose one reading or footnote both. | Primary rendering follows the majority critical text: “anciano.” Footnote the “embajador” variant explicitly rather than silently resolving it; either reading reinforces “appeal rather than command,” so the doctrinal stakes of the choice are low even though the textual-critical stakes are worth flagging. Medium risk. |
5. Grace-Motivated Obedience (GMO)
| Candidate Spanish term(s) | Weakness | Recommended strategy |
|---|---|---|
| obligación / imposición (ἀνάγκη) vs. voluntario / de tu propia voluntad (ἑκούσιον) | These two terms must function as a sharp antithesis within a single sentence (v.14). Natural Spanish translation smoothing (a common risk when translators prioritize fluency) can soften the contrast into near-synonyms or reorder the sentence in a way that dulls the opposition. This is the letter’s single clearest positive statement of Grace-Motivated Obedience and the doctrinal engine connecting Philemon to the baseline’s grace/obedience-of-faith doctrines. | High risk; human theologian review required. Mandate that both terms be checked together as a pair in every draft, never independently; validation must confirm the antithesis is visually/grammatically sharp in the Spanish sentence, not merely present as two separate words. |
| obediencia (ὑπακοή, v.21) | Crowded semantic neighborhood: “obediencia” in everyday Spanish religious usage (both Catholic and Evangelical/Pentecostal registers) frequently connotes compliance with ecclesial authority, clergy, or institutional directive — precisely the register the baseline already warns against for “obediencia de la fe” (ὑπακοὴ πίστεως). Philemon’s use is a direct terminological echo of that baseline term, so the same collision risk transfers here at full force. | Reuse “obediencia” (no lexical alternative preserves the baseline linkage) but require the v.14 ἀνάγκη/ἑκούσιον contrast to be taught explicitly alongside v.21, so learners understand this obedience as freely flowing from grace-shaped love, not extracted by apostolic command. High risk, theologian review required. |
| consentimiento / voluntad (γνώμη) | Minor gap: no single Spanish word captures γνώμη’s blend of “opinion/judgment/considered will” as compactly as the Greek. | Accept the two-word gloss “consentimiento/voluntad”; no further fencing required beyond the general v.14 antithesis note above. Medium risk. |
| mandar / ordenar (ἐπιτάσσω) | Not a gap but a required register contrast partner to “exhortar” (see IA section above) — if “mandar/ordenar” is rendered with unclear or overly soft phrasing, the road-not-taken contrast in v.8–9 loses force. | Keep “mandar/ordenar” registrally blunt and directive in the Spanish so its deliberate rejection by Paul in favor of “exhortar” is unmistakable. |
Part 2: Missing Vocabulary vs. Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods
2A. Genuinely Missing Vocabulary (no single Spanish word available; paraphrase required)
| Greek term | Gap description |
|---|---|
| ἐλλογάω (ellogaō) | No Spanish word exists for this rare legal-ledger verb (“charge to an account” in the technical bookkeeping sense). Every candidate rendering is necessarily a multi-word paraphrase (“cargar a cuenta,” “poner en cuenta,” “imputar”). This is a structural gap, not a poor-choice-of-word problem, and the paraphrase itself must be standardized across all Phase 2 outputs so the letter’s legal metaphor reads consistently. |
| σπλάγχνα (splanchna) as covenantal-affection idiom | Spanish has no equivalent visceral-organ idiom for deep affection in contemporary usage (the RV1960 archaism “entrañas” is understood but dated and slightly graphic to modern ears). The gap is register, not vocabulary: “corazón” is available but is a semantic downgrade (loses the visceral intensity) that must be accepted as the best available compromise. |
| ὀνίναμαι (oninamai) / the Onésimo wordplay generally | Not a missing word but a missing pun: Greek hearers recognized “Onésimos” as transparently meaning “useful/profitable”; Spanish “Onésimo” is semantically opaque. There is no lexical fix — only a paraphrase/footnote strategy (see Part 3). |
| πρεσβύτης/πρεσβευτής dual reading | Not a vocabulary gap but a text-critical one requiring an editorial decision Spanish cannot avoid making explicit (English can sometimes gloss over the ambiguity more easily in certain renderings; Spanish “anciano” vs. “embajador” are fully distinct words with no shared middle ground). |
2B. Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods (word exists, but competing associations require fencing)
| Spanish term | Competing associations that must be fenced off |
|---|---|
| hermano | Casual camaraderie address; generic congregational address in some Evangelical registers; must be fenced to preserve the specific slave-to-family reclassification claim. |
| esclavo | Transatlantic chattel slavery, colonial race-based bondage in the Americas; must be fenced against both trivialization and anachronistic projection of modern abolitionist categories onto the first-century text. |
| carne | Romans 7–8’s negative “flesh vs. Spirit” theological sense (this curriculum’s own baseline); must be fenced to the neutral “ordinary human relations” sense at Philemon 1:16. |
| gracia | Already a Critical/High baseline term doing triple duty in this letter: epistolary greeting (1:3), doxological closing (1:25), and root of the appeal-not-command logic threaded through vv.8–21; also root-linked to the different term χαρίζομαι (v.22, “conceder”). Must be fenced so learners do not treat “conceder” as simply “gracia” repeated, and do not import merit-cooperation readings into either. |
| confianza | Everyday self-assurance/trust sense competes with the technical apostolic-authority sense of παρρησία; must be fenced by the required v.8–9 contrast with “mandar/ordenar” and “exhortar.” |
| intercesión | Baseline’s own flagged collision (saint/Marian mediation) transfers directly into this letter’s IA doctrine, where Paul’s human advocacy for Onésimo risks being conflated with the very mediatory-figure pattern the baseline warns against. Requires the sharpest fencing of any crowded term in this analysis because it collides with an already-Critical baseline risk rather than introducing a new one. |
| obediencia | Ecclesial/institutional compliance associations (clergy directive, canon law, “obligaciones de la fe”) compete with the letter’s insistence (v.14) that this obedience must be voluntary, not commanded. |
| siervo | Though rejected as the rendering for δοῦλος, “siervo” remains available and correctly used for διακονέω (1:13); must be fenced so translators do not reach for it as a “softer” substitute for esclavo out of pastoral discomfort — that substitution is explicitly forbidden. |
Part 3: Transliteration vs. Paraphrase Decisions
| Term | Decision | Rationale |
|---|---|---|
| Ὀνήσιμος (Onesimus) | Transliterate as the established Spanish Bible proper-name form “Onésimo.” | Proper names follow established Bible-translation convention per the baseline transliteration standards; no alternative form is in circulation. |
| The Onésimo wordplay (meaning “useful”) | Paraphrase + mandatory footnote/teaching note, NOT transliteration of the meaning into the name itself. | The name must stay “Onésimo” (transliteration), but its Greek meaning cannot be transliterated — it must be explained in a note at 1:11 and 1:20, or the letter’s rhetorical device disappears for the Spanish reader. |
| Χριστός (as part of the compound name “Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ”) | Transliterate/retain as the established proper-name form “Cristo,” not the titular doctrinal term “Mesías.” | Per the baseline’s existing transliteration standard and the new bible_term_registry.json “christ” entry: when Χριστός functions as part of the personal name (as throughout Philemon), it must not be swapped for the doctrinal title “Mesías,” which is reserved for explicit messianic-promise contexts (as in the Romans baseline). |
| πρεσβύτης / πρεσβευτής (v.9 textual variant) | Paraphrase decision, not transliteration — select “anciano” as primary rendering (majority text), footnote “embajador” as the variant reading. | This is a translation-choice-between-two-Greek-readings problem, not a transliteration problem; Spanish has clean equivalents for both words, so the issue is textual-critical selection, not lexical gap. |
| ἐλλογάω | Paraphrase, not transliteration or coinage. No attempt should be made to coin a new single Spanish theological term (e.g., “elogar” is not a real word and risks confusion with “elogiar,” to praise). | The multi-word commercial-legal paraphrase (“cárgalo a mi cuenta / imputa esto a mí”) is both accurate and comprehensible without inventing new vocabulary; standardize the exact phrase across Phase 2 outputs. |
| Ἀββά (Abba) | Not present in Philemon; no transliteration decision required for this book. Noted here only to confirm the baseline’s Romans 8:15 precedent (retain untranslated, paired with “Padre”) is NOT triggered by this curriculum and should not be imported where the source text does not use it. | |
| δέσμιος vs. δοῦλος | Both paraphrased with ordinary Spanish words (“prisionero/preso” and “esclavo” respectively), deliberately kept lexically distinct from one another despite thematic overlap (both describe forms of bondage), so that Paul’s voluntary gospel-imprisonment is never visually or conceptually merged with the institution of chattel slavery. | This is a fencing decision expressed through translation choice: using two visibly different Spanish word-families protects against a collapsed reading that would flatten a crucial moral distinction the text itself maintains. |
Part 4: Ranked List of Highest-Risk Ambiguities in Philemon
Ranked by combined doctrinal severity and likelihood of translator/learner error, per the Critical/High/Medium/Low conventions of doctrine_risk_registry.json.
- δοῦλος → “esclavo” (1:16) — Critical. The single highest cultural-collision risk in the curriculum: the historical weight of chattel slavery in the Spanish-speaking Americas and Caribbean makes this term a live pastoral and historical-justice issue, not merely a lexical one. Human theologian review mandatory at every occurrence.
- ἐλλογάω → “cargar a cuenta/imputar” (1:18) — Critical. No single Spanish word exists; the paraphrase must avoid both (a) softening into vague forgiveness language that loses the legal-substitution structure, and (b) overclaiming lexical identity with the baseline’s “justicia imputada.” Both errors are equally live and pull in opposite directions.
- ἀνάγκη/ἑκούσιον → “obligación/voluntario” (1:14) — High. The letter’s clearest positive doctrinal statement on Grace-Motivated Obedience; ordinary translation-smoothing habits are the most likely cause of accidental doctrinal flattening here, since no exotic vocabulary is involved — only the risk of losing sentence-level antithesis.
- ἀδελφός → “hermano” (1:16, 1:20) — High. Crowded semantic neighborhood risk: the term’s everyday casual-address use in Spanish is so pervasive that its radical kinship-reclassification force in this specific text is the most likely doctrinal content to be silently lost without an explicit teaching note.
- intercesión / Paul’s advocacy role (throughout, esp. vv.10, 17–20) — High. Direct collision with the baseline’s own Critical-risk “prayer_and_intercession” doctrine; the risk is not mistranslation of a single word but conceptual conflation between Paul’s legitimate human advocacy before a fellow believer and the saint/Marian mediatory pattern the baseline was written to guard against before God.
- χαρίζομαι → “conceder” (1:22) — High. High probability of being mistaught as Philemon’s own forgiveness vocabulary (it is not); requires active correction against a natural but incorrect inference from the word’s χάρις root.
- ὑπακοή → “obediencia” (1:21) — High. Same crowded-neighborhood risk as the baseline’s “obediencia de la fe,” transferred wholesale into this letter; requires the v.14 antithesis to be taught in tandem or the term reverts to a compliance-with-authority reading.
- χωρίζω → “separar(se)” (1:15) — Medium. Genuine authorial ambiguity (Paul’s diplomatic euphemism for Onésimo’s flight) that translators may be tempted to resolve one direction or the other (criminalizing “huyó” vs. excusing “se fue”); the correct choice is to preserve, not resolve, the ambiguity.
- παρρησία/ἐπιτάσσω vs. παρακαλέω register contrast (1:8–9) — High (compounded with baseline’s existing High rating on “exhortar”). The single Greek word παρακαλέω is fixed by hard rule to “exhortar,” but the register demanded here (personal entreaty) inverts the register the same Spanish word carries in its Romans baseline use (public exhortation); the risk is not lexical substitution but register collapse.
- σπλάγχνα inclusio consistency (1:7, 1:12, 1:20) — Medium. Not an ambiguity of meaning but a structural-fidelity risk: if three independent translators or passes render the same Greek word three different ways, the letter’s literary inclusio becomes invisible to the Spanish reader even though no single occurrence is individually mistranslated.
- πρεσβύτης/πρεσβευτής variant (1:9) — Medium. Textual-critical ambiguity requiring an explicit editorial choice and footnote rather than silent resolution.
- Onésimo wordplay (1:11, 1:20) — Medium (pedagogically High). Not a doctrinal risk in the Critical/theologian-review sense, but a near-certain total loss of authorial rhetorical intent without a mandatory explanatory note, given Spanish “Onésimo” carries no transparent meaning.
- αἰώνιος → “para siempre” (1:15) — Medium. Risk runs in both directions: under-theologizing (mere temporary reunion) or over-theologizing (importing the technical eschatological “vida eterna” sense from elsewhere in the curriculum) are both available mistranslations of the same word choice.
- ἀπέχω → “recibir plenamente” (1:15) — Medium. Commercial “paid in full” overtone may be missed entirely if rendered too generically, weakening the connection to the vv.18–19 debt-and-account imagery that follows.
This analysis extends but does not modify the baseline Romans translation_memory.json (v1) or bible_term_registry.json. All strategy recommendations above are reflected in, and should be cross-checked against, analysis/08_core_glossary.md and the Philemon additions already recorded in bible_term_registry.json. Risk tiers and review-routing categories (Critical/High/Medium/Low; human theologian / native speaker / automated review) follow doctrine_risk_registry.json conventions exactly and must be carried forward into the Philemon-specific doctrine risk registry (Phase 1 Step 9/11) without modification.