Executive Summary

Proverbs | English → Spanish Language Package

Curriculum: Proverbs 1–31 Core passage: Proverbs 3:1-12 Baseline authority extended: Romans Language Package (translation_memory.json, bible_term_registry.json, doctrine_risk_registry.json, 12_ai_translation_requirements.md)

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Why it matters

Proverbs is Hebrew wisdom literature layered onto an audience already using this Language Package’s Romans vocabulary — the same Spanish words (“justicia,” “gracia,” “paz”) must now carry a second, related-but-distinct sense without contradicting the doctrines already fixed for Romans. Proverbs also introduces God’s personal covenant name (YHWH → “Jehová”) at scale for the first time in this curriculum, a word that collides head-on with a large, visible, non-Trinitarian movement across the Spanish-speaking world. Getting this package right protects both books’ doctrinal integrity for the same learners studying them side by side.

Key findings

• Full-book analysis complete: all 31 chapters reviewed; no chapter silently omitted. 14 doctrines identified, extending (never contradicting) the Romans doctrine set.
• Doctrine risk distribution: Critical: 3 · High: 7 · Medium: 4 · Low: 0. 10 of 14 doctrines require mandatory human theologian review; the remaining 4 require native speaker review. Zero doctrines are automated-review-only — a materially higher-risk profile than the Romans baseline’s Low-tier automated segment.
• Term risk distribution (new Proverbs terms): 6 Critical-risk terms (Jehová, Dios/Elohim distinction, el temor de Jehová, la Sabiduría, the qanani/8:22 crux, and justo/tsaddiq) and 15 High-risk terms (sabiduría, folly personified, necio, musar/instrucción-disciplina, vara, abominación, misericordia/chesed, gracia-favor/chen, confiar/batach, árbol de la vida, primicias, sacrificio, mujer extraña, mujer de virtud y fortaleza, las suertes/goral) — 21 terms total requiring mandatory theologian review, on top of every relevant Critical/High term inherited unchanged from the Romans baseline.
• Two doctrines carry the highest combined stakes in the whole package: Wisdom Personified (Proverbs 8, converging Arian-controversy and Catholic Marian-typology risk) and Practical Righteousness (identical Spanish spelling to Romans’ forensic justification doctrine, requiring a standing disambiguation note in nearly every chapter).

Risks

• “Jehová” / Jehovah’s Witnesses collision — the single most unavoidable naming risk in the package; occurs hundreds of times starting at 1:7.
• “Justicia/justo” doctrinal bleed — Proverbs’ practical righteousness and Romans’ forensic justification use the identical Spanish word; without a standing note, learners risk drifting toward works-righteousness.
• Prosperity-gospel proof-texting (3:9-10) — a live, financially exploitative teaching pattern across neo-Pentecostal and independent charismatic Hispanic contexts, sitting inside the curriculum’s own core passage.
• Corporal-punishment sensitivity (vara, 13:24; 22:15; 23:13-14; 29:15) — intersects active legal and cultural debate across Spain and Latin America; mishandling risks either endorsing harm or alienating learners.
• Marianismo/gender-role collision (mujer de virtud y fortaleza, ch. 31) — risk of reinforcing a self-sacrificing-womanhood ideal if “chayil’s” strength/capability sense is flattened.
• Arian-controversy recurrence (8:22) — a careless “crear” reopens a resolved fourth-century heresy debate inside a modern translation.

Opportunities

• Proverbs’ concrete, aphoristic style is well-suited to reinforcing Romans vocabulary experientially (e.g., “confiar” alongside “fe,” “providencia” alongside “el corazón del rey en la mano de Jehová”) — a chance to deepen, not just repeat, prior doctrine.
• The book’s own internal correctives (30:8-9 vs. 3:9-10) give this curriculum a built-in, textually grounded tool for defusing prosperity-gospel misreadings rather than relying solely on external teaching notes.
• The eshet chayil portrait (ch. 31), rightly translated, offers a constructive counter-narrative to marianismo self-abnegation ideals — an opportunity, not merely a risk to manage.

Recommended actions

1. Route all 21 Critical/High new terms and all 10 Critical/High doctrines through mandatory human theologian review before Phase 2 release, per assets/doctrine_risk_registry.json and assets/bible_term_registry.json.
2. Enforce the standing Trinitarian clarification note on every “Jehová” occurrence and the practical-vs-forensic disambiguation note on every Proverbs “justo/justicia” occurrence via the updated 12_ai_translation_requirements.md (v1.28) validation checklist.
3. Verify Proverbs 25:21-22’s rendering against the Romans corpus’s existing translation of Romans 12:20 before either document ships, to satisfy the cross-document consistency rule.
4. Brief theologian reviewers specifically on the two highest-stakes doctrines (Wisdom Personified; Practical Righteousness) before general review begins, given their combined historical (Arian), devotional (Marian), and cross-curriculum (Romans) complexity.
5. Commission a dedicated native-speaker/pastoral review pass on all corporal-discipline (vara) and gender-role (eshet chayil) passages ahead of general release, given their live cultural-legal sensitivity across the destination culture.

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See analysis/11_doctrine_analysis.md for the full doctrine matrix and chapter-by-chapter coverage; analysis/04_comparative_theology.md for cross-tradition interpretation detail; assets/doctrine_risk_registry.json and assets/bible_term_registry.json for machine-readable risk data underlying these figures.