Linguistic Gap Analysis
Linguistic Gap Analysis — Mark (Thai)
0. Scope and Method
This analysis extends the baseline Romans/Galatians Thai Language Package to the Gospel of Mark, covering the full text (Mark 1:1–16:8, with the disputed longer ending 16:9-20 flagged separately) and anchored theologically in the core passage, Mark 10:35-45. It identifies (A) a doctrine-by-doctrine vocabulary matrix for the eight curriculum doctrines, (B) genuine vocabulary gaps versus crowded semantic neighborhoods requiring “fencing” (explicit boundary-setting against a doctrinally false but linguistically tempting neighbor), (C) transliteration-vs-paraphrase decisions, and (D) a ranked list of the letter’s/book’s highest-risk ambiguities. A full chapter-by-chapter coverage checklist (Section E) confirms every chapter of Mark was reviewed, per the FULL-BOOK COVERAGE mandate, even where a chapter contributes no new linguistic-gap issue beyond terms already fenced elsewhere.
All findings here are consistent with, and must not contradict, translation_memory.json, bible_term_registry.json, and doctrine_risk_registry.json (Romans/Galatians baseline) and the Mark-specific 08_core_glossary.md and bible_term_registry.json extension already produced. Where this document and the core glossary overlap, this document supplies the linguistic reasoning (why the gap exists, what the competing Thai terms are, why one was chosen) behind the glossary’s terminology decisions.
A. Doctrine Vocabulary Matrix
| # | Doctrine | Available Thai Term(s) | Weaknesses / Collision Risk | Recommended Strategy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jesus as the Suffering Servant and Son of God | บุตรมนุษย์ (Son of Man); พระบุตรของพระเจ้า (reuse); พระบุตรที่รัก; ผู้รับใช้ (Servant, cf. Isaiah 53) | Thai has no native “Suffering Servant” register; อาจารย์ผู้เสียสละ (self-sacrificing teacher) is available but flattens the passage’s royal/divine dimension to mere moral exemplarism. บุตรมนุษย์ read woodenly means simply “a human’s son/child,” losing Daniel 7’s authority-and-glory sense entirely unless paired with teaching notes. | Retain บุตรมนุษย์ as a fixed technical title (never varied to “a man” or “I”), always taught alongside its two poles (authority + suffering). Reuse พระบุตรของพระเจ้า unchanged from baseline for the co-equal deity claim. Never let ผู้รับใช้ (Servant) drift toward the generic “religious helper” sense used for temple attendants. |
| 2 | The Kingdom of God Breaking In | แผ่นดินของพระเจ้า (reuse); ใกล้เข้ามาแล้ว (drawn near); ความล้ำลึก (mystery) | แผ่นดิน literally means “land/territory,” inviting a politically-territorial reading Jesus explicitly denies (cf. 12:13-17); ความล้ำลึก risks being heard as a Buddhist reserved/advanced-teaching category (ปรมัตถ์ธรรม) available only to advanced practitioners rather than kingdom truth graciously given (4:11). | Retain the baseline’s แผ่นดินของพระเจ้า unchanged but require accompanying teaching notes distinguishing God’s reign from อาณาจักร (territorial kingdom). For “mystery,” pair ความล้ำลึก consistently with the passive-voice “given” (ประทานให้) construction of 4:11 to keep the emphasis on grace-revelation, not attainment. |
| 3 | Faith and Discipleship amid Fear | ความเชื่อ (reuse); ความกลัว; ยำเกรง; ติดตาม | ความกลัว and ยำเกรง sit on a single Thai emotional continuum (fear/reverence/awe) that English “fear” also spans, but Mark deliberately uses the same Greek root (φόβος/φοβέομαι) for both unbelieving dread (4:40) and worshipful awe (5:15; 16:8) — Thai must actively choose which pole per verse, and mis-choice reverses the moral valence of the passage. | Build a verse-by-verse disambiguation table (see Section D) rather than a single fixed rendering; document the choice at each occurrence in the segment cache so Phase 2 reviewers can audit consistency. |
| 4 | The Necessity of the Cross | จำเป็นต้อง… (dei); ปฏิเสธตนเอง (deny self); รับกางเขน (take up cross); ถ้วย/จอก (cup) | Thai has a fluent, culturally loaded vocabulary for self-denial/detachment (การละ, การปล่อยวาง) rooted in the pursuit of personal liberation from suffering (an-attā-adjacent); this is the single greatest false-friend risk in the doctrine, since it would make Mark 8:34 sound like a call to Buddhist detachment practice rather than Christ-modeled, relational, cross-shaped suffering. | Consistently pair ปฏิเสธตนเอง with รับกางเขนของตน and ติดตาม (following, a person, not a principle) in the same clause, never presenting self-denial as a free-standing virtue. Fence explicitly against การละ/การปล่อยวาง as glosses. |
| 5 | Servanthood versus Worldly Greatness (Core Passage) | ผู้รับใช้ (servant); ทาส (slave); เป็นเจ้าเป็นนายเหนือ; ใช้อำนาจกดขี่; สิทธิอำนาจ (authority) | Thai reverential/status vocabulary is unusually rich and finely graded (ท่าน, นาย, เจ้านาย, จ้าว, องค์, etc.), which is a strength for capturing worldly greatness but a risk for the servant-slave escalation: if ผู้รับใช้ and ทาส are not kept sharply graded, or if เป็นเจ้าเป็นนายเหนือ shares a root with the established “Lord” term, the passage’s rhetorical shock collapses. | Enforce the fixed pairing already fixed in the Mark glossary: ผู้รับใช้ (9:35; 10:43) → ทาส (10:44) as a deliberate escalation, with a mandatory translator’s note at 10:44 addressing Thailand’s own historical memory of slavery so the verse reads as status-reversal, not endorsement. Keep เป็นเจ้าเป็นนายเหนือ / ใช้อำนาจกดขี่ root-distinct from องค์พระผู้เป็นเจ้า. |
| 6 | The Messianic Secret | ทรงกำชับห้ามไม่ให้บอกผู้ใด (charged to silence); การจำแลงพระกาย (transfigured) | จำแลง (to transform/shapeshift) is native Thai folklore vocabulary for a deity, nāga, or spirit changing form (a staple of Thai literature, e.g. the Phra Aphai Mani and Ramakien traditions) — a false-friend risk paralleling the baseline’s caution against การอวตาร for “incarnation”: both risk implying a temporary shape-change of one being into another rather than the unveiling of Christ’s own pre-existing, continuous glory. | Retain การจำแลงพระกาย (established Thai Bible usage) but require an explicit teaching note at every occurrence (9:2-8) clarifying “unveiling,” not “shapeshifting.” Preserve the secrecy motif structurally — do not add clarifying material into the silence commands themselves. |
| 7 | Jesus’ Authority over Sickness, Sin, and Nature | สิทธิอำนาจ (authority); ผี (demon/unclean spirit); ทรงยกบาป (forgive sins); หาย/รอด (heal/save, dual sense) | ผี is the single largest lexical collision in the entire book: it is the ordinary Thai word for ancestral, nature, and haunting spirits negotiated with via spirit-houses (ศาลพระภูมิ), offerings, and mediums (ร่างทรง) — a transactional, appeasement-based relationship utterly unlike Christ’s unilateral, word-only command. | Retain ผี (no better lexical option exists) but require the qualifying compounds ผีโสโครก/วิญญาณชั่ว plus mandatory teaching emphasis on the absence of negotiation — every exorcism narrative should carry a note stressing instant, unilateral obedience to Christ’s spoken word. |
| 8 | The Ransom for Many | ค่าไถ่ (ransom); แทน (in place of); ทรงไถ่ (redeem, reuse); คนเป็นอันมาก (many); ชีวิต (life/soul) | ค่าไถ่’s everyday secular sense (a kidnapping ransom paid to captors) is a genuine asset — it preserves the transactional, substitutionary shape of the metaphor — but risks being heard as a payment to a captor (implying a ransom paid to Satan or death as an independent power with rights) rather than Christ’s own sovereign, self-giving act. The preposition แทน vs เพื่อ distinction (10:45 vs 14:24) is invisible to an untrained translator and is this doctrine’s highest-precision decision. | Retain ค่าไถ่ / แทน exactly as fixed in the Mark glossary; require an explicit note on who the payment is to (accomplishing God’s own righteous requirement, not appeasing a rival power) and mandate the แทน/เพื่อ distinction be checked at every occurrence of 10:45 and 14:24 in Phase 2 validation. |
B. Missing Vocabulary vs. Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods
B.1 Genuine Vocabulary Gaps (no adequate native Thai lexical item; requires coinage, compound, or explanatory note)
| Concept | Passage(s) | Nature of the Gap | Resolution |
|---|---|---|---|
| Temple inner curtain (καταπέτασμα) | 15:38 | Thai wat architecture has no functional or symbolic equivalent to the OT temple’s inner veil separating the Holy of Holies. | Retain descriptive compound ม่านในพระวิหารฉีกขาด; mandatory short translator’s note on OT temple structure and the meaning of restricted access, parallel to the Galatians baseline’s note for “circumcision.” |
| Sabbath as a fixed weekly holy-rest day (σάββατον) | 2:23-3:6; 16:1-2 | Thai culture (Buddhist or secular) has no native concept of a divinely mandated weekly rest day tied to a creation ordinance. | Retain the established transliteration-based term วันสะบาโต; brief explanatory note required for low-OT-literacy readers at first occurrence (2:23). |
| Ephphatha / Abba (retained Aramaic) | 7:34; 14:36 | Not a Thai gap per se, but the category — a foreign-language intimacy/command term deliberately preserved untranslated by Mark himself — has no automatic Thai equivalent-behavior; without guidance a translator may “helpfully” translate it away. | Retain transliteration (เอฟฟาธา; อับบา) with an immediately adjacent Thai gloss (จงเปิด; พระบิดา), matching the established baseline pattern. |
| ”It is I” (ἐγώ εἰμι) theophanic resonance | 6:50 | Thai เราเอง is a flat, ordinary self-identification phrase (used by anyone knocking on a door); no natural Thai phrase carries an automatic echo of Exodus 3:14 the way Greek ἐγώ εἰμι can. | Accept the flattening as unavoidable at the lexical level; compensate with a footnote flag for the walking-on-water pericope noting the possible theophanic resonance, without overclaiming a decisive “I AM” statement (contrast John’s Gospel). |
| House of prayer / den of robbers economic critique | 11:17 | Thai has adequate individual vocabulary (นิเวศน์อธิษฐาน; ซ่องโจร) but no existing combined idiom criticizing commercialized worship, since this specific rhetorical pairing is not native to Thai religious discourse. | Render literally as a quotation (Isaiah 56:7 / Jeremiah 7:11 collocation already established in Thai Bible tradition); add a note bounding the critique to corrupted practice specifically, given the live parallel of wat-based religious commerce. |
| Gehenna as final, non-cyclical judgment (γέεννα) | 9:43-48 | Thai นรก is lexically available but denotes a temporary Buddhist hell-realm (นรกภูมิ) from which a being is eventually reborn once accumulated demerit is exhausted — the opposite of what Mark asserts. | Retain นรก (no better option) but require a mandatory teaching-note fence at every occurrence: final, not cyclical; God-ordained, not karma-exhausted. |
B.2 Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods (multiple existing Thai terms compete for the same conceptual space; the doctrinally correct term must be actively “fenced” against its near neighbors)
| Term / Concept | Thai Term Chosen | Crowding Neighbor(s) | Fencing Requirement |
|---|---|---|---|
| Demon / unclean spirit | ผี (ผีโสโครก/วิญญาณชั่ว) | ผีบ้าน, ผีบรรพบุรุษ, เจ้าที่, สิ่งศักดิ์สิทธิ์ประจำถิ่น — all negotiated with via offerings/mediums | Fence: never present Christ’s exorcisms as a stronger negotiation or a rival medium’s superior technique; his command is unilateral and immediate, no offering, no bargaining, no trance-mediumship. |
| Transfiguration | การจำแลงพระกาย | จำแลงกาย (a spirit, nāga, or deity changing form in Thai folklore/literature) | Fence: this is the unveiling of Christ’s own continuous, pre-existing glory, not a temporary metamorphosis into a different being — directly continuous with the baseline’s caution against การอวตาร for “incarnation.” |
| Self-denial / cross-bearing | ปฏิเสธตนเอง / รับกางเขนของตน | การละ, การปล่อยวาง, การขัดเกลากิเลส (Buddhist renunciation/detachment vocabulary) | Fence: always anchor the clause to ติดตาม (following a Person) and to Christ’s own suffering as the model; never present as a stand-alone self-improvement discipline aimed at personal liberation. |
| Flesh/sinful desire risk terms not directly in Mark but adjacent to “hardened heart,” “unclean,” “clean” | ใจที่แข็งกระด้าง; เป็นมลทิน/สะอาด | กิเลส (defilements, Buddhist technical term for the very passions in view) | Fence per the Galatians baseline precedent: never upgrade to กิเลส; keep the moral-relational sense (from the heart, toward a personal God) rather than the meditative-extinguishing sense. |
| Fear (dual sense) | ความกลัว / ยำเกรง | ความหวาดกลัวเชิงไสยศาสตร์ (superstitious dread of spirits/curses) — a live folk-register neighbor for “fear” in Thai | Fence: reverential awe before Christ’s displayed divine authority (ยำเกรง) must be kept distinct from both unbelieving anxious dread and superstitious dread of an appeasable spiritual power. |
| Parable | คำอุปมา | Buddhist teaching similes (also natively called อุปมา, used extensively in sermons and Jataka literature) | Fence (asset, not pure liability): a genuine and useful cultural bridge, provided the specific revealing-to-insiders/concealing-from-outsiders kingdom-mystery function (4:11-12) is taught explicitly rather than assumed to transfer automatically from the Buddhist genre. |
| Mystery of the kingdom | ความล้ำลึกแห่งแผ่นดินของพระเจ้า | ปรมัตถ์ธรรม / คำสอนขั้นสูง (advanced/esoteric teaching reserved for committed practitioners) | Fence: kingdom mystery is given by grace (4:11, passive voice, ประทานให้), not attained through advancement in practice or merit. |
| Love (great commandment) | ความรัก | เมตตา/กรุณา (Buddhist loving-kindness/compassion, more detached and universally diffused, not covenantally directed to a personal God first) | Fence: this is committed, willed, covenantal love directed first to a personal God (Deut 6:4-5) and consequently to neighbor, not a generalized benevolent disposition. |
| Ransom | ค่าไถ่ | (secular) ค่าไถ่ตัวประกัน (kidnap ransom paid to captors who hold rights) | Fence: the payment accomplishes God’s own righteous requirement and Christ’s sovereign self-gift; it is not paid to appease an independent captor-power with legitimate claims over the ransomed. |
| Blasphemy | การพูดหมิ่นประมาทพระเจ้า | หมิ่นประมาท / หมิ่นพระบรมเดชานุภาพ (Thai defamation and lèse-majesté legal categories) | Fence: an offense against God’s own holiness and the Spirit’s identity, a theological category, not a human legal/political crime — must not import Thailand’s own highly sensitive legal register into the reader’s understanding. |
| King of the Jews | กษัตริย์ของชาวยิว | Thai royal-honorific vocabulary reserved for the reigning monarchy | Fence: true but explicitly non-political, spiritual, eternal kingship; must not be rendered with, or read alongside, vocabulary that could be heard as commentary on the Thai monarchy. |
| Tribulation | ความทุกข์ลำบาก (ครั้งใหญ่) | ทุกข์ (dukkha, the First Noble Truth’s claim that all existence is inherently suffering) | Fence: a specific, bounded, historically-located period of intense distress (13:19, 24), not the general metaphysical claim that existence itself is suffering. |
C. Transliteration vs. Paraphrase Decisions
| Item | Decision | Rationale |
|---|---|---|
| Messiah / Christ | Transliterate (พระเมสสิยาห์ / พระคริสต์, reuse) | Established baseline convention; preserves the specific, exclusively-fulfilled OT category against confusion with พระศรีอริยเมตไตรย. |
| Abba | Transliterate + gloss (อับบา + พระบิดา) | Mark himself retains the Aramaic; the untranslated intimacy is the point (14:36). |
| Ephphatha | Transliterate + gloss (เอฟฟาธา + จงเปิด) | Same principle as Abba; Mark explicitly preserves the foreign-language imperative and supplies his own Greek gloss, which Thai should mirror. |
| Hosanna | Transliterate (โฮซันนา) | Established liturgical-exclamation convention (parallel to อาเมน, ฮาเลลูยาห์); paraphrasing (“Save now!”) would lose its recognized liturgical function. |
| Golgotha / Gethsemane / Bartimaeus / Barabbas / Beelzebul | Transliterate (established Thai Bible proper-name forms) | Standard proper-noun handling; no doctrinal content at stake, only correct-form consistency. |
| Son of Man | Paraphrase (fixed technical compound), not transliteration | บุตรมนุษย์ is a semantic calque, not a transliteration; no Greek/Hebrew sound-form would communicate anything to a Thai reader. Must function as a fixed technical title, never varied. |
| Ransom (λύτρον) | Paraphrase (ค่าไถ่) | A native Thai word already carries the exact transactional-substitutionary shape needed; transliterating a Greek loanword here would sacrifice a genuine advantage. |
| Gehenna | Paraphrase using existing (imperfect) term (นรก), not transliteration or coinage | A transliterated “Gehenna” (เกเฮนนา) would be theologically inert (meaningless without extensive footnoting) for a general reading audience; the existing imperfect term, heavily fenced with teaching notes, communicates the basic “place of final judgment” concept more effectively despite its Buddhist-cosmology baggage. |
| Kingdom of God (βασιλεία) | Paraphrase, reuse baseline (แผ่นดินของพระเจ้า) | Established Thai Bible convention; changing it now would break cross-curriculum consistency required by the baseline’s Theological Consistency Rules. |
| Sabbath | Transliteration-derived loanword (วันสะบาโต), already established in Thai Bible usage | Functions effectively as a proper-noun-like technical term; a descriptive paraphrase (“day of rest”) would lose the specific Mosaic-covenant referent central to the Sabbath controversies. |
| Elemental narrative titles (King of the Jews, Son of David) | Paraphrase using existing Thai royal/lineage vocabulary, heavily fenced | No transliteration option exists (these are titles, not proper nouns); paraphrase is unavoidable, so the fencing notes in Section B carry the doctrinal safety burden instead. |
D. Ranked List of Highest-Risk Ambiguities
Ranked by combined severity (doctrinal centrality × likelihood of an unflagged mistranslation given Thai’s existing religious vocabulary), drawing on the Mark-specific glossary and registry already produced.
- ἀντί vs ὑπέρ at 10:45 / 14:24 (แทน vs เพื่อ) — The single highest-precision decision in the whole book; an inattentive translator could harmonize both verses to the weaker เพื่อ, silently erasing strict substitutionary atonement from the Ransom saying. Critical.
- ผี for demon/unclean spirit — Unavoidable lexical collision with Thai folk-animist spirit-negotiation vocabulary across the entire exorcism material (six major pericopes). Critical.
- δεῖ…παθεῖν necessity of suffering vs fatalism (เวรกรรม) — All three Passion predictions (8:31; 9:31; 10:33-34) are vulnerable to being heard as impersonal karmic inevitability rather than personal divine redemptive purpose. Critical.
- κατακυριεύω/κατεξουσιάζω sharing a root with κύριος (“Lord”) — If Thai renderings of the 10:42 domineering compounds accidentally share a root with องค์พระผู้เป็นเจ้า, readers may infer Christ’s own Lordship is what is condemned, inverting the core passage’s argument. Critical.
- διάκονος → δοῦλος escalation (ผู้รับใช้ → ทาส) — If the escalation is flattened (both rendered the same way, or the grading reversed), the core passage’s rhetorical shock collapses entirely. Critical.
- φόβος/φοβέομαι dual sense (ความกลัว vs ยำเกรง) — Occurs at nine or more structurally significant points bookending the Gospel (4:40 through 16:8); wrong-pole selection at 16:8 in particular (the Gospel’s original ending) reverses the reader’s final impression of the resurrection narrative. High-Critical.
- γέεννα (นรก) vs Buddhist cyclical hell-realms — A single mistranslated or unflagged occurrence (9:43-48) imports an entire cosmology (eventual release through exhausted demerit) that directly contradicts the finality Jesus asserts. Critical.
- μεταμορφόω (จำแลง) vs Thai shapeshifting-deity folklore — Risks the same false-friend collapse the baseline already flags Critical for “incarnation” (การอวตาร), but here embedded in established Thai Bible vocabulary itself (9:2-8), making it harder to catch. High.
- ἀπαρνέομαι ἑαυτόν / cross-bearing (8:34) vs Buddhist self-denial/detachment vocabulary — The doctrine most likely to be “corrected” toward a more natural-sounding but doctrinally inverted Thai phrase by a well-meaning translator seeking fluency. Critical.
- λύτρον (ค่าไถ่) “paid to whom?” ambiguity — The term’s secular strength (kidnap-ransom transactional shape) is simultaneously its risk: an unguided reader may infer a payment to an independent captor with legitimate claims, rather than Christ’s sovereign self-gift satisfying God’s own righteous requirement. Critical.
- βασιλεὺς τῶν Ἰουδαίων (King of the Jews) and Thailand’s lèse-majesté-sensitive register — Requires the same careful non-political framing the baseline already applies to Romans 13 and “Lord,” but here the title is publicly mocking, multiplying the risk of an unintended political reading. High.
- βλασφημία (blasphemy) vs Thai legal defamation/lèse-majesté categories — Risk of the reader processing 14:63-64 through a political-legal frame rather than a theological-holiness frame. High.
- σῴζω (save/heal) dual sense — A single Greek verb; Thai must discern register at every occurrence (5:23, 28, 34; 8:35; 10:26, 52; 13:13; 16:16) without severing the deliberate theological link Mark draws between physical healing and ultimate salvation. High.
- μυστήριον τῆς βασιλείας (mystery of the kingdom) vs reserved/advanced Buddhist teaching categories — Subtler than #7-#9 but doctrinally significant at 4:11; risk of implying the kingdom is attained by advancement rather than given by grace. High.
- θλῖψις (tribulation) vs ทุกข์ (dukkha) — Risk of collapsing Mark’s specific, bounded historical crisis (ch. 13) into the general Buddhist metaphysical claim that all existence is inherently suffering. High.
- παραδίδωμι (handed over) — betrayal vs. divine plan — Requires holding Judas’s culpability and God’s sovereign purpose together without either exonerating Judas or reducing the narrative to bare determinism; recurring from 9:31 through 14:41-44. High.
- ἐγκατέλιπές με (cry of dereliction, 15:34) — Risk of translators softening the cry into rhetorical lament rather than allowing its full canonical weight within Trinitarian orthodoxy. High.
E. Full-Book Chapter Coverage Checklist
Confirms every chapter of Mark was reviewed for linguistic-gap issues, per the FULL-BOOK COVERAGE mandate. Chapters contributing no new gap beyond terms already fenced above are marked “reviewed, no new gap.”
| Chapter | Linguistic-Gap Contribution |
|---|---|
| 1 | Gospel opening title; John’s baptism/repentance (μετάνοια); Jesus’ baptism (Beloved Son, Holy Spirit descending); wilderness temptation (Satan/Māra collision risk, #Section B); first exorcism and healings (ผี collision, #1-2); authority (ἐξουσία) introduced. High-density chapter. |
| 2 | Forgiveness of sins as a deity claim (2:5-10); Sabbath controversies begin (no native Thai weekly-rest concept, Section B.1); Son of Man self-designation begins. |
| 3 | Blasphemy against the Spirit (unforgivable sin, βλασφημία); apostles named; Satan/kingdom-conflict language (3:23-26); family-of-God will language (θέλημα) previewed. |
| 4 | Parable discourse (cultural-bridge risk, Section B.2); mystery of the kingdom (ambiguity #14); fear at the storm-stilling (ambiguity #6, anxious pole). |
| 5 | Fear/faith contrast (Jairus’s daughter, hemorrhaging woman); σῴζω dual sense begins (ambiguity #13); demon possession (Gerasene) — largest single ผι-risk narrative in the book. |
| 6 | Rejection at Nazareth (δύναμις θεοῦ); mission of the Twelve (repentance, μετάνοια reused); feeding of the 5,000 (bread/ἄρτος thread begins); walking on water (ἐγώ εἰμι, ambiguity-adjacent; fear, ambiguity #6); hardened heart (6:52). |
| 7 | Tradition vs. commandment (Section A.7); clean/unclean reinterpreted from the heart; Ephphatha (Section C transliteration decision); Syrophoenician woman (ἔθνη/Gentile boundary-crossing, no new gap beyond baseline reuse). |
| 8 | Feeding of the 4,000 (bread thread continues); leaven warning (figurative, low risk); Peter’s confession (Χριστός, structural turning point); first Passion prediction (δεῖ…παθεῖν, ambiguity #3); deny self/take up cross (ambiguity #9); ψυχή/life-soul teaching begins (8:35-37). |
| 9 | Transfiguration (ambiguity #8); “listen to him” echoing Deut 18; demon-possessed boy and “I believe, help my unbelief” (genuine faith with honest doubt); second Passion prediction; servanthood introduced (9:35, διάκονος); Gehenna warnings begin (9:43-48, ambiguity #7); salt saying (low risk). |
| 10 | Core passage chapter. Rich young man (eternal life, ζωὴν αἰώνιον); divorce/Sabbath-adjacent law teaching; children and the kingdom; third Passion prediction; James and John’s request (θέλομεν, cup metaphor, ἡτοίμασται); the Ransom saying (10:35-45, ambiguities #1, #4, #5, #10); Bartimaeus’s faith/following contrasted with James and John. Highest doctrinal density in the book. |
| 11 | Triumphal entry (Hosanna, Section C; Son of David acclamation); temple cleansing (house of prayer/den of robbers, Section B.1); authority question (ἐξουσία). |
| 12 | Parable of the tenants (cornerstone/Ps 118 messianic prophecy); render to Caesar (ambiguity-adjacent, lèse-majesté register, Section B.2); great commandment (ἀγάπη vs mettā, Section B.2); resurrection debate with Sadducees (ἀνάστασις, reuse from baseline, ambiguity-free by design since already fenced). |
| 13 | Olivet Discourse: tribulation (ambiguity #15); watch/be alert (γρηγορέω); Son of Man’s return in glory (δόξα, δύναμις θεοῦ); election/elect (ἐκλεκτός, reuse). |
| 14 | Anointing at Bethany (no new gap); Last Supper (bread and cup threads converge; covenant blood “for many,” ὑπέρ correctly ≠ 10:45’s ἀντί, ambiguity #1); Gethsemane (Abba, cup, “not my will,” ambiguity #16-adjacent); betrayal and arrest (παραδίδωμι, ambiguity #16); trial and blasphemy charge (ambiguity #12); Peter’s denial (ἀρνέομαι). |
| 15 | Trial before Pilate; King of the Jews (ambiguity #11); crucifixion (σταυρόω, literal historical enactment); cry of dereliction (ambiguity #17); temple curtain torn (Section B.1); centurion’s confession, Son of God (climactic Messianic Secret payoff). |
| 16 | Empty tomb; “he has risen” (ἠγέρθη, reuse, fulfillment of every δεῖ παθεῖν prediction); fear at the tomb (ambiguity #6, final and most consequential occurrence); textual-critical note on the longer ending (16:9-20) — a publishing/formatting requirement, not a term-level linguistic gap, but flagged per the core glossary’s Section K. |
All sixteen chapters reviewed. No chapter is silently omitted; chapters not separately itemized for a new ambiguity above (none, in this case — every chapter of Mark contributes at least one load-bearing item) are nonetheless confirmed reviewed in the table.
Summary
- Genuine vocabulary gaps requiring coinage/note: 6 (Section B.1)
- Crowded semantic neighborhoods requiring active fencing: 13 (Section B.2)
- Transliteration decisions: 6; Paraphrase decisions: 5 (Section C)
- Ranked highest-risk ambiguities: 17, of which 8 are rated Critical and 9 High (Section D)
- Chapters reviewed for full-book coverage: 16 of 16, plus the 16:9-20 textual-critical note
This analysis feeds directly into the Mark-specific doctrine_risk_registry.json review-routing decisions and must be treated as authoritative for Phase 2 translator training materials alongside 08_core_glossary.md.