Bounded answer
Attribute commentary to its named commentator, edition, period, and passage rather than presenting it as words of the primary text. Multiple commentaries remain parallel witnesses when they disagree.
Input contract
What must be fixed first
Exact primary-text unit and named edition
Source-language form and identified translation
Commentary or scholarship with attribution
Declared relationship type and uncertainty
Procedure
Work the decision in order
- 1
Identify the exact form or proposition being connected.
- 2
Open the named passage and preserve its printed-unit boundary.
- 3
Separate source text from translation and commentary.
- 4
Classify each relationship as textual, translational, commentarial, historical, or theological.
- 5
State the strongest supported answer and what remains unresolved.
Expected outputs
- Layered evidence map
- Bounded direct answer
- Unsupported-identity and inference list
Refuse when
- The primary passage or edition is unnamed.
- A translation or commentary is presented as source text.
- A historical or theological conclusion is inferred from name similarity alone.
- Later commentary can document reception but cannot be silently projected backward into the primary text.
Questions this guide answers
How should a governed answer apply commentary attribution?
Attribute commentary to its named commentator, edition, period, and passage rather than presenting it as words of the primary text. Multiple commentaries remain parallel witnesses when they disagree.
What is the primary-text layer for Commentary Attribution?
Use only the wording and structure present in the named printed unit; translation and later explanation remain separate.
How should translation be represented?
Name the translator or edition and retain the source-language form so that an English identity choice remains visible as a choice.
When is a historical connection allowed?
Only when passages on both sides and the inferential bridge are explicit; otherwise record the connection as unresolved.
What must not be inferred about Commentary Attribution?
Later commentary can document reception but cannot be silently projected backward into the primary text.
Limits
- Later commentary can document reception but cannot be silently projected backward into the primary text.
- This page projects already published evidence routes and does not replace their exact source locators.
- The system documents theological claims as claims of traditions; it does not adjudicate metaphysical truth.