Executive Summary — Acts 1–28 Cantonese Translation Requirements

Why it matters

Acts is the highest doctrinal-density, highest cultural-collision curriculum this pipeline has processed for Cantonese to date — denser than the Romans baseline it extends. The book’s core passage (Acts 2:1-41) alone converges nearly every Critical-risk doctrine in the entire curriculum: Pentecost, repentance, baptism, forgiveness of sins, the resurrection, the Lordship of Christ, and fulfilled prophecy all appear within 41 verses. Beyond the core passage, Acts introduces the single highest-stakes term-collision risk identified anywhere in this project — 道 (“the Way”), the book’s own name for the Christian movement, which is lexically identical to 道教 (Daoism), a living, prominent tradition in Hong Kong (Wong Tai Sin Temple, Man Mo Temple). Getting this book wrong risks either destroying essential doctrine or actively reinforcing the folk-religious, occult, and prosperity-transactional frameworks the gospel of Acts explicitly confronts — most dramatically in Simon Magus’s attempt to purchase spiritual power (Acts 8), a narrative that stages, at full length, the exact grace-vs-merit collision Hong Kong’s temple culture presents every day.

Key findings

• 38 distinct doctrines identified across Acts 1–28 (full-book coverage confirmed chapter-by-chapter in analysis/11_doctrine_analysis.md), of which 14 are Critical risk and 15 are High risk — 29 of 38 doctrines (76%) require mandatory human theologian review, versus 6 requiring native-speaker review and 3 requiring automated review only.
• 102 total glossary terms now sit in the combined Romans-baseline + Acts-extension translation memory relevant to this book, of which 27 are Critical risk and 30 are High risk — 57 terms (56% of the glossary) require mandatory human theologian review on every occurrence.
• Five terms carry the single highest combined severity ranking in analysis/06_linguistic_gap_analysis.md §6: 道 (the Way, vs. Daoism), 神蹟奇事 (signs and wonders, vs. temple “efficacy”/靈驗), 抽籤 (lot-casting, vs. temple fortune-stick divination 求籤), 恩典 as dramatized by Simon Magus’s attempted purchase of the Spirit’s gift, and 占卜嘅邪靈 (spirit of divination, vs. 問米/fortune-telling culture).
• Four named heterodox/sectarian movements (Jehovah’s Witnesses’ New World Translation, True Jesus Church, the Local Church/“Shouters,” and LDS/Mormon ongoing-apostleship claims) anchor distinctive doctrine directly in specific Acts verses this curriculum must translate — a collision category with no Romans-curriculum precedent, documented in analysis/05_translation_landscape.md §4.
• Two Greek words each require a mandatory sense-split into two separate, never-merged translation-memory keys to prevent doctrinal cross-contamination: κλῆρος (抽籤 lot-casting vs. 產業 inheritance) and δωρεά vs. χαρίσματα (聖靈嘅（白白嘅）恩賜 vs. 屬靈恩賜).

Risks

• 道 (“the Way”) left unqualified in any segment would present Christianity as continuous with, or a variant of, Daoism to Hong Kong’s largest living folk-religious tradition — the single greatest doctrinal-collapse risk in the project to date.
• 神蹟奇事 (signs and wonders) described with 靈驗ヴocabulary would recast apostolic miracles as transactional proof-of-power indistinguishable from Wong Tai Sin Temple’s core marketing claim, destroying the doctrine of miracles as gospel-authenticating rather than free-floating.
• 悔改 (repentance) softened toward 懺悔 or 洗心革面 would recast conversion as karma-account-clearing or secular willpower reform, removing the personal God from the very doctrine most repeated in the curriculum (five occurrences in the core-doctrine list alone).
• Simon Magus’s rebuke (Acts 8:18-24) softened would forfeit the curriculum’s single best-worked biblical illustration of the grace-vs-merit doctrine already flagged Critical in the Romans baseline.
• Political mis-framing at Acts 1:6 (kingdom restoration), chs. 4-5/12/16/21-26 (persecution/authority), and 2:44-4:32 (communal property) risks unintended contemporary political reading given Hong Kong’s current climate, despite these passages being purely historical-narrative and doctrinal in intent.

Opportunities

• Acts’ own narrative structure does much of the fencing work for us: Simon Magus (ch.8), Elymas (ch.13), and the Philippi spirit of divination (ch.16) are the Bible’s own worked case studies distinguishing Spirit-given grace/power from occult, transactional, and merit-based alternatives — teaching notes can lean on the text’s own contrasts rather than needing invented illustrations.
• Acts 17’s Areopagus speech offers a built-in, textually-grounded model for engaging Hong Kong’s plural religious landscape (temple worship, ancestor veneration, popular deities) respectfully but without syncretistic concession — directly transferable to broader Hong Kong evangelism materials.
• The CUV’s own established renderings (稱義, 罪得赦免, 道, 巫鬼所附) already anchor most of this curriculum’s Critical-tier terms in the wider Chinese Bible tradition; the work required is disciplined fencing and mandatory explanatory clauses, not wholesale re-coinage.

Recommended actions

1. Enforce the 道 mandatory explanatory clause at every first occurrence per document, with theologian review at every single occurrence without exception, per analysis/12_ai_translation_requirements.md.
2. Route all of Acts 2:1-41 (the core passage), Acts 8:9-24, 13:38-39, 15:1-29, and 16:16-18,30-31 through mandatory human theologian review as whole passages, not merely term-by-term, given their doctrinal density.
3. Confirm Phase 2 tooling enforces the two mandatory sense-splits (κλῆρος; δωρεά/χαρίσματα) as separate, non-mergeable translation-memory keys before batch processing begins.
4. Brief all human theologian reviewers on the four named cult/sect avoidance rules (§4 of 05_translation_landscape.md) before Acts review begins, since these risks have no equivalent in the Romans-curriculum reviewer training.
5. Carry the 57 Critical/High-tier terms and 29 Critical/High-tier doctrines forward into Phase 2 Step 17’s Doctrinal Fidelity Review dashboard as the primary oversight-load metric for this curriculum.

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See analysis/11_doctrine_analysis.md for the full 38-doctrine matrix and chapter coverage map; assets/translation_memory.json and assets/doctrine_risk_registry.json for the enforcement databases; analysis/12_ai_translation_requirements.md for the complete Phase 2 instruction set.