Linguistic Gap Analysis — Acts (Handelingen) | English → Dutch

Purpose and Scope

This document executes PRD Phase 1 Step 8 for the Acts curriculum. It analyzes the destination-language (Dutch) vocabulary availability for the nine core doctrines of this curriculum, identifies where Dutch has no clean equivalent (missing vocabulary, requiring compound coinage or paraphrase) versus where Dutch has too many competing equivalents (crowded semantic neighborhoods requiring deliberate fencing), documents the transliteration-vs-paraphrase decisions already embedded in the Core Glossary (08_core_glossary.md) and Bible Term Registry, and concludes with a ranked list of this curriculum’s highest-risk ambiguities for Phase 2 routing.

This analysis governs the full book of Acts (chapters 1–28), with Acts 2:1–41 (Pentecost) as the theological anchor. All findings must remain consistent with the Romans baseline translation_memory.json and doctrine_risk_registry.json, which this curriculum extends rather than contradicts.

Core doctrines analyzed:

1. The Holy Spirit and Pentecost
2. The Gospel to Jews and Gentiles
3. Repentance and Baptism
4. The Church as Community
5. Apostolic Authority and Miracles
6. Persecution and Bold Witness
7. Conversion of Paul
8. Justification apart from the Law
9. The Great Commission Fulfilled

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Part 1 — Doctrine Vocabulary Matrix

For each doctrine: the Dutch terms currently available (from baseline reuse or new Acts coinage), their structural weaknesses, and the recommended handling strategy.

1. The Holy Spirit and Pentecost

Available Dutch terms	Weaknesses	Recommended strategy
Heilige Geest	Reused from baseline (Medium in Romans; raised to Critical for Acts — see registry note on 5:3,9). Secularization risk: “geest” alone drifts toward vague ietsistic “energie/kracht” outside the fixed compound.	Always use the full fixed compound “Heilige Geest,” never bare “Geest,” in doctrinal statements. Capitalize consistently.
Pinksteren	Live holiday-secularization collision: “een lang Pinksterweekend” is the dominant modern association, emptied of feast content.	Supply explicit OT Feast-of-Weeks/Shavuot framing at first occurrence (2:1); do not assume audience recognition.
andere talen (tongues, spoken)	Sits inside a live, sometimes divisive Dutch ecclesial fault line: Pinkstergemeenten (charismatic/Pentecostal) read Acts 2 through a continuing-ecstatic-glossolalia lens; mainstream Reformed and Catholic readers read it as one-time miraculous known-language speech.	Do not resolve the debate lexically. Use “andere talen” (not bare “tongen”) and let vv.6–11’s content (hearers understanding their own language) do the disambiguating work contextually.
vlammen als van vuur	Visually similar to, and thus liable to conflate with, “andere talen” above (both called “tongues” in the source idiom, γλῶσσαι).	Keep lexically distinct: never call the fire phenomenon “vurige tongen” in running text without a qualifier, to avoid readers merging two distinct signs into one.
de gave van de Heilige Geest	Distinct new-term coinage; risk of collapsing into “genadegaven” (spiritual gifts, plural, distributed).	Maintain the singular/plural distinction: “de gave” (the Spirit’s own indwelling, singular event) vs. “genadegaven” (the diverse enablements the indwelling Spirit distributes). Translator’s note recommended at first occurrence (2:38).

2. The Gospel to Jews and Gentiles

Available Dutch terms	Weaknesses	Recommended strategy
heidenen	Reused from baseline; carries the same pejorative “uncivilized/irreligious” secular undertone as German Heiden.	Retain per baseline; frame narratively as ethnic-identity category, not moral slur, especially at reversal points (10:45; 15:7).
onrein / rein	Torah purity-boundary vocabulary; risk of flattening to a dietary footnote (10:14–15, 28) and losing its function as a picture of the Jew-Gentile boundary.	Explicitly gloss the vision’s referent shift from food to people at 10:28, 34–35.
(God) ziet niemand naar het aanzien van zijn persoon	No single Dutch noun for “respecter of persons”; only descriptive-clause paraphrase available.	Retain the full descriptive clause rather than compressing to a single adjective like “onpartijdig,” which under-carries the doctrinal weight of the turning-point verse (10:34).
aan een onbekende god	Direct, plain rendering exists, but the Areopagus scene invites — and must resist — importing the modern sociological term “ietsisme” (vague Dutch “somethingism” belief) into the translation itself.	Render the altar inscription plainly; reserve “ietsisme” strictly for teaching-note commentary, never for the translated Biblical text.
herstel van alle dingen	Collision risk with Dutch orthodox Reformed Christian-Zionist readings that politically identify “restoration” with the modern state of Israel.	Frame as cosmic/eschatological renewal (3:21), never geopolitical restoration, consistent with baseline’s israel caution.
de troon van David	Same Christian-Zionism collision risk as above.	Frame as fulfilled messianic kingship in the risen Christ (2:30–31), not a future ethnic-national monarchy.

3. Repentance and Baptism

Available Dutch terms	Weaknesses	Recommended strategy
bekering	Everyday Dutch usage drifts toward one-time emotional/ideological “conversion” (e.g., “bekeerd tot het vegetarisme”), losing the whole-person, Spirit-wrought turning sense.	Anchor with surrounding clauses (turning “to God,” receiving forgiveness) rather than relying on the noun alone.
doop	Critical — the single most denominationally fraught term in the entire curriculum (see Part 2 below).	Human theologian review required at every occurrence; see Part 4 ranked list, #1.
vergeving van zonden	Reused/extended baseline pattern; “zonde” itself carries the documented Dutch drift toward “a pity/waste” in casual speech.	Never let “vergeving van zonden” stand as a bare formula without surrounding forensic-relational framing (guilt cancelled before God, not merely an interpersonal apology).
tijden van verkwikking	No natural single-word Dutch equivalent for this eschatological hapax phrase; low OT/prophetic literacy compounds the difficulty.	Retain the full descriptive phrase with brief eschatological framing rather than compressing to “verlichting” (relief), which loses the eschatological horizon.
diep in het hart getroffen	Paraphrase only; no single Dutch verb captures κατανύσσομαι’s Spirit-wrought conviction sense.	Retain descriptive phrase; guard against collapse into casual “spijt” (regret).
gij zult behouden worden, gij en uw huis	Directly entangled with the baptism controversy via household-baptism narrative pattern.	Route with the same theologian-review flag as doop (see Part 4, #1).

4. The Church as Community

Available Dutch terms	Weaknesses	Recommended strategy
gemeente / kerk	Reused High-risk baseline distinction; Acts narrates the church’s actual historical formation, making the distinction more load-bearing here than even in Romans.	”Gemeente” for the NT gathered-community sense throughout (2:47; 5:11; 9:31, etc.); reserve “kerk” for institutional/building references only.
heiligen	Reused High-risk baseline term; Acts narrates the origin of this corporate designation for the first believers (9:13, 32, 41), sharpening the Catholic-canonized-saint vs. Reformed-corporate-believer fault line.	Gloss with “alle gelovigen” at first Acts occurrence per baseline’s own forbidden-substitution guidance.
christen	Low risk, stable across traditions.	Use directly; no fencing needed.
dienst / bediening; diaken	The Dutch Reformed threefold office (predikant, ouderling, diaken) is still institutionally active today, giving this term unusual concrete weight.	Use “dienst/bediening” for the Acts narrative’s informal sense; reserve “diaken” as a technical office label only where the text clearly signals an appointed office (6:1–6).
ouderlingen	Same live-office collision as above.	Present as the biblical prototype of the office, not a retrojection of the fully developed later Reformed polity system.
opziener(s) / herder(en)	High risk — direct denominational fault line: Catholic “bisschop” derives from the same Greek root but denotes a hierarchical office Reformed polity rejects.	NEVER render as “bisschop(pen).” Use “opziener(s)/herder(en)” exclusively, consistent with Dutch Reformed non-hierarchical local-eldership tradition.

5. Apostolic Authority and Miracles

Available Dutch terms	Weaknesses	Recommended strategy
apostel	Low risk, stable.	Use directly.
kracht van God; krachten, wonderen en tekenen	Secular Dutch scientific-naturalist public discourse defaults such phenomena to legend/folklore categories.	Frame explicitly as divine self-authentication in surrounding teaching material, not merely spectacular narrative color.
handoplegging	High risk — strong Catholic sacramental associations (vormsel, priestly wijding) vs. restrained Reformed ordination-only usage.	Do not imply a fixed sacramental theology beyond what the Acts narrative itself states; flag for native-speaker review at ordination-adjacent passages (6:6; 13:3) and Spirit-reception passages (8:17; 19:6) alike.
Leidsman ten leven (Prince/Author of life)	Critical — no single natural modern Dutch noun for ἀρχηγός in this sense; available renderings (“Leidsman,” “Vorst,” “Aanvoerder”) each carry partial loss.	Retain “Leidsman ten leven” (established Statenvertaling/HSV-adjacent register) as primary; flag as a Christological title equal in weight to “Zoon van God” / “Heer,” never reduced to generic “leider.”
het lot werpen (casting lots)	Modern Dutch “lot” is dominated by “loterij” (lottery)/chance connotations foreign to the text’s discernment-of-God’s-prior-choice framing (Acts 1:26).	Gloss briefly that this discerns God’s prior sovereign choice, not random chance.
de gehele raad van God	Shares sovereignty-vocabulary family with the Critical determinate_counsel term; risk of reduction to mere personal opinion/advice.	Retain full weight of divine authorship behind apostolic teaching (20:27).

6. Persecution and Bold Witness

Available Dutch terms	Weaknesses	Recommended strategy
vrijmoedigheid	Established devotional vocabulary risks being read as generic social confidence/assertiveness rather than Spirit-given courage specifically under threat.	Anchor to its recurring hostile-authority context (4:13, 29, 31; 9:27; 28:31) each time.
getuige(n)	Modern Dutch usage dominated by courtroom register.	Retain personal, costly, gospel-testifying sense; do not retroactively import “martelaar” (martyr) except where the narrative itself (ch.7, Stephen) begins that semantic shift.
Sanhedrin	Low risk if transliterated correctly.	NEVER render “Hoge Raad” (the actual Dutch Supreme Court) — anachronistic civil-institution collision.
sekte / richting	Modern Dutch “sekte” carries strongly negative destructive-cult connotations absent from the neutral Koine αἵρεσις.	Reserve “sekte” only for quoted hostile speech (24:5, 14; 28:22); prefer neutral “richting” in narration.
het bepaalde raadsbesluit en de voorkennis van God	Critical — no compact single Dutch term holds sovereignty and human culpability together; full descriptive phrase required.	Retain the full phrase (2:23); never resolve toward fatalism or bare human freedom. See Part 4 ranked list, #2.

7. Conversion of Paul

Available Dutch terms	Weaknesses	Recommended strategy
de Weg	Risk of reading as a generic ethical “path” (cf. secular “zijn eigen weg gaan”).	Capitalize consistently as a proper self-designation rooted in Christ (9:2; 19:9, 23; 22:4; 24:14, 22).
uitgekozen werktuig (chosen vessel)	Critical — inherits full Canons-of-Dort-adjacent weight of “verkiezing”; risk of a self-initiative or achievement misreading (“chosen” as in “hand-picked for talent”).	Must not read as democratic selection or Paul’s own merit; frame explicitly as sovereign divine choice (9:15).
Waarom vervolgt gij Mij?	Distinctive first-person identification of the risen Christ with his persecuted church.	Preserve verbatim personal address; do not dilute to “waarom vervolgt u mijn volgelingen” (9:4; 22:7; 26:14).

8. Justification apart from the Law

Available Dutch terms	Weaknesses	Recommended strategy
rechtvaardiging	Critical, reused exactly from baseline; Acts 13:39 is the book’s explicit statement and direct doctrinal bridge to Romans.	Enforce the forensic contrast with “de wet van Mozes” exactly per Heidelberg Catechism Q&A 60 tradition.
besnijdenis	High risk — load-bearing for the Jerusalem Council controversy (ch.15); Dutch historical/contemporary sensitivity around Jewish religious identity requires care.	Frame strictly as the specific 1st-century controversy resolved by grace, not general commentary on Jewish practice.
juk (yoke of the law)	Law-as-burden vs. grace-as-freedom contrast (15:10) is Critical-adjacent; risk of softening.	Preserve the full weight of the contrast, consistent with baseline’s Romans 3–4/11:5–6 grace-merit rule.
geheiligd door het geloof	Unique Acts combination (26:18); risk of implying a separate works-based sanctification track.	Must read as sanctification received by faith, continuous with justification-by-faith logic, not a parallel merit-track.
bestemd tot het eeuwige leven (ordained to eternal life)	Critical — Acts 13:48 parallels the Canons of Dort’s unconditional-election language almost verbatim.	Must not read as democratic or self-determined outcome.

9. The Great Commission Fulfilled

Available Dutch terms	Weaknesses	Recommended strategy
Hemelvaart	Secularized long-weekend holiday marker (“Hemelvaartsdag”), parallel to Pinksteren’s own emptying-of-content risk.	Supply explicit theological re-grounding (bodily, historical, visible departure) at first occurrence (1:9–11).
Koninkrijk van God	Frames both the disciples’ nationalist-political misreading (1:6) and Acts’ closing summary (28:23, 31).	Preserve per baseline; explicitly correct the political/territorial misreading in surrounding teaching material.
zending	Cleaner theological semantic field than most languages in this batch, but still carries Dutch East Indies-era colonial-missionary undertone.	Retain “zending”; be sensitive to colonial-history connotations in framing material, per baseline’s own note.
onbelemmerd / zonder verhindering	Under-translation risk: reads as merely administrative (“no legal obstacles”) rather than the triumphant, doctrine-bearing closing word of the entire book.	Preserve the triumphant force of Acts’ final adverb (28:31) as the deliberate capstone of the Jerusalem-to-Rome narrative arc.

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Part 2 — Missing Vocabulary vs. Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods

2A. Missing Vocabulary (Dutch lacks a clean one-word equivalent — compound/paraphrase required)

These concepts have no single existing Dutch lexeme that carries the full doctrinal freight; the Core Glossary already stages multi-word renderings for each, and this analysis confirms paraphrase (not further compression) as the correct strategy:

Concept	Why Dutch lacks a single term	Adopted paraphrase
ἀρχηγὸς τῆς ζωῆς (Prince/Author of life)	No modern Dutch noun combines “originator” + “ruler” + “life-giver” in one word; “leider” is too generic, “vorst” loses the life-giving sense.	Leidsman ten leven
σκεῦος ἐκλογῆς (chosen vessel)	“Vat” (vessel/container) reads oddly personified in Dutch; a literal calque would be unintelligible.	uitgekozen werktuig
ὡρισμένη βουλή καὶ πρόγνωσις (determinate counsel and foreknowledge)	No compact Dutch noun holds sovereign-plan + foreknowledge + human-culpability together.	het bepaalde raadsbesluit en de voorkennis van God
προσωπολήμπτης (respecter of persons)	No single Dutch noun for this Greek compound; nominalizing “aanziens-persoon-nemer” would be unintelligible.	(God) ziet niemand naar het aanzien van zijn persoon
σωθήσῃ σὺ καὶ ὁ οἶκός σου (household salvation formula)	No idiomatic Dutch compresses “you and your household will be saved” into fewer words without losing register.	gij zult behouden worden, gij en uw huis
καιροὶ ἀναψύξεως (times of refreshing)	Dutch “verkwikking” exists but the full eschatological phrase requires the genitive construction retained, not compressed.	tijden van verkwikking
κατανύσσομαι (pierced to the heart)	No single Dutch verb for Spirit-wrought conviction distinct from ordinary emotional regret.	diep in het hart getroffen

Strategic implication: Phase 2 translators must be instructed (via the AI Translation Requirements document, Step 9) that these entries are intentionally multi-word. Any automated compression pass that shortens these phrases risks silently dropping doctrinal content and must be blocked at the validation layer.

2B. Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods (Dutch has too many competing terms/associations — fencing required)

These are cases where Dutch vocabulary is not missing but overpopulated — multiple existing senses, denominational traditions, or secular usages compete for the same word, requiring explicit fencing (context, glosses, or a mandated single choice) to prevent doctrinal drift.

Term	Competing neighbors in the semantic space	Fencing strategy
doop	(1) Reformed/Catholic kinderdoop (infant baptism); (2) Doopsgezinden/Anabaptist believer’s-baptism tradition; (3) generic secular “onderdompeling”	Human theologian review at every occurrence; curriculum must present the Acts narrative pattern (repentance → baptism → Spirit) without silently resolving the paedobaptist/believer’s-baptism debate.
gemeente / kerk	(1) NT gathered-community sense; (2) actual Dutch denominational names (Nederlandse Hervormde Kerk, Gereformeerde Kerken); (3) physical building; (4) Catholic universal-institution sense	”Gemeente” mandated for NT ekklesia sense per baseline; “kerk” reserved for institution/building only.
heiligen	(1) Reformed corporate-believer sense; (2) Catholic canonized-saint/patron-saint sense, concentrated in the historically Catholic south	Gloss “alle gelovigen” at first occurrence; never let “de heiligen” stand unglossed for a general audience.
verkiezing	(1) Theological unconditional election (Canons of Dort); (2) everyday Dutch political/democratic “verkiezingen” (elections)	Context must always specify God’s sovereign, unconditional choice; never let the term stand near election-season-adjacent vocabulary without disambiguation.
zonde	(1) Moral transgression before God; (2) dominant colloquial “a pity/waste” (“zonde van het eten”)	Never let “zonde”/“vergeving van zonden” stand as a bare formula without forensic-relational framing.
roeping	(1) Divine summons; (2) everyday career/vocation sense (“mijn roeping als leraar”)	Context must specify the divine-initiative sense at each occurrence (2:39).
opziener / bisschop	(1) Reformed non-hierarchical local eldership; (2) Catholic hierarchical episcopal office	”Bisschop” forbidden; “opziener(s)/herder(en)” mandated.
sekte	(1) Neutral Koine “school/party”; (2) modern Dutch destructive-cult connotation	Reserve “sekte” strictly for quoted hostile speech; “richting” in narration.
Sanhedrin	(1) Ancient Jewish council; (2) potential confusion with “Hoge Raad” (actual Dutch Supreme Court)	Transliterate as “Sanhedrin”; never substitute “Hoge Raad.”
andere talen (tongues)	(1) Miraculous known-language speech (Acts 2’s own narrative claim); (2) ongoing charismatic glossolalia as practiced in Pinkstergemeenten	Do not resolve lexically; let narrative context (vv.6–11) disambiguate.
Pinksteren / Hemelvaart	(1) Feast-day theological content; (2) fully secularized long-weekend holiday markers in contemporary Dutch civic life	Explicit theological re-grounding required at first occurrence of each.
behoud / verlossing / zaligheid	(1) Orthodox Reformed “bevindelijk” register (behoud); (2) common modern usage (verlossing); (3) archaic Statenvertaling-era devotional register (zaligheid)	“Behoud” mandated as primary per baseline; Acts 27’s non-doctrinal “physical rescue” sense must NOT be forced into this register (see registry note).
Vader	(1) Divine Fatherhood; (2) rhetorical ancestral “onze vaderen” (7:2; 22:1)	Disambiguate by context at every occurrence; risk is more pronounced in Acts than in Romans due to frequent ancestral-rhetoric speeches.
getuige	(1) Gospel-testifying witness; (2) modern courtroom-testimony register; (3) emerging “martelaar” sense within the book itself (ch.7)	Retain plain “getuige” except where the narrative itself begins the martyr-shift; do not import “martelaar” prematurely.

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Part 3 — Transliteration vs. Paraphrase Decisions

Decision type	Terms	Rationale
Transliterate (proper nouns / established loanwords)	Messias, David, Israël, Jezus, Christus, Sanhedrin, Pinksteren, Abba, Gamaliël, Cornelius, Stefanus, Filippus, Barnabas, Timotheüs, Lydia, Aquila, Priscilla, Apollos, Felix, Festus, Agrippa, Zeus, Hermes, Artemis, Athene, Areopagus, Antiochië, Damascus, Efeze, Korinthe, Malta, Rome	Established Dutch Bible-translation forms exist and must be reused per the baseline’s transliteration standards; no doctrinal content is lost by transliterating a proper name.
Transliterate with mandatory disambiguation gloss	Sanhedrin (vs. Hoge Raad), Simon (de tovenaar) (vs. Simon Petrus), Ananias (two distinct figures, ch.5 and ch.9)	The transliterated form is correct, but a bare transliteration risks confusion with a modern institution or between same-named biblical figures; teaching notes must flag this explicitly.
Paraphrase (no adequate single Dutch term exists)	Leidsman ten leven, uitgekozen werktuig, het bepaalde raadsbesluit en de voorkennis van God, (God) ziet niemand naar het aanzien van zijn persoon, gij zult behouden worden gij en uw huis, tijden van verkwikking, diep in het hart getroffen, de gehele raad van God	See Part 2A; compression into a single word would necessarily drop doctrinal content.
Compound coinage (native Dutch morphology, not Latinate borrowing)	vleeswording (incarnation, baseline-reused), aanneming tot kinderen (adoption, baseline-reused), toegerekende gerechtigheid (imputed righteousness, baseline-reused)	Consistent with the baseline’s documented Reformed preference for native compounds over Latinate alternatives (“incarnatie,” “adoptie”) in doctrinally load-bearing terms; Acts inherits this register choice unchanged.
Deliberately NOT transliterated (would create false-cognate collision)	ἐπίσκοπος → NOT “bisschop”; αἵρεσις → NOT unqualified “sekte”; κλῆρος → glossed, not left as bare “lot”	The Dutch cognate/near-cognate carries specific modern institutional or connotative baggage (Catholic episcopal hierarchy; destructive-cult movements; lottery-chance) absent from or contrary to the Koine sense.
Register choice between two valid transliterations	Messias (preferred) vs. “Christos” (transliteration retained only for scholarly apparatus, never running text); Areopagus (preferred) vs. non-standard “Marsheuvel”	Established Dutch Bible tradition already fixes the preferred form; the rejected alternative is flagged so Phase 2 does not improvise.

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Part 4 — Ranked List of This Curriculum’s Highest-Risk Ambiguities

Ranked by combined severity of (a) doctrinal centrality, (b) likelihood of misreading given documented Dutch cultural/denominational fault lines, and (c) frequency of occurrence across Acts. All items ranked Critical or High require human theologian review per the baseline’s escalation rules; this ranking determines review priority order within that tier.

1. doop (baptism) — Critical. The single most Dutch-denominationally-fraught term in the curriculum. Every occurrence (2:38; 8:36–38; 9:18; 10:47–48; 16:15, 33; 18:8; 19:3–5) sits directly on the historic Doopsgezinden (believer’s baptism) vs. Reformed/Catholic (infant baptism/kinderdoop) fault line. Highest-frequency, highest-stakes term in the book.

2. het bepaalde raadsbesluit en de voorkennis van God (determinate counsel and foreknowledge, 2:23) — Critical. Holds divine sovereignty and full human culpability together in a single sentence; the Canons-of-Dort-adjacent tension must not resolve toward either fatalism or bare human freedom. Anchors the Pentecost sermon itself (core passage).

3. Heer en Christus (Lord and Christ, 2:36) — Critical. The Pentecost sermon’s climactic double confession; requires the exact same fixed, unqualified cross-curriculum rendering discipline the baseline mandates for Romans 10:9. Located inside the curriculum’s theological anchor passage (Acts 2:1–41).

4. uitgekozen werktuig / bestemd tot het eeuwige leven (chosen vessel / ordained to eternal life, 9:15; 13:48) — Critical. Both inherit the full Canons-of-Dort weight of “verkiezing” and both risk a democratic-selection or human-merit misreading if not explicitly framed as sovereign divine choice.

5. andere talen (tongues, 2:4–11) — High. Sits inside a live, currently active Dutch ecclesial division (Pinkstergemeenten vs. mainstream Reformed/Catholic reading of Acts 2); located inside the core passage; any lexical choice that leans toward “tongen” alone risks appearing to adjudicate an ongoing intra-Dutch-Protestant debate.

6. opziener(s) vs. bisschop (overseers/shepherds) — High. A single wrong word choice (“bisschop”) would import an entire Catholic hierarchical ecclesiology absent from the Reformed-majority target readership’s polity assumptions.

7. gemeente vs. kerk (church) — High. Extremely high-frequency term (occurs in nearly every chapter) where Acts narrates the very formation event Dutch Reformed ecclesiology self-consciously draws upon; a single inconsistent rendering could undermine the doctrine across the whole curriculum.

8. heiligen (saints, 9:13, 32, 41) — High. Acts narrates the historical origin of this designation for the Jerusalem believers, sharpening (not merely repeating) the baseline’s Catholic-canonized-saint vs. Reformed-corporate-believer fault line along the Netherlands’ own north/south geographic divide.

9. besnijdenis / juk (circumcision / yoke of the law, ch.15) — High. The Jerusalem Council’s resolution is the book’s central Justification-apart-from-the-Law argument; softening the law-as-burden vs. grace-as-freedom contrast would undercut the doctrine’s central case study.

10. verhoogd / de rechterhand van God (exalted / right hand of God, 2:33–34) — Critical. Located inside the core passage; risk of a literal/spatial misreading by biblically illiterate secular readers who might take “rechterhand” as a physical location rather than enthronement to supreme authority.

11. behoud vs. Acts 27’s non-doctrinal “rescue at sea” sense — High. A subtler risk than the others: forcing the doctrinally loaded “behoud” register onto Acts 27:20, 31, 34’s plain narrative usage of the same Greek word would create a false theological overlay where none is intended — an error of over-doctrinalizing rather than under-doctrinalizing.

12. onrein / rein (clean/unclean, ch.10) — High. Directly enables the Gospel-to-Gentiles doctrine’s central narrative hinge (Peter’s vision); flattening to a dietary footnote would sever the connection to the ethnic-inclusion argument it exists to picture.

13. herstel van alle dingen / de troon van David (restoration of all things / throne of David) — High. Both carry real risk of conflation with contemporary Dutch orthodox Reformed Christian-Zionist political readings of “Israel,” requiring deliberate cosmic/eschatological (not geopolitical) framing.

14. sekte (sect, various persecution passages) — High. A single lexical slip (using unqualified “sekte” in narration rather than reserving it for quoted hostile speech) would retroactively validate the accusers’ hostile framing as the narrator’s own voice.

15. Leidsman ten leven (Prince/Author of life, 3:15) — Critical. Lower frequency than items above but doctrinally equal in weight to “Zoon van God”/“Heer”; risk is not denominational collision but simple flattening to a generic “leader” title by translators unfamiliar with the term’s Christological function.

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Summary and Handoff

This gap analysis confirms that Acts does not primarily introduce new linguistic gaps relative to the Romans baseline so much as it intensifies and multiplies the occasions on which the baseline’s already-documented Dutch fault lines (grace vs. merit, election vs. democratic vote, saints vs. canonized saints, gemeente vs. kerk, zonde’s colloquial drift, behoud’s register split) become active — while adding exactly one qualitatively new, book-specific fault line of comparable severity: the baptism controversy (doop), which has no parallel flashpoint in Romans.

All findings in this document are reflected in, and must remain consistent with, 08_core_glossary.md and assets/bible_term_registry.json. Phase 2 AI translation instructions (Step 9) must incorporate the Part 4 ranked list directly into escalation routing priority, and must treat the Part 2A paraphrase entries as protected against automated compression.

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Cross-reference: 08_core_glossary.md for the full term-by-term glossary this analysis is derived from and validates; assets/bible_term_registry.json and assets/doctrine_risk_registry.json (to be extended in Step 8b) for formal risk-tier enforcement records.