Linguistic Gap Analysis
Linguistic Gap Analysis — Acts 1–28 (English → Gujarati)
Purpose
This document identifies where Gujarati lacks adequate native vocabulary for Acts’s theological content (missing vocabulary), where Gujarati vocabulary already exists but is overloaded with competing meaning from Gujarat’s dominant Hindu (especially Vaishnav/Shakti-bhakti) and Jain traditions (crowded semantic neighborhoods), and how each gap should be resolved (transliteration vs. paraphrase). It governs the term decisions later formalized in 08_core_glossary.md and enforced via bible_term_registry.json / translation_memory.json. All decisions here are consistent with and extend the baseline Romans Language Package; no baseline rendering is altered.
Acts poses a distinct linguistic challenge from Romans: where Romans is doctrinal argument, Acts is narrative testimony to unrepeatable, physically observable events (tongues of fire, healings, visions, an ascension, a conversion on a road). Gujarati’s richest devotional vocabulary for describing exactly these phenomena — possession, vision, vow, service, path, austerity — belongs to Gujarat’s living Hindu and Jain devotional systems. The central task of this analysis is fencing that vocabulary so Acts’s claims are not silently absorbed into those systems.
Full-Book Chapter Coverage Checklist (Acts 1–28)
Every chapter has been reviewed for load-bearing vocabulary. Chapters contributing no new gap-analysis items beyond terms already treated below are marked explicitly rather than omitted.
| Ch. | Reviewed | Load-bearing gap-analysis content | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ✅ | Ascension, kingdom_of_god (nationalist misreading), power_of_god, witness | Sets programmatic vocabulary for the whole book (1:8) |
| 2 | ✅ | Pentecost, tongues (fire/language), filled with Spirit, gift of Spirit, repentance, baptism, forgiveness, fellowship, breaking of bread, common possessions, added to church | Core passage; highest term-density chapter in Acts |
| 3 | ✅ | Servant of God (Christological), prophet-like-Moses typology, repentance, forgiveness | No new gap items beyond Ch. 2 set |
| 4 | ✅ | Boldness, signs and wonders, salvation exclusivity (4:12), common possessions | Reinforces Ch. 2/3 items |
| 5 | ✅ | Sanhedrin, obedience of faith (“obey God rather than men”), Ananias/Sapphira (Spirit’s personal deity) | No new gap items |
| 6 | ✅ | Deacon/service, wisdom, filled with Spirit | Seva collision surfaces here |
| 7 | ✅ | Son of Man, glory, stoning, falling asleep (death), Sanhedrin | Stephen narrative — witness/martyr semantic shift begins |
| 8 | ✅ | Magic/sorcery (Simon), spiritual gifts vs. gift of Spirit distinction, the Way (implicit) | Simon Magus episode is key magic/Spirit contrast passage |
| 9 | ✅ | The Way, vision, chosen instrument, conversion (Paul), light/darkness (implicit), scales from eyes | Conversion of Paul doctrine anchor |
| 10 | ✅ | Clean/unclean, partiality, vision, gentiles | Peter/Cornelius — Gospel to Jews/Gentiles anchor |
| 11 | ✅ | Repentance granted by God, Christian (name), household (implicit) | Antioch naming |
| 12 | ✅ reviewed, no new vocabulary | — | Herod/Peter’s rescue narrative reuses existing angel/prayer/church vocabulary |
| 13 | ✅ | Justification apart from the Law (13:38-39), light for Gentiles, proconsul, magic/sorcery (Elymas) | Justification doctrine anchor |
| 14 | ✅ | Gods in human form (Lystra) — direct incarnation/avatar contrast passage | Critical polemic passage |
| 15 | ✅ | Grace (15:11), circumcision, law, clean/unclean, partiality | Jerusalem Council — Justification apart from Law doctrine |
| 16 | ✅ | Baptism, household, spirit of divination, boldness | Philippi narrative |
| 17 | ✅ | Unknown god, judgment to come, resurrection (mocked) | Areopagus — apologetic vocabulary |
| 18 | ✅ reviewed, no new vocabulary | — | Corinth narrative reuses existing terms (gospel, church, baptism) |
| 19 | ✅ | Magic/sorcery (scrolls burned), tongues (languages), the Way | Ephesus narrative |
| 20 | ✅ | Elder/overseer/shepherd interchange, whole counsel of God, raised to life (Eutychus) | Miletus address |
| 21 | ✅ | Nazirite vow, circumcision | Paul’s Jerusalem return |
| 22 | ✅ | The Way, witness, mission | Paul’s defense speech |
| 23 | ✅ | Sanhedrin | Paul before council |
| 24 | ✅ | Self-control, judgment to come, righteousness, the Way | Paul before Felix |
| 25 | ✅ reviewed, no new vocabulary | — | Paul before Festus reuses existing legal/defense vocabulary |
| 26 | ✅ | Light/darkness, Satan, deeds worthy of repentance, chosen instrument (implicit) | Paul before Agrippa — conversion retelling |
| 27 | ✅ reviewed, no new vocabulary | — | Shipwreck narrative reuses providence/thanksgiving vocabulary |
| 28 | ✅ | Gods in human form (Malta), unhindered | Closing polemic + climactic final word |
1. Doctrine Vocabulary Matrix
| Doctrine | Available Gujarati Terms | Weaknesses / Collision Risk | Recommended Strategy |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Holy Spirit and Pentecost | પવિત્ર આત્મા; પવિત્ર આત્માથી ભરપૂર થવું; પવિત્ર આત્માનું દાન; પેન્તેકોસ્ત; અગ્નિ જેવી જીભો; અન્ય ભાષાઓ | (a) No cultural referent for the OT feast calendar underlying Pentecost. (b) Highest risk in the whole book: “filled with the Spirit” and tongues-speech are structurally close to Gujarat’s widespread devi-possession trance practice, called આવેશ (mātājīno āveś), prominent in Navratri/garba and other folk-Hindu devotional contexts across Gujarat. Untrained hearers may assimilate Pentecost to a familiar possession-trance category. | Reuse baseline પવિત્ર આત્મા (Critical, unchanged). Keep the compound “ભરપૂર થવું” (filled) rather than any single verb that could read as “descending upon/possessing” a person in the આવેશ sense. Add mandatory translator note at every occurrence of ch. 2 distinguishing Spirit-filling as personal indwelling by a specific divine Person who remains morally continuous with the person’s identity — never a temporary displacing possession. Transliterate પેન્તેકોસ્ત with an explanatory festal gloss (build from first principles, not correction). |
| The Gospel to Jews and Gentiles | સુવાર્તા; અન્ય પ્રજાઓ; પક્ષપાત; ખ્રિસ્તનો માર્ગ; અજાણ્યો દેવ; મૂર્તિ | Universality claims (10:34, “God shows no partiality”) directly confront Gujarat’s caste (jati/varna) social structuring, present in both Hindu and Jain communities; risk of translators softening for social comfort. | Reuse baseline terms; render partiality-formula identically at every occurrence (per registry); apply the baseline’s non-softening rule explicitly to caste-adjacent verses. |
| Repentance and Baptism | પસ્તાવો; બાપ્તિસ્મા; પાપોની માફી | (a) પસ્તાવો risks collapsing toward પ્રાયશ્ચિત્ત, a Hindu/Jain ritual/ascetic act of self-generated expiation. (b) બાપ્તિસ્મા risks collapsing toward સ્નાન, ritual purificatory bathing (highly salient given Gujarat’s pilgrimage-bathing culture, e.g., river/tirtha bathing traditions shared across Hindu and Jain practice). | Reuse baseline terms unchanged; reinforce with explanatory apparatus (not new vocabulary) that repentance is God-granted (11:18) and baptism is a one-time sign of a completed reality, not a repeatable self-purifying rite. |
| The Church as Community | મંડળી; બધું સહિયારું; ઘરનું કુટુંબ; મંડળીની સેવા; વડીલ; અધ્યક્ષ; પાળક; ખ્રિસ્તી | સેવા is the primary risk: heavily used in Gujarat’s bhakti (guru-seva/deity-seva) and Jain philanthropic traditions as a merit-generating devotional or charitable act. Secondary risk: “church” identity competing with jati/community identity as the primary social-belonging category in Gujarati social life. | Always qualify સેવા as મંડળીની સેવા (never bare); reuse મંડળી (never મંદિર/દેરાસર, per baseline). |
| Apostolic Authority and Miracles | પ્રેરિત; ચિહ્નો અને આશ્ચર્યકર્મો; સંદર્શન; સ્વર્ગદૂત; જાદુ/મંત્રવિદ્યા; દુષ્ટ આત્મા | (a) સંદર્શન must avoid the bare form દર્શન (deity/idol sight; also the technical name for the six schools of Indian philosophy). (b) ચિહ્નો અને આશ્ચર્યકર્મો risks conflation with સિદ્ધિ (yogic/ascetic attained power) or common Gujarati astrology/occult practice (જ્યોતિષ, મંત્ર-તંત્ર). | Reuse core glossary terms; maintain the fence between Spirit-given સામર્થ્ય and self-attained સિદ્ધિ/જાદુ in every miracle narrative, especially Simon Magus (ch. 8) and Elymas (ch. 13), where the text itself draws this contrast. |
| Persecution and Bold Witness | સાક્ષી; હિંમત; પથ્થરે મારવું | Gujarati has no safe native word for the English semantic slide from “witness” to “martyr” that begins with Stephen (ch. 7). The available Gujarati word for martyr, શહીદ, carries strong contemporary Islamic-devotional and Indian-nationalist/political freight (used of Muslim religious martyrs and of soldiers/freedom fighters) and would import unrelated associations. | Keep સાક્ષી throughout, including for Stephen; do not introduce શહીદ. Where the “witness-unto-death” sense must be made explicit (7:54-60), use a descriptive phrase (e.g., “મરણ સુધી સાક્ષી આપનાર”) rather than a single-word substitute. |
| Conversion of Paul | પસંદ કરેલું પાત્ર; અજવાળું અને અંધારું; શેતાન | The natural Gujarati/Hindi-derived word for religious conversion, ધર્માંતરણ (dharma-parivartan / dharmāntaraṇ), is politically and legally loaded in the contemporary Indian context — several states have “anti-conversion” legislation, and the term routinely appears in that administrative/legal register, not a devotional one. Using it for Paul’s transformation risks framing a Spirit-wrought inward reality as an administrative act of religious-identity switching. | Avoid ધર્માંતરણ entirely for the doctrine’s descriptive vocabulary. Prefer પરિવર્તન (“transformation”) or descriptive phrasing such as ખ્રિસ્તમાં નવું જીવન (“new life in Christ”) when narrating or teaching about ch. 9/22/26; reserve any use of “conversion” as an English loanword only in meta-discussion (e.g., document titles), never inside the translated text itself. |
| Justification apart from the Law | ન્યાયી ઠરાવવું; નિયમશાસ્ત્ર; સુન્નત; સંયમ; ન્યાયનો દિવસ; પસ્તાવાને છાજે એવાં કામ | (a) સંયમ is a load-bearing Jain ascetic-vow term (self-restraint toward liberation) — risk of reading self-control as a merit-earning technique rather than Spirit-fruit. (b) સુન્નત, beyond its OT covenant-sign referent, is also the standard contemporary Gujarati/Urdu word for Islamic circumcision practice — a double collision distinct from the baseline’s law/righteousness cautions. | Reuse ન્યાયી ઠરાવવું unchanged (Critical, anchors 13:38-39). Always tie સંયમ explicitly to Spirit-produced fruit in surrounding text/notes. Always frame સુન્નત explicitly as the Mosaic/Jewish covenant sign under debate at the Jerusalem Council, distinct from its contemporary Islamic religious-practice referent, to avoid unintended interfaith cross-reading. |
| The Great Commission Fulfilled | કંઈ પણ રોકટોક વિના; મિશન/સુવાર્તા પ્રચાર; અન્ય પ્રજાઓ માટે અજવાળું | ”Mission” carries a colonial-era administrative connotation in Indian usage (already flagged in baseline); risk of reading Acts’s global gospel advance as a foreign political project rather than the Spirit’s own initiative. | Prefer સુવાર્તા પ્રચાર over મિશન in narrative/teaching contexts; reserve મિશન only where unavoidable institutional register is required. |
2. Missing Vocabulary vs. Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods
2.1 Missing Vocabulary (no adequate native Gujarati term exists)
These concepts have no ready-made Gujarati word and require either transliteration, a coined compound, or careful paraphrase — the risk here is omission or flattening, not syncretism.
| Concept | Gap | Resolution |
|---|---|---|
| Pentecost (the feast) | No Gujarati cultural referent for the OT Feast of Weeks / its Christian reapplication | Transliterate પેન્તેકોસ્ત + mandatory explanatory teaching note (build from first principles) |
| δωρεά (the Spirit’s indwelling gift) vs. χαρίσματα (ministry-enablement gifts) | Gujarati has no single native lexical pair distinguishing “the gift of the Spirit himself” from “gifts the Spirit distributes for service” | Engineer the distinction via two fixed compounds: પવિત્ર આત્માનું દાન (the gift of the Spirit’s presence) vs. આત્મિક કૃપાદાન (Spirit-given ministry enablements) — never interchange |
| ”The Way” as a capitalized self-designation | No native Gujarati category for “a religious movement’s own chosen name for itself” distinct from a generic path-word | Always qualify: ખ્રિસ્તનો માર્ગ, never bare માર્ગ |
| The witness → martyr semantic shift (beginning at Stephen) | No neutral Gujarati single word spans both senses without importing Islamic/nationalist connotations (શહીદ) | Retain સાક્ષી throughout; use descriptive phrasing where the costly/fatal sense must be foregrounded |
| ”Conversion” as a doctrinal/experiential category (Paul) | The available Gujarati/Hindi-derived word (ધર્માંતરણ) belongs to a political/legal register, not a devotional-experiential one | Paraphrase: પરિવર્તન / નવું જીવન; avoid ધર્માંતરણ inside translated text |
| Ascension as an event-name | Greek ἀναλαμβάνω is a verb, not a technical term; Gujarati needed a coined compound to name the doctrine | સ્વર્ગારોહણ (already coined in 08_core_glossary.md); confirmed adequate, no further gap |
| Household solidarity in baptism (16:15,31-34) | Actually not a true gap — Gujarat’s strong joint-family (સંયુક્ત કુટુંબ) culture provides a ready cultural analogue for ઘરનું કુટુંબ’s household-unit solidarity. Noted here to confirm no additional coinage is needed, and to flag the opposite risk: over-explaining a concept the audience already grasps intuitively. | No new term required; retain existing entry, avoid over-annotation |
2.2 Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods (native term exists but is overloaded)
These Gujarati words are already in active devotional use by Gujarat’s dominant traditions; the risk is unintended doctrinal borrowing, and each requires an explicit fence.
| Gujarati Term | Occupying Tradition(s) | What It Would Wrongly Import into Acts | Fence Applied |
|---|---|---|---|
| દર્શન (darshan) | Hindu temple worship (sight of a deity/idol); also the technical name for the six schools of Indian philosophy (ṣaḍ-darśana) | Reduces a God-given revelatory vision to ritual deity-sight or philosophical viewpoint | Never used bare; always સંદર્શન or a qualified phrase |
| માર્ગ (marga) | Hindu bhakti-mārga/jñāna-mārga/karma-mārga; Jain mokṣa-mārga — multiple valid paths to liberation | Implies Christianity is one path among several equally valid ones | Always ખ્રિસ્તનો માર્ગ |
| સેવા (seva) | Bhakti guru/deity-seva; Jain philanthropic merit-service | Implies church ministry earns spiritual merit | Always qualified મંડળીની સેવા + doctrinal framing as grace-flowing, not merit-generating |
| સંયમ (samyam) | Jain ascetic vows (central virtue toward liberation via self-effort) | Implies self-control is a self-achieved technique that earns standing | Explicitly tied to Spirit-produced fruit in context |
| શક્તિ (shakti) | Gujarat’s Shakti/mother-goddess devotional tradition (e.g., Ambaji pilgrimage) | Implies God’s power is a distinct divine-feminine force | Never used for power_of_god; સામર્થ્ય retained per baseline |
| વ્રત (vrata) | Hindu/Jain merit-earning vow-keeping | Implies the Nazirite vow (21:23-24) generates spiritual merit | Rendered પ્રતિજ્ઞા instead |
| આવેશ (āveś) | Gujarat’s widespread Navratri/garba devi-possession trance practice | Implies Spirit-filling and tongues-speech are a temporary displacing possession-trance, not personal Spirit-indwelling | New fence (this document): explicit translator note at every ch. 2 occurrence distinguishing indwelling from possession |
| પ્રાયશ્ચિત્ત (prāyaścitta) | Hindu/Jain ritual/ascetic self-expiation | Implies repentance is a self-performed penitential act that offsets guilt | Retain પસ્તાવો; never substitute |
| સ્નાન (snān) | Hindu/Jain ritual/pilgrimage purificatory bathing | Implies baptism itself washes away impurity through the water-rite’s own mechanism | Retain બાપ્તિસ્મા; teaching apparatus clarifies sign-not-cause |
| ધર્માંતરણ (dharmāntaraṇ) | Contemporary Indian legal/political register (anti-conversion legislation) | Implies Paul’s transformation was an administrative religious-identity switch | Avoid; use પરિવર્તન/નવું જીવન |
| શહીદ (shahīd) | Islamic religious martyrdom; Indian nationalist political martyrdom | Implies Stephen’s death belongs to an unrelated religious-political category of martyrdom | Avoid; retain સાક્ષી with descriptive phrasing |
| સુન્નત (sunnat) | Contemporary Islamic circumcision practice | Risk of cross-reading the Mosaic covenant-sign debate as a comment on Islamic practice | Explicit OT/Mosaic framing required wherever used |
| સિદ્ધિ (siddhi) / જ્યોતિષ (jyotiṣ) | Yogic/ascetic attained supernatural power; astrology | Implies apostolic signs and wonders are a self-attained or divinatory power | Retain ચિહ્નો અને આશ્ચર્યકર્મો; explicit contrast in Simon Magus/Elymas passages |
| ભગવાન (bhagvān) | Any Hindu deity; also applied to Jain Tirthankaras | Implies “God” is one deity/perfected teacher among many | Retain પરમેશ્વર (baseline, unchanged) |
| મંદિર / દેરાસર (mandir/derāsar) | Hindu temple / Jain temple | Implies “church” names a building or ritual institution | Retain મંડળી (baseline, unchanged) |
3. Transliteration vs. Paraphrase Decisions
| Term | Decision | Rationale |
|---|---|---|
| Pentecost | Transliterate (પેન્તેકોસ્ત) | Proper festal name with no native equivalent; paraphrasing into a generic “festival” (ઉત્સવ/પર્વ) word risks assimilation into Gujarat’s dense festival calendar without doctrinal content. Transliteration + teaching note preserves specificity. |
| Sanhedrin | Transliterate + gloss (સાન્હેડ્રિન (ન્યાયસભા)) | Proper institutional name; the parenthetical gloss (ન્યાયસભા, “council”) supplies functional meaning without inventing a misleading Gujarati institutional analogue. |
| Satan | Transliterate (શેતાન) | Already an established Gujarati Christian (and broader South Asian religious) loanword; paraphrasing risks losing the personal, defeated-enemy specificity. |
| Messiah | Transliterate (મસીહા) | Baseline-established; avoids the paraphrase risk of collapsing into “avatar” or “guru” categories. |
| Christian | Transliterate-derived (ખ્રિસ્તી, from ખ્રિસ્ત) | Established modern Gujarati usage; low risk. |
| Nazirite vow | Transliterate proper name + paraphrase component (નાઝીરી પ્રતિજ્ઞા) | “Nazirite” has no native equivalent and must be transliterated; “vow” is deliberately paraphrased as પ્રતિજ્ઞા rather than the crowded વ્રત. |
| Ascension | Coined Sanskrit-derived compound, not Greek transliteration (સ્વર્ગારોહણ) | A borrowed Greek term would be opaque to readers; a coined compound using existing Gujarati morphemes (“heaven” + “ascent”) communicates the event while remaining free of the specific baggage of any single competing tradition. |
| Vision | Paraphrase/coin (સંદર્શન) rather than borrow bare દર્શન | Bare દર્શન is too heavily loaded with idol-sight and philosophical-school senses; the prefixed compound signals a distinct technical sense while remaining transparent. |
| ”The Way” | Paraphrase/qualify, not transliterate (ખ્રિસ્તનો માર્ગ) | Not a proper name in Greek in the same sense as “Pentecost” or “Sanhedrin”; qualifying the existing word is more effective than inventing a new one, since માર્ગ itself is not the problem — its bareness is. |
| Gift of the Holy Spirit vs. spiritual gifts | Paraphrase via fixed compounds, no transliteration | Both are abstract theological distinctions requiring engineered Gujarati phrases rather than borrowed vocabulary; see §2.1. |
| Deacon/service | Paraphrase/qualify (મંડળીની સેવા), not transliterate | ”Deacon” transliterated (ડિકન) would be opaque; qualifying the native word સેવા is more communicative once fenced. |
| Conversion (Paul) | Paraphrase, avoid both transliteration and the native compound ધર્માંતરણ | Neither a borrowed English/Greek term nor the standard Gujarati compound serves; a descriptive phrase (પરિવર્તન/નવું જીવન) is required. |
| Witness/martyr shift (Stephen) | Retain existing paraphrase (સાક્ષી + descriptive phrase), do not transliterate or substitute શહીદ | See §2.2; a one-word substitute imports unrelated religious-political categories. |
4. Ranked List of This Book’s Highest-Risk Ambiguities
Ranked by combined severity (doctrinal centrality × likelihood of cultural misreading) specific to Acts and the Gujarati context. Items 1–7 require mandatory human theologian review in Phase 2; items 8–12 require native speaker review at minimum.
- “Filled with the Holy Spirit” / tongues at Pentecost vs. આવેશ (devi-possession trance) — Critical. Acts 2 is the curriculum’s core passage; Gujarat’s Navratri/garba possession-trance culture is extremely widespread and could cause the single most consequential doctrinal collapse in the entire curriculum if unaddressed.
- “The Way” (bare માર્ગ) vs. bhakti/jnana/karma-mārga and Jain mokṣa-mārga — Critical. Multiple-paths theology is a foundational, socially reinforced category across both of Gujarat’s dominant traditions.
- δωρεά (gift of the Spirit’s presence) vs. χαρίσματα (ministry gifts) — High. Failure to keep these distinct across 40+ occurrences risks teaching that the Spirit’s presence must be repeatedly re-given, undermining assurance doctrine.
- γλῶσσα as “tongue of flame” (2:3) vs. “language” (2:4, 2:6-11) — High. Two consecutive verses, same Greek word, opposite Gujarati words required; a single slip reframes the entire miracle.
- “Conversion” of Paul vs. ધર્માંતરણ’s contemporary legal/political register — High. Risk of importing India’s anti-conversion-law administrative framing into a Spirit-wrought inward transformation; this is a curriculum-defining doctrine (Conversion of Paul) with no prior-baseline precedent to draw on.
- Witness → martyr semantic slide (Stephen, ch. 7) vs. શહીદ’s Islamic/nationalist freight — High. Acts introduces this shift for the first time in the curriculum; no safe single Gujarati word exists.
- સુન્નત (circumcision) — Mosaic covenant sign vs. contemporary Islamic practice — High. Double collision distinct from (and compounding) the baseline’s existing law/righteousness cautions; central to the Justification apart from the Law doctrine (ch. 15).
- સંદર્શન/દર્શન (vision) vs. idol-sight/darshan and ṣaḍ-darśana philosophy — High. Recurs at every major turning-point vision in Acts (9, 10, 16, 18).
- સેવા (deacon/service) vs. bhakti/Jain merit-service — High. Central to the Church as Community doctrine (ch. 6) and recurring leadership vocabulary (chs. 11, 20, 21).
- સંયમ (self-control) vs. Jain ascetic self-restraint vow — High. Isolated but doctrinally loaded occurrence (24:25) directly touching Justification apart from the Law.
- બાપ્તિસ્મા (baptism) vs. સ્નાન (ritual purificatory bathing) — High. Recurs across nine baptism narratives (chs. 2, 8–11, 16, 18, 19); cumulative risk across the whole book.
- ચિહ્નો અને આશ્ચર્યકર્મો (signs and wonders) vs. સિદ્ધિ/જાદુ/જ્યોતિષ — High. Acts itself stages the contrast explicitly (Simon Magus, ch. 8; Elymas, ch. 13), making mistranslation especially visible and consequential if the fence is not held.
- મૂર્તિ (idol) — accuracy vs. unnecessary inflammatory tone — Medium. Correctly names the referent but must match Scripture’s own register (chs. 15, 17, 19) without either softening the condemnation or exceeding the text’s tone.
- “Mission” (મિશન) vs. colonial/administrative connotation — Medium. Recurs throughout the Great Commission Fulfilled doctrine; mitigated by preferring સુવાર્તા પ્રચાર.
- Pentecost’s missing OT festal background — Medium. Not a syncretism risk but a comprehension gap; requires teaching, not correction, and is lower risk than items 1–14 precisely because no competing tradition claims the term.
5. Recommendations for Phase 2 Enforcement
- All fences identified in §2.2 must be added as explicit “Forbidden Substitution” or “Mandatory Qualification” entries in the Phase 2 AI translation requirements document for Acts, alongside the baseline’s existing forbidden-substitution list.
- The આવેશ (possession-trance) fence for Pentecost (§2.1, §4 item 1) is a new addition beyond the baseline and beyond
08_core_glossary.md’s existing cautions; it must be propagated into the doctrine risk registry’s Holy Spirit and Pentecost entry and flagged for mandatory theologian review at every Acts 2 occurrence. - The ધર્માંતરણ/શહીદ/સુન્નત-Islamic-collision fences (§2.1, §2.2, §4 items 5–7) are Acts-specific additions with no Romans-baseline precedent and must be written into the Conversion of Paul, Persecution and Bold Witness, and Justification apart from the Law doctrine notes respectively.
- All decisions in §3 (transliteration vs. paraphrase) must be locked before Phase 2 segment translation begins; mid-stream changes to a transliteration/paraphrase decision require a translation memory version increment and reprocessing of all prior segments containing the term.
- This document supersedes no baseline rendering; every fence proposed here operates additively on top of the Romans-established terms and risk tiers.
This document must be loaded alongside 08_core_glossary.md, assets/bible_term_registry.json, and assets/doctrine_risk_registry.json before Phase 2 translation of any Acts segment.