Passage
Romans 1
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Glossary Term
Apostle
Stable, shared term across all Italian Bible traditions.
ROM.1.1
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Doctrine
Apostleship
Stable, established term; minimal risk of reduction to a generic teacher role.
ROM.1.1
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Glossary Term
Called
Context-sensitive: in 1:1 = called to apostleship; in 1:7 = called to be saints; in 8:28-30 = effectual calling to salvation.
ROM.1.1, ROM.1.6-7
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Glossary Term
Calling
HIGH RISK: 'vocazione' in Italian Catholic culture overwhelmingly connotes a call to priesthood or religious life, a live and salient category given Italy's dense concentration of Catholic religious orders.
ROM.1.1, ROM.1.6-7
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Doctrine
Christian Fellowship
HIGH RISK: bare 'comunione' is heard first as the Eucharist, given how central First Communion is as a cultural rite of passage in Italy; 'fraterna' is required to redirect to koinonia.
ROM.1.12
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Glossary Term
Covenant
'Alleanza' (used for Old/New Covenant, Antica/Nuova Alleanza) is more common in modern usage than the more contract-like 'patto', used in some Protestant translations.
ROM.1.3
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Glossary Term
David
Standard proper name form across all Italian traditions.
ROM.1.3
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Doctrine
Davidic Covenant
Requires OT background explanation; 'discendente di Davide' is the preferred modern rendering over the more literary 'stirpe di Davide'.
ROM.1.3
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Doctrine
Deity of Christ
CRITICAL: co-equal divine nature must not be softened into a merely divinely inspired human figure.
ROM.1.4
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Doctrine
Divine Calling
HIGH RISK: Italian Catholic culture's dense concentration of clergy and religious orders makes 'vocazione' overwhelmingly connote priestly or religious-life calling, a strong risk of narrowing Paul's calling-of-every-believer language.
ROM.1.1, ROM.1.6-7
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Glossary Term
Exhort
Context-sensitive between admonishing and encouraging senses.
ROM.1.12
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Doctrine
Faith
Personal trust in Christ; comparatively lower secular-flattening risk than French or Swedish cognates.
ROM.1.17
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Glossary Term
Faith
'Fede' also names the wedding ring ('la fede nuziale') and appears in legal/commercial idiom ('buona fede'); generally lower flattening risk than French or Swedish cognates since religious 'fede' remains fairly robust in Italian usage.
ROM.1.17
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Glossary Term
Fellowship
HIGH RISK: bare 'comunione' is heard first as the Eucharist ('fare la Comunione', 'prima Comunione' — First Communion, a major Catholic childhood milestone deeply embedded in Italian culture), an even stronger version of the equivalent French risk.
ROM.1.12
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Doctrine
Fulfillment of Prophecy
Linear historical fulfillment (OT to NT); low OT literacy among biblically unchurched readers requires explicit cross-referencing.
ROM.1.2-4
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Glossary Term
Glory
God's radiant presence and honor.
ROM.1.4
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Glossary Term
God
Italy remains more religiously observant on paper (majority baptized Catholic) than several other languages in this batch, but Mass attendance and catechetical literacy have dropped sharply; a distinctively Italian version of the secularization gap, with strong nominal/cultural Catholic identity persisting alongside eroding lived theological literacy.
ROM.1.4
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Doctrine
Gospel
Stable term shared across Catholic and evangelical Italian Bibles; the word itself is not disputed.
ROM.1.1, ROM.1.16
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Glossary Term
Gospel
Shared, stable term across the Catholic CEI translation and Protestant Diodati/Riveduta tradition.
ROM.1.1, ROM.1.16
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Doctrine
Humanity of Christ
Real physical human nature; no competing illusionist worldview in Italian culture.
ROM.1.3
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Doctrine
Incarnation
Well-established doctrinal term; risk is secular flattening via 'incarnare' (to embody a role) rather than a competing religious concept.
ROM.1.3
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Glossary Term
Incarnation
Well-established doctrinal term via Catholic catechesis and Christmas liturgy.
ROM.1.3
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Doctrine
Inspiration of Scripture
Distinguish God-breathed Scripture from a purely historical-critical academic reading.
ROM.1.2
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Glossary Term
Jesus
Stable across all Italian traditions.
ROM.1.4
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Glossary Term
Justification
CRITICAL: the historic Trent/Reformation flashpoint, live within Italy itself via its own indigenous Waldensian minority tradition.
ROM.1.16
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Glossary Term
Law
Capitalize as 'la Legge' for Torah/Mosaic law to distinguish from civil 'legge'.
ROM.1.2-4
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Glossary Term
Lord
HIGH RISK: Romans 10:9 'Gesù è Signore.' 'Signore' is also the ordinary polite title 'Mr./sir' (Signor Rossi) in everyday Italian, risking the exalted confession collapsing into a mundane honorific for secular or biblically illiterate readers.
ROM.1.4
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Doctrine
Lordship of Christ
Romans 10:9's confession must not read as one lord among several; 'Signore' doubles as the everyday polite title 'Mr./sir', a real flattening risk for secular or biblically illiterate readers.
ROM.1.4
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Glossary Term
Messiah
The Anointed One fulfilling OT promise.
ROM.1.3-4
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Doctrine
Messianic Promise
The specific Jewish OT concept fulfilled exclusively in Jesus must not be flattened into a generic moral teacher figure.
ROM.1.3-4
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Glossary Term
Mission
Italy has a significant Catholic missionary-sending history and a smaller evangelical mission-sending tradition; less acute postcolonial critique than France given Italy's more limited colonial history, though not entirely absent.
ROM.1.5, ROM.1.13-14
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Doctrine
Mission to the Nations
Italy's significant Catholic missionary-sending history and smaller evangelical mission-sending tradition inform this doctrine; less acute postcolonial critique than France given Italy's more limited colonial history.
ROM.1.5, ROM.1.13-14
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Doctrine
Mutual Edification
Building one another up in faith; no significant doctrinal risk.
ROM.1.12
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Doctrine
Obedience of Faith
Catholic 'fede operante per carità' (faith formed by love, per Trent) can be read into this phrase as a merit condition; must be explicitly disambiguated.
ROM.1.5
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Glossary Term
Obedience Of Faith
Romans 1:5, 16:26.
ROM.1.5
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Glossary Term
Power Of God
Sovereign, saving capability.
ROM.1.16
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Doctrine
Power of God for Salvation
'Potenza' conveys sovereign capability.
ROM.1.16
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Glossary Term
Prophecy
God-inspired declaration.
ROM.1.2-4
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Glossary Term
Prophet
God's spokesperson.
ROM.1.2
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Glossary Term
Resurrection
Bodily, historical, once-for-all event; Easter's cultural centrality in Italy reinforces rather than dilutes the concept, among the lower-risk terms in this glossary.
ROM.1.4
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Doctrine
Resurrection of Christ
Bodily, historical, once-for-all event; Easter's cultural centrality in Italy reinforces rather than dilutes the concept.
ROM.1.4
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Glossary Term
Righteousness
CRITICAL: 'giustizia di Dio' (Romans 1:17) must be read as God's saving, gift-status righteousness.
ROM.1.16
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Doctrine
Sainthood (Called to be Holy)
HIGH RISK: Italy's intense saint-veneration culture (patron saints, feast days, relics, processions) is the strongest version of this fault line among the languages in this batch; Waldensian/evangelical tradition explicitly rejects saint veneration.
ROM.1.7
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Doctrine
Salvation
Reconciliation with a personal God through Christ; must not imply salvation is mediated only through institutional membership.
ROM.1.16
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Glossary Term
Salvation
Relatively stable shared term; risk is general biblical illiteracy amid rapid de-churching of a nominally still-Catholic population, rather than a competing rendering.
ROM.1.16
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Glossary Term
Seed Of David
'Stirpe' (lineage/stock) is a fairly literary but still intelligible register in modern Italian, making this a comparatively lower-risk instance of the cross-language 'seed of David' register-drift pattern than in French, German, Dutch, or Swedish.
ROM.1.3
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Doctrine
Separation unto God's Service
Must not collapse into monastic withdrawal; biblical separation is devotion to God while remaining engaged in ordinary life.
ROM.1.1
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Glossary Term
Sin
HIGH RISK: the extremely common colloquial idiom 'che peccato!' ('what a shame/pity!', used for trivial disappointments) is an Italian instance of the pan-European sin-word-drift-to-pity pattern also documented for Dutch and Swedish, and arguably even more pervasively embedded in everyday Italian speech.
ROM.1.18
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Glossary Term
Son Of God
CRITICAL: full phrase required, conveying eternal, unique Sonship.
ROM.1.4
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Doctrine
Sonship of Christ
CRITICAL: eternal, unique Sonship, not adoptive or metaphorical sonship as in ordinary 'adozione filiale'.
ROM.1.4
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Doctrine
Spiritual Gifts
Catholic Charismatic Renewal, Pentecostal, and traditional evangelical streams all engage this vocabulary with different emphases; keep gifts explicitly Spirit-given, not natural talent.
ROM.1.11
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Glossary Term
Spiritual Gifts
Italy has one of the world's largest Catholic Charismatic Renewal movements (Rinnovamento nello Spirito Santo) alongside a significant Pentecostal denomination (Assemblee di Dio in Italia) and smaller traditional evangelical communities — a genuinely three-way denominational engagement with spiritual-gifts vocabulary unique to Italy in this batch.
ROM.1.11
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Doctrine
Thanksgiving
Standard term.
ROM.1.8, ROM.1.21
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Glossary Term
Thanksgiving
Standard term; mild register overlap with everyday 'grazie' (thank you).
ROM.1.8, ROM.1.21
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Doctrine
Universal Human Accountability
HIGH RISK: universal guilt before God is directly undercut if 'peccato' is read in its extremely common colloquial 'che peccato!' (what a shame) sense rather than culpable moral transgression.
ROM.1.18
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Doctrine
Universal Scope of the Gospel
No ethnic or national barrier to the gospel; retain unqualified universality without softening.
ROM.1.16