Executive Summary — Acts, English → Marathi Language Package

Why it matters

Acts is the narrative hinge between Christ’s finished work and the church’s global mission — and for a Marathi-speaking audience, it is also the single most collision-prone book in the New Testament to translate. Its core passage (Acts 2:1-41, Pentecost) and its book-long arc (Jerusalem → Judea/Samaria → “the ends of the earth,” 1:8; 28:31) repeatedly dramatize, in the text’s own narrative, exactly the syncretism risks this Language Package exists to guard against: a Spirit “falling on” people (ch. 2, 10) next to Warkari trance-possession idiom; ceremonial “unclean” language (ch. 10-11) next to Maharashtra’s live Brahminical purity hierarchy; “the Way” (chs. 9, 19, 22, 24) next to Hindu bhakti/jnana/karma-mārg and the Buddhist Eightfold Path; and a “name” invoked in power (chs. 2-4, 16, 19) next to Warkari नामस्मरण devotional name-chanting. Getting these right or wrong has outsized pastoral consequences for readers from both Warkari-Hindu and Ambedkarite Buddhist backgrounds.

Key findings

• 83 glossary terms are now locked in translation_memory.json: 44 inherited exactly from the Romans baseline, 39 newly registered for Acts.
• Of these 83 terms, 21 are Critical risk and 32 are High risk — 53 terms (64% of the glossary) require mandatory human theologian review at every occurrence per the escalation rules.
• At the doctrine level, the Acts doctrine_risk_registry.json records 31 total doctrines: 13 Critical, 15 High, 3 Medium, 0 Low — 28 doctrines requiring mandatory theologian review, 3 requiring native-speaker review, and none eligible for automated-only review.
• The core passage, Acts 2:1-41, is the single densest concentration of doctrine risk in the book: it alone touches 11 of the 31 registered doctrines, including four rated Critical (outpouring of the Spirit, repentance and baptism, universal call to salvation, resurrection of Christ).
• Five terms have no unloaded Marathi equivalent at all and must be retained with mandatory fencing notes rather than substituted: मार्ग (“the Way”), अशुद्ध (“common/unclean”), येशूच्या नावाने (“in the name of Jesus”), इतर भाषा (“other tongues”), and प्रभूच्या नावाने हाक मारील (“calling on the name of the Lord”).

Risks

• Ceremonial purity language (Acts 10-11, Critical): अशुद्ध risks importing, rather than dismantling, the very शुद्ध/अशुद्ध caste-purity hierarchy the 1956 Ambedkarite Buddhist conversion was founded to reject — the single highest-stakes rendering decision in this curriculum.
• “The Way” (Critical in practice): मार्ग has no unloaded alternative and sits directly inside three live competing frameworks (Hindu bhakti/jnana/karma-mārg; the Buddhist Eightfold Path), each naming a self-directed technique rather than trust in a person.
• “In the name of Jesus” (Critical): without fencing, this authority formula, repeated across nearly every apostolic act, risks being heard as a repeatable mantra akin to नामस्मरण rather than genuine relational authority.
• Pentecost tongues and Spirit-filling (High): risk collapsing into folk trance-possession idiom (अंगात येणे) or tantric/yogic altered-consciousness attainment if not anchored to real, identifiable human languages and Spirit-given clarity.
• Grace-not-law resolution (Acts 15:11, Critical): carries equal doctrinal weight to Romans 3:23-24 and requires the same rigor; कृपा still risks reading as Vitthal’s devotional favor absent reinforcement.

Opportunities

• Acts repeatedly supplies its own internal corrective to the very risks it raises — Lystra’s “the gods have come down to us” (14:11-18) mirrors the baseline’s अवतार caution; the sons of Sceva’s failed incantation (19:13-17) is a built-in warning against treating Jesus’ name as a formula; Simon Magus (ch. 8) shows grace cannot be purchased. These episodes should be used as primary teaching devices, not just footnotes.
• Acts’ explicit, repeated statements of impartiality (“God is no respecter of persons,” 10:34-35) and unqualified universal invitation (2:21, 10:34-35) offer unusually direct, textually-grounded resonance with the lived history of caste rejection in Maharashtra — an opportunity for clear, faithful, non-softened proclamation rather than a risk to hedge around.
• Because most Christological and soteriological vocabulary is already locked by the Romans baseline, Acts translation work can focus its heaviest review effort on a comparatively small, well-defined set of new narrative-specific terms (13 doctrine categories, 39 glossary terms) rather than re-litigating already-settled core theology.

Recommended actions

1. Route all 53 Critical/High glossary terms and all 28 Critical/High doctrines to mandatory human theologian review before Phase 2 sign-off, with Acts 2:1-41 and Acts 10:1-11:18 prioritized as the two densest-risk passages.
2. Enforce mandatory translator notes at every occurrence of मार्ग, अशुद्ध, and येशूच्या नावाने — never permit these three terms to pass Phase 2 without an attached fencing note, per 12_ai_translation_requirements.md.
3. Lock consistency across recurring structural markers (the growth refrain at 6:7/12:24/19:20; boldness from 4:31 onward; “no other name” at 4:12; the Lordship confession at 2:36/10:36/16:31) so learners encounter identical vocabulary at every recurrence.
4. Brief all native-speaker and theologian reviewers on analysis/04_comparative_theology.md’s caste-karma sensitivity guidance before review begins, since it governs the single highest-stakes decision in this curriculum (ceremonial purity language in Acts 10-11).