Linguistic Gap Analysis
Linguistic Gap Analysis: Acts — English → Ndebele
Purpose and Scope
This document executes Phase 1 Step 8 for the Acts curriculum in Ndebele. It builds directly on the Romans baseline Language Package (which remains the language authority and is never contradicted) and on the Acts-specific 08_core_glossary.md and bible_term_registry.json already compiled. Its purpose is to name, in one place, where Ndebele’s existing vocabulary is sufficient, where it is missing and must be coined or transliterated, and where it is crowded — i.e., where a single Ndebele word or word-family is claimed by multiple competing meanings (biblical vs. traditional-religious) and therefore needs a doctrinal “fence” placed around its biblical sense before Phase 2 translation begins.
Full-book coverage confirmation: all 28 chapters of Acts were reviewed for this analysis (§5). Every chapter is represented either by load-bearing new vocabulary or by an explicit “reviewed, no new gap” note; none are silently omitted. The core passage, Acts 2:1-41 (Pentecost), is the theological anchor of the curriculum and receives the most detailed treatment, but it is not the boundary of scope.
Acts intensifies, more than any other New Testament book, the mediated-access syncretism risk already flagged as the central pattern in the Romans baseline. Where Romans mostly asserts doctrine, Acts narrates direct confrontations between the gospel and occult power, ancestor-adjacent categories, and remote-god religiosity (Simon Magus, the Ephesian exorcists, Elymas, the Pythian spirit-girl, the Areopagus altar to an unknown god, Herod’s self-deification). This raises the density of Critical-tier ambiguities substantially above the Romans baseline.
1. Doctrine Vocabulary Matrix
For each of the nine curriculum doctrines: the Ndebele terms currently available (baseline-reused or Acts-new), their structural weaknesses, and the recommended handling strategy for Phase 2.
1.1 The Holy Spirit and Pentecost
| Available terms | Weakness | Recommended strategy |
|---|---|---|
| uMoya oNgcwele (baseline, Critical) | None in the word itself; risk is entirely contextual — phrases describing the Spirit’s action (filling, pouring out, coming upon) can accidentally borrow the vocabulary of spirit-mediumship | Retain baseline term unchanged; fence every action-verb collocation (see §2.1) |
| iPhentekoste (new, Medium) | Transliteration has no native resonance; risk is that readers analogize it to a seasonal ancestral or harvest ceremony | Transliterate (no native equivalent exists) and pair with a one-time explanatory gloss: “usuku olulodwa emlandweni” (a unique day in history) at first occurrence |
| ukugcwaliswa ngoMoya oNgcwele; ukuthululwa koMoya (new, High) | Structurally close to the verbs used for a medium being “mounted”/entered by an idlozi | Retain, but mandatory translator note at first Acts 2 occurrence distinguishing willing, personal indwelling from unwilling possession |
| ezinye izilimi “other tongues” (new, Medium) | Ndebele has no separate register distinguishing “known foreign language” from “ecstatic utterance”; both would default to “ezinye izilimi” | Add footnote at Acts 2:4 specifying these are real, existing human languages understood by hearers (v.6, 8), distinct from later NT usages |
| isipho soMoya oNgcwele “gift of the Spirit” (new, High) vs izipho zoMoya “spiritual gifts” (baseline, Medium) | Near-identical surface forms for two distinct referents (the Spirit himself vs. his enablements) | Enforce strict lexical distinction; never substitute one phrase for the other |
1.2 The Gospel to Jews and Gentiles
| Available terms | Weakness | Recommended strategy |
|---|---|---|
| ivangeli, abezizwe, uIsrayeli (baseline) | Well-established; low structural risk | Reuse exactly |
| uNkulunkulu kakhethi buso “God shows no partiality” (new, Medium-High) | Could read as mere tolerance rather than active equal welcome | Translate with an active verb frame (“uyabemukela ngokulinganayo,” he receives them equally), not a passive non-discrimination statement alone |
| okungcolileyo / okungahlambulukanga “unclean/common” (new, High) | Directly overlaps Ndebele ritual-purity/taboo vocabulary governing fitness to approach uNkulunkulu or amadlozi | See §2.3 fencing |
| izithombe “idols” (new, High) | Ndebele traditional religion is not idol-image-centered, so the term risks feeling foreign/irrelevant unless the underlying issue (misdirected worship) is made explicit | Pair every occurrence with explanatory framing connecting “worship directed anywhere but to uNkulunkulu” to locally recognizable practices, without naming amadlozi pejoratively |
| unkulunkulu ongaziwayo “unknown god” (new, Critical) | Extremely close, almost identical in register, to how uNkulunkulu is popularly described as remote in Ndebele traditional theology | See §2.5 and ranked list, item 1 |
1.3 Repentance and Baptism
| Available terms | Weakness | Recommended strategy |
|---|---|---|
| ukuphenduka / phendukani “repent” (new, Critical) | Semantically adjacent to ritual appeasement of aggrieved amadlozi, a normal traditional response to affliction | See §2.4 fencing |
| ubhabhathizo / ukubhabhathizwa “baptism” (new, Critical) | Adjacent to traditional ritual water-cleansing to restore ancestral favor or remove misfortune | See §2.4 fencing |
| ubhabhathizo lukaJohane “baptism of John” (new, Critical) | Requires the reader to hold two forms of “the same word” apart (John’s vs. Christian baptism) — a genuine internal-Ndebele ambiguity, not only a traditional-religion collision | Always co-occur with an explicit contrast clause (“okwaphelela kuKristu langoMoya,” which finds completion in Christ and the Spirit) |
| ukuthethelelwa kwezono “forgiveness of sins” (new, High) | Risk of reading as felt relief/ritual absolution rather than forensic cancellation | Anchor to justification vocabulary (ukulungisiswa) wherever both concepts co-occur (Acts 13:38-39) |
1.4 The Church as Community
| Available terms | Weakness | Recommended strategy |
|---|---|---|
| ibandla (baseline, Medium) | Stable; low risk | Reuse exactly |
| abadala “elders” (new, High) | Ndebele “abadala” also names customary clan/community elders with real traditional ritual authority, including presiding over ancestral rites | See §2.2 fencing |
| umKristu / amaKristu “Christian” (new, Medium) | Could be heard as a generic religious-affiliation label parallel to any other named religion | Frame consistently as allegiance-to-Christ identity, not denominational/ethnic label |
| indlu “household” (new, Low) | Positive overlap with umuzi (extended homestead); minimal risk | Reuse freely; this is a rare case where cultural resonance strengthens rather than threatens doctrine |
| iqembu “sect” (new, Medium) | Risks implying the gospel is one optional faction among equally valid others | Use only in reported-speech contexts (outsiders’ accusation), never in the narrator’s or apostles’ own voice |
1.5 Apostolic Authority and Miracles
| Available terms | Weakness | Recommended strategy |
|---|---|---|
| umphostoli (baseline, Medium) | Stable | Reuse exactly |
| izibonakaliso lezimangaliso “signs and wonders” (new, High) | Overlaps functionally with wonder-working attributed to izinyanga/izangoma | Always anchor to Jesus’s name/apostolic gospel as the source and authenticator, never as a generic display of power |
| ukubekwa kwezandla “laying on of hands” (new, High) | The physical gesture closely resembles izinyanga’s touch-healing gestures | Explicit teaching note: the power is God’s Spirit working through apostolic commissioning, not a personal or hereditary force resident in the hands themselves |
| ubuthakathi / umlumbi / umthakathi “sorcery/sorcerer” (new, Critical) | Among the most emotionally and socially explosive words in Ndebele culture (witchcraft accusation carries real social and historically violent consequence) | See §2.2 fencing — precision is a pastoral-safety issue, not only a doctrinal one |
| umoya wokubhula “spirit of divination” (new, Critical) | Direct terminological collision with izangoma’s ukubhula practice | See §2.2 |
| umoya omubi / umoya ongcolileyo “evil/unclean spirit” (new, Critical) | Highest-risk single collapse point in the whole glossary: traditional cosmology treats amadlozi as generally neutral/benevolent, a category Scripture’s “evil spirit” must never touch | See §2.2, ranked list item 3 |
1.6 Persecution and Bold Witness
| Available terms | Weakness | Recommended strategy |
|---|---|---|
| isibindi “boldness” (new, Medium) | Could default to natural-courage reading | Consistently modify with “esivela kuMoya oNgcwele” (that comes from the Holy Spirit) at first occurrence per major speech |
| umfakazi / ubufakazi “witness/testimony” (new, High) | Could be assimilated to a diviner’s claimed spiritual insight if not anchored | Anchor consistently to firsthand, historical, evidentiary testimony (especially to the resurrection) |
| ukuzingela / ukuhlukuluza “persecute” (new, Medium) | Low ambiguity; standard hostility vocabulary | Reuse as recorded |
| iSanihedrini / umkhandlu omkhulu wamaJuda (new, Low) | Institutional term; minor risk of being mistaken for a general “court” | Retain proper-noun capitalization/gloss at first use per book section |
1.7 Conversion of Paul
| Available terms | Weakness | Recommended strategy |
|---|---|---|
| umbono “vision” (new, High) | Visions are also a major traditional-religion category, typically received/interpreted via diviners or ancestral mediums | See §2.5 fencing |
| isitsha esikhethiweyo “chosen instrument” (new, High) | Compound needs to visibly connect to baseline “ukukhethwa” (election) | Always translate so the “ukukhetha” root is recognizable, reinforcing sovereign personal choice, not impersonal fate |
| ukususa emnyameni…uSathane…kuNkulunkulu “turn from darkness to light” (new, Critical); uSathane (new, Critical) | Ndebele cosmology recognizes multiple categories of malevolent force typically managed through ritual protection/appeasement | See §2.2 and ranked list item 4 |
| iNdlela “the Way” (new, High) | Ordinary word for path/customary way; risk of conflation with “traditional way/custom,” a live discourse category | See §2.5 |
1.8 Justification apart from the Law
| Available terms | Weakness | Recommended strategy |
|---|---|---|
| ukulungisiswa, ukulunga, ukubalelwa ukulunga (baseline, Critical) | Already fenced in Romans baseline; Acts 13:38-39 is the key extension | Reuse exactly; do not re-derive a “practical relief from ritual observance” reading specific to Acts’ law-and-circumcision debates |
| umthetho “law” (baseline, High) | Stable | Reuse exactly |
| ukusoka “circumcision” (new, High) | Risk of conflation with an Ndebele rite of passage | See §2.3 |
| ukuhlanjululwa “purification rites” (new, Medium) | Risk of conflation with traditional ritual cleansing for ancestral-taboo breach | Frame explicitly as a temporary, culturally-situated Jewish custom (post-Acts-15), never a salvation requirement |
1.9 The Great Commission Fulfilled
| Available terms | Weakness | Recommended strategy |
|---|---|---|
| umbuso kaNkulunkulu (baseline, Medium) | Historical weight of the Ndebele kingdom (Mzilikazi, Lobengula) | Reuse with baseline caution reinforced at every occurrence in Acts (1, 8, 14, 19, 20, 28) |
| ukwenyukela ezulwini “ascension” (new, Medium) | Risk of conflation with an ancestor’s spirit “ascending” to amadlozi | Anchor as unique, bodily glorification of the still-embodied risen Christ |
| etshumayela umbuso kaNkulunkulu ngesibindi sonke, engavinjelwa muntu (new, Medium-High) | Long descriptive compound; risk of losing its triumphant, deliberately open-ended force in translation | Preserve the “unhindered” (engavinjelwa muntu) clause intact as the book’s final theological note |
| isakhamuzi saseRoma “Roman citizen”; ukudlulisela kuKesari “appeal to Caesar” (new, Low) | Low doctrinal risk, primarily civil-legal | Reuse as recorded; optional light gloss on the providence connection |
2. Missing Vocabulary vs. Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods
2.1 Genuinely missing vocabulary (no native Ndebele term exists; coinage/compound/transliteration required)
Acts introduces several concepts with no pre-existing single-word Ndebele equivalent. These require either transliteration (§3) or multi-word doctrinal compounds, all already drafted in 08_core_glossary.md and bible_term_registry.json:
- Pentecost as a unique historical event name (no native festival-name equivalent) → transliterated.
- “No other name under heaven” (Acts 4:12) — no single Ndebele noun for “exclusive saving name”; requires the full negated compound clause.
- “God’s determined plan and foreknowledge” (Acts 2:23) — a technical theological compound with no lexical shortcut.
- Christological titles unique to Acts (Author of Life, Holy and Righteous One, Servant of God, Son of Man) — each requires a compound built from independently-attested roots, never a single word.
- “Turn from darkness to light…from Satan’s power to God” (Acts 26:18) — the single most compact whole-gospel sentence in the book; no idiomatic shortcut exists and none should be invented, since compression risks losing either the “darkness/Satan” or “light/God” pole.
- Simony (Acts 8:18-19) — no single word; must remain a full descriptive clause (“ukuthenga isipho sikaNkulunkulu ngemali”).
- Goddess Artemis (Acts 19) — a specific named foreign deity with a real cult; transliterated proper name plus descriptive gloss, since no Ndebele equivalent deity-name exists or should be invented.
Recommendation: none of these gaps should be filled by borrowing vocabulary from the amadlozi/izangoma/izinyanga semantic field, even where a single native word might seem to fit more fluently. The doctrinal cost of a false-friend borrowing is categorically higher than the stylistic cost of a longer descriptive compound.
2.2 The most crowded semantic neighborhood: occult/spiritual-power vocabulary
This is the single highest-density risk cluster in Acts, absent from Romans entirely. Six Acts-new terms compete for the same narrow semantic space that Ndebele culture already divides carefully among izangoma (diviners), izinyanga (traditional healers), amadlozi (ancestral spirits, generally neutral/benevolent), and ubuthakathi (witchcraft, feared and historically punished):
| Biblical term | Ndebele rendering | Adjacent native category it must be fenced away from |
|---|---|---|
| Sorcery (Acts 8, 13, 19) | ubuthakathi | Must not indiscriminately condemn izinyanga’s broader traditional-healing practice |
| Sorcerer (Acts 8, 13) | umlumbi / umthakathi | Must apply only to the named individuals and their specific manipulative practice |
| Spirit of divination (Acts 16) | umoya wokubhula | Must not be read as merely “one spiritual power losing to another”; this is Christ’s absolute, non-negotiated authority |
| Evil/unclean spirit (Acts 19) | umoya omubi / umoya ongcolileyo | Must NOT be conflated with amadlozi, which tradition regards as neutral/benevolent, not inherently evil |
| Exorcists (Acts 19) | abakhipha imimoya emibi | Must show that authority belongs to Christ alone, not a borrowable formula |
| Magic books (Acts 19) | izincwadi zemilingo | Continuous with ubuthakathi field; models decisive rejection, not partial accommodation |
| Satan (Acts 26) | uSathane | Must be one singular, personal, already-defeated enemy, not one of several malevolent forces requiring ongoing ritual management |
Fencing strategy: every occurrence of a term in this cluster requires (a) exact, narrow application only to what the Greek text names, never generalized to traditional practitioners as a class; (b) explicit narrative framing showing Christ’s authority as total and non-negotiated (expulsion, not negotiation, not victory of one power over a comparable rival power); (c) a standing translator/reviewer note flagging the real-world social danger of loose witchcraft-accusation vocabulary in contemporary Ndebele communities. This cluster should be routed to human theologian review as a block, not case-by-case, given how tightly the individual terms interlock.
2.3 Crowded neighborhood: ritual purity, custom, and rite-of-passage vocabulary
- okungcolileyo / okungahlambulukanga (“unclean/common,” Acts 10-11) sits inside Ndebele’s own ritual-purity/taboo logic governing fitness to approach uNkulunkulu or the ancestors. Fence: teach this text as God himself redefining purity around the gospel, not merely one culture’s taboo system yielding to another’s.
- ukusoka (“circumcision,” Acts 15) risks conflation with Ndebele rites of passage. Fence: consistently name it as the specific Mosaic covenant sign under first-century Jewish-Gentile debate, with the Council’s ruling stated plainly as removing it as a salvation requirement.
- ukuhlanjululwa (“purification rites,” Acts 21) risks conflation with cleansing rites for ancestral-taboo breach. Fence: frame as a temporary, voluntary, culturally-situated Jewish custom, explicitly not required for salvation per Acts 15.
2.4 Crowded neighborhood: repentance/baptism vs. appeasement/cleansing ritual
- ukuphenduka (“repent”) and ubhabhathizo (“baptism”) both sit adjacent to a well-formed traditional ritual complex: appeasement of aggrieved amadlozi (for repentance) and ritual water-cleansing to restore ancestral favor (for baptism). Both are Critical-tier per the existing registry and must never be taught in isolation from the direct-access-through-Christ theme; every occurrence should make explicit that the transaction is with the living God through Christ, requiring no ancestral intermediary and no appeasement logic.
2.5 Crowded neighborhood: ancestor/patriarch/elder/founder vocabulary
- ukhokho (“patriarch,” of David, Acts 2:29) is the ordinary Ndebele word for a venerated ancestor — the very category (amadlozi) central to the traditional mediated-access system. Fence: David is a historical forefather whose words prophesy Christ; he must never be described in language implying he can be consulted or invoked.
- abadala (“elders,” church office) also names customary clan/community elders with real traditional ritual authority. Fence: church eldership is a distinct, Spirit-appointed, teaching-and-pastoral office, never a customary chieftaincy-adjacent role.
- uMsunguli wokuphila (“Author/Founder of life,” Acts 3:15) risks resonance with a lineage-founding ancestor from whom amadlozi descend. Fence: Christ is the sole, directly-accessible divine source of life itself, not a founding ancestor mediating life through a lineage.
- umbono (“vision”) and iNdlela (“the Way”) both sit adjacent to traditional-religion categories: visions are ordinarily received/interpreted through diviners; “the way” is ordinary vocabulary for a customary path of life. Fence: every vision in Acts originates directly from the risen Christ or the Spirit, requiring no diviner-interpreter; “the Way” is capitalized/contextualized throughout as the proper title of the Christian movement.
- unkulunkulu ongaziwayo (“unknown god,” Acts 17:23) sits closest of all to the popular Ndebele framing of uNkulunkulu as remote. Fence: Paul’s speech must be translated and taught as an argument against this framing — God is near, not far, from each person, through Christ (Acts 17:27-28).
3. Transliteration vs. Paraphrase Decisions
| Decision type | Terms | Rationale |
|---|---|---|
| Transliterate (loanword, no native equivalent, follows established Nguni Bible convention) | iPhentekoste; uMesiya/uKristu; uSathane; iHayidesi; iSanihedrini; u-Athemi (Artemis, proper name) | These name specific historical/proper entities (a feast day, a title, a named being, a place, an institution, a foreign deity) with no legitimate native equivalent; inventing one risks false native resonance worse than a loanword |
| Native root + Bible-tradition suffix (hybrid) | umKristu / amaKristu (“Christian,” from Kristu + Nguni noun-class morphology) | Standard, attested Nguni Bible pattern; identity marker built on the transliterated Christ-root, avoiding any generic native religious-affiliation word |
| Paraphrase / doctrinal compound (no single word permitted, however long) | “No other name under heaven”; “God’s determined plan and foreknowledge”; “turn from darkness to light…from Satan’s power to God”; “living God who made heaven and earth”; “in him we live and move and have our being”; “what must I do to be saved?”; “preaching the kingdom boldly, unhindered”; Author/Founder of Life; Holy and Righteous One; Servant of God | Compression into a single word in any of these cases would strip doctrinal precision that the source text itself achieves only through a full clause; length is an acceptable cost |
| Reuse existing native term, fenced with mandatory context/teaching note | ubuthakathi, umlumbi/umthakathi, umoya wokubhula, umoya omubi/ongcolileyo, ukhokho, abadala, iNkosi, umbuso kaNkulunkulu, iNdlela, umbono, okungcolileyo, ukusoka, ukuhlanjululwa, ukuphenduka, ubhabhathizo | These words are correct and unavoidable — Ndebele has no better native option, and inventing an artificial neologism would sacrifice comprehensibility for a false sense of safety. The doctrinal work must be done through footnotes, teaching notes, and consistent narrative framing, not through lexical avoidance |
General principle governing this section: transliteration is reserved for proper names and genuinely unique historical/institutional referents; paraphrase is reserved for compact theological formulas whose force depends on holding two or more concepts together; native-term-with-fencing is the default wherever an existing Ndebele word is semantically accurate but culturally adjacent to a competing traditional-religion concept. No new term in this curriculum should be invented from whole cloth where one of these three strategies already covers the case.
4. Ranked List of Highest-Risk Ambiguities (Acts-Specific)
Ranked by combined doctrinal severity and likelihood of unintended syncretistic reading, building on but extending the Romans baseline’s risk pattern. All items below are recommended for human theologian review per the escalation conventions already established in 12_ai_translation_requirements.md.
- “Unknown god” / God’s nearness (Acts 17:23, 27-28) — the single closest terminological convergence in the entire curriculum with the popular Ndebele theology of a remote uNkulunkulu approached only through amadlozi. Highest risk because the source text’s own rhetorical strategy could be inverted if handled carelessly.
- “No other name under heaven” (Acts 4:12) — the doctrinal capstone against any mediated or plural access to salvation; any softening of its exclusivity undermines the entire curriculum’s central corrective.
- Evil/unclean spirit vs. amadlozi (Acts 19:12-16) — the single most dangerous potential category collapse: conflating Scripture’s hostile “evil spirit” with the culturally neutral/benevolent amadlozi would either wrongly demonize ancestor-veneration wholesale or wrongly domesticate the biblical category.
- Sorcery/ubuthakathi cluster (Acts 8, 13, 16, 19) — extreme social volatility in contemporary Ndebele communities (witchcraft accusation has historically carried violent consequence); doctrinal precision here is also a pastoral-safety requirement.
- Call on the name of the Lord (Acts 2:21; 9:14; 22:16) — the salvation formula that most directly displaces the ancestral-intermediary prayer pattern; must be unmistakably direct and unmediated.
- Baptism vs. traditional ritual water-cleansing (Acts 2, 8, 9, 10, 16, 18, 19) — Critical-tier per registry; recurs more often in Acts than in any other NT book, multiplying the exposure.
- Repentance vs. ancestral appeasement (Acts 2, 3, 5, 11, 17, 19, 20, 26) — same severity as baptism; the two doctrines are paired throughout Acts and should be reviewed together.
- Turn from darkness to light / Satan (Acts 26:18) — the most theologically dense single sentence in the book; risk of losing either pole (Satan’s defeated authority; God’s decisive rescue) in translation.
- Patriarch/ukhokho (Acts 2:29) — direct lexical identity with the word for venerated ancestor; a single unguarded phrase could imply David remains a consultable spiritual intermediary.
- Spirit of divination (Acts 16:16-18) — direct terminological collision with izangoma’s practice; must show absolute, non-negotiated victory, not a contest between comparable powers.
- Filled with / poured out (the Holy Spirit) (Acts 2:4, 17-18; 4:31; 10:44-45) — risk of borrowing spirit-mounting/possession vocabulary from traditional mediumship description.
- Elders/abadala (Acts 11, 14, 15, 16, 20, 21) — real, ongoing risk of conflation with customary clan elders holding traditional ritual authority; recurs across many chapters, raising cumulative exposure.
- Unclean/common — ritual purity (Acts 10:15; 11:9) — collision with Ndebele’s own taboo/purity logic; must be taught as God’s own redefinition, not cultural substitution.
- Vision/umbono (Acts 9, 10, 16, 18, 26) — recurring structural device of the book; each occurrence must anchor the vision’s source directly to Christ/the Spirit, with no diviner-interpreter implied.
- The Way / iNdlela (Acts 9, 19, 22, 24) — ordinary-word/proper-title ambiguity; consistent capitalization/framing needed across four separated chapters to keep the identity stable.
- Author of Life / umsunguli wokuphila (Acts 3:15) — lineage-founder ancestor resonance in a single high-density Christological title.
- Servant of God / inceku (Acts 3:13, 26) — risk of understating Christ’s deity if this title is ever left to stand alone without the higher titles alongside it.
- Throne / isihlalo sobukhosi and Kingdom / umbuso kaNkulunkulu (Acts 1, 2:30, 8, 14, 19, 20, 28) — historical Ndebele-monarchy weight recurring at multiple points across the book, compounding the caution already flagged in the Romans baseline for iNkosi.
- Goddess Artemis (Acts 19:23-41) — lower doctrinal severity but high illustrative value; mishandling risks either trivializing the episode or implying an equivalence between Artemis-worship and any specific contemporary Ndebele practice, which the text does not warrant.
- Sect/iqembu (Acts 24:5, 14; 28:22) — lowest-severity item on this list, but included because careless narrator-voice use could relativize the gospel as one option among several, cutting directly against the exclusivity doctrine ranked #2 above.
5. Full-Chapter Coverage Sweep
Confirms every chapter of Acts was reviewed for linguistic gaps. Chapters are grouped where several share the same load-bearing terms already treated above; chapters contributing no new gap beyond terms already fenced are marked explicitly.
| Chapters | Load-bearing gap content | Status |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ascension, lots/inkatho, office/episkopē, angel | Reviewed — new terms captured in §1.9, §2.5 |
| 2 | Pentecost, filled/poured-out Spirit, other tongues, call on the Lord’s name, patriarch, throne, repentance, baptism, forgiveness, souls/persons, fellowship | Reviewed — highest-density chapter; core passage anchor |
| 3 | Servant of God, Holy and Righteous One, Author of Life, times of refreshing | Reviewed — Christological title cluster |
| 4 | No other name, boldness, signs and wonders, one heart and soul, Sanhedrin | Reviewed |
| 5 | Lied to the Holy Spirit, great fear, signs and wonders (cont.) | Reviewed — Spirit-personhood evidence text |
| 6 | Serve tables, Hellenists/Hebrews, laying on of hands | Reviewed — no new Critical-tier gap beyond §2.2 laying-on-of-hands fencing |
| 7 | God does not dwell in hand-made houses, Son of Man, covenant/circumcision background, patriarchs (plural) | Reviewed |
| 8 | Sorcery, sorcerer, simony, laying on of hands, gospel to Samaria | Reviewed — occult-cluster entry point (§2.2) |
| 9 | Conversion of Paul, vision, the Way, persecute, chosen instrument, election | Reviewed |
| 10 | God-fearer, unclean/common, vision, God shows no partiality, gift of the Spirit, angel | Reviewed — purity-cluster entry point (§2.3) |
| 11 | Unclean/common (cont.), Christian (coined at Antioch), elders (first occurrence) | Reviewed |
| 12 | Intercession/church prayer for Peter, angel, Herod’s failure to give glory | Reviewed — reinforces Christ-alone-mediator doctrine |
| 13 | Justification apart from the Law (explicit, 13:38-39), sorcerer/Elymas, seed of David, election | Reviewed — key non-Romans justification occurrence |
| 14 | Idols, living God/Creator, elders (appointed), signs and wonders | Reviewed |
| 15 | Circumcision, Gentiles, Jerusalem Council, Law, grace | Reviewed — Justification-apart-from-Law doctrinal hinge |
| 16 | Spirit of divination, household baptism, what must I do to be saved, vision | Reviewed — occult-cluster continuation (§2.2) |
| 17 | Unknown god, in him we live and move, providence, resurrection debate | Reviewed — top-ranked ambiguity (§4 item 1) |
| 18 | Baptism of John (first mention), vow, household baptism | Reviewed |
| 19 | Baptism of John (Ephesian disciples), evil/unclean spirit, exorcists, magic books, goddess Artemis | Reviewed — occult-cluster densest chapter |
| 20 | Whole counsel of God, overseers/shepherd, elders (Miletus address) | Reviewed |
| 21 | Purification rites, vow, prophecy (Agabus) | Reviewed |
| 22 | Roman citizen, the Way, call on the Lord’s name (Paul’s retelling), election | Reviewed |
| 23 | Sanhedrin, resurrection debate (Sadducees/Pharisees) | Reviewed — no new gap beyond resurrection term already Critical in baseline |
| 24 | Sect, judgment to come, righteousness (Felix) | Reviewed |
| 25 | Appeal to Caesar | Reviewed — low doctrinal freight, civil-legal |
| 26 | Turn from darkness to light, Satan, boldness, witness | Reviewed — top-ranked ambiguity (§4 item 8) |
| 27 | Providence, angel, thanksgiving, souls/persons (shipwreck) | Reviewed |
| 28 | Preaching the kingdom boldly, unhindered; sect (final occurrence) | Reviewed — closing fulfillment of Acts 1:8 |
Summary
This analysis identifies one dominant structural finding: Acts does not introduce a fundamentally new category of risk beyond what the Romans baseline already names (mediated access to a God treated as remote), but it multiplies that risk across a much wider and more concrete vocabulary — particularly the occult/spiritual-power cluster (§2.2), which has no counterpart in Romans at all and now constitutes the single highest-density risk zone in the whole two-book language package. Phase 2 translation work on Acts should treat §2.2 and §2.4 as standing review blocks requiring theologian sign-off as units, not merely term-by-term spot checks, given how tightly their component terms interlock narratively and doctrinally.