Acts (Romanian) — Executive Summary

Why it matters

Romania’s Bible-reading population is ~85% Orthodox with a significant Cornilescu-tradition Evangelical minority — a culture where the Trinity, Christ’s deity, and the resurrection are not contested (unlike most languages in this pipeline), but where Acts introduces an entirely new tier of intra-Christian collision risk the Romans baseline never had to face: sacramental theology. Acts narrates baptism, repentance, ordination, and communal meals as lived first-century events — practices Orthodoxy has since developed into fully sacramental rites (Taina Botezului, Taina Pocăinței, Taina Hirotoniei, Sfânta Împărtășanie). Every one of these terms must be translated so that Acts’ own historical narrative is neither flattened to accommodate later doctrine nor weaponized against it.

Key findings

• 79 total terms now govern this curriculum’s translation memory: 47 inherited unchanged from the Romans baseline, 32 newly introduced by Acts.
• 42 of 79 terms (53%) are Critical or High risk (18 Critical + 24 High), requiring mandatory human theologian review at every occurrence — a materially higher density than Romans alone, driven by Acts’ sacramental-practice vocabulary (baptism, breaking of bread, overseers/bishops, laying on of hands) layered on top of the inherited Christological/soteriological Critical set.
• 35 doctrines are tracked (9 named in the curriculum brief, expanded to 35 granular doctrines for review routing), of which 25 (14 Critical + 11 High) require mandatory theologian review — 71% of all tracked doctrines.
• The single highest-severity new collision is overseers/bishops (episcopi, Acts 20:17,28): the text uses “elder” and “overseer” of the identical office, in direct tension with Orthodoxy’s developed three-rank clergy (episcop > preot > diacon).
• Baptism and repentance are the highest-frequency Critical/High terms, appearing in nearly every chapter’s conversion narratives (2:38; 8:12,36-38; 9:18; 10:47-48; 16:15,30-33; 19:1-5; 22:16), each requiring a standing teaching note distinguishing Acts’ adult repentance-then-baptism pattern from Orthodoxy’s infant-sacramental practice.
• Pentecost itself required a dedicated resolution: the popular Romanian name “Rusalii” carries pre-Christian folk-superstition freight (nymph-spirits, protective taboos); the curriculum standardizes on the neutral calque “Cincizecime.”
• All 28 chapters of Acts were reviewed for coverage; six chapters (5, 14, 18, 23, 25, 27) introduce no new load-bearing terms and are explicitly logged as reviewed rather than omitted, per the full-book coverage mandate.

Risks

• Sacramental anachronism (bidirectional): teaching material could either retroject fully developed Orthodox sacramental theology onto Acts’ earlier, less differentiated practice (baptism, ordination, elder/overseer, breaking of bread), or overcorrect into denying continuity with that later practice altogether. Both failure modes are explicitly flagged in every relevant registry entry.
• Restoration of all things (Acts 3:21): the Greek technical term (apokatastasis) is historically tied to a conciliarly condemned universalist doctrine; a careless transliteration risks either implying support for universal salvation or needlessly alarming theologically literate readers. Resolved via periphrasis (“așezarea din nou a tuturor lucrurilor”), never transliteration.
• Grace’s dual register (Acts 2:47 vs. 15:11/20:24,32): a single Romanian word (“har”) carries both an everyday secular sense and the Critical theological sense within the same chapter, risking accidental doctrinal inflation or flattening.
• National-identity bleed: “neamuri” (Gentiles) and “misiune” both risk activation of Romanian Orthodoxy’s historic entanglement with ethnic/national identity (“neam românesc”), narrowing Acts’ universal gospel scope.

Opportunities

• Resurrection and Pentecost are cultural assets, not just risks: Romanian Orthodox Easter and the Pentecost icon tradition already carry deep liturgical resonance; the translation task is precision, not persuasion.
• Compunction vocabulary (“s-au simțit străpunși la inimă,” 2:37) is already native to Orthodox penitential spirituality — a rare case where Acts’ language and lived Orthodox devotion converge without tension.
• Direct intercession models (Acts 4:24-31; 12:5,12) offer a positive, non-confrontational pedagogical counterweight to saint/Marian-mediated intercession, without requiring any argument against the latter.
• Simony (8:9-24) is already a lexicalized Romanian ecclesiastical term; the curriculum can teach its own etymological origin as a point of engaging cultural contact.

Recommended actions

1. Load assets/translation_memory.json (this Acts extension) together with the Romans baseline TM before any Phase 2 segment processing — never one without the other.
2. Route all 42 Critical/High-risk terms and 25 Critical/High-risk doctrines to mandatory human theologian review per analysis/12_ai_translation_requirements.md’s escalation rules; do not permit automated-only approval for any of these.
3. Enforce the fixed cross-document consistency pairs (Romans 10:9 ↔ Acts 2:36/16:31; Romans 3-5 ↔ Acts 13:38-39; Romans 9-11 ↔ Acts 9:15/13:48) verbatim across both curricula.
4. Require the standing teaching note on every occurrence of baptism, repentance, breaking of bread, and overseers/bishops — no exceptions, even in low-density chapters.
5. Carry forward all Romans-baseline forbidden substitutions unchanged; add the eight new Acts-specific forbidden substitutions verbatim into every Phase 2 system prompt.