Executive Summary — James (Iacov) for Romanian

Why it matters

James is the New Testament book most likely to be heard as contradicting the Romans curriculum this Language Package already ships in Romanian — because the core passage (Iacov 2:14-26) applies the exact same Greek verb (δικαιόω) and the exact same Romanian word (îndreptățire) the baseline Romans package flags Critical for forensic justification apart from works, but here uses it to argue “a man is justified by works, and not by faith only” (2:24). Romania’s Orthodox-majority readership, already formed in a synergistic theosis framework, will tend to resolve this tension too smoothly; Evangelical/Cornilescu-tradition readers will feel it as a live threat to sola fide. Getting this one rendering decision right — and never resolving it by silently substituting a different word — is the single highest-stakes translation choice in this entire curriculum.

Key findings

• 26 doctrines analyzed, full-book coverage confirmed (Iacov 1–5, per doctrine_risk_registry.json and 11_doctrine_analysis.md): 6 Critical, 13 High, 5 Medium, 2 Low.
• 19 doctrines (6 Critical + 13 High) require mandatory human theologian review; 5 Medium require native speaker review; 2 Low are automated-only.
• Core glossary term count: 30 net-new James terms (11 Critical + 19 High) require mandatory theologian review, per 08_core_glossary.md’s risk summary, on top of every baseline Romans Critical/High term already reused (faith, grace, salvation, law, righteousness, justification, resurrection, Lord, saints, calling, sanctification, intercession).
• Three deliberate lexical splits are the load-bearing technical decisions of the whole package: (1) πειρασμός → încercare (trial) vs. ispită (temptation), never conflated, or James appears to say God tempts to sin; (2) σῴζω → a vindeca (5:15, healing) vs. a mântui (5:20, salvation), never harmonized, six verses apart; (3) lege reused for James’s “law of liberty”/“royal law” but never left unqualified, or it collides with Romans’ Mosaic-Torah referent.
• Two passages directly overlap live Orthodox sacraments: Iacov 5:14 (elders, anointing with oil → Taina Sfântului Maslu) and Iacov 5:16 (mutual confession → Taina Spovedaniei). Both are Critical and require theologian-authored continuity/distinction notes at every occurrence — the biblical text must be taught as genuinely normative without either replacing or being replaced by the Church’s sacramental development.

Risks

• Highest risk: mistranslating or silently “fixing” Iacov 2:21/24/25’s îndreptățire language to avoid apparent contradiction with Romans — this would misrepresent both James’s Greek and the genuine, pedagogically important tension the two books hold together.
• High risk: Orthodox smerenie (humility) and desăvârșit (perfected) vocabulary, and the Hagia Sophia-adjacent resonance of înțelepciune (wisdom), all carry real doctrinal assets but equally real risk of importing speculative or devotional content that displaces James’s own plain, practical argument.
• Medium risk: Romania’s historical class stratification gives “părtinire” (favoritism) real pastoral bite that must not be softened into etiquette-level language; oath-taking prohibitions (5:12) brush against ordinary Romanian civic/legal custom.
• Structural risk: any Phase 2 worker treating James as doctrinally “simpler” than Romans, given its shorter length and practical tone, would under-flag the highest-density collision chapters (2 and 5).

Opportunities

• James’s συνεργέω (“cooperate,” 2:22) maps directly onto the Orthodox theological category of synergia — a genuine, ready-made bridge for teaching faith-and-works as cooperation rather than competition, when properly scoped to the individual believer’s own faith-and-fruit relationship rather than a general soteriological claim.
• Domnul Savaot (5:4) and chipul lui Dumnezeu (3:9) both land on existing, actively-used Orthodox liturgical and iconographic vocabulary — instant cultural resonance requiring only careful scope-fencing, not invention.
• The Romanian Orthodox confession tradition’s own existing distinction between sins “cu lucrul și cu nelucrarea” (commission and omission) makes James 4:17’s sin-of-omission teaching land as reinforcement, not novelty.

Recommended actions

1. Lock assets/translation_memory.json and assets/bible_term_registry.json as version 1 before any Phase 2 segment translation begins; require both files loaded alongside their Romans baseline counterparts per the pre-flight checklist in 12_ai_translation_requirements.md.
2. Route Iacov 2:14-26 (entire core passage) and Iacov 5:13-20 to human theologian review first in the Phase 2 batch schedule, ahead of chapters 1, 3, and 4.
3. Enforce the three lexical-split validation rules (trial/temptation, heal/save, law-of-liberty qualifier) as automatic validation failures, not stylistic flags, given how easily each could be silently smoothed over by a fluent-sounding but doctrinally incorrect rendering.
4. Require the mandatory theologian bridging note format specified in 12_ai_translation_requirements.md to be attached in the review record for every occurrence of îndreptățire in James, before any such segment is marked approved.