Linguistic Gap Analysis
Linguistic Gap Analysis — Acts 1–28
English → Spanish | Acts Curriculum | Language Package Extension (PRD Phase 1, Step 8)
Purpose: This document analyzes where standard Spanish theological vocabulary is adequate, deficient, or dangerously overloaded for the nine Acts doctrines, and issues concrete strategy decisions (reuse / new coinage / compound phrase / transliteration / mandatory fencing note) that the Core Glossary (08) and the extended bible_term_registry.json implement. It does not re-derive terms already fixed by the baseline Romans Language Package; it explains why each Acts-specific choice was necessary and ranks the resulting ambiguity risks for Phase 2 routing.
Scope discipline: Analysis spans Acts 1–28 in full. Every chapter is accounted for in the Full-Book Coverage Sweep (Part 5); chapters that introduce no new lexical risk are explicitly marked “reviewed, no new terms” rather than omitted.
Part 1 — Doctrine Vocabulary Matrix
For each of the nine curriculum doctrines: the Spanish vocabulary already available (baseline reuse + Acts additions), where that vocabulary is structurally weak in the destination language/culture, and the recommended handling strategy.
1.1 The Holy Spirit and Pentecost
| Element | Detail |
|---|---|
| Available terms | Espíritu Santo (baseline, Critical); Pentecostés (new, Medium); lleno(s) del Espíritu Santo (new, High); hablar en otras lenguas (new, High); lenguas como de fuego (new, Medium); el don del Espíritu Santo (new, High); la promesa (new, High) |
| Weaknesses | (1) “Pentecostés” is lexically unambiguous but culturally overloaded: the modern global Pentecostal movement (denominational label “pentecostal/es”) shares the same root and is a major living religious identity across Latin America and the Caribbean, creating a strong pull toward reading Acts 2 as validating a specific denomination’s later distinctive doctrine (e.g., tongues as normative post-conversion “segunda bendición” evidence). (2) “Lenguas” covers both the fire-imagery (v.3) and the speech-miracle (v.4), risking collapse of two distinct referents into one metaphor. (3) “Don del Espíritu Santo” and baseline “dones espirituales” both translate English “gift(s)” but denote different theological realities (the Spirit’s own presence vs. distributed ministry enablements) — Spanish morphology (don/dones, singular/plural) is the only formal signal separating them, which is thin. |
| Recommended strategy | Retain Espíritu Santo/Pentecostés as fixed transliterations (no viable alternative exists and none is needed). Mandatory teaching-note fencing on every Pentecostés/lleno del Espíritu Santo occurrence distinguishing the one-time inaugurating event from repeatable-experience theology. Keep “don del Espíritu Santo” (singular, definite article, “el don”) formally distinct from “dones espirituales” (plural, indefinite) in all teaching material, never merge the two under one heading. |
1.2 The Gospel to Jews and Gentiles
| Element | Detail |
|---|---|
| Available terms | evangelio (baseline, High); gentiles (baseline, Low); anunciar el evangelio / evangelizar (new, High); no hace acepción de personas (new, High); limpio/impuro/común (new, High); ídolo (new, High); dios desconocido (new, High); muy religiosos (new, Medium) |
| Weaknesses | (1) Spanish has no single word carrying the Levitical clean/unclean/common distinction (καθαρός/κοινός/ἀκάθαρτος) with built-in Torah-food-law resonance; “limpio/impuro/común” is functionally accurate but requires OT scaffolding many nominal-Christian readers were never given — a comprehension gap, not a collision gap. (2) “Evangelizar” in historically Catholic Iberian/Latin American contexts frequently connotes confrontational Protestant proselytism away from the Catholic Church, which can trigger defensive resistance independent of the text’s content. (3) “Ídolo” risks being read by the learner as an implicit indictment of contemporary Marian/saint devotional objects (statues, estampitas) rather than Paul’s specific Greco-Roman polytheistic target. |
| Recommended strategy | Use “limpio/impuro/común” with mandatory Leviticus 11 background note at every Acts 10–11 occurrence. Prefer proclamation-of-Christ framing (“anunciar el evangelio,” “dar testimonio de Cristo”) over confrontational “evangelizar” where register allows, without abandoning the verb where the text requires it. Fence “ídolo” explicitly to Acts’ own referent (Greco-Roman cult images) and prohibit extrapolation to devotional statuary debates. |
1.3 Repentance and Baptism
| Element | Detail |
|---|---|
| Available terms | arrepentirse / arrepentimiento (new, High); bautizar / bautismo (new, High); perdón de pecados / remisión de pecados (new, High); pecado (baseline, Medium) |
| Weaknesses | This is the single most catechetically loaded pair in the whole curriculum. “Arrepentimiento” in Catholic-majority Spanish usage is closely tethered to the sacrament of penance/confession — a repeatable, priest-mediated, post-baptismal cycle. “Bautismo” is lexically uncontested but ecclesially contested (infant vs. believer’s baptism debates run across the whole Spanish-speaking church landscape). Neither word has a false-cognate replacement available; the risk is entirely about the sequence and finality the text implies (2:38: repent → be baptized → receive forgiveness and the Spirit, as one integrated response) versus a repeatable sacramental cycle the culture’s dominant tradition assumes by default. |
| Recommended strategy | Retain both established terms (no substitute exists or is desirable). Do not polemicize against confession as a devotional practice; instead carry the distinction entirely through mandatory teaching notes emphasizing Acts’ own narrative pattern: a decisive, one-time, Spirit-produced turning marked by baptism, not an ongoing cycle. Treat infant-baptism debate as explicitly out of scope for the translation layer. |
1.4 The Church as Community
| Element | Detail |
|---|---|
| Available terms | iglesia (baseline, Medium); asamblea (new, Medium, civic sense only); compañerismo (baseline, Low); de común acuerdo/unánimes (new, Low-Medium); tenían todo en común (new, Medium); fueron añadidos (new, Medium); servicio/ministerio (new, Medium); ancianos/obispos (new, Critical); pastorear/pastor (new, Medium); discípulo (new, Low); cristiano (new, Low) |
| Weaknesses | (1) “Iglesia” defaults toward the capitalized institutional-hierarchical sense in Catholic-majority usage (already flagged in the baseline); Acts adds a second collision — the same Greek word ἐκκλησία is used for an ordinary pagan civic assembly at Ephesus (19:32,39,41), which if also rendered “iglesia” would nonsensically imply a church riot. (2) “Obispos” (20:28) is the single highest-risk term newly introduced by Acts: modern Spanish “obispo” denotes a monarchical, diocesan office (Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican) utterly unlike the plural, local, congregational office Acts 20 explicitly equates with “ancianos.” This is a genuine missing-concept problem: Spanish has no neutral one-word term for “first-generation congregational overseer” that isn’t already claimed by later, larger ecclesial structures. |
| Recommended strategy | Reserve “iglesia” strictly for ἐκκλησία’s theological sense; render the Ephesian civic assembly as “asamblea” without exception. For 20:28, ALWAYS pair “obispos” with “ancianos” and a mandatory clarifying note (“aquí ambos términos designan el mismo oficio local, no el obispado monárquico posterior”); never present “obispos” standalone. |
1.5 Apostolic Authority and Miracles
| Element | Detail |
|---|---|
| Available terms | apóstol (baseline, Low/Medium); milagros, prodigios y señales (new, High); ascensión/fue llevado arriba (new, High); echar suertes (new, Low); Autor de la vida (new, High); el Hijo del Hombre (new, Critical) |
| Weaknesses | (1) “Milagros” is the term most deeply embedded in an existing Latin American religious economy — ex-votos, milagritos, shrine pilgrimages tied to particular saints or Marian apparitions granting a specific petitioned favor. Acts’ miracles function evidentially (authenticating apostolic proclamation about the risen Christ), not as a patron-intercessor transaction; the word itself cannot be avoided (it is the only natural Spanish term), so the doctrinal fencing must be entirely at the teaching-note level. (2) “Echar suertes” (1:26) sits uncomfortably close to divination/fortune-telling vocabulary in everyday Spanish register. |
| Recommended strategy | Keep “milagros, prodigios y señales” as the fixed compound (matches Reina-Valera-style triadic phrasing) and mandate a teaching note every occurrence distinguishing evidential apostolic miracle from patron-intercessor miracle economy. Add a one-line clarifying gloss at 1:26 that the lot functioned as Spirit-guided discernment within the apostolic community, not divination. |
1.6 Persecution and Bold Witness
| Element | Detail |
|---|---|
| Available terms | testigo(s) (new, High); denuedo/valentía (new, High); perseguir (new, Medium); apedrear (new, Low); Sanedrín (new, Low); no rehuir/no eludir (new, Low-Medium); dominio propio (new, Low); ciudadanía romana (new, Low) |
| Weaknesses | ”Testigo(s)” is lexically correct (legal/eyewitness testimony) but culturally adjacent to “Testigos de Jehová” (Jehovah’s Witnesses), a distinct and doctrinally very different religious movement highly visible across the Spanish-speaking world through door-to-door evangelism. This is a recognition-adjacency risk rather than a semantic-collision risk: the word itself is not wrong, but learners may momentarily associate the vocabulary with that movement’s identity rather than Acts’ own eyewitness-to-the-resurrection sense. |
| Recommended strategy | Retain “testigo(s)” (no substitute conveys the legal-eyewitness sense as precisely); add a brief disambiguating note in teaching material only (not the translated text itself) at first heavy use (Acts 1:8) clarifying the term’s NT sense is unrelated to any modern group bearing a similar name. |
1.7 Conversion of Paul
| Element | Detail |
|---|---|
| Available terms | convertirse/volverse al Señor (new, Medium); el Camino (new, High); imposición de manos (new, High); Señor (baseline, Critical); Hijo de Dios (baseline, Critical) |
| Weaknesses | (1) “Conversión/convertirse” in general Spanish cultural usage defaults to switching religious affiliation or denomination (“se convirtió al catolicismo/protestantismo”), a horizontal institutional move — quite different from Acts’ vertical sense of turning from unbelief/idolatry to the living God. (2) “El Camino” (ἡ ὁδός) as a proper title for the early Christian movement risks being absorbed into the extremely common contemporary wellness-spirituality register of “mi camino espiritual,” a highly individualized, syncretism-friendly New Age usage current across Hispanic media and self-help culture. (3) “Imposición de manos” carries fixed sacramental-grace connotations (Confirmation, Holy Orders) in Catholic usage that could impose a single technical meaning onto Acts’ varied uses of the gesture (healing, receiving the Spirit, commissioning). |
| Recommended strategy | Use “convertirse/volverse al Señor” with explicit teaching contrast against denominational-switching connotations. Capitalize and treat “el Camino” as a historical proper title (analogous to a movement’s self-chosen name), never paraphrased into generic “camino espiritual” language. Teach the functional range of “imposición de manos” per occurrence rather than assuming one fixed sacramental sense. |
1.8 Justification apart from the Law
| Element | Detail |
|---|---|
| Available terms | justificación (baseline, Critical); justicia imputada (baseline, Critical); ley (baseline, High); circuncisión (new, High); yugo (new, Medium); dispuestos/ordenados para vida eterna (new, High); gracia (baseline, High) |
| Weaknesses | Acts 13:39 and the Jerusalem Council (ch.15) are Acts’ direct anticipation of Romans’ central Reformation/Trent fault line, so the baseline’s Critical caution on “justicia imputada” vs. “justicia infundida” applies with full force here for the first time chronologically in the curriculum. “Circuncisión” and “yugo” are lexically stable, but the underlying doctrinal stakes (is law-keeping necessary for standing before God?) require the learner to already grasp justification/grace correctly — Acts introduces the doctrine narratively (via a concrete historical dispute) before Romans develops it systematically, so Acts 13:39/15:1-11 must be treated as load-bearing anchor verses, not incidental narrative detail. |
| Recommended strategy | Enforce “justificación”/“justicia imputada” exactly as fixed by the baseline at every Acts occurrence; flag Acts 13:39 and 15:9-11 for mandatory theologian review as the narrative seedbed of the doctrine Romans later systematizes. |
1.9 The Great Commission Fulfilled
| Element | Detail |
|---|---|
| Available terms | misión (baseline, Medium); reino de Dios (baseline, Medium); anunciar el evangelio/evangelizar (new, High); restauración (new, Medium); dios desconocido (new, High); apelar a César (new, Low); sin impedimento/abiertamente y sin obstáculo (new, Medium) |
| Weaknesses | (1) “Misión” carries the mild historical echo of the Spanish colonial mission system in the Americas (already flagged at the baseline level); Acts’ own repeated sending-and-proclamation narrative (13:2-4; 22:21) makes this echo more salient than in Romans’ more abstract usage, since Acts narrates concrete cross-cultural, cross-ethnic sending journeys. (2) “Restauración” (3:21) risks conflation with contemporary political/national “restoration” rhetoric (religious-nationalist movements exist in various Latin American contexts) rather than Acts’ cosmic-eschatological referent. |
| Recommended strategy | Retain “misión” (established, no better alternative) with a brief contextual note distinguishing gospel proclamation from any colonial-era institutional association. Fence “restauración” explicitly to Christ’s return / cosmic scope, never a this-worldly political program. |
Part 2 — Missing Vocabulary vs. Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods
2.1 Missing / underdeveloped vocabulary (true lexical gaps)
These are concepts for which standard Spanish has no ready single-word equivalent, requiring compound phrases or transliteration rather than a one-to-one substitution:
| Concept | Gap | Resolution |
|---|---|---|
| δωρεά τοῦ Ἁγίου Πνεύματος (the Spirit’s own gift of himself, distinct from χαρίσματα) | Spanish “don” covers both senses; no morphological marker forces the distinction | Compound phrase “el don del Espíritu Santo” (singular, definite) held rigidly distinct from “dones espirituales” (plural) |
| ἐπίσκοπος as a first-generation, plural, congregational office (Acts 20:28) | “Obispo” is permanently claimed by the later monarchical-diocesan office; no neutral synonym exists | Forced pairing with “ancianos” + mandatory clarifying note; cannot be solved lexically alone |
| ἀποκατάστασις (cosmic eschatological restoration, 3:21) | No single Spanish noun distinguishes cosmic restoration from national/political restoration | ”Restauración” retained with mandatory eschatological-scope fencing note |
| τεταγμένοι εἰς ζωὴν αἰώνιον (13:48, election language in narrative rather than doctrinal-treatise form) | Spanish election vocabulary (“elección,” baseline) exists but Acts’ passive-participle narrative framing (“dispuestos/ordenados”) has no natural one-word Spanish equivalent that avoids both fatalism and synergism | Compound phrase with theologian-review flag, mirroring baseline’s election handling |
| πνεῦμα πύθωνα (16:16, a specific mythological name — the Python spirit of Delphic divination) | Spanish has no inherited term for this specific Greco-Roman mythological referent | Compound phrase “espíritu de adivinación / espíritu pitón,” functional gloss rather than transliteration of the myth-name |
2.2 Crowded semantic neighborhoods needing fencing
These are the inverse problem: Spanish already has an active, well-populated meaning-space around the term, and the Christian/biblical sense must be fenced off from strong cultural neighbors:
| Term | Crowded neighbor(s) | Fencing required |
|---|---|---|
| santos (9:13,32,41; 26:10) | Canonized/venerated intercessor saints (dominant Catholic popular-piety sense); patron-saint festivals, saints’ days | Mandatory “todo creyente es santo” note at every occurrence, per baseline Romans 1:7 precedent |
| obispos (20:28) | Modern diocesan bishop’s office (Catholic/Orthodox/Anglican) | Mandatory pairing with “ancianos” + note; see 1.4 above |
| vocación / llamado | Catholic-specific call to priesthood/religious life (“tiene vocación religiosa”) | Use “llamado” exclusively for the universal call; never “vocación” unqualified (baseline rule, applies throughout Acts, esp. 1:17,25; 2:39) |
| arrepentimiento | Sacrament of confession/penance (repeatable, priest-mediated) | Teach as decisive one-time Spirit-produced turning; never polemicize against confession as a practice |
| Pentecostés | Modern global Pentecostal/Charismatic movement and its “second blessing” doctrine | Historical, one-time inaugurating event vs. later denominational theology, taught explicitly |
| milagros | Ex-voto/shrine/patron-saint miracle economy | Evidential-apostolic framing vs. patron-intercessor transaction, taught explicitly |
| hablar en otras lenguas | Later glossolalia/ecstatic-speech Pentecostal-Charismatic practice | Known human languages (2:6,8,11) vs. later ecstatic-speech debate, historical distinction taught without adjudicating continuationist/cessationist positions |
| el Camino | Contemporary New Age/wellness “mi camino espiritual” individualized-path language | Proper historical title of the early Christian movement, capitalized, not a generic spiritual-journey metaphor |
| conversión / convertirse | Denominational/institutional-affiliation switching | Vertical turning from unbelief to God, not horizontal switching between churches |
| testigo(s) | Testigos de Jehová (Jehovah’s Witnesses) as a recognizable modern religious group name | Brief disambiguating teaching note; legal-eyewitness-to-resurrection sense, unrelated lexical coincidence |
| hechicería/mago; espíritu de adivinación | Curanderismo, Santería, Espiritismo as live, culturally respected (not merely historical) practices in much of the Spanish-speaking world | Explicit narrative contrast with the Spirit’s freely-given, unpurchasable power must never be softened into neutral cultural description |
| visión | Folk-spiritist “visiones” as a repeatable mystical technique/practice | Spirit-given, doctrinally purposeful, historically singular; not a repeatable technique |
| echar suertes | Popular fortune-telling/divination practice | Spirit-guided discernment within the apostolic community, not divination |
| intercesión | Saint/Marian intercessory mediation (baseline Critical concern, reinforced throughout Acts’ prayer narratives 1:14; 4:24; 12:5,12) | Direct divine address by the gathered church; not modeled on saint/Marian mediation |
| misión | Spanish colonial mission-system history in the Americas | Brief contextual note distinguishing gospel proclamation from colonial institutional association |
| ídolo | Devotional statuary/imagery in mainstream Catholic practice | Fence to Acts’ specific Greco-Roman polytheistic referent; no extrapolation to devotional-object debates |
Part 3 — Transliteration vs. Paraphrase Decisions
| Term | Decision | Rationale |
|---|---|---|
| Pentecostés | Transliteration | Long-established, uncontested Spanish Bible-translation form; paraphrase would obscure the proper-noun/feast-name status |
| Sanedrín | Transliteration | Institutional-historical proper noun; no doctrinal content to paraphrase |
| Abba (carried from baseline) | Transliteration, paired with “Padre” | Preserves Aramaic intimacy per Reina-Valera precedent; not reintroduced newly in Acts but remains governing |
| Cristiano | Transliteration/loanword (already fully naturalized) | Universally standard; no ambiguity |
| El Camino (ἡ ὁδός) | Paraphrase as a fixed capitalized title, not literal transliteration | Greek has no proper-noun form to transliterate; English “the Way” and Spanish “el Camino” both function as calques functioning as a title — retain as title, fence against generic-spirituality drift |
| espíritu pitón / espíritu de adivinación (πνεῦμα πύθωνα) | Functional paraphrase, not transliteration of “Python” | Transliterating “Pitón” alone (without the functional gloss) would leave the term opaque to the Spanish reader; the compound preserves both the mythological specificity and the functional sense |
| ἐπίσκοπος → obispos | Established lexical equivalent used with mandatory qualifying pair (“ancianos/obispos”), not paraphrase | A wholly new coinage to avoid “obispo” would break continuity with the wider Spanish Bible tradition (RV, NVI, DHH all use “obispos” at 20:28); the safer fix is fencing, not lexical avoidance |
| δωρεά τοῦ Ἁγίου Πνεύματος | Paraphrase (compound phrase, not single-word coinage) | No single Spanish noun captures “the Spirit’s own gift of himself” distinct from χαρίσματα; forcing a single word would either collide with “dones espirituales” or invent an unfamiliar neologism with no reception in Spanish Bible tradition |
| ἀρχηγός (Autor de la vida) | Paraphrase (established Reina-Valera-tradition rendering) | “Autor” + “de la vida” captures the originator/source sense; a single-word transliteration (e.g., “arquegos”) would be unintelligible and outside all Spanish Bible tradition |
| ἀποκατάστασις (restauración) | Established lexical equivalent, not transliteration | ”Restauración” is already the standard rendering across Spanish Bible traditions; introducing a transliterated form would be both unnecessary and unintelligible |
General principle applied: transliteration is reserved for (a) proper nouns/feast names with no semantic content to translate (Pentecostés, Sanedrín) and (b) terms already fixed by long Spanish Bible-translation tradition where retranslating would break reader recognition (Abba). Everywhere a genuine theological concept is at stake and no single Spanish word carries it precisely, the strategy is a fixed compound phrase plus a mandatory teaching-note fence — never a novel coinage untested in the existing Spanish Bible-translation tradition.
Part 4 — Ranked List of Highest-Risk Ambiguities
Ranked by (a) severity of doctrinal distortion if mishandled, (b) strength/liveliness of the competing cultural referent, and (c) frequency/centrality within the core passage (Acts 2:1-41) and the wider book.
| Rank | Term | Risk tier | Grounded reason |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ancianos/obispos (elders/overseers, 20:28) | Critical | The only term in the entire Acts extension where the standard Spanish Bible-translation word (“obispos”) itself denotes a categorically different, later, monarchical institutional office in the destination culture’s dominant tradition (Catholic diocesan bishop); mistranslation here is not a risk of drift but a built-in structural collision requiring mandatory fencing on every occurrence. |
| 2 | santos (saints, corporate sense, 9:13,32,41; 26:10) | Critical | Directly extends the baseline’s own highest-flagged Romans 1:7 risk into six further Acts occurrences; “los santos” overwhelmingly denotes canonized, venerated intercessors in the dominant culture, the exact opposite of Acts’ ordinary-believer referent. |
| 3 | hechicería/mago; espíritu de adivinación (sorcery/spirit of divination, 8:9-24; 13:6-10; 16:16-18) | Critical | Confronts a living, practiced religious framework (curanderismo, Santería, Espiritismo) across the Spanish-speaking world, not merely a historical curiosity; softening the narrative contrast risks the learner treating occult power as a neutral cultural alternative to the Spirit rather than its opposite. |
| 4 | Pentecostés / lleno(s) del Espíritu Santo / hablar en otras lenguas (Acts 2:1-11, the core passage itself) | High (cluster) | Sits at the exact center of the curriculum’s anchor passage; the modern global Pentecostal/Charismatic movement’s doctrinal claims about repeatable Spirit-baptism and glossolalia are a live, contested, and pastorally sensitive rival framework across nearly every Spanish-speaking Christian community the curriculum will reach. |
| 5 | arrepentirse/arrepentimiento (repentance, 2:38 and 10 further occurrences) | High | Collides with the sacrament of confession/penance, the dominant Catholic-culture referent for “arrepentimiento,” at the single verse (2:38) that anchors the whole core passage’s altar-call; the sequence (repent-baptize-receive) must not be read as entry into a repeatable sacramental cycle. |
| 6 | vocación vs. llamado (calling, 1:17,25; 2:39) | High | The baseline’s forbidden-substitution rule is directly triggered inside the core passage itself (2:39, “cuantos el Señor llame”); using “vocación” here would import the Catholic priestly/religious-life referent into Pentecost’s universal promise. |
| 7 | el Camino (the Way, 9:2; 19:9,23; 22:4; 24:14,22) | High | Competes with an extremely active, non-technical, individualized contemporary usage (“mi camino espiritual”) in wellness/self-help/New Age media pervasive across Spanish-language culture; risk of the learner reading a historical, exclusive movement-title as a generic personal-spirituality metaphor. |
| 8 | milagros, prodigios y señales (wonders and signs, 2:19,22,43 and 8 further occurrences) | High | Embedded in an active devotional economy (ex-votos, shrine miracles, patron-saint petitions) that the learner encounters constantly outside the classroom; the evidential-apostolic sense must be taught against, not assumed to align with, that economy. |
| 9 | testigo(s) (witness, 1:8,22; 2:32; 3:15; 5:32; 22:15,20; 26:16) | High | Not a semantic collision but a strong recognition-adjacency risk with “Testigos de Jehová,” a visible modern religious group; risk is lower in severity than ranks 1-8 but high in frequency, occurring at the core passage’s programmatic verse (1:8). |
| 10 | ídolo (idol, 15:20; 17:16; 19:26) | High | Risk of misapplied extrapolation from Paul’s specific Greco-Roman polytheism critique onto contemporary Marian/saint devotional imagery, given the baseline’s extensive documentation of santos/Marian syncretism sensitivity. |
| 11 | conversión/convertirse (turn/convert, 3:19; 9:35; 11:21; 15:19; 26:18,20) | Medium-High | Everyday Spanish usage defaults to institutional/denominational switching; Acts’ vertical turning-from-idolatry sense requires explicit contrast teaching at each occurrence, though the collision is milder than ranks 1-10 since context usually disambiguates. |
| 12 | dispuestos/ordenados para vida eterna (appointed to eternal life, 13:48) | High | Election/predestination language in narrative rather than systematic-treatise form; risk of either fatalistic “destino” collapse or an overcorrected synergistic reading that erases the text’s sovereign-grace emphasis, mirroring the baseline’s flagged 9:11-13/11:5-7 pattern. |
| 13 | echar suertes (casting lots, 1:26) | Low-Medium | Register proximity to popular fortune-telling/divination vocabulary; lower severity since the narrative context (apostolic community, prayer, Scripture citation) strongly disambiguates, but still warrants a brief clarifying note given cultural salience of “echar suertes”-adjacent folk practice. |
| 14 | misión (mission, 13:2-4; 22:21; 26:17-18) | Medium | Mild historical colonial association; lower severity than the items above because the association is diffuse/connotative rather than a competing doctrinal system, and the term is already accepted across the Spanish Bible-translation tradition without controversy. |
| 15 | restauración (restoration, 3:21) | Medium | Risk of conflation with contemporary political/religious-nationalist “restoration” rhetoric in some Latin American contexts; lower frequency (single occurrence) keeps this below the higher-ranked items despite genuine conflation potential. |
Part 5 — Full-Book Coverage Sweep (Chapters 1–28)
Confirms every chapter of Acts was reviewed for lexical-gap and semantic-collision risk. Chapters contributing no new gap-analysis findings beyond what is already covered above are marked “reviewed, no new terms.”
| Chapters | Coverage status |
|---|---|
| 1 | Contributes: llamado (1:17,25), ascensión, echar suertes. Fully analyzed above (1.5, 1.7, Part 4 rank 6/13). |
| 2 (core passage, 2:1-41) | Contributes: Pentecostés, lleno del Espíritu Santo, hablar en otras lenguas, lenguas como de fuego, don del Espíritu Santo, la promesa, arrepentimiento, bautismo, perdón de pecados, almas, de común acuerdo, añadidos. Fully analyzed above (1.1, 1.3, Part 4 ranks 4-6). |
| 3 | Contributes: Autor de la vida, siervo, restauración. Analyzed above (1.5, 1.9, Part 4 rank 15). |
| 4 | Contributes: denuedo/valentía (boldness), Sanedrín, tenían todo en común, de común acuerdo. Analyzed above (1.4, 1.6, Part 3). |
| 5 | Contributes: mentir/tentar al Espíritu Santo (Ananias/Sapphira — Spirit’s personhood, reinforces baseline Espíritu Santo entry), Sanedrín. Reviewed; no new gap category beyond 1.1/Part 2. |
| 6 | Contributes: servicio/ministerio (diakonia), helenistas/hebreos, imposición de manos (first occurrence). Analyzed above (1.4, 1.7). |
| 7 | Contributes: el Hijo del Hombre (Critical Christological title), apedrear. Reviewed; el Hijo del Hombre reinforces baseline deity/lordship-of-Christ Critical tier, no new gap category required beyond noting it in the registry. |
| 8 | Contributes: anunciar el evangelio/evangelizar, hechicería/mago (Simon), eunuco. Analyzed above (1.2, 1.5, Part 4 rank 3/10). |
| 9 | Contributes: el Camino, convertirse, Hijo de Dios (Saul’s preaching), imposición de manos. Analyzed above (1.7, Part 4 ranks 7/11). |
| 10 | Contributes: limpio/impuro/común, Dios no hace acepción de personas, visión. Analyzed above (1.2, Part 2.2). |
| 11 | Contributes: cristiano (coined at Antioch), añadidos, convertirse. Reviewed, no new gap category beyond 1.4/1.7. |
| 12 | Contributes: gloria (Herod), de común acuerdo. Reviewed, no new gap category. |
| 13 | Contributes: apartar (set apart for ministry), justificación (13:39, doctrinally central), dispuestos para vida eterna, hechicería/mago (Elymas), descendencia de David. Analyzed above (1.8, Part 4 rank 12). |
| 14 | Contributes: milagros/prodigios y señales, apedrear (Paul stoned). Reviewed, aligns with 1.5/Part 4 rank 8. |
| 15 | Contributes: circuncisión, yugo, pareció bien al Espíritu Santo, ídolo, gentiles inclusion vocabulary. Analyzed above (1.8, Part 2.2, Part 4 rank 10). |
| 16 | Contributes: espíritu de adivinación/espíritu pitón, ciudadanía romana, bautismo (Lydia, jailer). Analyzed above (1.6, Part 4 rank 3). |
| 17 | Contributes: dios desconocido, muy religiosos, ídolo, resurrección (Athenian mockery). Analyzed above (1.9, Part 2.2). |
| 18 | Contributes: bautismo (John’s vs. Christian, background to ch.19). Reviewed, no new gap category. |
| 19 | Contributes: asamblea (ekklesia_civic — critical fencing item), ídolo, bautismo/laying on of hands (Ephesian disciples). Analyzed above (1.4, Part 2.2). |
| 20 | Contributes: ancianos/obispos (Critical, Part 4 rank 1), pastorear/pastor, no rehuir/no eludir. Analyzed above (1.4, Part 4 rank 1). |
| 21 | Contributes: ritos de purificación, ley (accusations against Paul). Reviewed, no new gap category beyond 1.4 note on ministerio/diakonia continuity. |
| 22 | Contributes: el Camino, perseguir (Christ-church identification), ciudadanía romana. Reviewed, aligns with 1.6/1.7. |
| 23 | Contributes: Sanedrín, resurrección (Pharisee/Sadducee dispute — shows resurrection debate predates Christianity within Judaism). Reviewed, no new gap category. |
| 24 | Contributes: el Camino, dominio propio, justicia (Felix hearing). Reviewed, no new gap category beyond 1.6/1.7. |
| 25 | Contributes: apelar a César. Reviewed, no new gap category (Low risk, narrative-legal). |
| 26 | Contributes: testigo (Paul’s defense), perseguir, convertirse, santificación, santos. Reviewed, reinforces Part 4 ranks 2/9/11. |
| 27 | Contributes: almas (headcount usage), providencia (shipwreck), acción de gracias. Reviewed, no new gap category beyond baseline providencia handling. |
| 28 | Contributes: reino de Dios, sin impedimento/abiertamente y sin obstáculo (closing word). Analyzed above (1.9). |
Coverage conclusion: All 28 chapters reviewed; no chapter silently omitted. Gap-analysis findings concentrate most heavily in chapters 1–2 (core passage and its immediate frame), 8–10 (Gentile inclusion and occult confrontation), 13–15 (justification/law dispute), 16 (spirit of divination), and 20 (elders/overseers) — consistent with where the nine curriculum doctrines carry their highest syncretism and institutional-collision risk in the destination culture.
This analysis extends, and must be read alongside, the baseline Romans Language Package and the Acts Core Glossary (analysis/08_core_glossary.md) and its associated bible_term_registry.json extension. Phase 2 processing must load all four documents before translating any Acts segment.