Executive Summary

Why it matters

Romans is the theological backbone of the New Testament, and Turkish carries a distinctive doctrinal risk profile shaped by Sunni Islamic theology rather than Hindu-style syncretism: nine of its central doctrines (inspiration of Scripture, messianic promise, incarnation, deity of Christ, sonship of Christ, resurrection, lordship of Christ, salvation, and assurance of salvation) collide directly with specific, well-known Qur’anic claims. Getting these wrong doesn’t create a vague misunderstanding, it produces a translation that a Turkish reader will recognize as either a restatement of Islamic doctrine or an outright contradiction of it.

Key findings

• The registry tracks 40 doctrines across Romans 1-16; 27 require mandatory human theologian review before any translated segment ships (9 Critical, 18 High).
• Sonship of Christ, deity of Christ, resurrection of Christ, and inspiration of Scripture are Critical specifically because the Qur’an makes explicit, textual counter-claims (112:3 “He neither begets nor is begotten”; 4:157 denying Jesus’ death) — these are not soft cultural drift risks, they are named doctrinal collisions.
• Assurance of Salvation is uniquely Critical in this Language Package (not flagged this way in every language) because Islamic soteriology generally withholds certainty about final standing until Judgment Day; Romans 8’s present-tense assurance is one of the curriculum’s most theologically distinctive claims here.
• Only 3 of 40 doctrines (Thanksgiving, Mutual Edification, Christian Fellowship) are Low-risk and clear for automated review alone.

Risks

• Doctrinal collision, not just drift: unlike vocabulary that quietly imports the wrong meaning, several Turkish terms (İsa, Mesih, peygamber, Ruh al-Qudus/Kutsal Ruh) are shared directly with Qur’anic vocabulary and carry an explicit, textually-defined alternative meaning that readers may already hold with confidence.
• Safety and social risk: evangelism and open discussion of conversion carry real legal and social sensitivity in this context; the registry routes evangelism to human theologian review for pastoral care, not translation accuracy alone.
• Overcorrection risk: softening confrontational doctrines (Sonship, deity, the historical death of Christ) to reduce offense would strip Romans of its actual argument; the requirements document explicitly forbids euphemistic substitution.

Opportunities

• Turkish already has an established, contemporary Bible translation (Kitabı Mukaddes) with settled renderings for most core vocabulary, which gives this Language Package a stable foundation rather than requiring invention from scratch.
• Shared vocabulary (iman, şükür, günah) creates genuine points of contact that make Romans’ arguments about faith and gratitude land with immediate familiarity, once the object and content of that vocabulary are clarified.

Recommended actions

• Route every Critical and High risk segment (27 of 40 doctrines) through human theologian review before publication; do not allow automated-only review to touch these terms.
• Brief native-speaker reviewers specifically on the legal/social risk category around evangelism and conversion language, which automated glossary enforcement alone cannot catch.
• Reuse this Language Package’s translation_memory.json for every Romans lesson in Turkish rather than re-deriving terms per document, per the two-phase pipeline design.