Not allowed by his religion (see New English Bible “forbidden by his religion”) translates the expression “it is unlawful,” but in the context the reference is to the Jewish Law. Gentile is literally “one of another race”; but from the Jewish point of view these terms carry the same meaning.

Is not allowed by his religion to visit may be rendered as “must not visit.” One can also employ an expression such as “the laws of the Jews say they cannot visit or associate with a Gentile.” To visit or associate with may be difficult to render effectively in some languages. Visit, however, may be translated in some languages as “go into the house of” or “stay in the house of,” and associate may be rendered as “have anything to do with” or “go around with.”

It is not difficult to speak of food as being unclean, for it can be described as “not fit to eat” (in the sense of negative taboo), but it is not so easy to employ unclean or defiled with reference to people. Some translators, however, have employed exactly the same terms for unclean or defiled when applied to food and to persons and then used a marginal note to explain the particular application to people. On the other hand, one can also use in speaking of people “unfit to be associated with” as the equivalent of unclean or defiled. However, this type of rendering does not do full justice to the original terms, and therefore one should probably employ some such expression as “impure (or “too bad”) to be associated with.” In this type of context one is concerned with negative taboo, avoidance required because of contamination. This is not positive taboo, which is based on the possession of potentially harmful supernatural potency.

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on The Acts of the Apostles. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1972. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .