As in the case of so many other translations, the Good News Translation has transformed Luke’s negative phrase, “no little time,” into a positive one, a long time. It is impossible for us to know how long a time is implied, but in many languages the closest equivalent is probably “for a number of months” or “… moons.” The unit of time is certainly more than would be reckoned by days or weeks, but it would probably be wrong to imply “a number of years,” since this would distort the chronology of Paul’s activities.

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 .