Some commentators understand Paul’s statement that he persecuted to the death the people who followed this Way (see also 26.10) as a generalization of the incident mentioned in 7.54 ff. However, it is more natural to assume that Paul had other cases in mind than the single instance of Stephen’s martyrdom. The people who followed this Way (see 9.2) is literally “this Way”; but, of course, Luke means that Paul persecuted the people who followed this Way. Although Barclay correctly interprets the meaning of “the Way,” he misses the impact of the phrase persecuted to the death, when he translates “I was such a persecutor of the Way that I wished to put its followers to death.”

The expression I persecuted to the death may be rendered as “I persecuted the people and caused their death” or “I caused great trouble to the people, even to the point of causing their death.”

Threw them into prison may need to be translated as a causative: “I caused them to be thrown into prison” or “I ordered officers to put them into prison.” In some languages the equivalent of prison is “to be tied up.”

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 .