The Council was the supreme religious court of the Jews; it was composed of seventy leading Jewish men and was presided over by the High Priest. Though the Greek text itself (which simply has “they”) makes no specific reference to the Council, this is an important device in identifying the group of individuals who were meeting together to consult on this matter. A phrase such as “those who were consulting together” may be an appropriate way of identifying the various individuals brought together for this consultation.

Bold comes from a word which literally means “freedom of speech,” and may indicate that the members of the Council were amazed at the boldness with which Peter and John had spoken in the name of Jesus. How bold Peter and John were can be expressed as “how Peter and John spoke without fear.” In some languages this may be expressed idiomatically as “how they said everything” or “how they did not cover up anything.”

The expression for learn must not imply either formal instruction or any outside information. This is something which the members of the Council deduced from the way in which Peter and John had spoken.

Ordinary men of no education translated two words, the first of which, “ordinary men,” means a person who is not a specialist in a particular field; while the second, “of no education,” means a persons who is unschooled, and in the papyri even refers to one who cannot write. This latter term is taken by some translators to refer to a person who is untrained in the Jewish Law, though it is doubtful if that is the meaning in the present context. For the two words Jerusalem Bible has “uneducated laymen,” New English Bible “untrained laymen,” and An American Translation* “uneducated, ordinary men.”

Expressions for ordinary men vary widely in different languages, for example, “the little people,” “those who do not count for much,” “those who live at the edge of the village,” and “those who command others.”

Lack of formal education (in the rabbinical sense) is not so easily expressed. In some situations this is expressed in rather unique ways, for example, “they did not know paper,” “they could not instruct from books,” or “they had not gone off to school.”

The meaning of the Greek clause “they had been with Jesus” is they had been companions that is, close friends, of Jesus. It is important to indicate that Peter and John had been with Jesus over a period of time. It is for that reason that the Good News Translation has employed companions of Jesus. In other languages one may have “experienced living with Jesus,” “associated with Jesus,” or “followed along with Jesus for some time.”

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 .