Paphos, on the western end of the island, was about ninety miles from Salamis. Paphos, known as “New Paphos” in New Testament times, was the official capital of the island. Though in English one may speak of all the way across, in some languages it is necessary to employ a term which would indicate clearly that this was from one end of the island to the other, for example, “went the length of the island” or “went from one end of the island to the other end of the island.”

Met translates a verb which is literally “found,” here used in the sense of “to find by chance.”

Magician, a Persian loan word which originally referred to one who was a member of a particular kind of priesthood, had come in New Testament times to mean “sorcerer,” “magician,” or even “swindler” or “charlatan.”

Bar-Jesus in Aramaic would mean “son of Joshua,” the Greek equivalent of Joshua being Jesus (see Hebrews 4.8). “False prophets” (the literal form of the Greek) is taken by the Good News Translation in the sense of one who claimed to be a prophet. For Luke any person who spoke (a message) contrary to the Christian preaching would be classified as a “false prophet.” Since Bar-Jesus was a prophet, even though a false one, perhaps it may be necessary in some languages to say “who claimed to be a prophet of God but was not.” In this way the falseness of his activity can be made perfectly clear.

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 .