Using Karl Popper’s idea about how theories change over time as the point of departure, the author discusses the developments of translation theories and relates them to the development in individual translators. This view is pursued through a brief presentation of translation theory as it started out with a focus on individual words. Subsequently, the theory concentrates on literal translations (of religious texts), then on rhetorically founded rewriting, and then there is a reaction arguing that translation brought enlightenment to the target culture. The next approach was linguistic and was eventually supplanted by a theory emphasising communication. In due turn this has been replaced with descriptive theories of translational action, which then vie with cognitive approaches with the translator in focus.