... an aside on men, women and people

Greek was the language John wrote in, thought he was amost certainly bilingual in Greek and Aramaic, as well as able to read Hebrew.
These languages all have a useful word which English lacks: in Greek it is anthropos and it means a human, as in someone who may be male or female.  In the plural, it means humans, people, without reference to gender.  In English the word 'men' was formerly used in this generic sense and therefore anthropos was translated 'man' or 'men'.  The trouble is, even long ago, though 'men' could include women it didn't give the same gender-isn't-relevant feel as the Greek word, and even more so when speaking of an individual. 
Greek also has words that means specifically man/men and woman/women.

In the New Testament most of the time when our translations (certainly up to the beginning of this century, and even some post 2000) use the word man/men it is translating anthropos, in other words it means 'a person' or 'people'.  This can change the feel of a story, or even more of a symbolic or philosophic passage quite considerably.  This is especially true today, because English has changed (as all languages do) and most people will choose a word without gender-implication where they can.  
Thus, translations of the Bible which are up to date with current language use will try to use gender-non-specific words to translate the word anthropos.  

There are two difficulties. 
First, there are sentences which still don't quite flow well when trying to recreate the feel of "all anthropos", and translators constantly have to juggle with "humans, people, humankind, persons" and it can be tricky. 
Second, the singular is more difficult still, since 'person' and 'human' are sometimes not appropriate.  In this instance the translators very often simply use the words 'man' or 'woman', relying on the context to give them the gender of the person involved.  At times there is no way to convey the sense adequately.

The result of all this is that there are places where the English overemphasises the gender of people involved.  There are times when the flow of thought is undermined because the Greek repeats the word anthropos while the English needs to use more than one word.  There are also occasionally phrases where it is impossible with current English usage to get the inclusiveness or ambiguity inherent in the Greek.

This doesn't mean that we can't understand the Bible.  Most translations really are excellent.  However, if we are aware of this as an issue faced by translators, we are less likely to misinterpret gender as a issue when it isn't.  It also helps explain why your translations might say "men" when mine says "people"!
For a detailed treatment of this issue look at the NIV 2011 discussion of it.  This can be found on the "Biblica" site, which is the website of the former International Bible Society. http://www.biblica.com/niv/accuracy/