In Greek verse 25 is a single sentence, which Good News Translation divides into two. This verse forms a second conclusion to the Gospel, and in this sense it parallels 20.30-31. Who is referred to by the first person pronoun in I suppose? Is it someone distinct from the author of verse 24, or is the same person referred to by the plural (we) and singular (I) pronouns?

Good News Translation takes the negative not as going with the verb hold (could not hold), as do many other translations (Revised Standard Version, Phillips, New English Bible, Jerusalem Bible, Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch). Others take it with the verb suppose and render “I do not suppose” (Moffatt, Goodspeed; Barclay “I do not think”; New American Bible “I doubt”). Essentially the same meaning is arrived at by either rendering. Many languages have “negative movement,” that is, the expression of negation is moved from what is actually negated to a verb of thinking, saying, seeing, etc. In this instance the negative (not) would be moved from the verb hold to the verb suppose. However, what is actually negated is the content of the supposition, and in most languages one must therefore translate I suppose that the whole world could not hold the books.

The whole world (Revised Standard Version “the world itself”) is literally “the world.” In contrast to the more usual Johannine use of world (see the comments at 1.10), the word here means the universe. Instead of the whole world could not hold the books it may be better to say “in the whole world there would not be enough room for the books.”

The books that would be written may be rendered by an active expression, such as “the books that people could write.”

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on the Gospel of John. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1980. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .