This verse has undergone a good deal of restructuring in Good News Translation. The form is, in fact, very much different from that of the Greek, which reads: “If he called them gods, to whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken.” The order of the two major clauses in Greek (“if he called them gods” and “the scripture cannot be broken”) has been reversed, and the initial clause of Good News Translation introduced with the words we know that, since the clause represents a well attested Jewish conviction. In this same first clause of Good News Translation the Greek negative expression “cannot be broken” is stated positively: is true forever (Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch “remains valid”). In the Jewish setting the verb “to be broken,” when applied to Scripture, would indicate that the meaning could not be changed, nor could the words be declared invalid. In Greek the “if” clause actually introduces a statement of fact, not of doubt, as would normally be implied by a literal rendering into English; this is why Good News Translation transforms “if” into “and” at the beginning of the clause. Within this same clause Good News Translation makes explicit the meaning of the pronouns “he” (= God) and “them” (= those people), and at the same time introduces the people in a position after those people and before to whom in order to make immediately evident the connection between people and whom. Behind the structure “to whom the word of God came” lies the meaning “to whom God gave his word,” which Good News Translation has transformed into a passive structure: to whom his message was given. Him represents “of God,” and has been chosen by Good News Translation for stylistic reasons. “Word” carries a broader meaning in the context of Scripture than the English equivalent, and so Good News Translation uses message, which also has the extra advantage of avoiding the construction “his word was given,” in which “word” would suggest the meaning of “promise.”

It may not be sufficient to translate the scripture merely as “the writings.” In some languages it is essential to translate “the holy writings” or “the writings relating to God.” An expression which would mean “God’s writings,” in the sense that God himself did the writing, should be avoided.

God called those people gods may be rendered “God applied the name of gods to those people” or “God spoke of those people as gods.”

To whom his message was given is literally “to whom the word of God came.” Jerusalem Bible translated “to whom the word of God was addressed,” while New English Bible has “to whom the word of God was delivered.” In the Old Testament the expression “the word of God came to…,” used by some of the prophetic books (note Jer 1.2 and Hos 1.1), was simply a Jewish way of saying “God spoke his message to….”

The people to whom his message was given may be treated as a completely separate sentence, for example, “These are the people to whom his message was given” or “… to whom God spoke his message.”

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 .