Good News Translation reorders the response of the Jewish authorities to Jesus. In Greek the mention of the forty-six years that it took to build the Temple comes before the question, Are you going to build it again in three days? But for the purposes of English style the present order is more forceful, since, in responding to the shocking statement or command, it is more natural in conversational English to use a question first, and then to expand its implication by a statement.
In some languages it is appropriate to introduce the question in verse 20 as being the idea of someone; for example, “Do you think that you are going to build it again in three days?” or “How do you imagine that you are going to build it again in three days?” In this way some of the irony and surprise can be brought out.
It has taken forty-six years to build this Temple may be more literally rendered “this Temple was built in forty-six years.” The verb “was built” is aorist, and so focuses attention on the completion of the act of building, rather than on the process. Actually, the Temple was not completed until A.D. 63. Some scholars believe that John made a chronological error here, assuming that the Temple was completed at the same time as Jesus’ ministry, when actually it was not. However, it is natural to take “was built” as a summary of the whole process of building without necessarily implying that the building was completed at the time the statement was made. It is interesting that in the Septuagint of Ezra 5.16 the same aorist form of the verb is used of the building of the Temple, and there also the Temple was not yet completed.
It is possible to transform the passive expression It has taken forty-six years to build this Temple into an active one by introducing an indefinite subject, such as “men” or a more definite subject such as “builders,” for example, “Men worked forty-six years to build this Temple” or “Builders have worked forty-six years to complete this Temple.”
As in many other contexts, the term Temple must be translated as simply “the house of God,” as it is called in many Old Testament texts. This same type of expression occurs also in the New Testament. Such a phrase, however, must not be confused with a term for heaven, which in some languages is “the place where God dwells” or “the place where God is.”
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 .