The other disciples came to shore in the boat is literally “the other disciples came with the boat.” Good News Translation makes explicit the information that they came to the shore. In Greek, all of verse 8 is one sentence, in which pulling the net full of fish (literally “pulling the net of fish”) comes last. English structure requires that this information be given in the first part of the verse.

In some languages it is necessary to specify the means by which a boat is made to move through the water. In this instance it would no doubt have been “by means of oars.” Therefore one may translate the first clause of this verse “the other disciples rowed to shore in the boat.”

Pulling the net full of fish may be translated as a separate clause, for example, “while pulling behind them the net full of fish, the other disciples rowed to shore in the boat.”

About a hundred yards (so most translations) is literally “about two hundred cubits.” A cubit is about 18 inches (45 centimeters). In English it is more natural to speak of yards than of cubits. Some translations (Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch, for example) give the measurement in terms of meters (“about a hundred meters”), an increasingly favored way of measuring distance. In some languages a natural way of incorporating the measurement into the preceding statement would be to translate “they were only about a hundred yards from land.”

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 .