John 1:1 reads as follows (emphasis added):
Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος, καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν, καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with the God, and the Word was Divine. (my translation)
The highlighted text, John 1:1c, has long often been disputed. Until recent decades, Trinitarian translators have translated it as “and the Word was God.” The problem with this translation is that this means that either (1) the Word (λογος; the pre-existent Jesus) is the same person as τον θεον, “the God,” who is clearly the person of the Father, resulting on Modalism, or (2) Jesus is one-to-one equivalent to the Trinitarian being. Both of which are problematic, theologically, even to Trinitarianism; furthermore, there are also grammatical issues with this common rendition of John 1:1c.
θεον is the accusative of G/god, and θεος is the nominative case; this means that θεον is a direct object, and θεος is a subject. Based merely on that supposition, the KJV and other translations are difficult to justify. θεος cannot be the direct object of the sentence, so it is a predicate, and descriptive of the subject.
A definite predicate nominative that precedes a verb does not have the definite article, as we have in John 1:1c. When a Greek writer wanted to stress the quality of a person or object that was in the predicate nominative case, he would put it before the verb rather than after it. It also is correct to say that a nominative predicate word lined to a subject usually precedes the verb, as it does in this verse (θεος ην ο λογος), but for that matter an accusative predicate word also tends to precede the verb (e.g., πικρον ποιει τον γαμον ["s/he makes marriage bitter"]). In the case of John 1:1, the phrasing is θεος ην ο λογος, where the subject is clearly the noun with the article ο λογος and θεος, which has no article, must be a predicate word. From the standpoint of normative Greek grammar, this clause might rightly be translated "The Word was a God." The REB brings out the proper sentence structure, "and what God was, the Word was," or a more literal translation being "God was the word" or "divine was the Word."
One of the best articles on this complex issue is that of Phillip Harner, "Qualitative Anarthrous Predicate Nouns: Mark 15:39 and John 1:1" in The Journal of Biblical Literature 92:1 (March 1973): 75-87.
On page 84 of this seminal article, Harner writes:
John could have worded this in five ways:
A. ο λογος ην ο θεος
B. θεος ην ο λογος
C. ο λογος θεος ην
D. ο λογος ην θεος
E. ο λογος ην θειος
Harner notes regarding clause A (ο λογος ην ο θεος), "would mean that logos and theos are equivalent and interchangeable" (ibid. 85). he noted that clause D: "would probably mean that the logos was a god or divine being of some kind, belonging to the general category of theos, but as a distinct being from ho theos" (ibid.) he later concluded "John evidently wished to say something about the logos that was other than A and more than D and E" (ibid.)
