One more: The Word Was God John 1:1.
The Jehovah's Witnesses base their interpretation “the Word was a god” on a) rules of grammar, and b) the overall context of the Bible. Basically, they argue that even though a literal translation does not include the indefinite article “a” before God, it can and should be inserted, depending upon the context (Should You Believe, Chapter 9), even though a literal Greek rendering is “and God was the Word” or in English “and the Word was God,” (ibid., Chapter 10; Reasoning, 416, 417).
Strong and Vine’s vehemently disagrees with this grammatical assessment.
(4) Theos is used (4a) with the definite article, (4b) without (i.e., as an anarthrous noun). (4c) The English may or may not have need of the article in translation. But that point cuts no figure in the Greek idiom. Thus in Acts 27:23 (“of [the] God whose I am,”) the article points out the special God whose Paul is and is to be preserved in English. In the very next verse (ho theos) we in English do not need the article, (4c) John 1:1 As to this latter it is usual to employ the article with a proper name, when mentioned a second time. (4c) There are, of course, exceptions to this, as when the absence of the article serves to lay stress upon, or give precision to, the character or nature of what is expressed in the noun.
(4c1) A notable instance of this is in Jn 1:1, “and the Word was God”; here a double stress is on theos by the absence of the article and by the emphatic position. To translate it literally, “a god was the Word” is entirely misleading. Moreover, that “the Word” is the subject of the sentence, exemplifies the rule that the subject is to be determined by its having the article when the predicate is amorphous (without the article).
In other words, the absence of “a” in “a god” lays a double stress on and emphasizes theos so that it should read “God,” ie., “and the Word was God.”
) the Deity.