He’s wrong. I just gave you one, McKenzie was highly acclaimed. If you noticed, his tome “Dictionary of the Bible” had the stamp of Catholic approval, the imprimatur & the nihil obstat.
And here is another….
In his article “Qualitative Anarthrous Predicate Nouns:
Mark 15:39 and John 1:1,” Philip B. Harner said that such clauses as the one in
John 1:1, “with an anarthrous predicate preceding the verb, are primarily qualitative in meaning. They indicate that the logos has the nature of theos.” He suggests: “Perhaps the clause could be translated, ‘the Word had the same nature as God.’” (Journal of Biblical Literature, 1973, pp. 85, 87) Thus, in this text, the fact that the word the·osʹ in its second occurrence is without the definite article (ho) and is placed before the verb in the sentence in Greek is significant. Interestingly, translators that insist on rendering
John 1:1, “The Word was God,” do not hesitate to use the indefinite article (a, an) in their rendering of other passages where a singular anarthrous predicate noun occurs before the verb. Thus at
John 6:70, The Jerusalem Bible and King James both refer to Judas Iscariot as “a devil,” and at
John 9:17 they describe Jesus as “a prophet.”
Now be honest, which wording agrees with the context? That Jesus is “
with God”, and he ‘
is God’?
Or that Jesus is “with God and he “is a divine being?”
Especially in context with verse 18, “
No one has ever seen God”?
Again, context. I know which makes sense..