The Masoretic tradition
represented in B19a receives some versional support from the LXX, which
translates the MT Hebrew with the anarthrous phrase en archē instead of en
tē archē. It is accurate that archē is often not preceded by the
article in the LXX, i.e., it is typically anarthrous when it translates rē'šît
in the construct (this point is often cited to assert that the LXX supports an
absolute state, but inherently semantically determined reading of the MT's bərē'šît).
But archē is used with the article elsewhere in the LXX to reference a
"beginning" (e.g., in Gen. xli 21, where it translates battəḥillâ).
This indicates that the LXX provides an ambiguous witness at best, and
certainly does not support reading MT bərē'šît as definite. Although
versional support beyond the LXX is often cited for reading rē'šît as an
absolute noun with the article (Waltke, p. 223; Lim, p. 305), see Rüterswörden
and Warmuth, who review the evidence and conclude that the "[The change of the Masoretic text to בְּרֵאשִׁ֖ית is a
free conjecture that cannot be based either on the Greek transcriptions of the
Fathers or on the Samaritan material]" (p. 175). (Robert D.
Holmstedt, “The
Restrictive Syntax of Genesis i 1,” Vetus Testamentum 58 [2008]: 57
n. 3, German to English translation in square brackets added for clarification)
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