Sat Oct 26 14:07:41 1996

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From: Maurice Robinson 
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Subject: Re: a presentation of Amphoux's work
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On Sat, 26 Oct 1996, Jean Valentin wrote:

[summary of Amphoux' theories omitted]

> The point by Amphoux is that he (1) has put together and interpreted all
> the ancient evidence about the history of the text, (2) has a global
> literary and theological explanation for the shift from D to B, (3)
> approaches each text-type with respect for its inner coherence and tries to
> interpret it as the result of a definite project (in place of being the
> fruit of the hazard of the scribes' mistakes).

While I will agree that Amphoux has constructed a significantly detailed
theory of transmission of the text, I see the basic problem as being one
of Occam's Razor: the theory is far more complex than I think most
scholars (of any position) would consider historically feasible; and, when
there are simpler options which remain valid and practicable, why would
anyone want to opt for a highly complicated theory?

Assuming all events occurred precisely as Amphoux wishes to claim, the
question then must be asked as to why there is not a shred of historical
or MS evidence to support his contentions, even granting (as I do) that
recensions may have occurred in localized regions.  For such to have
occurred on the grand scale so as to virtually obliterate almost all
traces of the Bezae type of text among the Greek MSS and even among the
"Western" witnesses is little different than Westcott and Hort's theory
that a massive "Syrian [= Byzantine] recension" so totally eliminated the
Neutral [Alexandrian] text from subsequent transmissional history.  

Given that scribes are supposedly more prone to include and insert than to
remove, it would seem that significantly shorter texts than that found in
the Bezae format (whether Alexandrian or Byzantine) would have been
strongly resisted by the bulk of the church, and that the Bezae type of
text should have continued to be perpetuated in quantity, if not in
majority, among the Greek MS witnesses.  In light of these considerations
I personally do not find much that is convincing in Amphoux's theory, any
more than I did with A.C.Clark's view concerning the Western text (though
I do agree with Clark's assertion that the canon of the shorter reading is
faulty).

> First, his revision of the Vagany manual has been translated into english
> (and updated when compared to the french edition, you english-speaking guys
> are lucky):
> Leon Vaganay and Christian-Bernard Amphoux, An introduction to New
> Testament textual criticism (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1991).

We have this volume in our library.  I personally did not recommend it to
students because it does not seem to provide a reasonably balanced view of
the evidence in the manner of Metzger.


_________________________________________________________________________
Maurice A. Robinson, Ph.D.           Professor of Greek and New Testament
Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary     Wake Forest, North Carolina
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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