Subject: Re: a presentation of Amphoux's work

From: [email-masked] (Jean Valentin)
Date: Tue, 29 Oct 1996 00:45:26 +0100

Maurice Robinson wrote:

>Readers of this list will not be surprised at that. *;-)  Certainly I do
>not mean that Codex Bezae does not exist, but the archetype of such as
>Amphoux would reconstruct it is purely hypothetical, and even if supposed
>readings of that archetype are gleaned from patristic quotations or
>readings in other Western sources such as the Old Latin, any
>reconstruction of a Bezan archetype is purely hypothetical and based on
>guesswork; scholarly guesswork, but still with no hard evidence.
>

Yes of course, but this is in the nature of our discipline. We are _all_
postulating an archetype that we try to reconstruct. If what you say is
true, then ANY textual criticism is impossible. Hypothese always plays a
role in our discipline, and any printed text (except for the diplomatic
edition of a manuscript) is in fact a reconstructed text... a text that
probably never existed. The same can be said of the NA27 text, the
Tischendorf text, even the Majority text or the TR. ANY archetype is
hypothetical, and specially those who assign to TC the task to reconstruct
an hypothetic "original" text, an archetype of all our manuscripts would,
if you're right, be building hypotheses with no hard evidence. Even texts
so widely diffused as the byzantine text (by the way, why not call it
antiochene?) or the latin vulgate.

>Westcott and Hort were quite nuanced in their own theory.  However, for
>Amphoux' theory to possess validity, one almost has to assume a far longer
>time for these events to occur transmissionally, as well as a Pax
>Christiana for the first three centuries which parallels the situation
>later occurring under Constantine.  Without sufficient protection and
>freedom to engage in calm revision processes, I cannot see how the Bezan
>archetype could possibly undergo so much as Amphoux claims for it.
>
Not sure. There's been much scholarly work done by christians before
Constantine. persecution didn't prevent Tatian, Origen, and many others
from producing biblical editions and commentaries. This argument seems to
me quite overstated... and "hypothetical" :-)

>Quite seriously, you will have to pardon me if I cannot accept this any
>more than I can the KJV defenders who maintain that the Comma Johannaeum
>was deliberately omitted from Greek MSS during the Trinitarian
>controversy, lest the heretics somehow misuse it for their own purposes.
>*;-)
Ne melangeons pas les torchons et les serviettes (juicy french expression
meaning, according to my dictionary: "you have to know what's what". See
what I mean? :-))).

shlomo w-shayno!

Jean Valentin - Brussels - Belgium

Ce qui est trop simple est faux, ce qui est trop complique est inutilisable.
What's too simple is wrong, what's too complicated is unusable.

---

From: Maurice Robinson <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 28 Oct 1996 22:15:49 -0500 (EST)

On Tue, 29 Oct 1996, Jean Valentin wrote:

[Robinson]

> true, then ANY textual criticism is impossible. 

This is not really what I am saying.  I appealed to the principle of
Occam's razor previously, and restate it here: that theory is preferable
which requires the least number of steps and intermediate hypotheses to be
true in its promulgation.  I consider Amphoux' theory to require an
inordinate number of such steps and intermediate hypotheses; therefore I
consider it less valid than, e.g., even the reasoned eclectic method, even
though I am more in support of a theory which would point to a single
texttype (even the Western or Bezan exemplar), should such a theory
commend itself by its simplicity rather than its complexity.

> Hypothese always plays a
> probably never existed. 

Most will agree that the Byzantine Textform in its aggregate is almost
totally reconstructable and did have a valid existence for a definite
period of time. Differences over when such occurred are another matter,
however.  The fact that no two MSS agree 100% on all particulars does not
negate the reconstruction of the archetype of the Byzantine Textform.

> antiochene?) 

I personally prefer Byzantine, since I see no evidence that such a text
was peculiar to Antioch as opposed to extending over the entire
geographical scope of the Byzantine Empire.  I do realize that the term
Byzantine might appear to make the Textform time-bound, but this is not
my intention.  I could be happy with Kenyon's a-text designation, but few
seem inclined to follow that model.

> me quite overstated... and "hypothetical" :-)

Origen's work on the Hexapla is certainly well know. Also that early
fathers did from time to time comment regarding variant readings known to
them.  However it is a far leap from these incontrovertible facts into the
multiple-revision hypothesis which Amphoux must postulate in order to both
eliminate the Bezan archetype from further distribution and also to
establish the Alexandrian, Caesarean and Byzantine texts as official or
semi-official replacements which were swiftly adopted to the exclusion of
the Bezan archetype.  I fail to see anything being "overstated" in this
regard.

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