Investigating Text-Critical Dichotomy: A Critique of Modern Eclectic Praxis from a Byzantine-Priority Perspective -- By: Maurice A. Robinson

Journal: Faith and Mission
Volume: FM 16:2 (Spring 1999)
Article: Investigating Text-Critical Dichotomy: A Critique of Modern Eclectic Praxis from a Byzantine-Priority Perspective
Author: Maurice A. Robinson


Investigating Text-Critical Dichotomy:
A Critique of Modern Eclectic Praxis from
a Byzantine-Priority Perspective

Maurice A. Robinson

Professor of New Testament
Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary
Wake Forest, North Carolina 27587

A Paper Presented at the ETS Southeastern Regional Meeting
Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary
Wake Forest, North Carolina, March 19, 1999

The present writer has long contended that the Byzantine Textform possesses—on both transmissional and internal grounds—a better claim to autograph authenticity for the Greek NT than do the texts reflected in the minority readings and minority texttypes. This theory thus favors the concept of “Byzantine priority.” Concomitant with the advocacy of Byzantine priority are the following assumptions:

  1. Apart from a major upheaval in the MS transmission process (“transmission history”), it is more likely that the text preserved in the majority of MSS will reflect the autograph reading than vice versa.
  2. Theories which claim to defend the originality and autograph authenticity of minority text readings are speculative at best. Such theories are fraught with problems involving logical consistency and an inadequate and unrealistic view of transmissional history, and are regularly misapplied in text-critical praxis.
  3. In virtually all cases the reading of the Byzantine Textform can be argued on both internal and transmissional grounds to possess a greater claim to autograph authenticity and originality than the minority readings preferred by modern eclectic scholars.

It thus becomes necessary to approach the problem in two different ways: (1) the Byzantine-priority theory certainly must be stated clearly and forcefully in order to demonstrate that it can stand in its own right; but (2) equally important is the need to demonstrate by repeated examples the inadequacy of all other

approaches, particularly those reflected by modern eclectics in their current critical texts, apparatuses, and commentaries.

Certainly, neither the forceful advocacy of Byzantine-priority principles nor repeated demonstrations of modern eclectic inadequacies will establish the Byzantine-priority position as the only possible alternative. Yet the principle of Occam’s Razor applies: the theory with the fewest perceivable weaknesses should be considered best.1 The present writer’s intent is to demonstrate by example that the weaknesses and inadequacies of the modern eclectic approach are more severe than those claimed against the Byzantine-priority hypot...

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