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L’analyse des principes de méthode de Richard Simon nous permettra de cerner la singularité du courage dont il sut faire preuve. Sa critique du texte biblique fit certes de lui une victime de Bossuet ; mais l’originalité de son combat est ailleurs. La distinction entre antiquité et authenticité, le sens de l’historicisation de ses analyses contribuent en effet à reconfigurer la notion de vérité, effet décisif du réaménagement du champ théorique que son travail suscita.

The analysis of Richard Simon’s principles of method will allow us to identify the peculiarity of the courage which he showed. Bossuet attacked him certainly because of the critique of the biblical text which he implemented; but the originality of his battle for the truth is somewhere else. The distinction between antiquity and authenticity, the historicization of his analysis are going to reconfigure the notion of truth, effect of the transformation of the field of knowledge wich his work generated.