The University of Birmingham has secured €2.5 million in European funding for a research project that will examine manuscripts of the Holy Fathers and other ecclesiastical writers in search of previously unrecognised witnesses to the New Testament text.
According to a university press release, the project will be led by Professor Hugh Houghton, a specialist in New Testament textual criticism.
The five-year grant, awarded by the European Research Council (ERC), will support the cataloguing and analysis of manuscripts containing early Christian commentaries. These comprise more than 1,000 documents that preserve indirect evidence for the text of the New Testament, evidence that has never before been systematically studied.
The project’s research activities are scheduled to begin towards the end of 2026.
New Light on the History of the Biblical Text
Although early Christian writers such as John Chrysostom, the fifth-century archbishop of Constantinople, have long been considered important sources for the history of the biblical text, the individual manuscripts of their writings do not appear in editions of the New Testament, reads the press release.
Professor Hugh Houghton explained the significance of the initiative for the study of the biblical text: “This project offers the opportunity for a comprehensive evaluation of this evidence, which will shed new light on the history of the biblical text.”
The research builds upon recent advances in manuscript digitisation and the use of modern databases, with the aim of producing the first systematic analysis of manuscripts containing biblical commentaries. If the findings confirm the project’s hypothesis, they could establish a new category of textual witnesses for reconstructing the New Testament text.
Contributions to the Study of Biblical Manuscripts
Professor Hugh Houghton is widely recognised for his contributions to the study of biblical manuscripts. During his postdoctoral research, he identified two previously unknown manuscripts of the earliest Old Latin version of the Gospels. In 2017, he published the first translation of the Gospel commentary by Fortunatianus of Aquileia, rediscovered in an anonymous manuscript preserved at Cologne Cathedral in Germany.
He subsequently produced the first complete edition and translation of the Codex Zacynthius, regarded as the oldest surviving Greek catena commentary, using multispectral imaging technology.
His most recent research project added thirty-five new textual witnesses to the official register of Greek New Testament manuscripts and identified twenty-three previously unknown biblical commentaries compiled from excerpts of early Christian authors.
The University of Birmingham ranks among the world’s top one hundred universities and is home to more than 40,000 students from over 150 countries.
Photo: University of Birmingham
