GA 2685 in Romans: A Close Relative of the 6-424KC/1739/1881/1908K Cluster of Witnesses

GA 2685 is a 14th century manuscript housed in the Varlaam Monastery in Metora, containing the Gospels, Romans and Hebrews. Although the folio numbers themselves are not clear, the images in the NTVMR seem to show that Hebrews begins on 291v, while Romans ends on 291r which would make this one of the few Greek manuscripts that (as with P46) has Hebrews immediately after Romans. This witness was transcribed by the IGNTP for the ECM of Romans and is included in the collation published here.

In my recently published book, Chrysostom’s Homilies on Romans and the Textual History of the New Testament (Brill, 2025), I included a phylogenetic reconstruction of the textual history of Romans (also freely available in the online supplement), based on an apparatus of high-entropy variation units derived from the IGNTP transcriptions. In this stemma, GA 2685 was placed as a sister manuscript to GA 6, closely related to GA 424KC, and in turn to GA 1739, 1881, and 1908K. Since this section of the tradition was not especially relevant to my focus in that book, I did not think much about this at the time or discuss it further.

However, I’m currently working on a paper with Joey McCollum that will introduce a set of tools for identifying manuscript groupings within a large collation, and GA 2685 came up again. This time I paid attention. Based on a quick preliminary search, this witness doesn’t seem to have been discussed in any detail in connection with the cluster of witnesses related to GA 1739 (while included in a table in a recent article by Gäbel on Hebrews in GA 1739, it isn’t discussed; it isn’t mentioned in Birdsall’s or Peterson’s dissertations), though please let me know in the comments if this connection has already been pointed out. However, it shares a large number of distinctive readings with this cluster, far too many to be a coincidence. 

In the table below (based on one of Joey’s extremely helpful tools, that will be properly introduced in the paper we are working on), I’ve ordered the readings that connect GA 2685 and one or more members of the GA 1739-related cluster based on how distinctive they are, with the list limited to readings shared by ten or fewer witnesses including GA 2685 (there are many more agreements that involve a larger number of witnesses). 

The first column has the reference to the ECM collation, the second has the distinctive reading found in GA 2685, the third has the witnesses that share this reading, and the fourth has the other readings found in this location. I’ve highlighted in blue the readings that seem to me the most significant agreements. While the connections to GA 6 are the most striking (not only does it have two unique agreements, but it agrees with GA6 in 98.99% of readings in the full collation), GA 2685 also agrees with other witnesses in this cluster in places where it disagrees with GA 6, meaning that it is unlikely to descend from it directly. In any case, GA 2685 should be included in subsequent investigations of this fascinating cluster of witnesses. 

New Greek New Testament Study Bible

I’m not often surprised by new Bibles, but today I was. On his Facebook page, Con Campbell shared the cover of a new Greek NT he’s edited called The Greek New Testament Study Bible. It’s published by Zondervan. I suppose you could compare it to Crossway’s Guided Annotating Edition of the THGNT, but at 1168 pages, this appears to be much more than that. The release date in the U.S. is not until October and I couldn’t find a list of contributors at Zonderan’s website. Here is the description from Amazon:

The Greek New Testament Study Bible provides you with access to the insights into the Greek text from some of the world’s leading scholars, while encouraging and assisting you in the use of your Greek reading skills for sermon preparation, devotional study, and New Testament courses. If you sense you are losing your competence in Greek because of the passage of time or the pressures of ministry, yet you desire to study the text in Greek for preaching, teaching, and personal study, then The Greek New Testament Study Bible will help.

In one convenient volume, you get access to the full Greek text as it is found in the Reader’s Greek New Testament. At the bottom of each page of Greek text you will find a list of infrequently occurring words with short definitions, which means you don’t need to consult a separate lexicon for basic translation work. Right page notes identify key areas of grammar and syntax pertinent to the text under consideration, including insights into the use or absence of articles; particular lexemes; connectives; prepositions; pronouns, adverbs, and particles; verbal aspect; voice; questions; case; discourse analysis; prohibitions; the use of the imperative, subjunctive, and infinitive moods; and important textual variants.

The Greek New Testament Study Bible will:

• Give you competence and confidence in your handling of the Greek text
• Enable you to make exegetical decisions based on the Greek text, grammar, and syntax
• Equip you to continue using your knowledge of the Greek language beyond seminary in pastoral ministry and devotional studies
• Provide you with a quick reference guide to some of the key questions and insights in the text.
• Help you discern the major contributions that a study of the Greek text brings to your understanding of Scripture

Key features of The Greek New Testament Study Bible:

• Lefthand pages provide the Greek text based on UBS5, while righthand pages contain study notes
• Contains more than 9,500 study notes on the Greek text
• At the bottom of each page of Greek text, definitions are provided for Greek words that appear 30 times or fewer in the New Testament.
• Includes contributions from 19 internationally recognized experts on the translation and interpretation of the Greek New Testament.
• Study notes comment on the use, or absence of articles; particular lexemes; connectives; prepositions; pronouns, adverbs, and particles; verbal aspect; voice; questions; case; discourse analysis; prohibitions; the use of the imperative, subjunctive, and infinitive moods; and important textual variants.
• Includes a glossary of 198 technical terms.

It is not clear to me what the Greek text is exactly. It says it is “based on UBS5” but then also says it’s the Greek text found in the Reader’s edition, which is really a retroversion from the NIV. So, perhaps they mean it’s based on the UBS5 the way the NIV is. It’s a bit of an odd way to say that though.