Important Changes in ECM Revelation

The ECM Revelation came out last year and its changes will be included in the new UBS6/NA29. It’s the newest ECM volume to affect these hand editions. Having now spent some time with the edition, and having gone through all the listed changes, I thought I would give a brief report on them for the benefit of those who don’t have access to the print edition.

In all, the edition made 84 changes to the text of NA28 and now has 106 places with a split guiding line. These are places where the editors couldn’t decide between two readings (it is always two) and they are further marked by a diamond in the ECM and in the UBS/NA editions. 

You could roughly compare this to the 35 places in NA28 that used square brackets to mark text the editors weren’t completey convinced was original. In 9 places, the ECM has a split line that matches bracketed text from NA28. In 8 places they adopted the text in brackets (now without brackets) while in 15 places, they now prefer the omission of the bracketed text. (NB: the ECM list of textual changes misses the bracket in Rev 12.12/5.) 

All this means that there is quite a bit more editorial uncertainty in the ECM Revelation than there is in the NA28. Most of the split lines are not of great exegetical import. Sometimes you look at the two readings and wonder why the decision was so hard. It could be something about Revelation or could it be a result of the Rev editorial board being split between two institutions. I don’t know.

One thing that is certainly more robust in this volume is the textual commentary. It runs to over 170 pages! (All in German.) Some discussions span four or five pages. One new feature is that the comments are given labels to mark whether the variation is important for the printed history of Revelation, for the style of Revelation, its textual history, etc. The “SEM” label marks 48 variants of “semantic relevance.” Here are their addresses and the readings in question per the commentary:

1. 1,3/4-12 a/b
2. 1,5/48-52 a/d
3. 1,13/12-16 a/b
4. 1,15/20 a/c
5. 2,7/52-54 a/b
6. 2,9/34-38 a, f
7. 2,13/48 a/d
8. 2,20/17 a/b
9. 3,14/44 a/b
10. 4,3/22 a/b
11. 4,3/30—1,4/2 a/g
12. 4,11/55 a/b
13. 5,10/22 a/b
14. 6,8/40-42 a/c
15. 6,9/47 a/b
16. 6,11/32 a/b
17. 6,14/14 a/b
18. 6,17/18 a/b
19. 9,4/38-40 a/an
20. 11,4/10 a/b
21. 11,12/4 a/b
22. 11,16/12-20 a/b
23. 12,2/9 a/b
24. 12,18/4 a/b
25. 13,3/38-44 a/b/e
26. 13,7/2-22 a/g
27. 13,8/6 a/b
28. 13,10/6-10 a/c/f
29. 13,10/20-30 a/c
30. 13,18/44—48 a bis h
31. 14,4/48 a/b
32. 14,13/32 a/b
33. 14,14/22-28 a/c
34. 14,19/44-54 a
35. 15,3/72 a/b
36. 15,6/30-32
37. 16,5/18-32 a/c/g
38. 17,5/30 a/b
39. 18,2/32-54 a/b/o
40. 19,6/48 a/b
41. 19,13/8 a/b
42. 20,5/1 a/c
43. 20,8/26-32 a/b
44. 21,3/46 a/b
45. 21,6/8-10 a/e
46. 22,14/6-12 a/b
47. 22,21/14-18 a/f
48. 22,21/20 a/c

To give a point of comparison, I counted 44 Revelation variants discussed in Hugh Houghton’s excellent new Textual Commentary for the UBS6. (The two lists overlap, but only a little.)

In addition to the list above, the introduction to the ECM’s textual commentary gives a sample list of changes that are said to be especially relevant to the content of Revelation. I list those here with my summary [followed by my comments]. Text with an asterisk is in the RP2005.

Ref.	Change	Reading(s)	Comments
Rev 1.5	Split line	λύσαντι / λούσαντι*	λούσαντι may reflect early baptismal theology
Rev 1.13	New reading	ὅμοιον ὑιῷ ἀνθρώπου*	Relevant to Christology [I’m not sure I get this one]
Rev 2.13	Split line	ἀντίπας* / ἀντεῖπας	Is it a personal name (Antipas) or a verb? The former has dominated translations in the past. (NB: ECM Mark and Rev do not capitalize proper names.)
Rev 6.17	New reading	αὐτοῦ*	Relevant to Christology since it transfers the day of wrath to Jesus [seems like it does that with the old reading too though]
Rev 12.2	New Reading	Omit καί*	May impact the interpretation of the woman who gives birth [not sure I understand this]
Rev 12.14	Split line	ἐστάθη / ἐστάθην*	Changes who is standing on the shore, John or the dragon
Rev 13.10	New reading	εἴ τις εἰς αἰχμαλωσίαν ὑπάγει, εἴ τις ἐν μαχαίρᾳ ἀποκτενεῖ, δεῖ αὐτὸν ἐν μαχαίρᾳ ἀποκτανθῆναι,	A number of options are possible with this new reading. [I think this one is pretty noteworthy.]
Rev 18.3	New reading	πεπτώκασιν*	People have “fallen” rather than “drunk”
Rev 20.5	New reading	Omit οἱ λοιποὶ τῶν νεκρῶν οὐκ ἔζησαν ἄχρι τελεσθῇ τὰ χίλια ἔτη.	A key line about the millennium is omitted [This may be the most significant change to my mind as it removes what has proven to be a very difficult phrase for Amillennialism]
Rev 21.3	Split line	λαοί / λαός*	How many people groups does God dwell with in the New Jerusalem? One, or more?
Rev 21.6	New reading	γέγονα ἐγώ	Introduces an element of “becoming” into God’s self-description [part of the commentary on this change is quite loaded theologically, and I’m a bit more cautious on its significance]
Rev 22.21	New reading	πάντων τῶν ἁγίων. Ἀμήν.*	The request for grace is more strongly related to the church than in NA28 which just reads πάντων here [I agree]

To my mind, the most important change overall is the significant reduction in solecisms and grammatical oddities. I don’t think I saw a single change that resulted in a more difficult grammatial construction. This has real significance for how we think about the Greek of Revelation. But that topic deserves a post in itself. I’ll leave it here for now.

Gathercole on the Motive for Variants in 1 Cor 15.51

Simon Gathercole has a new open access article out in JSNT that questions the dominant view that 1 Cor 15.51–52 shows that Paul expected to survive until the Parousia. It’s worth your time to read for the main point it’s addressing, but being a blog about textual criticism not Pauline theology, I wanted to highlight one outcome of his against-the-grain reading of these verses. There are a number of variants in v. 51 (at least thirteen per TuT). Gathercole gives the main ones as follows:

These are sometimes expained by later readers/scribes wanting to fix Paul’s theology. Here is Metzger:

Because Paul and his correspondents had died, the statement πάντες οὐ κοιμηθησόμεθα seemed to call for correction. The simplest alteration was to transfer the negative to the following clause (א (A*) C 33 1739 it^g arm eth al). That this was an early modification is shown by the artifical conflation of both readings in 𝔓⁴⁶ A^c Origen...

From his own argument, especially regarding the syntax of v. 51, Gathercole says of this suggestion:

This is of course possible, but there is an alternative explanation, namely that ancient scribes were as perplexed as modern scholars by the wording of 1 Cor. 15.51: as [A.T.] Robertson comments, ‘the variations in 1 Cor. xv: 51 may be also due to … failure to understand Paul’s language’. As we have seen, Paul’s language in 1 Cor. 15.51 is far from straightforward. 

I should add that Gathercole sides with the current concensus about the original text of v. 51 and so follows B Maj. I will say I had never noticed the seemingly odd placement of the negative particle in v. 51 before. 

As a side note, there are some interesting things happening in 02. You can see a small ου added before κοιμηθησόμεθα and you can see where an original οι before παντες has been slightly adjusted to turn the iota into an upsilon to make ου. (Unfortunately, the BL still doesn’t have 02 back online after the hack so these images are from a monochrome facsimile courtsey of CSNTM.)

A/02 (CSNTM)

Textual Commentary on Luke 3:33

In recent years, I have worked through the whole New Testament text for a new Swedish translation to come out next year (NT2026), as I am the textcritical consultant on the project. I have now completed all books apart from the Gospels of Luke and Matthew (I saved Matthew since the ECM edition will soon appear). 

This morning I looked into the complicated variation in Luke 3:33. I thought I would give blogreaders a taste so here is an English translation of my treatment:

---

Luke 3:33

TW: reading A

Proposed long footnote:

Amminadab, son of Admin, son of Arni — The manuscripts show considerable variation here. Many read Aram as the father of Amminadab (cf. Matt 1:3–4) and omit his son Arni, sometimes adding Joram, while others have Adam in place of Amminadab (probably via the spelling Amminadam).

Proposed short footnote:

Amminadab, son of Admin, son of Arni — Some witnesses read Adam instead of Amminadab; others have Amminadab, son of Aram or Amminadab, son of Aram, son of Joram.

---

Text-critical discussion

A. τοῦ Ἀμιναδὰβ τοῦ Ἀδμὶν τοῦ Ἀρνί – ℵ² L ƒ¹³ bo
B. τοῦ Ἀδὰμ τοῦ Ἀδμὶν τοῦ Ἀρνί – 𝔓4vid ℵ* 1241 sa
C. τοῦ Ἀδμὶν τοῦ Ἀρνί – B
D. τοῦ Ἀμιναδὰβ (Αμιναδαμ 1424) τοῦ Ἀράμ – D 33. 565. 1424. ℓ 2211 pm lat syp.h (et om. τοῦ Φαρές A)
E. τοῦ Ἀμιναδὰβ τοῦ Ἀρὰμ τοῦ Ἰωράμ – K Δ Ψ 700. (892). 2542 pm b e
F. τοῦ Ἀμιναδὰβ (Αμιναδαμ 1) τοῦ Ἀρὰμ τοῦ Ἀδμὶ (Αλμι 1) τοῦ Ἀρνί – Θ 1
G. τοῦ Ἀμιναδὰβ τοῦ Ἀρὰμ (Αλμιν Γ) τοῦ Ἀρνί – N Γ
H. τοῦ Ἀμιναδὰβ τοῦ Ἀδμὶν τοῦ Ἀράμ – 0102

A large number of variants are listed in NA28 (and many more exist in the broader textual tradition). The Byzantine tradition is divided between readings D (τοῦ Ἀμιναδὰβ τοῦ Ἀράμ) and E (τοῦ Ἀμιναδὰβ τοῦ Ἀρὰμ τοῦ Ἰωράμ). The former follows the sequence of the Matt 1:3–4 parallel. As Hugh Houghton notes in his Textual Commentary, it may also have developed from reading E through haplography (omission of τοῦ Ἰωράμ). In these readings, τοῦ Ἀρνί is entirely omitted.

In all the earliest witnesses, the sequence τοῦ Ἀδμὶν τοῦ Ἀρνί is present (readings A, B, and C), and this can be taken as virtually certain. Reading A also has the name τοῦ Ἀμιναδάβ, which appears in Matt 1:4, while reading B has the unique τοῦ Ἀδάμ, which may have dropped out through haplography in reading C. As Houghton points out, the appearance of another Adam (other than the first man) is problematic and does not match any king in the Septuagint—reading B seems to be the most difficult reading, and no editors (NA/UBS, SBLGNT, THGNT) have adopted it.

On the other hand, the support for Ἀδάμ is slim and incoherent (minuscule 1241 has a mixed text and numerous scribal errors). When we examine the earliest witness, 𝔓4vid, the names τοῦ Ἀδὰμ τοῦ Ἀδμίν are unclear, as the papyrus clearly has more letters and at least one correction appears to have been made on the two lines in question. Interestingly, the other early witness to reading B, Codex Sinaiticus, has a beta–mu confusion in the same name in Matt 1:4, where two of the lines read ΑΜΙΝΑΔΑΒΑΜΙΝΑ // ΔΑΜΔΕΕΓΕΝΝΗCΕΝ. It is evident that Ἀμιναδάμ was also in circulation in the Lukan textual tradition, since the archetype (a majuscule) of Family 1 clearly had Ἀμιναδάμ (as in 1, 118, 131, 209, and 1582), and it is easier to see how the well-known name Ἀδάμ (reading B) could arise from this spelling.

In sum, the sequence τοῦ Ἀδμὶν τοῦ Ἀρνί is virtually certain, while τοῦ Ἀράμ likely entered from the Matthean parallel. The name Ἀδάμ most likely arose from Ἀμιναδάμ at an early stage. Thus, I prefer reading A (=NA28). Finally, I note in Houghton's Textual Commentary that this textual problem has moved from a letter-rating of C in UBS5 to a D-rating in UBS6. For future editions I recommend a B- or C-letter rating.

ECM Revelation intro material coming online

Reading the Preface to the ECM Revelation volume, I would like to note that it says the following (p. xii):

The edition is published both electronically and in print. Both media have their own advantages. The text and its apparatuses are electronically linked to third-party data (relevant to paratexts, etc.), and we encourage discussion online (e.g. in the NTVMR forum).

The cooperation with the publisher, the German Bible Society, went smoothly and shows a way forward: The German Bible Society, represented by Dr. Florian Voss, agreed to comply with the DFG’s request for “open access” of all the project outputs. The edition of the text (part 1 of the edition) will be included into the NTVMR. The publisher plans to make PDFs of the introduction to the text volume, as well as all of the Supplementary Material and Study volumes available online one year after the publication. For this we are very grateful.

ECM Revelation (photo credit)

The part in bold is really significant. Unless I am mistaken, this is the first ECM volume to put this extra material online. To give you a sense of what we’re talking about, the four volumes that make up ECM Revelation amount to some 2000 pages! Granted, some of this is duplicate (German and English), but actually, quite a bit is only in one of those two languages. So this is a LOT of material. For anyone working on the text of Revelation, these materials will be a tremendous resource.

Perhaps most importantly, putting the Introduction online means that, for the first time, the digital ECM is truly usable for someone without the print edition. Why do I say this? Because the introduction explains how the apparatus works. Without it, there really is no way, beyond mere intuition, of knowing some of the key ins-and-outs of the ECM digital apparatus. For those with the print edition, this is no problem. Once you learn to use the print apparatus, the online one makes sense. But I have often wondered how I could recommend the ECM digital edition to someone without the print edition’s introduction. This seems to be my answer and I am very glad to have it.

Exactly when in 2025 and exactly where these PDFs will be online, I don’t know. But I will try to let you know as soon as I know. Or perhaps one of our readers can leave the answer in the comments.

Greek NT Formats

I’ve been meaning to do this for awhile for my students. It’s essentially a list of available formats for the main Greek NTs on the market that I would expect my students to be interested in. 

What did I miss?

	NA	UBS	RP	SBL	TH
Reader’s edition		✔️	✔️		✔️
Journal edition	✔️				✔️
Greek-English edition	✔️	✔️			✔️
Greek-Spanish edition		✔️
Greek-Latin edition	✔️
With dictionary	✔️	✔️		✔️	✔️
Annotated edition					✔️
Large print edition	✔️
Digital edition	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
Textual commentary		✔️			✔️*

* = forthcoming

Changes to Expect with UBS6/NA29

While doing some work yesterday on the history of the Nestle-Aland, I decided to take a peek at the upcoming NA29/UBS6 editions. I couldn’t find a page for the NA29 at the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft website and the UBS6 isn’t set for release until Oct. 19. What is available now is the reader’s edition that shares the same text. I’ve given a screenshot of the page below. Besides the very obvious typographic change (which may be unique to the reader’s edition), the most notable updates are these: 

• The text adopts the ECM text for all available books. That means Mark, Acts, Catholic Letters, and Revelation. (ECM Matthew is not set for release until December, so it does not include that.)
• The order of books does not follow Erasmus any more but reverts to what is found in earlier MSS (and editions like WH). That means Gospels, Acts, Catholic Letters, Paul (with Hebrews before the Pastorals), Revelation.
• Previously “missing verses” are back in the main text with double brackets. This is the most surprising update and one I did not know about until now. Here’s how the intro explains it: “Unlike in earlier editions of the Nestle-Aland and the UBS Greek New Testament, including the Reader’s Edition, all verses assigned a number within the New Testament are now integrated into the text in double brackets. Previously this was only the case for individual passages which traditionally enjoyed an exceptional position in the church (e.g. Mk 16.9–20; Jn 7.53–8.11).”

You can read the introduction here. Also don't forget about the release of the new Textual Commentary that will accompany the UBS6. 2025 is shaping up to be a banner year for NTTC.

The format of the new UBS6 Reader’s Edition

The Order of Books in Nestle 1

Here’s something I never noticed before. The order of books in Nestle’s 1st ed. (1898) follows Luther’s 1522 NT. Here you can see the two side-by-side. What makes the Nestle odd in a way even Luther’s is not is the headings. I may be wrong, but I can’t remember Hebrews ever being included with the Catholic Letters in any manuscript.

Luther Bible (1522)

Nestle 1 (1898)

By the third edition (1901) the books were back in their Erasmian order, although Hebrews was still set off just slightly from the other Pauline letters. You can see it here in my copy of the 13th edition which is the same.

Nestle 13 reflecting the changed book order

It’s worth mentioning this because my understanding is that the NA29 will switch the order of books, placing the Catholic Epistles immediately after Acts. As a result, the NA will match one of its original three sources and the one that Nestle himself called “the one constituent factor” in his edition (=WH).

Minor update: I notice the Nestle 13th ed. (1927) has the following note at the bottom of the page of Rom 1: “HTWS [=WH, Tischendorf, Weiss, and von Soden] Epistolas Catholicas (Jc, 1.2 P, 1-3 J, Jd) Paulinis anteponunt; epistolam ad Hebraeos datam epistolis pastoralibus praemittunt.”

P.S. Did you know you can look at scans of all the Nestle/Nestle-Aland editions in the VMR? In the Manuscript Workspace, search for N1, N2, etc. in the Manuscripts tab search box. From the 22nd ed. on, search for NA22, etc.

Videos on Bible History from Amsterdam

Just this week, John Meade and I returned from a 2-week trip to Amsterdam to do some speaking and teaching at Tyndale Seminary in the Netherlands. We had a wonderful time there with pastors, leaders, and students and were encouraged to see the work being done there. (My only disappointment was that they had no statue of their most famous graduate, Dirk Jongkind!) If you are looking for an excellent evangelical seminary in Europe with a vision for global ministry, be sure to consider it.

The Preachers and Leaders conference we spoke at was also the occasion for the release of Scribes & Scripture in Dutch. One of the most exciting features of that for us as authors is that the Dutch version includes two new chapters by Paulus-Jan Kieviet. 

John and I with Marcel the publisher (left, middle) and Paulus-Jan (right, middle) who added two chapters.

Paulus-Jan works with Wycliffe/SIL and added chapters on the Bible in Dutch and the Bible in contemporary global translation work. We are very grateful for his contribution that will make the book much more useful for a Dutch audience.

Below are videos that John and I gave on the history of the Bible at the conference. A few of these were new ones for us. Be sure to check out all the conference videos at their YouTube channel as we were not the only speakers. 

Working with Manuscripts: A very brief review (maybe just a note, really)

 

I just finished reading this new book: Liv Ingeborg Lied & Brent Nongbri, Working with Manuscripts: A Guide for Textual Scholars (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2025). It is not a very long or substantial book (179 pages). I read it in a couple of hours on the train to London (and back again). It is very readable, with a good number of photos and illustrations. I think the key thing about it is that it is written as a basic guide for new graduate students, which assumes they've read some texts in a critical edition, but now are thinking about accessing manuscript resources for their research - but don't really know anything about actual manuscripts (see p. 6).  

 

This book, as you can see from the official table of Contents, has chapters on Manuscripts as Artifacts (why looking at manuscripts may be interesting, as well as interesting discussion and definitions of parts of a manuscript book); Finding your Manuscript (how to use a combination of print and online resources to locate a manuscript of interest; and how to decipher the many ways the same manuscript may be referred to); Provenance (thinking about how your manuscript comes to be where it is and the variety of ethical issues which should be considered in researching and publishing on particular manuscripts); Getting Access (how to email a librarian, and other tips); In the Reading Room with your Manuscript (what to actually look for and how to behave around librarians); Back Home - What Now? (how to keep track of your notes and photos); Asking for Help (how to email senior scholars and ask for help); Publishing and Permissions (does what it says on the tin). 

The range and scope of the bibliographies will I imagine help any reader - there are pretty substantial bibliographies for each chapter (I certainly marked up quite a few items to track down and read*); the actual discussion is sometimes pretty basic - but for that reason will be extremely useful for the imagined student reader. There is a lot of good advice here. If you fit the intended reader profile or have students who do, then I'm sure you'll find this book useful. 

 

*Potentially, at some point in the future. Maybe to get a pdf and save it randomly somewhere on my laptop.