A University of Birmingham scholar has received €2.5 million (£2.1 million) from the European Research Council to lead what could become one of the most significant studies of the Greek New Testament in decades.

Professor Hugh Houghton, Professor of New Testament Textual Scholarship at the University of Birmingham, will use the five-year grant to examine more than 1,000 manuscripts of early Christian commentaries that have never been systematically studied as witnesses to the New Testament text.

The manuscripts are not copies of the Bible itself, but sermons and commentaries written by early Church Fathers that quote extensively from Scripture. Scholars believe these quotations could provide valuable evidence for how the text of the New Testament was read, copied and transmitted across the early centuries of Christianity.

Until now, the volume of material has made a comprehensive study impossible.

Recent research at Birmingham has already produced notable findings. A study of manuscripts containing John Chrysostom's sermons on – Chrysostom served as Archbishop of Constantinople in the fifth century – found that different copies quoted the biblical text in different ways.

Some manuscripts appear to preserve a very early form of Romans, consistent with the oldest versions reconstructed by modern scholars. Others seem to have influenced later New Testament manuscripts, with scribes adjusting the biblical text to match Chrysostom's wording.

The findings suggest that commentary manuscripts were not simply passive reflections of a fixed biblical text, but may have played an active role in how the New Testament was transmitted and preserved.

"Christians across the centuries used commentary manuscripts to read and understand their Scriptures," said Professor Houghton.

"This project offers the opportunity for a comprehensive evaluation of this evidence, which will shed new light on the history of the Biblical text."

Professor Houghton is among a small number of researchers worldwide to have received European Research Council funding at the Starting, Consolidator and Advanced Grant levels.

His previous work includes identifying lost manuscripts of the earliest Latin Gospels, publishing the first translation of a fourth-century Gospel commentary discovered in Cologne Cathedral, and adding 35 manuscripts to the official register of Greek New Testament witnesses.

Work on the project is expected to begin at the end of 2026.