Some initial thoughts on reading the UBS6 Greek New Testament

It’s been a busy and productive few months thesis writing. In the midst of family, church and study life, it was a blessing to receive in the mail two books hot off the press (Dankeschön Jotham!):

1. The Reader’s Edition of the Sixth Edition of the United Bible Societies’ Greek New Testament (more commonly known as UBS6),
2. An updated textual commentary by Prof Hugh Houghton to help make sense of the UBS6 edition (here’s a helpful review).

It definitely can’t be overstated how much of a privilege and kindness from God it is that we have such ready access to God’s Word, researched and presented so meticulously and beautifully (the use of Alegreya Sans font in the Reader’s Edition looks gorgeous). With this in mind, based on some initial reads of UBS6, it seems like there’s least three important changes coming to the default scholarly editions of the New Testament (UBS6/NA29), which will eventually affect most Christians at some stage.

1) The order of the books in the Greek New Testament has been changed: the Pauline epistles now appear after the Catholic Epistles, and Hebrews is placed between 2 Thessalonians and the Pastoral Epistles. As others have already pointed out, this is totally unlike almost every modern Bible translation (even though it does better reflect what the earliest Greek manuscripts did with the NT canon). So it will definitely be a major adjustment if this book order becomes the basis for future translations and commentaries (although not unprecedented – the Tyndale House Greek New Testament in 2017 also put the Catholic Epistles first, after the Gospels).

2) Every verse assigned a number within the New Testament is now included in the main text. You know all those “missing verses” that King James-only advocates complain have been removed from the Bible? They’ve all been slotted into the main text in UBS6 (albeit with double brackets [[ ]] to show the editors think they’re later additions). The net effect is that a large number of previously ignored readings have been welcomed back to the main text. I think this particular way of presenting the text will completely change how future Bible translators and preachers work from the Greek NT (and commentaries based on it), as they’ll now need to more consciously decide at each point how to address these variants – after all, it’s right there in the text!

3. As with the previous version of UBS, the editors have adopted the ECM text where it’s available (Mark, Acts, Catholic Epistles and Revelation), including the changes to the text from there (you can see the latest Greek text for yourself on the digital version of ECM, hosted on the INTF website). However, what the UBS editors have done with Ephesians and other parts I’ve read so far is anything to go by, there seems to already be numerous edits to the rest of the NT as well, including changes to paragraphs, punctuation, formatting throughout the UBS/NA text. What the standard UBS6/NA29 text will look like in the standard editions (to be published October 2025), and whether they match or reflect the earliest manuscripts of the Greek New Testament remains to be seen, but these choices do influence how we read the passage (ask me how in a few months, or once the thesis is “nailed” – Lord willing!).

I’ve also shared a short note on my Academia page with more details (and references), and keen to hear what others think. Have you got your hands on a UBS6 yet? What are your thoughts? I’d love to know.