It was used by biblical scholar Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus in his edition of the Greek text of the New Testament, and became the basis for the Textus Receptus in the Gospels.

There are no references to the Eusebian Canons (another early division of the Gospels into sections, and where parallel passages are found).

These are then used to determine the original text as published; there are three main groups with names: Alexandrian, Western, and Byzantine.

[7]: 205–230  Based on shared readings with other manuscripts, Hermann von Soden classified it to his textual family Kx, a sub-group of Byzantine witnesses.

[8] Biblical scholar Kurt Aland placed it in Category V of his New Testament manuscript text classification system.

[2]: 159  Biblical scholar Caspar René Gregory described the manuscript as "schlecht" (poor) and "wimmelt von Schreibfehlern" (teeming with scribal errors).

[2] In Luke 6:28,[12] it lacks the phrase προσεύχεσθε ὑπὲρ τῶν ἐπηρεαζόντων ὑμᾶς (pray on behalf of those who mistreat you).

[7]: 144  In John 8:6,[13] it originally read μὴ προσποιούμενος (not paying any attention), which was subsequently erased by a corrector (believed to be Erasmus).

[16]: 45  Press corrections for the printing format are written on the pages, and according to biblical scholar Frederick H. A. Scrivener it was "barbarously scored with red chalk" to suit Erasmus' page format,[6][17] of which these marks represent Erasmus' "alterations and emendations" based on other manuscripts.

[2] Scholar Kenneth Clark instead attributes the red chalk/crayon markings to the printer, either the printing house owner Froben or another staff member.

Though many have stated minuscule 2 was the "basis" for the Textus Receptus, Erasmus himself corrected many of its omissions, introduced emendations, and according to Tarelli "departed so frequently from 2 that he can hardly be said to have derived his text 'mainly' from this manuscript.

[4]: 127  The manuscript was examined by biblical scholar Johann Albrecht Bengel (who labelled it as codex β and noted variant readings),[6][4]: 127  biblical scholars Johann Jakob Wettstein (also noting variant readings),[6][4]: 127  Dean Burgon, Herman C. Hoskier, and Gregory.