There is no consensus among scholars as to which recension is nearer the original, or whether we shall suppose one or more original texts. The early scholars, as James,[1]:66 but also recently Ludlow,[7] working mainly on the narrative viewpoint, support the priority of the long recension. This view has been challenged for example by Turner,[8] who studied the text from a linguistic point of view, and mainly by Schmidt,[9] who worked deeply on manuscript E of the short recension, which was not available to the early editors.