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, but also recently Ludlow, working mainly on the narrative viewpoint, support the priority of the long recension. This view has been challenged for example by Turner, who studied the text from a linguistic point of view, and mainly by Schmidt, who worked deeply on manuscript E of the short recension, which was not available to the early editors.