Editing Epistle to the Romans (section)

=== Fourteen-chapter form ===
There is strong, albeit indirect, evidence that a [[recension]] of Romans that lacked [[Romans 15|chapters 15]] and [[Romans 16|16]] was widely used in the western half of the Roman Empire until the mid-4th century.<ref name="beduhn">{{cite book |last=BeDuhn |first=Jason |author-link=Jason BeDuhn |title=The First New Testament: Marcion's Scriptural Canon |page=305 |year=2013 |publisher=Polebridge Press |isbn=978-1598151312 }}</ref>{{sfn|Longenecker|2011|pp=20ff}}{{sfn|Gamble|1977|pp=16ff}} This conclusion is partially based on the fact that a variety of [[Church Fathers]], such as [[Origen]] and [[Tertullian]], refer to a fourteen-chapter edition of Romans, either directly or indirectly. The fact that Paul's [[doxology]] is placed in various different places in different [[manuscript]]s of Romans also strengthens the case for an early fourteen-chapter recension. However, while there is some uncertainty, Harry Gamble concludes that the canonical sixteen-chapter recension is likely the earlier version of the text.{{sfn|Gamble|1977|pp=19ff}}

The [[Codex Boernerianus]] lacks the explicit references to the Roman church as the audience of the epistle found in Romans 1:7 and 1:15. There is evidence from [[Church Fathers|patristic]] commentaries indicating that Boernerianus is not unique in this regard; many early, no longer extant manuscripts also lacked an explicit Roman addressee in chapter 1.{{sfn|Longenecker|2011|p=31}} It is notable that, when this textual variant is combined with the omission of chapters 15 and 16, there is no longer any clear reference to the Roman church throughout the entire epistle. Harry Gamble speculates that 1:7, 1:15, and chapters 15 and 16 may have been removed by a scribe in order to make the epistle more suitable for a "general" audience.{{sfn|Gamble|1977|pp=29ff}}