The Sisters of Sinai: How Two Lady Adventurers Discovered the Hidden Gospels by Janet Soskice

From the Publisher

In 1892, two sisters, identical twins from Scotland, made one of one of most important scriptural discoveries of modern times. Combing the library of St. Catherine’s Monastery at Mount Sinai, they found a neglected palimpsest: beneath an unpreposessing life of female saints, they detected what remains to this day among the earliest known copies of the Gospels, a version in ancient Syriac , the language spoken by Jesus. The Sisters of Sinai is the enthralling account of how two ladies in middle age and without university degrees uncovered and translated this text, bringing a great biblical treasure to world attention.

Janet Soskice takes us, via the lives of Agnes and Margaret Smith, on a quintessentially Victorian adventure. It is partly a physical journey: when Westerners generally feared to tread in the region, the sisters Smith traversed the Middle East, sleeping in tents, enduring temperamental camels and unscrupulous dragomen, and facing uncertain welcome from monks deceived by earlier travellers. It is also a journey of the mind: in an era when religious faith was under attack, when new discoveries in science and archaeology were rewriting the accepted understanding of the Bible’s origins as well as those of humankind, a great contribution to knowledge was made by two whose only natural advantage was an astonishing gift for languages, modern as well as classical. Finally, and most movingly, it is a progress of the human spirit. Unwilling to let their lack of formal training or the disdain and jealousy of male scholars stand in their way, Agnes and Margaret became renowned scriptural authorities, in joyful pursuit of their lifelong passionsfor adventure and learning. Here, rousingly recounted, is the story of two unlikely and unsung heroines of the continuing effort to discover the Bible as originally written.

The New York Times - Caroline Alexander

Herself a professor of philosophical theology at Cambridge, Soskice deftly positions the twins' story in the wider and more profound context of ideas and discoveries of their age. With great clarity, she steadily and captivatingly unwinds the complicated threads of her narrative, explicating formidable scholarship while keeping the twins at the fore…For its evocation of the character, as well as the characters, of the era, Sisters of Sinai is a bracing and moving book, not only a story of adventure, but also a reminder of the ardor, hardship and energy invested in the pursuit of knowledge in that endlessly inquiring and industrious Victorian age.

The Washington Post - Matthew Shaer

The Sisters of Sinai is by turns a rattling adventure yarn—thick with roving Bedouin and ancient tombs—and a testament to the power of perseverance. In the end, Soskice writes, "It was the Smiths' fierce commitment to the truth that most impresses."

Library Journal

This book actually tells not one but several stories: the grueling feat of undertaking Victorian-era Middle Eastern travel, especially for well-born ladies; the theological and cultural misgivings between Scots Presbyterian sensibilities and Greek Orthodox monasticism; the serendipity, misogyny, and double dealings that lie behind some of the greatest biblical manuscript finds of the 19th century; bickering between academic and scholarly egos; and what the lives of intelligent, educated Protestant widows looked like in Britain in the late 1800s. The two determined Scottish sisters discussed here strove to break free from those limited cultural constraints. Soskice (philosophical theology, Univ. of Cambridge; The Kindness of God) knits all these strains together, offering a fascinating look at the lives of twins Agnes Smith Lewis and Margaret Smith Gibson, who are credited with uncovering the earliest known copies of the Gospels in Syriac, the language of Jesus, at the monastery of St. Catherine's at Mount Sinai. VERDICT Rich in detail, this is really the story of the twins' lives set against the momentous manuscript work that was their Christian witness and calling. Recommended for a wide readership, not just those interested in religion.—Sandra Collins, Byzantine Catholic Seminary, Pittsburgh, PA

Kirkus Reviews

Jesus College fellow Soskice (The Kindness of God: Metaphor, Gender, and Religious Language, 2008, etc.) examines the life and work of the little-known sister "bible-hunters" who unearthed many significant ancient manuscripts. The book is as much about academic controversies surrounding biblical scholarship during the Victorian era as it is about the two proto-feminist twins, Agnes and Margaret Smith. Born to a prosperous father in Irvine, Scotland, the Smith sisters were rigorously educated in the Presbyterian faith, physically robust and eager to travel, making their first adventurous trek to Egypt upon the death of their father in 1866. They taught themselves Arabic and Greek. Agnes began to study Syriac-a dialect of Middle Aramaic-in preparation for travels to Sinai to dig for early texts of Christianity that might have been overlooked by adventurer-scholars such as Constantin von Tischendorf. The possibility that there might be texts still hidden in St. Catherine's monastery, at the foot of Mt. Sinai, was first introduced to the sisters by J. Rendel Harris, an oriental-studies scholar at Cambridge, where the sisters had relocated after the deaths of their respective husbands. Encouraged, the twins set off in 1892 for St. Catherine's, which housed a wondrous library. There Agnes discovered that underneath a manuscript about the lives of saints existed another, much older text, a palimpsest that would prove to be the earliest known copy of the Gospels in Syriac. Subsequent trips to Sinai in the company of Cambridge scholars led to more marvelous discoveries, as well as attempts to reassign credit among them all. Though the sisters were originally viewed as merely eccentric women,Soskice effectively demonstrates their important contributions to biblical scholarship in the 19th century. A recondite subject rendered fresh and accessible.

Product Details