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The Sisters Of Sinai: How Two Lady Adventurers Discovered The Hidden Gospels (2009)

by Janet Martin Soskice(Favorite Author)

3.95 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

1400041333 (ISBN13: 9781400041336)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Knopf

review 1: Two self-taught spinsters, twins, immensely rich, hunt down ancient Biblical manuscripts in the deserts of Sinai. When not thus engaged, they live in Cambridge, at first at the fringes, later at the heart of its (admittedly snooty) academic establishment. Scots, female, informally educated, living in an era when Cambridge didn't give degrees to women (and voted to keep it that way), they nevertheless made probably the second best manuscript find of their era, the best being von Tichsendorf's discovery of the peerless codex siniaticus. In doing so they shored up Christian orthodoxy by decreasing the distance between the events of the Bible themselves and the documentary evidence about them. As Janet Soskice points out, finds like this torpedoed previously strong-looking ar... moreguments against Christian orthodoxy, for example in Thomas Paine's Defence of Pure Reason.This is all super and in Janet Soskice the twins have found a robust defender and careful and thorough biographer. It's all good derring-do and you half expect them to bump into Harrison Ford and the Ark of the Covenant at any moment. I was still a little disappointed with the book, however. I felt i never knew the women. Were they dry-humoured or severe? Introverted or extrovert? Playful or fearsome? Apart from the odd very scanty reference near the end of the book to how the twins became more eccentric, there's nada nada about their personaiity or character. Really good biographers can give us some of this stuff; Prof Soskice's book isn't quite in that top drawer. But it's a hugely worthwhile read and I hope she gets lots of plaudits for championing these two ladies -- who embody a further proof of CS Lewis' saying (I paraphrase): How boringly alike are the world's dictators; how varied and fascinating are the saints.
review 2: Agnes and Margaret are my new heroes! After a life of study and family focus the two Scottish sisters set off on an arduous journey across Europe, Egypt and into the wilderness of the Sinai. In a time when travel for women alone was not to be attempted, these two set out on camels into the forbidding desert. While they were taken in by their reis on more than one occasion, they managed quite well and ended up at the ancient monastery of St. Catherine where they hoped to find palimpsest or recycled vellum book where the original gospels where showing through the over-writing. Most scholars did not think there would be such an ancient edition of the Gospels--but Agnes and Margaret found the codex. It had been carefully preserved for nearly 2000 years and is still the oldest copy of all four Gospels together. They did lots of research and writing about that and other manuscripts that they collected all over Europe and the Middle east and after receiving honors, degrees and recognition from universities throughout Europe, were recognized by their adopted home town University--Cambridge, which reluctantly awarded the sisters degrees. They were among the first women to be so honored at Cambridge. less

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