Janet Martin Soskice

This book was exciting to me! Two sister, already in middle age, traveled by camel across the Sinai desert to discover forgotten manuscripts and influenced male dominated scholarship. I knew about the 19th century discoveries that demonstrated that the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments had changed and evolved but I did not know about Agnes Lewis and Margaret Gibson.

Agnes and Margaret were twins. Born in the 1840s at a time when women and girls could go to school but the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge didn't award degrees to women. They were mostly educated at home and mastered a good number of modern and ancient languages. Their skill with languages served them well both in traveling in remote and primitive places and in understanding and interpreting the ancient manuscripts that they sought. In the library of St. Catherine's Monastery Agnes found a forgotten and neglected manuscript that she recognized as a palimpsest, a manuscript written over an earlier writing. Before the invention of paper most books were written on velum, made from layers of calf skin. It was expensive and often reused by scraping off the older writing. The older writing was sometimes visible and possible to decipher. The document that Agnes found contained the four Gospels of the New Testament underneath a collection of the lives of women saints.

Their discoveries aroused great interest but also jealousy and opposition from the male dominated scholarly world. Margaret and Agnes both became well regarded in the academic world. While Oxford and Cambridge still wouldn't award degrees to women many other universities awarded honorary doctorates to both sister. The sisters made many expeditions to Egypt, the Sinai and other Middle Eastern sites. They also helped recover some stolen manuscripts. After their travels were over they continued to study, transcribe and translate manuscripts in Cambridge.

The author of The Sisters of Sinai is Janet Soskice. She is a professor at Cambridge University where women now can be awarded degrees.

… (meer)

Well crafted biography of two doughty Victorian (twin) sisters who travelled widely in the Middle East, researching and searching for early biblical texts. Fortunate to be wealthy through inheritance, Agnes Lewis and Margaret Gibson (both nee Smith) nevertheless taught themselves several modern and dead languages to facilitate their research - paying little heed to Victorian convention and overcoming the odds to make a lasting mark on their chosen field. Impeccable research by Janet Soskice makes this an enthralling read.… (meer)

Read for the second time in February, 2017, for an article I'm researching. Still charming, and obviously of greater interest now that I've spent a few years working with manuscripts.

[first reviewed on 2/13/10] I loved this book...what a fun read! I admit I probably would not have been quite so tickled by it if the heroines had not been Scottish Presbyterians...! Nonetheless, an absorbing synthesis of travel narrative and insight into the world of late nineteenth century biblical scholarship. I generally have little use for modern historical-critical and philological study, but I didn't have any trouble staying interested, and I don't think one would have to be very knowledgeable about the field or the period to really enjoy the book.… (meer)