The Sisters of Sinai by Janet Soskice

The Sisters of Sinai by Janet Soskice

Agnes and Margaret Smith were not your typical Victorian scholars or adventurers. Female, middle-aged, and without university degrees or formal language training, the twin sisters nevertheless made one of the most important scriptural discoveries of their time: the earliest known copy of the Gospels in ancient Syriac, the language that Jesus spoke. In an era when most Westerners--male or female--feared to tread in the Middle East, they slept in tents and endured temperamental camels, unscrupulous dragomen, and suspicious monks to become unsung heroines in the continuing effort to discover the Bible as originally written.

Janet Soskice is Professor of Philosophical Theology at the University of Cambridge, UK. Within the philosophy of religion, she specializes in religious language and naming God. She is author of Sisters of Sinai (2009) and The Kindness of God (2008) and co-editor of Creation and the God of Abraham (2010).