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  • Published: 1 October 2010
  • ISBN: 9781409001478
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 352
Categories:

Sisters Of Sinai

How Two Lady Adventurers Found the Hidden Gospels




An exciting, fascinating and thought-provoking book about the discovery of an early New Testament manuscript on Mount Sinai by two audacious Victorian ladies.

'The hunt for early Bible manuscripts was among the most romantic of all the 19th century's grand quests...At the heart of this lively, inspiring double biography is the story of how a pair of spirited Presbyterian women made their own extraordinary discovery' Sunday Times

Sisters of Sinai
is the story of how Scottish twin sisters made one of the most important manuscript finds of the nineteenth century - an early copy of the gospels which lay hidden in the Sinai desert. We trace the footsteps of the intrepid pair from the Ayrshire of their childhood, as they voyage to Egypt, Sinai and beyond, coping with camels, unscrupulous dragomen, and unpredictable welcomes, not least from the academics of their adopted home in Cambridge.

Fast-paced, informative and written with dry wit, this is a story of two remarkable women, undeterred in their spirit of adventure, who overcame insuperable odds to claim a place in history.

  • Published: 1 October 2010
  • ISBN: 9781409001478
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 352
Categories:

About the author

Janet Soskice

Dr Janet Soskice was born in America. She is currently professor of Theology at Jesus College Cambridge. As well as writing academic articles, she has written a column on religion for The Times and has appeared regularly on BBC Radio 4's 'The Moral Maze'.

Praise for Sisters Of Sinai

[A] luminous new study... 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

Washington Post

A bracing and moving book...a reminder of the ardour, hardship and energy invested in the pursuit of knowledge and that endlessly inquiring and industrious Victorian age

New York Times

An extraordinary and compelling book, combining vivid travel adventures, wonderful characters, and absorbing journeys of the mind and heart. Janet Soskice brilliantly and accessibly unfolds one of the most gripping sagas of Biblical detection, while telling the story of two magnificent women who trespassed intrepidly in worlds that sought to exclude them

John Cornwell

In Sisters of Sinai Janet Soskice has achieved the impossible - she has brought biblical scholarship to life. A gripping story of two spirited women determined to pursue the truth whatever the cost, with camels to boot. Wonderful

Sara Wheeler

Marvellous... A fine, fascinating account

Los Angeles Times

Soskice tells the story with scholarly conviction... [This] biography is one to be earmarked

www.thebookbag.co.uk

The hunt for early Bible manuscripts was among the most romantic of all the 19th century's grand quests... At the heart of this lively, inspiring double biography is the story of how a pair of spirited Presbyterian women made their own extraordinary discovery

Sunday Times

This pacy tale involves not only an Indiana Jones-like quest, but camel rides across the Sinai desert, trips up the Nile, bickerings, misunderstandings and confusions... A cracking tale of two irresistible characters

Herald

This rattling tale appears to come straight from an Indiana Jones adventure... Janet Soskice had done an excellent job in piecing together the lives of two remarkable, and largely forgotten women

Marc Horne, Scotland on Sunday