Customer Reviews

Sisters of Sinai: How two lady adventurers found the hidden gospels

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Each morning on my way to work I drive past the gates of Westminster College,Cambridge, England, founded in 1899 as the Presbyterian (now United Reformed Church) seminary in this great center of British learning. These days when I go by I find myself thinking of the twin sisters whose generosity paid for the theological college, and who are the subject of this delightful book by Janet Soskice, Canadian-born Professor of Philosophical Theology at Cambridge.

These two ladies, Agnes Lewis and Margaret Gibson, were formidable both as travellers and as intellects. From a small town in western Scotland where their shrewd father was a lawyer, they eventually as middle-aged widows established themselves in Cambridge and became self-taught scholars, collecting, collating, and translating early Christian manuscripts -- biblical scholars of the highest order.

Re-reading my words I realize I have made them sound incredibly boring, but they were not, and neither did they sit at home by a warm fire doing needlepoint. At a time when women from their background were likely to be cosseted, they thought nothing of criss-crossing the Middle East looking for lost manuscripts -- a passion that was ignited when they turned up a very early manuscript of the gospels in the chaotically organized library at St. Catherine's Convent in the Sinai Peninsular. After it was confirmed that this was a winner they were hooked. Not only did St. Catherine's become a regular stopping-off point, but they even went scampering around the oldest monasteries in Egypt that had been established by the Desert Fathers in search of texts -- often being welcomed with open arms by monks whose attitudes until that point had certainly not been female friendly.

I can promise a reader that this fabulously written book will neither certainly bore you or nor send you off to sleep. Page-turners are seldom written by Cambridge academics and about those fascinated by ancient Syriac manuscripts -- but this book shatters forever such stereotypes! Agnes and Margaret were obviously both brilliant and memorable characters, to be both admired and of whom to be just a teeny bit frightened. It helped that they inherited from their father the substantial fortune that he had amassed through careful business dealing, but they used their wealth wisely and well -- paying for the building the Presbyterian seminary in Cambridge was just one small part of their generosity.

I am the father of two grown daughters, but if we were out to start our family over again and I had known about this dynamic little pair I would have been very tempted to try to persuade my wife that we should call them Agnes and Margaret after these two fascinating beings. Read this book: it will be good for your heart and good for your soul.

I read the review in the NYT ([...]) and thought this book sounded so unusual.
I love tales of adventure, intrigue, and women with courage - I was tempted to write this review as I am picking up a couple copies for some family members for the holidays- it's a page turner and I wanted to hop on a plane to go back in time and to Egypt after finishing it!