The Sisters of Sinai: How Two Lady Adventurers Discovered the Hidden Gospels (Vintage) by Janet Soskice

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A Christian Science Monitor Best Book of the Year
A Washington Post Best Book of the Year
A Library Journal Best Book of the Year

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.