Bøger af Agnes Smith Lewis

The Scottish twin sisters Agnes Lewis (1843-1926) and Margaret Gibson (1843-1920) between them spoke modern Greek, Arabic, Hebrew, Persian and Syriac, and were pioneering biblical scholars and explorers at a time when women rarely ventured to foreign lands. The sisters made several journeys to the Monastery of St Catherine on Mount Sinai, and their first two visits there are described in this 1893 publication. Using her sister's journals, Margaret Gibson tells how Agnes discovered a version of the Gospels in Syriac from the fifth century CE. This text is immensely important, being an example of the New Testament written in the eastern branch of Aramaic, the language that Jesus himself spoke. Meanwhile, Margaret Gibson studied other manuscripts in the library and photographed them; the sisters later transcribed and published many of these. Controversy over the circumstances of the discovery led to Margaret publishing this account in 1893.

The Scottish twin sisters Agnes Lewis (1843-1926) and Margaret Gibson (1843-1920) between them spoke modern Greek, Arabic, Hebrew, Persian and Syriac, and were pioneering biblical scholars and explorers at a time when women rarely ventured to foreign lands. The sisters made several journeys to the Monastery of St Catherine on Mount Sinai, discovering ancient biblical manuscripts, and their first two visits there were described in the 1893 publication How the Codex was Found (also available in this series). Lewis' In the Shadow of Sinai of 1898 was composed as a sequel to this work, dealing with the third and fourth journeys to Sinai, in 1895 and 1897. She gives a vivid account of the practicalities of desert travelling, as well as the excitement of the sisters and their academic colleagues as they recognised the significance of their discoveries in the monastic library.

The Scottish twin sisters Agnes Lewis (1843-1926) and Margaret Gibson (1843-1920), heiresses of an extremely wealthy man, between them learned numerous languages, including Modern Greek, Arabic, Hebrew, Persian and Syriac, and became pioneering biblical scholars and explorers at a time when women rarely ventured to foreign lands. Their initial desire to travel to the Holy Land was encouraged by their Presbyterian minister. Setting out with their former teacher, Grace Blyth, in 1868, they travelled across Europe to Greece, Turkey, Egypt and Palestine. In this 1870 account, Lewis vividly describes the discomfort of long-distance travel, especially for women, and their encounters with the people they met on the way. At Constantinople they were struck by the beauty of Hagia Sophia, and saw whirling dervishes. They had some difficulties with their guide in Egypt, but this did not deter them, and they continued on to Palestine before returning to Europe.

In the Shadow of Sinai: A Story of Travel and Research from 1895 to 1897, and How the Codex was Found: A Narrative of Two Visits to Sinai from Mrs Lewiss Journals, 18921893 published here in a new one-volume edition were originally published in the late 1890s, to great acclaim. Taught the rudiments of photography, and having studied various languages, including Aramaic, they organized a caravan from Cairo to the Monastery of St. Catherine, at the foot of Mt Sinai. In the library they discovered, and photographed, most of the text of the hitherto undiscovered Syriac version of the Four Gospels, in a fourth-century palimpsest. Their work was widely acknowledged, and they were popular members of the Cambridge set of this period. For the Scholar, this book is a welcome reprint of two worthy texts, with their focus on the vagaries and excitement of historical, biblical research. For the Traveller, it is a record of the hardships and rewards of travel one hundred years ago. And for the Christian, there lies within the discovery of a very remarkable variant of the reported spoken word of Jesus Christ (Matthew xii:36).