In the Shadow of Sinai - Editio nova by Agnes Smith Lewis (1843–1926) - 2019

New digital edition in Epub form. In English. The hard copy of this edition counts 240 pp. A vivid description of a fruitful travel to Mount Sinai that brought to light a famous religious Codex.

CONTENTS:

INTRODUCTION

I. PREPARATIONS

Box for the Syriac palimpsest — Purchase of a Palestinian Syriac Lectionary — Manuscript of the Maccabees — Joseph Scha'ar — Arrangement with Bedawîn — Various types of dragomans — Camel-saddles — The Holy Deacon Nicodemus — The hotel at Suez — New arrangement for the escort of travellers.

II. ON THE TRACK OF THE ISRAELITES

Crossing the Red Sea — 'Uyûn Musa — Habits of camels — Bedawy dialect — Pronunciation of Arabic — Miracle of the Exodus — Wady Ghurundel — A Sunday in the desert — Burying water-bottles — Mushaghghil: his marriages — Sinaitic inscriptions — Our first kodak — Rebecca alighting from her camel.

III. OUR STAY AT THE CONVENT

The Nugb Hawa — Crumbling of granite rocks — The Ras Sufsafah and the plain Er Rahah — The Convent — Re-arrangement of the Library — New room for foreign students — Eccentricities of European travellers — Visit of Dr. Rendel Harris and Dr. F. Bliss — Burning a camel's leg — Russian pilgrims — Archbishop Porphyrius — Bedawîn burials.

IV. THE PALIMPSEST

My supplementary transcription — Remarkable readings — The charge of heresy — Robertson Smith on the Arab notion of paternity.

V. PRAYERS FOR RAIN

Departure of the Archbishop — His name-day — A ten months' complete drought — Deputation of sheikhs from El Tih — A wild cat — The Hon. and Mrs. Whitelaw Reid — How our garden party was spoiled — Rain at last — A bottle of the re-agent — Departure — Letter to the Academy — Illness at Suez.

VI. VISIT TO MA'LULA

How 'Ain et Tineh became Moslem — Ma'lula — Mobbed by friendly villagers — Decay of colloquial Syriac — A priest's wife — Dances on the greensward — Convent of Mar Thecla — Return to Cambridge.

VII. A LEAF OF THE HEBREW ECCLESIASTICUS

Quarantine vexations — On the banks of the Suez canal — River of Egypt and El Arish — Stone-throwing at Gaza — Our Turkish guard — Site of Lachish — Sennacherib's army — Nomads settling—Valley of Elah — We lose our tents — A night on wet ground — Arrival in Jerusalem — A tempestuous night — The New Grand Hotel — Library of the Patriarchate — Of the Syriac convent — Excavations — Site of calvary — Fighting in the Church of the Sepulchre — Purchase of Hebrew fragments — Custom House difficulties — Discovery of the first leaf of the Hebrew Ecclesiasticus — Dr. Schechter's letter — Importance of the newly-recovered text.

VIII. A FOURTH VISIT TO SINAI

The Cairo Genizah — More Leaves of Ecclesiasticus — Voyage to Tor — Wady Hebrân — Arrival at Convent.

IX. OUR FOURTH STAY AT THE CONVENT

Collapse of the mosque — Italian travellers — Palestinian Syriac Lectionaries — Arabic manuscripts of the New Testament — A Roman Catholic Archbishop — Photographic troubles — Dogs of the desert — Mushaghghil's wives — A Red Sea Ford — The Tower of Babel — The Sea westwards from Sinai.

X. HOMEWARDS

Desert housekeeping — Elijah's broom-bush — Escort of tribal sheikhs — The Prodigal Son — A railway to Sinai — Furious blasts — Fleetness of the Bedawîn — 'Uyûn Musa — Desert air versus rheumatism.

XI. ANOTHER "SAYING OF JESUS"

The second Palestinian Syriac Lectionary at Sinai — The dropped half of a Logion: its context; its significance.

Hypomnema: Editor's corrections.