Monday, November 11, 2013

Death of Jerome Murphy-O'Connor

The world of biblical studies is mourning today the passing of Jerome Murphy-O'Connor. He was an inspiring Roman Catholic scholar who taught at the École Biblique in Jerusalem.

He was to me a model of faith-filled scholarship, someone who didn't set artificial boundaries for the pursuit of biblical truth but who conducted research with a heart full of faith. If you want to read a biography of the apostle Paul by someone of this sort, try his Paul: His Story.

He wrote all sorts of books for scholars and laypeople alike to take along on trips to biblical sites, books on Corinth, Ephesus, and the Holy Land in general.

I consider his sort a dying breed. Britain was once fertile soil for scholars like him--the Bruces, Barretts, Dunns, and Wrights.  But in recent times, schools like Durham and St. Andrews were often fed on demand from the States, from those who neither wanted to study with the faithless nor the narrow minded.

Now it's all parrots everywhere, methinks.


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