Murphy-O'Connor, Jerome. <t>Paul: A Critical Life</>. 
Oxford: Clarendon Press 1996. Pp. 416 (including a general index 
and an index of passages cited) 

Reviewed by Greg Ewing <gewing@sas.upenn.edu> for R.Kraft's RelSt 
436 course at UPenn (Spring 1999) 


This "life of Paul," an addition made by Jerome Murphy-O'Connor 
to the ongoing pursuit of the historical life of the Apostle 
Paul, contributes in many ways to a greater understanding 
especially in historical context of the Pauline letters and 
addressees. 

This book is formatted in a very logical manner. The author 
begins by laying a chronological framework within which he places 
Paul. Using clues from the letter to Philemon and Philo, O'Connor 
establishes Paul's age when writing this letter to be around 60 
years. From this point, using Paul's letters, the Acts of Paul 
and various other traditions, an entire timeline for Paul's life 
is built. Although this may seem reasonable, O'Connor doesn't 
take into account the questionable historical value of some of 
the documents that he uses. For example, referencing Paul's self 
label of "presbyter" (i.e. older person) in Philemon and cross 
referencing that with Philo, the Damascus Document and certain 
rabbinical writings to ascertain Paul's age does not take into 
account the desire of the ancients to make everything fit into 
neat schema or patterns (pg. 2-4). 

Using this chronology as a framework, O'Connor begins to explore 
the details of Paul's life and travels. The first two chapters 
in the life of Paul then deal with growing up and being a 
Pharisee. While both of these chapters are rich in details about 
these two possible aspects of Paul's life, it still remains that 
they are not necessarily grounded in historical fact. If one 
accepts O'Connor's discussion of their validity as real parts of 
Paul's life then these chapters are excellent at bringing a 
needed foundation to the understanding of Paul's life. 

Chapter 4 deals with Paul's "conversion" to Christianity. This is 
not an approach that is consistent with the author's later 
discussions of Paul's belief in the continuity of Christianity 
and Judaism. O'Connor seems to ignore his own discussion of 
Paul's insistence on the continuity of the faith later in his 
book (130-142) when dealing with the "Damascus road experience." 

Beginning with chapter 5, O'Connor exhibits his strength as a 
writer and scholar in Pauline studies. At this point he begins 
to tackle each of the Pauline letters individually. For each 
letter, O'Connor first discusses historical information regarding 
the particular locale and audience. Moving from the historical, 
the author then analyzes the makeup and format of each letter. 
For example, when discussing Philippians, O'Connor establishes a 
triune break dividing the letter along thematic and semantic 
lines (215-230). O'Connor skillfully, in most cases, incorporates 
his observations and conclusions regarding Paul and his life into 
these sections of analysis. 

It is questionable as to how true to his stated desire to avoid 
using the "evidence" of canonical Acts (by Luke) O'Connor 
actually is. In many cases (for example 214, 275) he seems to 
presuppose Acts as an historical document. He uses Acts as a 
starting point and then turns to the letters for proof. While 
this may lead to valid conclusions it does not seem to follow the 
scholarly mold of using primary sources as first references. 

Overall this book is an excellent resource by which the average 
reader can glean very much excellent historical and textual 
background. For the scholar, this book builds upon the works of 
previous authors and claims to bring new ideas to the table. For 
both the average reader and the scholar, O'Connor's <t>Paul: A 
Critical Life</> is a worthwhile and enjoyable read. 

//end//