Michael Patrick O'Connor (1950,

Lackawanna, New York Lackawanna is a city in Erie County, New York, United States, just south of the city of Buffalo in western New York State. The population was 19,949 at the 2020 census. It is one of the fastest-growing cities in New York, growing in populatio ...

– June 16, 2007,

Silver Spring, Maryland Silver Spring is a census-designated place (CDP) in southeastern Montgomery County, Maryland, Montgomery County, Maryland, United States, near Washington, D.C. Although officially Unincorporated area, unincorporated, in practice it is an edge cit ...

) was an American scholar of the

Ancient Near East The ancient Near East was the home of early civilizations within a region roughly corresponding to the modern Middle East: Mesopotamia (modern Iraq, southeast Turkey, southwest Iran and northeastern Syria), ancient Egypt, ancient Iran (Ela ...

and a poet. With the field of ANE studies he was a linguist of

Semitic languages The Semitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken by more than 330 million people across much of West Asia, the Horn of Africa, and latterly North Africa, Malta, West Africa, Chad, and in large immigrant a ...

, with a focus on biblical Hebrew and

biblical poetry The ancient Hebrews identified poetical portions in their sacred texts, as shown by their entitling as "songs" or as " chants" passages such as Exodus 15:1-19 and Numbers 21:17-20; a song or chant () is, according to the primary meaning of the t ...

Biography

O'Connor received his bachelor's degree in English from the

University of Notre Dame The University of Notre Dame du Lac, known simply as Notre Dame ( ) or ND, is a private Catholic university, Catholic research university in Notre Dame, Indiana, outside the city of South Bend, Indiana, South Bend. French priest Edward Sorin fo ...

in 1970, and a Masters in creative writing from the

University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a public university, public research university with campuses near Vancouver and in Kelowna, British Columbia. Established in 1908, it is British Columbia's oldest university. The university ranks a ...

in 1972, followed by a Masters in ancient Near Eastern studies (1974) and doctorate in 1978 at the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

. After working as a freelance scholar for a number of years, he taught at

Saint Paul Seminary School of Divinity The Saint Paul Seminary (SPS) is a Roman Catholic major seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota. A part of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, SPS prepares men to enter the priesthood and permanent diaconate, and educates lay men and women o ...

of the University of St. Thomas then at Union Theological Seminary. In 1997 he joined the faculty of

Catholic University of America The Catholic University of America (CUA) is a private Roman Catholic research university in Washington, D.C. It is a pontifical university of the Catholic Church in the United States and the only institution of higher education founded by U. ...

and was appointed an Ordinary Professor in 2002. He is best known from his book on the structure of Hebrew verse and his co-authorship of a textbook on biblical Hebrew syntax. He proposed that the

metre The metre ( British spelling) or meter ( American spelling; see spelling differences) (from the French unit , from the Greek noun , "measure"), symbol m, is the primary unit of length in the International System of Units (SI), though its p ...

of Hebrew verse was based on constraints in syntax, rather than feet. He published poems throughout his career, including a book of poetry called ''Pandary'' in 1989. O'Connor was a

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwide . It is am ...

, he died of complications of liver cancer on June 16, 2007, at Holy Cross Hospital in Silver Spring, MD.

Selected publications

;Books * The 2nd Edition was printed with a new afterword: * ;Edited books * * Note: Includes essays originally published in ''Michigan Quarterly Review'' XXII (3). Summer 1983, a special issue called ''The Bible and Its Traditions''. * ;Papers * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Table of contents with abstracts
* * * * ;Reviews * * * * * * * * * * ;Poetry * * * * *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:OConnor, Michael Patrick 1950 births 2007 deaths Historians of antiquity American Assyriologists Linguists from the United States University of Notre Dame alumni University of British Columbia alumni University of Michigan alumni American Roman Catholics 20th-century linguists Assyriologists