Peter Thomas O'Brien (born 6 November 1935) is an Australian clergyman, missionary and

New Testament The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Christ ...

scholar. He has written commentaries on

Ephesians The Epistle to the Ephesians is the tenth book of the New Testament. Its authorship has traditionally been attributed to Paul the Apostle but starting in 1792, this has been challenged as Deutero-Pauline, that is, pseudepigrapha written in Pau ...

Philippians The Epistle to the Philippians is a Pauline epistle of the New Testament of the Christian Bible. The epistle is attributed to Paul the Apostle and Timothy is named with him as co-author or co-sender. The letter is addressed to the Christian c ...

Colossians The Epistle to the Colossians is the twelfth book of the New Testament. It was written, according to the text, by Paul the Apostle and Timothy, and addressed to the church in Colossae, a small Phrygian city near Laodicea and approximately fr ...

, Philemon, and

Hebrews The terms ''Hebrews'' (Hebrew: / , Modern: ' / ', Tiberian: ' / '; ISO 259-3: ' / ') and ''Hebrew people'' are mostly considered synonymous with the Semitic-speaking Israelites, especially in the pre-monarchic period when they were still no ...

as well as books and articles on aspects of the thought the apostle Paul.

Ministry

O'Brien was converted at the age of nineteen, and studied at

Moore Theological College Moore Theological College, otherwise known simply as Moore College, is the theological training seminary of the Diocese of Sydney in the Anglican Church of Australia. The president of the Moore Theological College Council is ''ex officio'' t ...

and the

University of Manchester , mottoeng = Knowledge, Wisdom, Humanity , established = 2004 – University of Manchester Predecessor institutions: 1956 – UMIST (as university college; university 1994) 1904 – Victoria University of Manchester 1880 – Victoria Univer ...

. He taught at

Union Biblical Seminary Union Biblical Seminary (UBS) is a theological seminary founded by Wesleyan and Methodist denominations in Pune, India. UBS started as a Marathi-medium Bible School opened by the Free Methodist Church and was finally established in 1953 and i ...

Yavatmal Yavatmal ( is a city and municipal council in the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the administrative headquarters of Yavatmal District. Yavatmal is around 90 km away from divisional headquarters Amravati while it is away from the stat ...

, India, before returning to Moore as a lecturer, later serving as Vice Principal. While teaching at Moore he was a Recognised Teacher in Divinity at the University of Sydney. He is a priest in the

Anglican Diocese of Sydney The Diocese of Sydney is a diocese in Sydney, within the Province of New South Wales of the Anglican Church of Australia. The majority of the diocese is evangelical and low church in tradition. The diocese goes as far as Lithgow in the wes ...

. In 2000, a ''

Festschrift In academia, a ''Festschrift'' (; plural, ''Festschriften'' ) is a book honoring a respected person, especially an academic, and presented during their lifetime. It generally takes the form of an edited volume, containing contributions from the h ...

'' was published in his honour, called ''A Gospel for the Nations: Perspectives on Paul's Mission: Essays Presented to Peter Thomas O’Brien on his Sixty-Fifth Birthday''. Contributors included Paul Barnett,

Don Carson Donald Arthur Carson (born December 21, 1946) is an evangelical biblical scholar. He is a Distinguished Emeritus Professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and president and co-founder of the Gospel Coalition. He has written ...

William Dumbrell William John Dumbrell (1926 – 1 October 2016) was an Australian biblical scholar. Dumbrell was converted in 1951, and studied at Moore Theological College before being ordained as priest in the Anglican church in February 1957.Glenn Davies, ...

Graeme Goldsworthy Graeme Goldsworthy (born 7 September 1934) is an Australian evangelical Anglican theologian specialising in the Old Testament and biblical theology. His most significant work is a trilogy: ''Gospel and Kingdom'', ''Gospel and Wisdom'', and ''The ...

, Peter Jensen,

Andreas Köstenberger Andreas ( el, Ἀνδρέας) is a name usually given to males in Austria, Greece, Cyprus, Denmark, Armenia, Estonia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Finland, Flanders, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Romania, the Netherlands, and Indonesia. The name ...

Richard Longenecker Richard N. Longenecker (July 21, 1930 - June 7, 2021) was a prominent New Testament scholar. He held teaching positions at Wheaton College and Graduate School (1954-57; 1960-63); Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (1963-72); Wycliffe College (T ...

, I. Howard Marshall, Ralph P. Martin, Donald Robinson, Moisés Silva,

David Wenham David Wenham (born 21 September 1965) is an Australian actor who has appeared in film, television and theatre. He is known for his roles as Faramir in ''The Lord of the Rings'' film trilogy, Friar Carl in ''Van Helsing'', Dilios in ''300'' and ...

, and Bruce Winter. In 2002 he received an honorary doctorate from the Australian College of Theology. In 2014 he received an honorary doctorate from Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia.

Withdrawal of commentaries

In early July 2016, allegations of plagiarism were made against O'Brien in regards to his commentary ''The Letter to the Hebrews'' in the Pillar New Testament Commentary series. On 15 August 2016 Eerdmans announced that after internal and external review that "what

hey Hey or Hey! may refer to: Music * Hey (band), a Polish rock band Albums * ''Hey'' (Andreas Bourani album) or the title song (see below), 2014 * ''Hey!'' (Julio Iglesias album) or the title song, 1980 * ''Hey!'' (Jullie album) or the title s ...

found on the pages of this commentary runs afoul of commonly accepted standards with regard to the utilization and documentation of secondary sources.

agreed that the book could not be retained in print." As a result, they were ceasing sales of the commentary, along with two other works from O'Brien. IVP issued a similar statement regarding two titles in their ''New Studies in Biblical Theology'' (NSBT) series. By 4 November 2016 a similar statement was issued by the publishers Zondervan regarding O'Brien's Colossians – Philemon volume in the

Word Biblical Commentary The Word Biblical Commentary (WBC) is a series of commentaries in English on the text of the Bible both Old and New Testament. It is currently published by the Zondervan Publishing Company. Initially published under the "Word Books" imprint, t ...

series. Each statement contains expressions of regret and evidences considerable reluctance in taking these actions. O'Brien stated, "In the New Testament commentaries that I have written, although I have never deliberately misused the work of others, nevertheless I now see that my work processes at times have been faulty and have generated clear-cut, but unintentional, plagiarism. For this I apologize without reservation."

Works

Books

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Chapters

Articles

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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:OBrien, Peter Thomas Living people 1935 births Moore Theological College alumni Alumni of the University of Manchester New Testament scholars Australian biblical scholars Bible commentators Moore Theological College faculty Australian Anglican priests Anglican biblical scholars