Mentioned only six times in the New Testament, Prisca and Aquila are probably not counted among the better known biblical personages. Nevertheless, they played an important role in preparing the way for the establishment of churches in Rome, Corinth and Ephesus, as Jerome Murphy-O’Connor shows in “Prisca and Aquila—Traveling Tentmakers and Church Builders.&rd Combining the biblical evidence with the historical context provided by ancient writers and archaeology, Murphy-O’Connor manages to reconstruct a remarkably full and coherent biography of the couple.

A Roman Catholic priest of the Dominican Order, Murphy-O’Connor is professor of New Testament and intertestamental literature at the Ecole Biblique in Jerusalem and a member of BR’s Editorial Advisory Board. His many books include St. Paul’s Corinth (Glazier, 1983) and, most recently, The Holy Land: An Archaeological Guide from Earliest Times to 1700 (Oxford Univ. Press, 3rd ed., 1992). O’Connor has previously contributed two other articles to BR: “On the Road and on the Sea with St. Paul,” BR 01:02 and “What Really Happened at the Transfiguration?” BR 03:03.
Already a library member? Log in here.
Institution user? Log in with your IP address.