John O'Neill, who was Professor of New Testament in the University of Edinburgh from 1985 until he retired in 1996, was possibly one of the most loved and certainly one of the most original New Testament scholars working in Britain in the past fifty years.
He was born in Australia and studied history at the University of Melbourne. As a young man he went to hear George MacLeod preach in Melbourne and on the strength of MacLeod's sermon decided that he wanted to become a minister. He trained for the ministry at Ormond College in Melbourne and then went on to postgraduate study at the Universities of Gottingen and Cambridge. At Cambridge, where he gained his PhD, he was a pupil of John Robinson, later to become Bishop of Woolwich, and author, exactly forty years ago of Honest to God.
O'Neill was in many ways the mirror image of his teacher. Robinson was a very conservative New Testament scholar who reached extremely radical conclusions about God, Jesus and the Church. O'Neill was an extremely radical New Testament scholar, who thought a lot of the New Testament was not original, but who reached very conservative conclusions about God, Jesus and the Church. Most New Testament scholars of the past fifty years have come to the conclusion that Jesus preached about the Kingdom of God but never had any intention of founding a church. O'Neill was convinced that Jesus appointed his disciples to preach the Gospel and administer the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper.
When his research at Cambridge was completed O'Neill returned to Melbourne where he taught until, in 1964 he was appointed professor of New Testament at Westminster College, then the training centre for the ministry of the Presbyterian Church of England. O'Neill taught there for twenty one years. He was regularly to be seen hurrying, in his slightly stooped way, from his house in the college grounds to give a lecture to the students. He was always nearly late for lectures, not because he regarded them as unimportant but because he wanted to give students his views on the latest scholarship, and so right up until the last minute he was revising what he wanted to say He was not someone who repeated lectures year after year. Every one was freshly thought out.
The salary of a teacher at Westminster College was not high, and for a number of years, O'Neill was a highly regarded teacher in Cambridge University's divinity school, a responsibility which he combined with his teaching duties in Westminster College and the job there of college librarian. On one occasion a colleague made a scathing remark about the library,and said that whatever fault he had found with it was due to the librarian spending too much time lecturing in the university divinity faculty. O'Neill immediately gave up lecturing in the divinity school, claiming that if his colleagues believed that it was distracting him from his college duties, he would give them no reason to continue in that conviction.
When he was appointed to succeed Hugh Anderson in the chair of New Testament in Edinburgh, John O'Neill continued to produce stimulating, innovative works of scholarship which very few other scholars agreed with. However those who did not agree with him valued the depth of his scholarship and the originality of his mind, and, most of all the diffidence with which he expressed views which he held deeply. Although he believed he owed to his students the results of his own research he always respected students and scholars who argued cogently against him
Recently, John O'Neill had expressed grave reservations about the way the Church of Scotland selected candidates for the ministry. He thought it was far too secular in its objectives, and valued pragmatic assessment over spiritual potential. He cared passionately about the ministry and was deeply hurt by the way his anxieties about the ministerial selection process were swept aside. He deserved from those responsible a greater hearing than he got.
Two months ago he was told that he had cancer. Although he was a scholar of quite considerable complexity he was a man of very simple faith, and that faith sustained him through increasing weakness and the realisation that he would not have as much time as he originally hoped. So did the discovery from those who heard of his illness and contacted him that he was not only hugely respected but greatly loved. Those of us who could not begin to match his scholarship but valued him as a friend know how deep our loss is.
John O'Neill
is survived by his wife, the writer Judith O'Neill and his three daughters,
Rachel, Catherine and Philippa
Rev Professor John Cochrane O'Neill, born 8 December 1930 died 30 March 2003.