F.F. BRUCE
F.F. BRUCE
F.F. Bruce was one of Britain’s most influential biblical scholars. He approached the Bible from his background as a classicist – studying Latin and Greek – instead of the more traditional route of studies in theology. His accomplishments were astounding. He was head of the Department of Biblical History and Literature at the University of Sheffield and Rylands Professor of Biblical Criticism and Exegesis at the University of Manchester. He was president of societies for both the study of the Old Testament and the study of the New Testament.
Professor Bruce authored more than fifty books and nearly 2,000 articles and reviews. Christianity Today named his book New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? one of the top 50 books that had shaped evangelicals. His commentaries on the Acts of the Apostles, Hebrews, and other books of the Bible are considered to be classics. He was editor of The Evangelical Quarterly and the Palestine Exploration Quarterly.
Frederick Fyvie Bruce was born in Scotland, the son of a Christian Brethren (Plymouth Brethren) preacher. He studied at the University of Aberdeen (where he met his future wife, Betty), Cambridge, and the University of Vienna. He taught at the universities of Edinburgh (where he and Betty married) and Leeds before becoming department head at the University of Sheffield and later professor at the University of Manchester.
His significance, however, cannot be found in a list of his academic positions or his amazing output from popular articles to scholarly commentaries. His significance is that “at a time when both tasks seemed impossible, he persuaded evangelicals to think differently about scholarship, and scholars to think differently about evangelicalism,” said Peter Oakes of the University of Manchester.
F.F. Bruce let the Bible speak freely and did not make it fit a particular system of theology. He was humble and gentle, and he respected those with whom he disagreed. He was a superb scholar, and his scholarship had the purpose of helping people encounter Jesus Christ.
His colleague I. Howard Marshall summarized Professor Bruce’s career, “[He] will obviously be remembered first of all for his highly distinguished academic career as a university teacher and a prolific writer who did more than anybody else in this century to develop and encourage conservative evangelical scholarship. Possessed of outstanding intellectual ability, a phenomenal memory, and encyclopedic knowledge, a colossal capacity for work, and a limpid style, he produced a remarkable output of books and essays which will continue to be read for years to come, and he trained directly or indirectly many younger scholars now working in all parts of the world.”
To which J.I. Packer adds, “No Christian was ever more free of narrow bigotry, prejudice and eccentricity in the views he held and the way he held them; no man did more to demonstrate how evangelical faith and total academic integrity may walk hand in hand.”
Christianity Today celebrated F.F. Bruce, “A Man of Unchanging Faith,” with a cover article and interview.