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1. RESEARCH PAPER: F.F. BRUCE
_________________________________________
A Paper
Submitted to Dr. Robert Yarbrough
Phoenix Seminary
Phoenix, Arizona
________________________________________
In Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for
TH595 History of NT Interpretation
_______________________________________
by
Kirk Huizenga
Jan. 21, 2012

2. 1
Biography
There are very few individuals in a defined age and discipline that can be categorized as
exceedingly influential. For nearly fifty years, from the mid-to-late 20th-century, F.F. Bruce fit
that distinction in biblical scholarship. According to W.W. Gasque, "Among contemporary
evangelical academics who teach biblical or theological studies, no single person has been more
influential, and it is likely that his influence will continue for another generation."1
Bruce has
also been called the "dean of evangelical scholarship"2
and the "greatest evangelical scholar of
our time"3
— a man of great academic and theological stature, yet humble, balanced and
"moderate."4
Frederick Fyvie Bruce was born Oct. 12, 1910 in Elgin, Scotland. He was the oldest of
seven children and defined his childhood years as a time of "plain living and high thinking."5
In
childhood he "possessed a love of the Bible and languages that would go with him throughout
his life. While other children were playing games, he was home (according to his sister) charting
the chronology of the kings of ancient Israel and Judah, and studying Latin and Greek...Bruce's
love of languages and the Bible shaped the course of his life."6
He was married to his wife,
Betty, in 1936, and they had two children together (a son and a daughter). Bruce never shared
great detail about his family life, because "others are not likely to be at all so interested in my
1
Donald K. McKim, Dictionary of Major Biblical Interpreters (IVP Academic, 2007), 242.
2
Dust cover to F. F. Bruce, The Canon of Scripture (Downers Grove, Ill.: Inter-Varsity Press, 1988).
3
Cover remarks on Frederick Fyvie Bruce, A Mind for What Matters: Collected Essays of F.F. Bruce (Wm.
B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1990).
4
McKim, Dictionary of Major Biblical Interpreters, 241.
5
F Bruce, In Retrospect: Remembrance of Things Past (Rev. ed.; London: Marshall Pickering, 1993), 14.
6
McKim, Dictionary of Major Biblical Interpreters, 238.

3. 2
family as I myself am,"7
but it was a happy marriage. In his autobiography, In Retrospect, he
wrote, "My professional life has been most satisfying throughout, more satisfying still, at a
deeper level, has been our domestic life...She [Betty] has been all I could wish. More might be
said, but it isn't going to be."8
His father was actively involved as an evangelist with the Open Brethren,9
with which
F.F retained ecclesiastical fellowship for the rest of his life. This affiliation with Brethrenism was
also important and (it seems) influential in shaping Bruce's life. He mentioned his affinity toward
this movement regularly in his autobiography10
and cherished the mutual sharing of ideas along
with the freedom to hold personal biblical convictions that he found with the Brethren. To some
degree his God-given personality played a part in his approach to theological or academic
conflict, but he was also influenced by the example he witnessed growing up in this movement.
Bruce writes,
My life thus far has been blessedly free from militant [academic or theological]
activity...This is not because I am a natural conformist: on the contrary, I have held and
expressed over the years a fair number of minority views—not to say unpopular views—
in many fields. But I have never thought it my duty to press my views on others; if they
differed from me, they could be right. Only, I claim for myself the liberty which I gladly
allow them, to hold and express the views which I believe to be justified by the evidence.
And such is the free atmosphere encouraged in the churches among which I have moved
that I rarely found it necessary to assert this claim: it has been granted to me as readily as
I have granted it to others.11
7
Bruce, In Retrospect, 304.
8
Ibid., 305.
9
The start of the Brethren movement can be traced to Ireland in the 1820s. It was (and still is) a group that
"met in an attempt to return to New Testament simplicity. They took as their guide, not the creeds and religious
traditions of the denominations around them, but rather the Bible" (“BrethrenOnline.org”,
http://www.brethrenonline.org/, accessed Jan. 2011.) The manifestation of this in Brethren policy means that there
were no clergy tied to a church. The gatherings are led by elders, who also regularly fulfill the role of teacher. See
the website listed above for more information.
10
This is partly explained by the fact that much of In Retrospect is a compilation of articles F.F. Bruce
wrote for The Witness, a magazine that was widely read among the Open Brethren. See the "Preface" of the book.
11
Bruce, In Retrospect, 172.

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He held strongly to theological convictions that he thought had the greatest evidential support
from Scripture, but did not respond with personal attack on those that held a different view.
Educationally, he received degrees from the University of Aberdeen (M.A.-Classics,
1932), Cambridge (B.A., M.A.-Classics, 1934) and Manchester University (M.A.- Hebrew
Language and Lit., 1963). His Classics training was in Latin and Greek.12
Interestingly, he never
did earn a doctorate degree even though he received multiple honorary doctorates. Bruce
remarked that, "had I been an American, the non-completion of a Ph.D. course might have been
a serious handicap in my future academic career. (Here I must resist the temptation to write the
article which I may one day, on the menace of the Ph.D. cult!) As it was, it made not the slightest
difference."13
Instead of pursuing this advanced degree, he was asked to function as an assistant
lecturer in Greek at Edinburgh University, which he accepted, and initiated his academic career.
Bruce remained engaged in academia for the next forty-three years (1935-1978) at a
number of universities and in a number of roles. After Edinburgh, he taught at Leeds and then
developed a department of Biblical History and Literature at Sheffield. He completed his tenure
at Manchester University (from 1959-1978), where he served as the Chair of Biblical Criticism
and Exegesis even though he had never formally studied theology or biblical studies.14
Nonetheless, Bruce "was above all a biblical theologian."15
As stated by Gasque, his "knowledge of the Bible was prodigious. Those who knew him
well believed that he had the whole Bible, in the original languages and in several translations,
committed to memory."16
Yet, even with his staggering intellect and prodigious technical and
12
McKim, Dictionary of Major Biblical Interpreters, 238.
13
Bruce, In Retrospect,97.
14
McKim, Dictionary of Major Biblical Interpreters, 238.
15
Ibid., 239.
16
Ibid.

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pastoral work (60+ books [or contributions] and numerous articles), he remained a moderate man
in temperament and scholasticism. "His comments on men and matters are pithy and without
malice or rancor...His balance has been shown in his sense of perspective. He can see how others
may be 'off', yet without allowing this to get him out of sorts," is what a friend wrote of him.17
Bruce was perceptive, passionate, profound and predominant, but not polemical in an era of
liberal theology and critical attack on the Word that he loved and studied until his death in 1990.
Contribution
Bruce's biblical scholarship and theology was both varied and extensive. While
personally admitting a greater strength and interest in NT studies,18
he was accepted as an expert
in the OT also. He served as the president of both the Societies for OT Study and NT Study. His
literary contributions included articles, essays, commentaries, and books on a variety of subjects.
He could (and did) write technically, but he also could (and did) write understandably and for the
non-scholar when appropriate.
According to Gasque, Bruce's first major work was his commentary The Acts of the
Apostles: Greek Text with Introduction and Commentary, which was first published in 1951.19
This is a highly technical book written for scholars and demands knowledge of Greek. Bruce's
writing in this large work (570+ pages produced over 10 years) is less theological than it is
lexical and historical.20
Evidently, the production of this commentary precipitated resurgence in
17
G.C.D Howley, “F.F. Bruce as a Friend,” Journal of the Christian Brethren Research Fellowship, no. 22
(November 1971): 17-18.
18
Bruce, Canon of Scripture, 9. Also, much more of his writing was based on NT theology, commentary
and history.
19
McKim, Dictionary, 240. Bruce's book is Frederick Fyvie Bruce, The Acts of the Apostles: The Greek
Text with Introduction and Commentary (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1990).
20
To sample Bruce's writing style and technique, much of this text can be read online at books.google.com.

6. 5
serious evangelical biblical scholarship because of its depth, breadth and precision in exegesis.21
It truly is an impressive work that, while not its purpose, displays the expansive capacity of
Bruce's intellect. He noted the importance of this work in his life as it "more than anything
else...introduced me to the intricacies of New Testament study and set me on the road which I
have traveled [academically]."22
Bruce went on to complete many other commentaries—some
technical lexical/historical, like his work on Galatians for the NIGTC and others more
theological, like The Gospel of John)23
—that covered most of the NT. He also acted as the editor
of many other biblical commentaries. In the later part of his life, he seems to have invested
greater time in studying the Pauline epistles and completed commentaries on most of these
letters.
The first book that Bruce authored, The New Testament Documents: Are They
Reliable?,24
has been influential and indicative of another area of his expertise; the formation of
the NT Canon. Bruce demonstrates his prowess as a scholar, historian, researcher, and
communicator by clearly presenting the historical evidence in support of the veracity of the
Christian Scriptures. The New Testament Documents has gone through multiple editions and
printings between 1941-2003 and is still one of the "best popular introductions available" on the
topic, according to N.T. Wright.25
In 1988, just a few years before his death, he authored the
book The Canon of Scripture, which is an excellent "text" on the formation of the both the OT
and NT Canons. To a greater extent than the above mentioned work, it is a history of the
formation of the NT through the first four centuries of the church more in line with the structure
21
McKim, Dictionary, 240.
22
Bruce, In Retrospect, 176.
23
Frederick Fyvie Bruce, The Epistle to the Galatians: a Commentary on the Greek Text (Wm. B.
Eerdmans Publishing, 1982). See also F. F. Bruce, The Gospel of John (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1994).
24
Frederick Fyvie Bruce, The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? (Wm. B. Eerdmans
Publishing, 2003).
25
Ibid., back cover.

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and composition of Westcott's A General Survey of the History of the Canon of the New
Testament During the First Four Centuries.26
Both of these books are very readable and
appropriately satisfying to the scholar and laity.
The last book published before Bruce's death, A Mind for What Matters,27
is a collection
of essays from throughout his life that he thought to be best or most important. It includes a
variety of subject matter from the NT and Classical studies, early Judaism (titled "Josephus and
Daniel") and the Qumran texts' input on the canonicity of the OT. It can be seen, again, that F.F.
Bruce's breadth and expertise of biblical scholasticism is extensive. His life's works were (and
are) influential in evangelical interpretation in the 20th-century. He did not attack the biblical
criticisms and liberalism of his day with polemics; he attacked through serious scholarship and
evangelical convictions that he held consistently throughout his life. The reading of his writings
is highly commended, and the emulation of his serious, but non-militant academic and
theological engagement is recommended.
26
Brooke Foss Westcott, A General Survey of the History of the Canon of the New Testament During the
First Four Centuries (Macmillan, 1855).
27
Bruce, A Mind for What Matters.

8. 7
Works Cited
“BrethrenOnline.org”, n.d. http://www.brethrenonline.org/, accessed Jan. 2011.
Bruce, Frederick Fyvie. A Mind for What Matters: Collected Essays of F.F. Bruce. Wm. B.
Eerdmans Publishing, 1990.
---. In Retrospect: Remembrance of Things Past. Rev. ed. London: Marshall Pickering, 1993.
---. The Acts of the Apostles: The Greek Text with Introduction and Commentary. Wm. B.
Eerdmans Publishing, 1990.
---. The Canon of Scripture. Downers Grove, Ill.: Inter-Varsity Press, 1988.
---. The Epistle to the Galatians: a Commentary on the Greek Text. Wm. B. Eerdmans
Publishing, 1982.
---. The Gospel of John. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1994.
---. The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2003.
Howley, G.C.D. “F.F. Bruce as a Friend.” Journal of the Christian Brethren Research
Fellowship, no. 22 (November 1971): 17-18.
McKim, Donald K. Dictionary of Major Biblical Interpreters. IVP Academic, 2007.
Westcott, Brooke Foss. A General Survey of the History of the Canon of the New Testament
During the First Four Centuries. Macmillan, 1855.