F.F. Bruce (1910-1990)

Frederick Fyvie Bruce, usually referred to as F. F. Bruce, is known world wide as the ‘Dean of Evangelical Scholarship’.

F.F. Bruce was born in Elgin, Moray, Scotland .His father was a Christian Plymouth Brethren preacher. He was educated at the University of Aberdeen, Gonvilla and Caius, College Cambridge and the University of Vienna.

F.F. Bruce was in Christian fellowship at various places during his life , but his primary commitment was to the Open brethren among whom he grew up.

He began his career by teaching Greek at the Universities of Edinburgh and Leeds. He then became Head of the Department of Biblical History and Literature at the University of Sheffield in 1947. In 1959 he moved to Manchester University to become Rylands Professor of Biblical Criticism and Exegesis. There he stayed until he retired from teaching in 1978.

F.F. Bruce wrote over 40 books and served as editor of both the The Evangelical and Palestine Exploration Quarterly.

His first book New Testament Documents: Are they Reliable? (1943) was voted in 2006, by Christianity Today , as one of the top 50 books ‘which have shaped evangelicals.’*

He was a scholar on the life of Paul the apostle and wrote several studies. Paul: Apostle of the Free Spirit, in the USA Paul: Apostle of the Heart Set Free, is the best known. He wrote commentaries on many of the books in the New Testament. He also wrote popular works on the Bible.

J.I. Packer said - 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.

F.F. Bruce, a British biblical scholar, who supported the historical reliability of the N.T., was one of the most influential evangelical scholars of the second half of the 20th century.