Frederick Fyvie Bruce FBA (12 October 1910 – 11 September 1990) was a Scottish evangelical scholar, author, and educator who served as the Rylands Professor of Biblical Criticism and Exegesis at the University of Manchester from 1959 to 1978. He held the view that Evangelicals should not disregard academic approaches to Bible study, even if the findings may conflict with conventional evangelical beliefs. Consequently, he has been referred to as the “Dean of Evangelical Scholarship.” His biographer, Tim Grass, stated that “the issues which, for Bruce, were non-negotiable” can be summarized as the reliability of the New Testament, the identity and mission of Christ, the Christian experience characterized by forgiveness and freedom in accordance with being guided by the Spirit, and the entitlement and responsibility of each believer to utilize the gifts bestowed upon them by God.

Bruce was born in 1910 in Elgin, Moray, Scotland. His father, Peter Fyvie Bruce, worked as a traveling evangelist for the Plymouth Brethren. He motivated his son to think independently and to only embrace what he could verify in the Bible as a biblical principle. His family supported his educational pursuits, and he was recognized for his intelligence. He attended the University of Aberdeen, where he focused on Latin and Greek, earned a scholarship in the Classics, and obtained a master’s degree. At Aberdeen, he met Betty Davidson, who came from a Brethren background, and they wed in 1936. They had two children: their son, Iain, got married and became a professor at Memorial University in St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada, while their daughter Sheila, who was teaching at a training college in Uganda, married Christopher James Lukabyo. After his time at Aberdeen, Bruce continued his studies in classics at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, before moving to the University of Vienna in Austria to study Indo-European philology under Paul Kretschmer and others.

Although Bruce planned to pursue a Ph.D. in Vienna, he took on a role as an assistant lecturer in Greek at the University of Edinburgh and subsequently taught Greek at the University of Leeds. He never completed a doctorate but received numerous honorary doctorates. His growing interest in biblical studies led to his appointment as the inaugural head of a new Department of Biblical History and Literature at Sheffield University in 1947. In 1959, he was offered the position of Rylands Professor of Biblical Criticism and Exegesis at Manchester University, where he remained until retiring in 1978. Around the time he started at Sheffield, Bruce was also involved in founding and developing an evangelical organization aimed at advancing academic biblical studies, known as Tyndale House at Cambridge, along with the Tyndale Fellowship for Biblical and Theological Research. These initiatives were linked to the Inter Varsity Fellowship (later UCCF, The Christian Unions), and Bruce maintained a lifelong connection with this student organization.

A highly productive writer, Bruce authored almost sixty books and booklets, contributed to hundreds of articles, and completed over 2,000 book reviews. At the beginning of his career, he edited Vine’s Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words and facilitated its publication as a single volume from the original four volumes. Later on, he was appointed as the general editor of the New International Commentary on the New Testament following the passing of Ned Stonehouse, who was the prior editor. Additionally, he served as the editor for Yorkshire Celtic Studies, the Evangelical Quarterly, the Journal of the Transactions of the Victoria Institute, and the Palestine Exploration Quarterly. The first book Bruce published, Are the New Testament Documents Reliable? (1943), was largely influenced by lectures delivered to students. It gained considerable readership and was recognized by Christianity Today as one of “the top 50 books that have shaped Evangelicals.”

He authored commentaries on Habakkuk (included in The Minor Prophets, edited by Thomas Edward McComiskey, Baker, 1992), Matthew, John, Acts (one focusing on the Greek text and another on the English text), Romans, 1 & 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 & 2 Thessalonians, Philemon, Hebrews, and the letters of John.

Bruce’s major work (as noted by Theology Today) was his biography of Paul, which was published in England as Paul: Apostle of the Free Spirit and in America as Paul: Apostle of the Heart Set Free. The magazine Christian History remarked that, apart from the New Testament, “the best starting point for exploring Paul’s life is F.F. Bruce’s … most readable and engaging biography of Paul.” However, Robert Morgan expressed in The Journal of Theological Studies that there’s “a certain uncontroversial flatness about what we are told of Paul’s thought.” Bruce might agree with Morgan, as A.R. Millard pointed out, “Readers of Bruce’s extensive writings will search in vain for novel theories or speculative hypotheses devised to showcase the Author’s intellectual caliber, the type of work that gains fleeting admiration and is quickly replaced. Instead, his works meticulously and honestly assess evidence and interpretations in concise yet accessible prose, enriched with humorous examples and moments of dry humor.”

He also wrote numerous historical works: Israel and the Nations: from the Exodus to the Fall of the Second Temple; New Testament History: Jews, Romans, and the Church; and The Spreading Flame: The Rise and Progress of Christianity from Its First Beginnings to Eighth-Century England. He stated, “I have written as a historian, not as a theologian.”

Bruce viewed the New Testament writings as historically reliable and the truth claims of Christianity as hinging on their being so. To Bruce, this did not mean that the Bible was always precise or that this lack of precision could not lead to some confusion. He believed, however, that the passages that were still open to debate were ones that had no substantial bearing on Christian theology and thinking. Bruce’s colleague at Manchester, James Barr, considered Bruce a “conservative liberal.”

Bruce received two academic tributes from his peers and former students, the first commemorating his 60th birthday in 1970 and the second for his 70th birthday in 1980. The book titled Apostolic History and the Gospel: Biblical and Historical Essays Presented to F.F. Bruce on his 60th Birthday (1970) featured contributions from E. M. Blaiklock, E. Earle Ellis, I. Howard Marshall, Bruce M. Metzger, William Barclay, G. E. Ladd, A. R. Millard, Leon Morris, Bo Reicke, and Donald Guthrie. The volume titled Pauline Studies: Essays Presented to Professor F.F. Bruce on his 70th Birthday (1980) included essays from Peter T. O’Brien, David Wenham, Ronald E. Clements, and Moisés Silva. Both collections also saw contributions from C. F. D. Moule and Robert H. Gundry. Bruce was elected as a Fellow of the British Academy and served as president of the Society for Old Testament Study in 1965, as well as president of the Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas in 1975. Nevertheless, “the honor that brought him the greatest joy,” according to Alan Millard, “was the honorary D.D. granted by his alma mater, Aberdeen, in 1957.”