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Title: The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? by F. F. Bruce ISBN: 0-8308-2736-6 Publisher: Intervarsity Press Pub. Date: April, 2003 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.67 (12 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: good book
Comment: Bruce is one of the most important new testament scholars. His book contains valuable information, but it is a little dated. For example, Bruce doesn't think it reasonable to date Mark any further back than 65 a.d., but some scholars now have argued that perhaps it could go back as far as 50 a.d. based on internal evidence in the gospels and Acts. (Has anyone else noticed the similarity between the mini-apocrypha in Mark 13 and Daniel 9:24-26? Perhaps even atheist scholars could accept this early date) I was hoping for a more thorough treatment of the Pauline epistles and the rest of the new testament, but the focus is clearly on the gospels. Bruce does, however, include a chapter on the Pauline epistles. It's a good book, especially if you're not acquainted at all with new testament scholarship. A more thorough and up-to-date approach to some of the problems Bruce discusses can be found in "The Historical Reliability of the Gospels" by Craig Blomberg, who also discusses the rest of the new testament briefly.
Rating: 4
Summary: Want Proof?
Comment: Don't let the title fool you! Mr. Bruce's motive is to prove beyond a shadow of doubt of the validity of the New Testament scriptures; he does drive his point home. He did an outstanding job in uncovering many sources that the above average student of the Word could even begin to find. He covers the four Gospels with stuning detail( even their dates of writing) as well as an overveiw of the various epistles. He also discusses the canon of scriptures. What I found to be the most helpful was his covering various writings by the early church fathers, Jewish literature, and even some rather interesting gentile(pagan) writings. Purchase this book and be prepared for some interesting reading. Go with God.
Rating: 3
Summary: an arc of fire
Comment: Some honest person needs to write a spiritual biography of F. F. Bruce. He was a brilliant young man who grew up in the Plymouth Brethren, the fundamentalist "pre-mil" movement organized (if that is the word) by John Darby in the early nineteenth century. By the time of Bruce's birth in 1910, the modern approach to Biblical studies had entrenched itself as the regnant force in all the major seminaries and universities in the UK. The mainline Protestant denominations were also being challenged and transformed by the advancing criticism. Fundamentalist movements of the Darby stripe had become increasingly marginalized, disenfranchised, ridiculed. Over the first thirty years of the 20th century, the cleavage between traditional interpretations and modern learning had become insurmountable.
But you couldn't tell that to young Frederick Bruce. At a time when traditional believers were in retreat, weakly defensive, apologetic in that word's worst connotation, tending to unstable bravado, and lamenting their seemingly inexorable loss of ground and talent to the other side, Bruce positioned himself in the gap, determined to ingest all of modern scholarship from archaeology to Aramaic, embrace the Enlightenment ideal of learning (open, reasoned, non-obscurationist), weigh and analyze each argument and position down to the most technical detail, and become a respected, contributing member of the community of (infidel) academics -- all the while deflecting the advance of modernism, reclaiming large swaths of territory for believers, presenting himself as a pattern for other young believing scholars, and, in his person, being both the polite and pious young Christian and the quintessential British scholar-gentleman. In other words, young Fred had a grand notion of "F. F. Bruce" which he willed into being by sheer energy, determination, hard work, and devout faith -- a romantic act of self-creation as monumental as that of Jay Gatsby. Here was a young man who dreamed dreams, saw visions. Bruce would be a pedant-conquistador, a great white hope, a local-boy-made-good, a sheep among wolves (wise as a serpent, innocent as a dove), heroic and vast, a fortress and a haven.
Bruce describes this book (The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable) in the preface as his "literary firstborn", and on every page one can sense his own sense of mission and growing powers. Written in his late twenties and early thirties, the book exhibits that "native hue of resolution" which has not yet been sicklied o'er by the pale cast of thought. But (as Joseph Heller might say) something happened to Bruce between 1943 and 1981, when he wrote in the preface to the sixth edition these haunting words: "... the book still helps to serve the purpose for which is was written. It is, I am sure, a better book for that purpose than any that I could write today..." In that statement a profoundly painful kind of confession is being made: at the age of 70, Bruce no longer was at ease or in tune with his earlier approach and conclusions.
But (but!) this could only be confessed _sotto voce_ because of his persona, the fusion that he promised to embody between scholarly credentials and a healthy confession. In public he had to maintain the on-going program he had set out for himself, and, in his writings and lecturing, to draw a veil over the ulcerated places in his faith. As his career progressed, this led to increasingly bland results; his works tended to mealy-mouthedness, aversions from prickly implications, sleights-of-hand to distract the reader, a lack of engagement. At crucial points in the narratives of the middle and later books (all of which continued to be touted as "conservative scholarship"), one can palpably detect the absence of some expected affirmation; it's like suddenly encountering a pocket of vacuum while walking through a windy corridor. And the affirmations that remain seem strained and solitary, too tentative and carefully ratiocinated to be wholly heart-felt -- at least not with the whole-heartedness that characterizes this, his first book.
And so the game begins: who can scour Bruce's large oeuvre and find all of those hints of what he lost? And what did he lose that he never gave indication of? What sort of personal stance did he take to the potential or real dishonesty of his position? Were there emotional shocks, private tears, months or years of cognitive dissonance? Did he harbor any secret sourness toward his many admirers? How did all of this affect his relationship to the Brethren (a very conservative group that was sure to take note of any minor deviations by one of their own)? Who (if any one or more) knew him well enough to tell the whole story; and how much did he let on, even in private? And will anyone come forward in time who is qualified and willing to write the kind of biography that Bruce's life calls for?
The breadth and depth of what he was trying to achieve and the respect (and sheer gratitude) that he engendered among evangelicals are the dramatic engines of this story. In broad outline it seems to shape up as the tale of a man who tried to serve two masters and pleased only one, or neither. Or, in the words of the Jackson Browne song: "...he started out so young and strong, only to surrender. Are you there? Say a prayer for the Pretender."
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Title: The Canon of Scripture by Frederick Fyvie Bruce ISBN: 083081258X Publisher: Intervarsity Press Pub. Date: November, 1988 List Price(USD): $27.00 |
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Title: The Historical Reliability of the Gospels by Craig L. Blomberg ISBN: 0877849927 Publisher: Intervarsity Press Pub. Date: July, 1987 List Price(USD): $18.00 |
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Title: The Historical Jesus: Ancient Evidence for the Life of Christ by Gary R. Habermas ISBN: 0899007325 Publisher: College Press Publishing Company, Inc. Pub. Date: June, 1996 List Price(USD): $17.99 |
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Title: Who Moved the Stone? by Frank Morison ISBN: 0310295610 Publisher: Zondervan Pub. Date: 27 August, 1987 List Price(USD): $10.99 |
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Title: The Resurrection of the Son of God (Christian Origins and the Question of God, 3) by N. T. Wright ISBN: 0800626796 Publisher: Fortress Press Pub. Date: May, 2003 List Price(USD): $39.00 |
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