: F.F. Bruce
: Answers to Questions 800 Questions Answered about O& N Testaments, Theology, and the Christian Life
: Kingsley Books
: 9781912149582
: Answers to Questions
: 1
: CHF 10.50
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: Christentum
: English
: 270
: kein Kopierschutz
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For more than twenty years F.F. Bruce answered questions submitted by readers of 'The Harvester' in one of the most popular features of the magazine. The first half of this book covers questions and answers on the biblical text; the second half covers questions and answers on Christian doctrine and the Christian life. Two indices will help find topics of interest. However, reading through the answers at random will be an experience of delightful discovery of Bruce's comments on issues ranging from singing in worship to eschatology to what it means to be an evangelical. Questions asked to arouse controversy are answered in ways that are pointed, loving, and understanding. F.F. Bruce answered 2,000 questions in the pages of The Harvester over a period of twenty years. The 800 questions and answers in this book were chosen, classified, and indexed by Rev. Clive L. Rawlins.

F.F. Bruce (1910-1990), known worldwide as the 'dean of evangelical scholarship,' was Rylands Professor of Biblical Criticism and Exegesis at the University of Manchester in England. A prolific writer, his commentary The Book of the Acts in the New International Commentary series is considered a classic. Bruce combined an immense contribution to evangelical scholarship with a passion for proclaiming the Bible as God's guide for our lives. He used his great knowledge to explain the Bible simply and clearly.

The Pentateuch

Genesis 1:1.Am I justified in preferring to understand Gen. 1:1 as meaning,“In the beginning God created the ‘space’ and the ‘matter’”?

 

Hardly. The word translated “heaven” in our common version includes the material of the heavenly bodies as well as the space in which they move; the word translated “earth” denotes our planet as distinct from the rest of the material universe. The two words together comprise the whole created universe of space and time.

 

Genesis 1:1.What is the “beginning”of Gen. 1:1? Can it be understood as the beginning of God?

 

No; from first to last, the God of the Bible is revealed as the One who is from everlasting to everlasting and has neither beginning nor end. The “beginning” in which He created heaven and earth was the beginning of time; time (unlike eternity) is something which belongs to the created order. The material universe had a beginning then, and will in due course have an end.

 

Genesis 1:26.In Gen. 1:26, when God says, “Let us make man”, does the word “us” indicate the Holy Trinity?

 

It is more probably to be treated as the “plural of majesty,” or a plural denoting God as including within Himself all the powers of deity.See The Names and Titles of God.

 

Please explain the words “in our image, after our likeness” in Gen. 1:26, and indicate the reason for the repetition.

 

I find it difficult to distinguish in sense between “image” and “likeness” here and suggest that the repetition is for emphasis (cf. 1 Cor. 11:7, “he is the image and glory of God”). The words appear to denote man as a creature endowed with moral and intellectual responsibility with whom God can have fellowship and in whom He can see His own character reproduced.

 

Genesis 1:28.Does the word “replenish” in Gen. 1:28 mean that there were people on earth before Adam? Is it the same word as is used to Noah in Gen. 9:1?

 

The word used in both places is the ordinary Hebrew word meaning “fill”; it is so translated (rightly) in thersv andneb. Of course, in Gen. 9:1 we know that the idea of replenishing isimplied, for there were people on earth before Noah, but the Biblical record is silent on the presence of human beings before Adam (not to put it more categorically), and no such inference can be drawn from the language of Gen. 1:28.

 

Genesis 2:7.In The Unfolding Drama of Redemption,Vol. 1, p. 55, Dr. W. Graham Scroggie writes with regard to Gen. 2:7, “The body and the spirit (breath . . .)constituted the soul. The soul is the middle term in which body and spirit meet in the unity of personality.” This statement seems to imply that Body plus Spirit equals Soul. Is the writer advocating the dual nature of man? How would you deal with Gen. 2:7?

 

The phrase translated “living soul” in Gen. 2:7 means “a living person”; i.