Israel and the Nations

Written by F.F. Bruce, revised by David F. Payne Reviewed By Brian Kelly

F.F. Bruce (1910–90) was probably the most significant figure in the renaissance of British evangelical scholarship since 1945. Although he is perhaps best known as a writer of NT commentaries, he also produced some substantial studies in OT and church history which continue to inform and enlighten students today.

The first edition of Bruce’s history of Israel appeared in 1963 (originally as a handbook of biblical history for Religious Education teachers). The work has now been revised by one of Bruce’s first Biblical Studies students, David Payne (himself the author of an OT history). The changes do not significantly affect the main body of the text. They consist mainly of the substitution of the NIV for biblical quotations, updating the bibliography, and revising the endnotes to indicate some of the disputed questions in contemporary biblical scholarship. For example, the notes indicate alternative views for the dating of the Exodus (p. 8), and Payne demurs—as would most commentators today—from Bruce’s dating of Ezra’s mission to Jerusalem (p. 106).

As the title suggests, the principal focus of the book is upon Israel as a nation, often in relation to its powerful neighbours. In twenty-eight manageable chapters it recounts and interprets the main events of Israel’s story, from the Exodus to the destruction of Jerusalem in ad 70. Since the emphasis is chiefly on the political life of the nation, Israel’s religion and literature are considered somewhat in passing and mainly as they illuminate this concern, rather than as subjects in their own right. The primary material for the period up to the beginning of the Hellenistic era is the OT itself, for Bruce certainly believed that the biblical writers were reliable as historians, for all that they had theological motives. This is in marked contrast to some more recent reconstructions of the origin and identity of ‘Israel’, where some writers manifest considerable scepticism about the pre-exilic period (to the point of denying the historicity of the Exodus or the existence of David). Pre-dating these contemporary debates, Bruce was much more positive, but he was not reactively conservative; he accepted a number of moderate critical views about the growth of the biblical text which are now commonplace among many evangelical scholars.

Since the book has as its terms of reference Israel in the land from c. 1300 bc to ad 70, it overlaps with most of the biblical period and material but also goes well beyond them. This has the disadvantage that there is nothing about the patriarchal period, but by way of compensation the-Hellenistic period is recounted in good detail. Here, Bruce’s first calling as a classicist comes into play, as about half of the book is devoted to describing the rival Greek empires and the conflict of characters and power politics that shaped the land in which Christianity was cradled. The so-called ‘intertestamental period’ is rather less well known to students in theology and religious studies (particularly to Protestants without an Apocrypha to hand), but it provides the essential background to the NT and features some of the most interesting (and notorious) characters from ancient history. The work is rounded off with some very useful genealogical and chronological tables of the political dramatis personae, but there is no scripture index.

For many generations of students this book has been a very serviceable Introduction to biblical history, and this revised edition should ensure its continued usefulness into the next decade.


Brian Kelly

Canterbury