On “New Testament History” by F. F. Bruce *****

Imagine a Bible commentary presented in chronological format, and you'll have something of what this book by F. F. Bruce is like. Bruce lays out the context in which the early Christian church came into being, first by discussing the Roman and Jewish social and cultural world of the time, then by telling how John and Jesus did their work, and then by following the early apostles in their work. Going into this book, I thought I'd be underwhelmed. After all, much of this information is in the scriptures themselves—or so I thought. But Bruce doesn't just follow the biblical line, giving information that readers could easily glean from their own Bibles. Rather, the contextual discourse set up in the first third of the book continues through the whole thing, such that one gleans a fuller understanding of each of the events presented in any scripture that Bruce touches on. Although much of this information was familiar to me, some of it was not, and I feel I could return to particular biblical passages with a greater understanding. That said, this isn't a book with a particularly strong thesis, so any arguments one might have for or against the work are likely to be with sections than with the work as a whole, which is instead rather encyclopedic.