Customer Reviews

The Book of Acts (New International Commentary on the New Testament)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Overall, this commentary is rather well done. Bruce does an excellent job at providing an insightful commentary, and has a very strong command of the history, geography, and culture of Palestine and Rome, and the persons mentioned in the book of Acts.

It is especially interesting to see that Bruce seems to be rather Pentecostal in his interpretation of the outpouring of the Spirit passages. However, he avoids popular phrases such as "the baptism of the Holy Spirit" and "initial evidence" and the like. He also shows that he seems rather open to such a modern phenomenon, citing the biography of Sundar Singh, who was a missionary in India claiming to have had a Damascus like experience where he saw Christ.

However, some of the commentary seems a little lacking. The last 10-15 chapters of the commentary seem a lot skimpier than the earlier parts. Perhaps because there is not as much controversy with these parts, or who knows, maybe Bruce was under some sort of deadline. This is the main reason I don't rate this commentary 5 stars.

Mr. Bruce does an excellent job of giving the reader the necessary background information underlying the text of Acts. I found his commentary to be highly readable and easy to follow. It is not overly technical, but does make frequent mention of textual variants found in the Greek manuscripts.

Overall, I found this to be a solid intermediate-level commentary written from a moderate conservative perspective. Very helpful...

I don't want to write a lengthy review, but I do want you to know that this is a very well written commentary. I thought that I truly understood the book of Acts. After all, I've read the book of Acts over twenty times in my lifetime, but now I truly believe that I was missing about 60% of what Luke is trying to show his audience. With the help of F.F Bruce you will begin to see how from the beginning of the church God intended to bring the gospel to Jews and Gentiles and how he seamlessly brought that about. It also becomes very clear that the Apostles vigorously stressed the diety of Christ from Peter's very first sermon in Acts chapter two. You'll be able to understand, and appreciate how James ended up being the leader of the church in Jerusalem despite the fact that Peter was the undisputed leader early on.

I don't want to drone on, but this is an excellant commentary. Of all the commentaries that I've read, and I've read a fair number, this is my favorite. You'll probably read it cover to cover. I did.

F.F. Bruce is a great scholar and many of his commentaries have held the attention of many pastors and laymen to this day. No matter what your view is of his conclusions, his exegesis is almost always a force to be reckoned with.

Moderate/conservative and reformed in his roots, this commentary wins five stars because of it's valuable sholarship. I would also recommend Acts commentaries by I. Marshall Howard (Tyndale) and Richard Longenecker (Expositor's) if you are looking for exegesis and sholarly contribution... if you want "application" and "light devotional" material there are plenty of others to choose from (that are generally mediocre in terms of interpreting and explaining the meaning of the text).

A word of caution to the traditional "charismatic": You may not agree with all he has to say about the traditional "baptism of the Spirit" proof text passages... I still recommend reading it so that you may be challenged to interpret Acts again.

`The Book of the Acts, Revised' in `The New International Commentary on the New Testament' series, written by F. F. (Frederick Fyvie) Bruce, is an excellent addition to this series, and a worthy follow-up to Joel Green's commentary on `The Gospel of Luke' in the same series. I once made two mistaken statements about this series, commonly abbreviated as NICNT. The first is that the editors tend to commission relatively junior scholars to do their commentaries, often as revisions of their doctoral dissertations. The second is that the series uses the relatively old `American Standard Version' translation of 1901. Both Professors Green and Bruce are distinctly senior, highly qualified commentators, both of whom contribute their own translations. As I always use the NRSV as a primary translation, I look forward to a commentator's own personal translation, based on a deep knowledge of the particular scripture. And, Professor Bruce has a deeper knowledge than most, as he finished a commentary on the Greek text of Acts before doing this commentary.
The separate commentary on the Greek has a salutary effect on the current work, as it separates out all the tedious philological and text critical findings for those who are primarily interested in such things. That leaves only professor Bruce's commentary on the literary, historical, and theological matters we find in Luke's Acts.
Acts does not have quite as many interpretational difficulties as Luke's Gospel. Therefore, some commentators' approach, such as the more recent work by Darrell Bock, tends to obscure the relatively cleaner text by discussing many different interpretations, including many from this volume. Like many of the commentators in `The New Interpreter's Bible (NIB)', Bruce focuses on a clean and illuminating organization of the text, with excellent material for applying the text to modern church and pastoral questions. Unlike the NIB, Bruce has excellent references to Hebrew sources, primarily the Mishnah. If fact, it was Bruce's commentary which pushed me to finally get a copy of the Mishnah as an aid to understanding references to Jewish practice in both the Hebrew and Christian scriptures.
It may not count for much in many reviewers' evaluations, but I also find the design of the NICNT volumes' typesetting to be superior to many other series, especially to the Word Biblical Commentary volumes. It does little good to have excellent material if aging eyes find it difficult to read it.
Like Green's commentary, I would suggest Bruce's volume over many others, with the one caveat that it is at least ten (10) years older than several important new commentaries, such as the Anchor Bible contribution by Joseph Fitzmyer and at least five (5) years older than Luke Timothy Johnson's Sacra Pagina volume, and both are important and useful for the lay or pastoral user. So, I strongly recommend this volume, used together with Fitzmyer's volume or some other recent commentary. For those reviewers who do not find much new, I sympathize with their observation, but suggest that this is more evidence for the fact that this is a very good first (but not only) commentary on Acts for the pastoral or lay user.

This commentary on Acts offers a great deal of historical background on the people, places, and events of the 1st century Christian church. In some places it gets a little bogged down with the names of all the people, but quite often Bruce offers interesting insights into the climate of the times. Taking the time to slow down and review some of the accounts in Acts really opens your eyes to details that are easily missed, or left out in the translation. There could have been more discussion of theological issues in the commentary, but Bruce seemed to be content in describing historical aspects. The commentary did convey a respect for the book of Acts as the Word of God, and would be a good place for a reader to get some additional insight into Acts.

I used this commentary for chapters 1-9:31 for an assignment on Acts - so I can't comment on the remainder of the book, only what I used. So take my comments with pinch of salt.

Bruce's commentary was helpful, but I agree with other reviewers who said he does little more than restate the text. He doesn't deal with any tough theological questions that the text brings up. For example, When Peter is before the Sanhedrin and says that Jesus is the stone the builders have rejected, he rightly insists that this was imagery for speaking of Israel, rejected by nations but favoured by God. But Bruce stops there and doesn't press on further to grapple with the theological significance of this text. What does it mean to say that Jesus is now the rejected cornerstone? How does that affect or change the relationship with Israel and the Church?

As such I did not find it that useful for my assignment on early Church in Acts. I would reccomend The NIV Application Commentary, I.Howard Marshall's commentary on Acts (Tyndale NTC), John Stott's BST on Acts, and Tom Wright's Acts for everyone as additional resources if you already own Bruce. Ironically as introductory commentaries they go further than Bruce to wrestle with some of the issues the text raises. You may not agree with their conclusions but at least they are engaging with the text critically and asking deeper questions.

I just finished reading this commentary a few days ago. F.F. Bruce has done an outstanding job and is very thorough. I highly recommend this for any serious student of the book of Acts. It's quite analytical and gives us the background of each and every character we come across in Acts. Bruce had an amazing way with words. His phraseology is masterful as he guides you through Luke's world-changing historical work. It may take some discipline to make it to the end but you won't be disappointed. My experience with this commentary was that it was required reading for my Acts class. I read this volume, Stanley Horton's stand-out Acts: A Logion Press Commentary, and Acts four times in a 6 week period. I highly recommend Bruce's (Horton's also) work here.

I've been using the NICNT series for several years and I would definitely recommend this particular volume on the Book of Acts to everyone.

This is a great book when used as a study companion with the Bible. Bruce had good research, and he is intouch with the opinion and belief's of other Bible scholars.