Alexander Balmain Bruce

Alexander Balmain Bruce (January 31, 1831 – August 7, 1899) was a Scottish churchman and theologian. He was a minister of the Free Church of Scotland.

He was born at Aberargie in the parish of Abernethy, Perthshire, on 30 January 1831, was the son of David Bruce, a Perthshire farmer. He was educated at Auchterarder parish school. At the time of the disruption his father removed to Edinburgh. Bruce entered Edinburgh University in 1845 and the divinity hall of the Free Church of Scotland in 1849. His early faith was subjected to severe trials during his studies, and he was at times 'precipitated down to the ground floor of the primaeval abyss.' These doubts, however, he surmounted and entered the Free Church ministry.

After acting as assistant, first at Ancrum and then at Lochwinnoch, he was called to Cardross in Dumbartonshire in 1859. In 1868, he was translated to the east Free Church at Broughty Ferry in Forfarshire, and in 1871 he published his studies on the gospels entitled The Training of the Twelve, which established his reputation as a biblical scholar and a writer of ability. They were originally delivered from the Cardross pulpit, and reached a second edition in 1877. In 1874, Bruce was Cunningham lecturer, taking as his subject The Humiliation of Christ (Edinburgh, 1876, 8vo; 2nd edit. 1881); and in 1875, on the death of Patrick Fairbairn, he was appointed to the chair of apologetics and New Testament exegesis in the Free Church Hall at Glasgow. In the twenty-four years during which he occupied this chair he exercised the strongest influence over students, both from his wide knowledge and on account of the magnetism of his mind. At the same time he published a number of exegetical works which established his fame with a wider circle. Among the more noteworthy were St. Paul's Conception of Christianity (1894), his 'Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels' in the Expositor's Greek Testament (1897), and The Epistle to the Hebrews: the First Apology for Christianity (1899). He and William Robertson Smith were the first Scottish scholars whose authority was regarded with respect among German biblical critics.

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