Distinguished cleric visits

by N. E. Whitehead

It is unusual to have a theologian of the calibre of Canon Montefiore visiting Vic. It is even more unusual to have two such within a short time of one another. The second will be here on August 3, 4, 5, and take a student service on the seventh.

This visitor is Professor F. F. Bruce, who is Rylands Professor of Biblical History and Criticism at Manchester University. He was born in Elgin in 1910 and is an MA of both Aberdeen and Cambridge. After further studies in Vienna, he lectured at the University of Leeds where he was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Divinity in 1957. He has been at Manchester since 1960.

He is president of the Victoria Institute, and editor of the "Palestine Exporation Quarterly" and "Evangelical Quarterly," as well as contributing to a large number of other journals. He has written books on early church history (a trilogy) on the transmission of the Bible ("The Books and the Parchments"), on all the various modern translations, commentaries of Acts. Colossians, and Hebrews, and has him-- self published an expanded paraphrase of the Epistles which has received favourable critical notices.

Professor Bruce is generally acknowledged as an expert on textual criticism (that is, how much the text of the Bible has changed from the original documents) and also on the Dead Sea Scrolls. He has given lectures on these and other subjects to groups of students in Europe and America, and mentions that his lectures here will be aimed at the average student rather than the theologian.

The lectures will all be held in the Men's and Women's Common Rooms combined from 1pm to 2pm. Professor Bruce is in New Zealand in response to a joint invitation by the Inter-Varsity Fellowship of Evangelical Unions and the Wellington Assembly Research Fellowship.

Six American student leaders visited Victoria last weekend. Five of them are pictured here — from left, Steve Oxman, Larry Rose, Pete Wales, Victoria vicepresident Ian McKlnnon, Clinton Duveux and Elsa Holtz. The sixth student, Al Milano. was not present when this picture was taken at a public address last Monday.

Pete Wales spoke on "The United States New Left" and Clinton Duveux spoke on "Black Power and the Civil Rights movement" to an audience of about 300 students.

The students, from the United States National Students' Association, are on an overseas tour to meet fellow students, especially dissident groups.