D.A. Carson Festschrift

Prof. D.A. Carson (TEDS) was given his Festschift last Tuesday night by John Piper, John Woodbridge, and Lane Dennis. You can read about at it the TGC post and read John Piper's tribute of appreciation to Carson.

D.A. Carson on Westminster Catechism Rap

Denny Burke has the audio for a rap song about the Westminster Catechism that features D.A. Carson. Very amusing. Carson has many talents, now I know that rapping down in da hood is one of them. Worth listening to for a laugh!

200 copies of "Scandalous"

In our front office is 200 copies of D.A. Carson's "Scandalous: The Cross and Resurrection of Jesus". They were graciously donated by Crossway publishers for the forthcoming celebration of the Bible College of Queensland changing its name to Crossway College. Thanks Crossway! BCQ students and supporters should remember to register for the event taking place on the 24th of July that includes speaker Ron Sider, the launch of the alumni association, a lunch, and of course their "goodies" bag with "Scandalous" inside.

D.A. Carson on the "Trial of Biblical Studies"

Thanks to Andy Naselli, available on-line is D.A. Carson's popular level essay, "The Trials of Biblical Studies" where he warns of several potential pitfalls in doing biblical studies: Integration, Work, Pride, Manipulation of Scripture, and Priorities. The section on pride is definitely worth the read. The biggest temptation for seminary students and biblical scholars is to take pride in their career of advanced learning as setting them apart from others. I try to offset this temptation with my daily citation of 2 Cor 4.5 and Rom. 12.3, though others will determine if that rote citation is effective in my own case. Carson's essay finishes with a call for humility in the study of the Bible. All those engrossed in biblical studies should read this short essay!

My Easter Reading

As I get ready for Easter, my readings will include:

N.T. Wright, The Challenge of Easter (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2010). See Google Books and this You.Tube video with Wright talking about the book.

D.A. Carson, Scandalous: The Cross and Resurrection of Jesus (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2010), some good stuff in here, I've heard the sermon on the "Irony of the Cross" on three different continents!

D.A. Carson on NT Theology

It's been nearly 15 years since D.A. Carson published his article, "‘Contemporary Issues in Biblical Theology: A New Testament Perspective, BBR 5 (1995): 17-41, which is one of the best intro's to biblical and NT theology around. In a recent review of Udo Schnelle's Theology of the New Testament, Carson concludes his assessment of the work with these remarks:

Any NTT, let alone a NTT that will allow itself, whether on canonical or other grounds, to be part of a broader biblical theology, would be greatly enriched by close exegetical examination of how the different corpora of the NT cite and allude to the OT. The NT writers variously insist that Jesus’ body is the temple of God, that he is the lamb of God, the good shepherd, the true vine, the passover sacrificed for us, that he is the ultimate David, the ultimate (Melchizedekian) priest, that the church is the royal priesthood, that Jesus in some way recapitulates Israel’s history, that the exodus is in some ways paradigmatic, and so on and so on. What were their warrants for making these connections? Of course, one might side with Barnabas Lindars and conclude that this is nothing but irresponsible proof-texting that cannot and should not be replicated in Christian exegesis of the OT today. Yet I have come to the conclusion that many of the warrants taught or presupposed in the pages of the NT are subtle, careful, thoughtful, and in some cases distinguishable from Jewish appropriation techniques (e.g., the middoth of Hillel). One must ask what hermeneutical changes took place in Paul’s mind between the time he went to Damascus and when he returned—not just what theological conclusions changed in his mind (for they are largely obvious), but what hermeneutical approaches shifted in his thinking that enabled him to warrant, in his own biblical exegesis, his newfound Christian convictions, while he appealed to the same (OT) biblical texts he had appealed to before his encounter with Christ on the Damascus Road. For instance, while the pre-conversion Paul would have elevated the Torah to the point of hermeneutical control in his reading of Tanakh, the Christian Paul displays deep interest in what might be called the salvation-historical sequence of events in the Old Testament (see, for instance, his arguments in Rom 4 and Gal 3). That salvation-historical interest is duplicated in Hebrews (Heb 3:7-4:13; 7:1-25) and elsewhere. New Testament writers point out in the strongest terms that these distinctions are there in the OT text. They do not think they are imposing extraneous or anachronistic material onto the text. Out of such observation and reflection springs the possibility of “eine ganz biblische Theologie [‘a truly biblical theology,’ ‘a whole-Bible biblical theology’].” Professor Schnelle’s inability to find Jesus in the OT was not shared by the NT writers whose theology he is trying to write up. Unpacking that line of thought is, of course, beyond the scope of these few reflections. And in any case it is far better to end by expressing my thanks to Professor Schnelle for his extraordinary achievement.

New D.A. Carson books (and the musical Cats)

As a good follow up to the last post, Andy Naselli at Between Two Worlds announces D.A. Carson's two new forthcoming books on Tolerance and Evangelicalism. I have to confess that everytime someone asks, "What is an Evangelical?" I keep hearing a song in my head from the musical Cats, Jellicle Songs for Jellicle Cats, but with different lyrics: "Once were you blind, but now do you see? Do you own six copies of Today's NIV ... Because (Evan)gelicals can and (Evan)gelicals do, (Evan)gelicals can and (Evan)gelicals do ... Do you know how to get to the Billy Graham Centre? Do you think Rick Warren's your mentor ... cause (Evan)gelicals can and (Evan)gelicals do ... (Evan)gelical songs for (Evan)gelical Saps" etc. I don't know why, I wanted to be a lyricist when I was younger, maybe I am just disturbed.

D.A. Carson on the Gospel Coalition

Over at CT, Susan Wunderink has a good interview with D.A. Carson on the Gospel Coalition. Carson makes some good points on what it is like to work with others in a post-denominational age, their refusal to export TGC overseas so as to avoid becoming another instrument of American hegemony, and some positive comments on women serving in local churches from a Complementarian perspective using the Sydney Anglicans as a model (I have to confess that because TGC does not have a single woman on its board, I've always had a question mark about whether it would serve to promote women in Christian service). A good interview that is worth reading.

D.A. Carson on Training the Next Generation of Evangelical Scholars

Thanks to Andy Naselli for posting D.A. Carson's 1998 ETS address about training the next generation of evangelical scholars (which is available in MP3).

A number of important points are raised by Carson. Let me mention a few:

1. I agree that evangelicalism must be defined theologically (as opposed to defining it sociologically or as a post-enlightenment religious renewal movement). For me the centre of evangelicalism must be the evangel, rather than things like inerrancy or complementarianism, while a number of theological corollaries follow from the evangel, nothing must displace the evangel as the theological center. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the distinctive element of an evangelical theology would be the setting out of the gospel as part of it's prolegomena.

2. I concur fully on the primacy of learning the content of the Bible. For me, there is not much point teaching the current academic debates or subltleties of NT background if one does not know the basic gist of each biblical document. And Carson is right, you cannot assume that seminary or college students have this basic knowledge of content any more because (a) many Christians who were converted in their teens or twenties never had any exposure to the Bible before (myself included here), and (b) many churches have dumbed down their biblical teaching This is why I included a chapter summarizing the content of all of Paul's letters in my book Bird's Eye-view of Paul and why I pain stakingly drive into my students the outline of the biblical books. Indeed, making students read a basic text book on Christian doctrine as an entrance requirement for seminary might not be a bad idea either. I recollect with horror an experience whereby a first year theological studies student [not at my current institution and a relatively new covert I must add], upon hearing the mention of the Trinity in a lecture, asked: "I didn't think that WE believed in that Catholic stuff?".

3. I could not agree more with the importance of biblical theology as something that needs to be taught in order to provide an over-arching meta-narrative for evangelical students and scholars. The sad fact is that it is not taught in a number of institutions and it desperately needs to be.

4. The issue of integrating subject areas is a real challenge and Carson identifies the need for this area to be given further thought. The role of the local church in mentoring and fostering a distinctively evangelical spiritual formation in training of students is another area worthy of consideration too.

5. Carson is also right that theological curriculum needs to be updated and reflect the challenges of the cultural context. That means adding courses and dropping courses as required. If I were ever to be made president and dean of my own imaginary seminary (located just off the Great Barrier Reef in central Queensland) I would include a multi-disciplinary module on "A Theology of Sexuality and Gender" taught jointly by a theologian, a sociologist, a psychologist, and a medical doctor (since these are the prevailing issues of the day, esp. for the conservatives in the mainline churches) and make every student take language courses in either Arabic or Chinese to make them eminently employable on the foreign mission field and on the cross-cultural mission field in their own cities.

Carson's lecture is worth listening to for anyone interested in theological education (even if you're not an evangelical). Soon I hope to read Dale B. Martin on Pedagogy of the Bible: An Analysis and Proposal which may well provide a very different perspective on theological education.

Biography of D.A. Carson

Andreas Kostenberger has posted a biographical sketch of D.A. Carson of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School which is a very good read. I admire the productivity and sheer breadth of Carson's work in the New Testament as well as his pastoral focus too. (I often lay awake at night in fear that I'll be mentioned in the third edition of Exegetical Fallacies). He is also one of the few scholars who is just as good in person as he is in print which I've learnt from Carson's almost yearly visits to Australia. Best of all Carson is a good example of another Baptist Anglophile! Recently, D.A. Carson has written a biography of his father entitled: Memoirs of an Ordinary Pastor: The Life and Reflections of Tom Carson which will be illuminating of Carson's own spiritual journey too no doubt.

HT: Justin Taylor.

Another great save!

Over at Metacatholic Doug Chaplin notes a very odd occurence of how someone found his blog. Apparently someone googled: "michael bird saving don carson".

For what it is worth I do not think Don Carson needs saving; although I do defend Carson's book Justification and Variegated Nomism against some of the criticism it has received from several scholars including Jimmy Dunn in his TrinJ review in an large footnote in Saving Righteousness of God (pp. 93-94, n. 14). But that is pretty much it. Though I imagine that the search was probably expressing a conflation of words rather than expressing an actual sentence.