Andy Naselli

Thoughts on Theology

D. A. Carson

Beale and Carson’s Commentary on the NT’s Use of the OT

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This uniquely useful volume was published in November 2007:

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Beale, G. K. and D. A. Carson, eds. Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007.

  1. Last year I spent two or three hundred hours proofing it, so I am fairly familiar with it. It is not always scintillating reading, but it is a thoughtful, first-class reference that I will continue to consult often (especially since I am planning to write my dissertation on the use of the OT in a NT passage). I anticipate that many theological journals will publish reviews of this book that will unanimously praise it as uniquely useful. Many reviews may point out minor areas of disagreement, but this is inevitable given the eclectic theological perspectives of the contributors. (E.g., I. Howard Marshall’s Arminian perspective comes through more than once in his comments on Acts.)
  2. The first paragraph of the preface explains some of this project’s background:
    • “When the two editors of this volume began the project almost a decade ago, neither of us anticipated that it would take this long to bring it to completion. Unrealistic expectations, illness among the contributors and their families, and shifting and competing obligations all conspired to delay the project. We are profoundly grateful for the patience of the contributors who managed to submit their work in a timely manner, some of whom updated their work later, and of Baker Academic, whose editorial staff encouraged and even cajoled editors and contributors alike, but never nagged” (p. vii).
  3. The PDF excerpt here includes the table of contents and introduction.
  4. Craig Blomberg weighed in on a blog post that questioned the volume’s value.
  5. Today Collin Hansen’s bi-weekly “Theology in the News” column at Christianity Today is entitled “Two Testaments, One Story: Top evangelical scholars team up for landmark commentary on New Testament use of Old Testament.” Hansen interview interacts with both Greg Beale and Don Carson.

Carson on the Pastor as Father and Son

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Last night, this morning, and this evening D. A. Carson delivered three addresses at the 2008 Desiring God Conference for Pastors:

  1. The Pastor as Son of the Heavenly Father (MP3 audio | MP4 video)
  2. The Pastor as Son of an Earthly Father (MP3 audio | MP4 video)
  3. The Pastor as Father to His Family and Flock (MP3 audio | MP4 video)

Related: Q & A with Piper, Carson, Loritts, and Livingstone (MP3 audio | MP4 video)DAC

Graham Cole: “Do Christians Have a Worldview?”

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A series of thoughtful essays are forthcoming via Christ on Campus Initiative. The essays are (1) by evangelical scholars, (2) geared for campus evangelism, and (3) edited by D. A. Carson.

Christ on Campus Initiative (CCI), a non-profit organization generously supported by the Carl F. H. Henry Center for Theological Understanding (a ministry of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School) and the MAC Foundation. CCI exists to prepare and circulate materials for college and university students, addressing an array of fundamental issues from a Christian perspective. Readers and organizations may circulate these essays without charge.

These articles will be made available as PDFs, and the first article in this series was just posted this afternoon: a 26-page PDF by Graham Cole entitled “Do Christians Have a Worldview?”

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Here’s the article’s outline:

  1. Questioning the Question
  2. A Touchstone Proposition
  3. Pascal’s Pensée No. 12
  4. The Book That Understands Me
    • Creation
    • Fall
    • Rescue
    • Restoration
  5. Describing: Is It Enough?
  6. Has Christianity A Worldview?
  7. Assessing Frames of Reference or Worldviews
  8. An Invitation
  9. P.S.: Understanding the Book That Understands Me
  10. Annotated Bibliography

The answer to the title’s question is a qualified Yes and No. Christianity is not technically a worldview, but the Bible’s storyline establishes a worldview.

Read the whole thing, and spread the word!

Don Carson’s Advice about Two Ways to Approach Writing a Dissertation

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vanlandingham.jpgDon Carson’s review of Chris VanLandingham’s Judgment and Justification in Early Judaism and the Apostle Paul includes sound advice about two ways to approach writing a dissertation (Carson’s advice also applies to writing a research paper):

I frequently tell my doctoral students as they embark on their research that dissertations in the broad field of the arts disciplines, including biblical and theological disciplines, can, at the risk of slight oversimplification, be divided into two camps.

[1. Deductive Approach] In the first camp, the student begins with an idea, a fresh insight, a thesis he or she would like to test against the evidence.

[2. Inductive Approach] In the second, the student has no thesis to begin with but would like to explore the evidence in a certain domain to see exactly what is going on in a group of texts and admits to uncertainty about what the outcome will be.

[1] The advantage of the first kind of thesis is that the work is exciting from the beginning and directed by the thesis that is being tested; the danger is that, unless the student takes extraordinary precautions and proves to be remarkably self-critical, the temptation to domesticate the evidence in order to defend the thesis becomes well-nigh irresistible.

[2] The advantage of the second kind of thesis is that it is likely to produce more even-handed results than the first, since the researcher has no axe to grind and is therefore more likely to follow the evidence wherever it leads; the danger is that there may not be much of a thesis at the end of the process, but merely a lot of well-organized data.

In reality, of course, dissertation projects regularly straddle both camps in various ways. But VanLandingham’s work neatly falls pretty exclusively into the first camp. That makes for interesting reading. Unfortunately, VanLandingham’s work also demonstrates in a superlative fashion the dangers of this sort of approach.

Paradoxical Humans and Your Worldview

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Daniel L. Migliore observes that humans are paradoxical:

“We human beings are a mystery to ourselves. We are rational and irrational, civilized and savage, capable of deep friendship and murderous hostility, free and in bondage, the pinnacle of creation and its greatest danger. We are Rembrandt and Hitler, Mozart and Stalin, Antigone and Lady Macbeth, Ruth and Jezebel” (Faith Seeking Understanding: An Introduction to Christian Theology [2d ed.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004], p. 139).

How many worldviews can adequately account for that? Christians account for it with the Fall in Genesis 3 and by tracing harmatiological trajectories all the way through to the consummation in Revelation 21–22. The Fall is an essential component of the Bible’s storyline; without it we’d have a hard time making sense out of reality.

The Fall, however, is only part of the frame of reference necessary for making sense out of reality. That frame of reference is supplied by the Bible’s storyline. For a thoughtful presentation of that storyline, see chapters 5–6 in D. A. Carson, The Gagging of God: Christianity Confronts Pluralism (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), pp. 193–314.

Gagging of God

See also chapters 2–3 in D. A. Carson, Christ and Culture Revisited (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, forthcoming [Spring 2008]).

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