Donald Arthur Carson (born December 21, 1946) is a Canadian-born evangelical theologian and professor of New Testament.
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Carson was born in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, to Thomas Donald McMillan Carson and Elizabeth Margaret (née Maybury), but grew up in Drummondville. He earned his B.S. (1967) in chemistry and mathematics from McGill University, his M.Div. from Central Baptist Seminary (Toronto), and his Ph.D. (1975) in the New Testament from the University of Cambridge. Carson married Joy (née Wheildon) on August 16, 1975.[1]
Carson served as pastor of Richmond Baptist Church in Richmond, British Columbia from 1970 to 1972. Following his doctoral studies, he served for three years at Northwest Baptist Theological College (Vancouver) and in 1976 was the founding dean of the seminary.[1] In 1978, Carson joined the faculty of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, where he is currently serving as research professor.
In connection with reading the Sermon on the Mount, Don Carson advises: "Start with the structure of the sermon, and thus how it fits together. My father used to tell me that a text without a context becomes a pretext for a proof text, so when I was still quite young I learned to look at the context." ("One Way (Matthew 7:13-27)", in Richard D. Phillips, editor, Only One Way?: Reaffirming the Exclusive Truth Claims of Christianity, Crossway Books, 2007, pp. 127–142, at pp. 133–134.) In Biblical criticism, a proof text is the scriptural text that proves, or is claimed to prove, a particular doctrine. As a result of frequent overuse and occasional abuse of proof texts, the term has acquired a negative and sometimes even pejorative connotation.
Carson has quoted this adage in his lectures for several decades, before it gained popularity as a result of being quoted out of context by Jesse Jackson: "Text, without context, is pretext." (Sheldon R. Gawiser & G. Evans Witt, A Journalist's Guide to Public Opinion Polls, Praeger, 1994, p. 111.)
Carson has written or edited 57 books, many of which have been translated into Chinese.[2] These include major commentaries on Matthew in the Expositor's Bible Commentary (ISBN 0310499615) and John (ISBN 085111749X), commentaries on parts of the Bible, such as 1 Corinthians 12-14 (ISBN 0801025214) and the Sermon on the Mount (ISBN 0801024803). He has also written books on prayer, suffering, and free will and predestination from a generally compatibilist and Calvinist perspective.
His 1996 book The Gagging of God: Christianity Confronts Pluralism (ISBN 031024286X) won the 1997 ECPA Christian Book Award for the "theology and doctrine" category.[3]
Other publications include:
Publications and Audio: