Mark Keown

I see that Titanic director James Cameron is making a doco for Discovery Channel on Jesus' tomb which has apparently been found in Jerusalem! The idea is based on an excavation in southern Jerusalem of what is termed the Talpiot Tomb with 10 empty ossuaries (stone 'bone boxes' for burials). Some of the ossuaries are inscribed with the names Yeshua bar Yehosef (Jesus son of Joseph), Maria (Mary), Yaaqov bar Yehosef (Jacob son of Joseph), Yehuda bar Yeshua (Judah son of Jesus), Yose (Joses), Matya (Matthew?) and Mary e Mara. Now some have put two and two together and have concluded that this is the burial place of Jesus and his family along with a disciple or two (Matthew and Mary Magdalene). Is this for real? Well there are severe problems with the idea. Firstly, the names are astonishingly common at the time. According to Richard Bauckham's analysis these names were all in the top ten most popular names in Israel at the time (Joseph 2nd; Judah 4th; Jesus 6th; Matthew 9t...

In Interpretative Method this week I raised the issue of tithing in relation to Malachi 3. I avoided the question that the passage raised 'should Christians tithe'. Here I will dare to give some thoughts: 1. Christians who believe God's word tells them to tithe should tithe: Paul when dealing with arguments over non-essentials such as eating, Sabbaths, eating meat from the temple butchery (cf. Rom 14-15; 2 Cor 8) suggests that the answer lies not in one group imposing on others what they should do, but on people living by their conscience as they believe in the Lord. Those who reject tithing should allow others to disagree with grace and freedom. Those who argue from the Scriptures for tithing too should not impose on others their viewpoint. We should allow freedom of conscience on this issue. 2. Christians who believe God's word does not endorse tithing should not: Similarly and for the same reasons, Christians who after weighing up the arguments believe tithing is not...

Wierd guy that I am, in light of the performance against the Aussies the other day, I have been thinking about the best team of players from the start of NZ one day cricket experience. I have not considered players who played before one day cricket like John Reid who would no doubt have been a great one day player. However, I have gone for the best 11 as I see it. Openers: Astle is a certainty with 16 one day centuries (next best 7, Fleming!). He also adds to the bowling with 99 wickets as well. Not a bad fielder too; the complete package. The second opener is Turner who provides the foil for Astle, able to hit over the top or to attack. In a curtailed career he averaged 47 and scored 3 centuries. We know from his county cricket performances that he is beyond peer as an opener in both forms of the game. Top Order: Crowe has to come in at 3. He is NZ's best batsman without question averaging 38 and with a solid strike rate. Fleming is the next legitimate batsman with 7 centuries. He...

It's been a few days since we slaughted the Aussies in the recent Chappell-Hadlee and it is good to get past the euphoria and think about it in a sober manner. It is all good that we won; as the cliche goes, winning is a habit and it is good to get into the habit. It is also good that we exposed the weakness in the Aussies; that is, their bowling attack, which is not the usual miserly Australian bunch. Australia go to the West Indies with a brilliant batting line up, and a weak attack. Ironically though, I think the addition of Clark will strengthen their bowling as he is more accurate than Lee and more suited to the slower tracks. Having said that, I think Australia will struggle to subdue the batting line ups of the Indians, Sri Lankans, West Indians and Pakistanis. I think too that NZ will find the going tough over there as they face tremendous batting sides. Any chance we have relies on a fit Bond, Vettori and our batsmen giving the bowlers something to bowl at every time. They...

A student asked me this very good question the other day and so I thought I would put some thought to it. The problem we have as Christians is that we work in a certain degree of circularity. We argue that the Bible points us to God and then determine who God is from the document. Can we therefore make the claim that the Bible is the Word of God? For me, it is a cumulative argument like so many theological arguments i.e. no one argument proves it, but the sum-total of a set of arguments points strongly in this direction. Having said that, it has to be conceded that this like so much of what theologians and philosophers postulate is not able to be proved totally in an emperical sense. Rather, it is a one faith-based conclusion to a set of thoughts. 1. The Bible's Self-Witness: There is no statement in the Bible that says that the whole Bible is the Word of God but there are a series of statements in which the Bible says things of itself that point in this direction. For example, Pau...

Oh yeah, Go England! Who would have thought that England would give the Aussies a 2-nil thrashing in the Tri-Series! Outstanding. It also makes me wonder how the Ashes would have gone if this English side had had a decent build up. But maybe that is irrelevant. Hats off; and they did it without Pieterson! Fantastic. I think the Aussies had it coming! Now does this get the NZ team off the hook because it turns out that the English are a good team? No way! They really are under achieving at present. Our talkbacks are clogged with criticism and defence of Stephen Fleming; 'should he stay of should he go?' Well it is clear to me that Fleming is not himself. On his last trip over the Tasman he was sensational, dominating the Aussies. Then there was his demolition of the South African Graeme Smith several years ago. He is not the same man, down on passion, down on confidence and down on form. Sure he got a ton in the final game, but it was not his usual free-flowing innings. I do not...

I have just watched a bit of evening TV and saw on One was an account of Michael Holmes whose main chute got snarled up so that he could not open his reserve and then plunged into blackberries somehow surviving with a collapsed lung and a broken ankle. The other is Andrew McAuley and Australian explorer who has gone missing near Milford Sound kayaking from Australia to NZ. Having seen the accounts of both, Michael was exceedingly lucky (or blessed depending on your perspective on God's involvement) while Andrew on the other hand, is not so. What has happened to Andrew is terribly sad and my thoughts go out to the family. These two events however, make me ask the question; where is the line for Christians between celebrating our humanity with exploration an/or life-threatening activities and treating life as a precious gift to be celebrated and not wasted with excessively dangerous activities? On the one hand, life is to be explored, enjoyed, celebrated. God is with us as we do thin...