James, whose bones appear to have been laid to rest in a first-century burial box now at the Royal Ontario Museum, is the person who best teaches me the intricacies of the Golden Rule. A tough, no-nonsense, practical person when it came to Christianity, he is believed by many to have left his opinions behind in five pithy chapters in the New Testament book titled "James."

Considering the unusual beginning and the violent end of dear brother James, it's entirely appropriate that it is his supposed ossuary that now lies at the centre of a search for tangible proof of the existence of God.

James was the second-born in a clan whose members thought their sibling Jesus was "out of his mind." James was a complete skeptic about the divinity of the brother who had slept under the same roof as he, so imagine what unfolds when the first-century version of the newswire informs this family that their odd brother Jesus is drawing a crowd by casting out demons, healing lepers, even curing a mother-in-law. James, on whom we're now pulling for evidence of the Messiah, was the very man who attempted to silence what he must have thought was a family scandal.

Frankly, I thought it a scandal to read in Time magazine that what may be bone fragments of James are now tucked in a Tupperware box, sitting quietly on a shelf of an antiquities collector who tried his best to stay unknown in all this. The owner wants to be left alone and avoid the hassles of rabbis, Israeli customs, radiocarbon dating or DNA testing. It's that kind of aloofness that is causing this 1,939-year-old box to get an authenticity rating of only six on a 1-to-10 scale from Dr. Paul Maier, professor of ancient history at Western Michigan University.

Hundreds of first-century ossuaries available for discovery can be helpful clues for religious history, says Dr. Maier, pointing to one found in 1968 that contained bones of "Yehohanan," a man in his mid 20s who had been crucified, even including a large, rusty, iron spike still lodged in the heel bones, evidence that crucifixion was, indeed, practised in Christ's day. The ossuary of Caiaphas, the politically savvy priest who inspired the death warrant for Jesus, was found in 1990, so complete with bones and detail that it ranks a 10 on Dr. Maier's authenticity check.

"Evidence outside the Bible in first-century sources for the history of Jesus is overpowering," said Dr. Maier. Still, he's not about to get swept along in the idea that we actually have found our biblical James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus.

There is, after all, a fair amount of faith that the academic community appears to be placing in this box. Since an expert in ancient inscriptions such as Andre Lemaire, who first examined the James ossuary, and the prestigious Biblical Archeological Review magazine, which broke Mr. Lemaire's story, largely endorse this find, the scholarly world is taking it quite seriously, indeed. We have to wonder if the relic's significance is growing not because of authenticity, but because of our faith -- both in the experts and our longings for God.

Finding a crushed skull that may have rested in the ossuary is the only definitive way to know if this ossuary is that of Jesus's brother James, argues Dr. Maier. In his books on first-century historians Eusebius and Josephus, Dr. Maier records non-biblical sources that document that James, the doubting sibling, went on to become the first bishop of the Christian church and was martyred because he refused to deny that Jesus, his half brother, was Lord, Saviour and Son of God. James, whose reputation among the public was "James the just, the most righteous," was placed by his accusers on the parapet of the Temple at Jerusalem, and quickly pushed off, stoned, and finally clubbed to death on the head by a laundryman who used the mallet he normally employed to beat out clothes.

What was the skeptical James thinking that had changed his mind so radically that he was able to boldly die to proclaim Jesus as Messiah? All we can surmise is that by the time James had spent three years going over the evidence of what his brother Jesus was doing with people, his beliefs had changed.

There's no record of James being present at Jesus's death, and it appears he initially disbelieved the story that Christ had risen from the dead, but St. Paul records a special appearance to James of the risen Christ after his resurrection. James then emerges as a leader in asserting that Jesus is the Son of God.

Lorna Dueck is a broadcaster/producer.