The most remarkable aspect of the discovery of a 1st century ossuary in Jerusalem is the sobriety with which the news of possibly the first non-Biblical attestation of Christ has been greeted. Despite the startling inscription engraved on the limestone box's side - "James, Son of Joseph, Brother of Jesus" - international scholars are calmly debating the matter and refusing to get drawn into excited speculation. Good.

To this end, the Geological Survey of Israel is microscopically examining the chisel marks (are they authentic?); statisticians are estimating how many of the 40,000 men living in ancient Jerusalem were not only named James, Joseph and Jesus, but were related (three sets, apparently); and linguists are debating the exact, contemporary meaning of the word "brother".

This is archaeology as it is meant to be: detached, expert scholars engaging in a search for objective truth. It is worth comparing such an "old-fashioned" approach with that nowadays adopted by many activist "academics" who proudly declare they politicize facts (sorry, "facts" ) to serve their ends. Truth, for them, does not exists, so it becomes acceptable to pervert scholarship to advance the "progressive agenda".

It is a practice unfortunately not confined to the academy. In recent years, the Palestinian Authority's "archaeologists" have devoted a great deal of time to, of all things, disproving any Jewish link to Jerusalem or Israel. The aim is to strengthen Yasser Arafat's hand in claiming Jerusalem as his capital.

So it happens that the PA Director of Antiquities says there is no record of Judaism before Jesus (we are not making this up) and that a 6th century synagogue (complete with mosaics of the Holy Ark, menorahs and Hebrew writing) is a "church". The PA's Planning Ministry omits any mention of Jews, Judaism, the Bible or the Temple in its literature on Jerusalem, while PA officials bizarrely contend that no first or second Temple ever existed. When asked, then, what he made of Rome's famous Arch of Titus, which was built to commemorate the Second Temple's destruction, the chieft PA archaeologist/denier said: "I've never seen it."

Granted, the sheer dishonesty and self-deception of politicized archaeology can be breathtaking, but we prefer to wait breathlessly for the findings of real scholars as they discover more about this intriguing ossuary.