Editing Josephus on Jesus (section)

=== Arguments for presence of Christian interpolations ===
The ''{{lang|la|Testimonium}}'' has been the subject of a great deal of research and debate among scholars, being one of the most discussed passages among all antiquities.{{sfn|Feldman|Hata|1987|p=55|ps=. [https://books.google.com/books?id=f3KwlJSQr4cC&q=aforementioned Google books]}} Louis Feldman has stated that in the period from 1937 to 1980 at least 87 articles had appeared on the topic, the overwhelming majority of which questioned the total or partial authenticity of the ''{{lang|la|Testimonium}}''.<ref>''Josephus, the Bible, and History'' by Louis H. Feldman and Gohei Hata 1988 {{ISBN|0-8143-1982-3}} p. 430</ref> While early scholars considered the ''{{lang|la|Testimonium}}'' to be a total forgery, the majority of modern scholars consider it partially authentic, despite some clear Christian interpolations in the text.<ref>{{cite book |author=Alice Whealey |title=Josephus on Jesus: the testimonium Flavianum controversy from late antiquity to modern times |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eZUlAQAAIAAJ |access-date=19 February 2012 |year=2003 |publisher=Peter Lang |isbn=978-0-8204-5241-8}}</ref><ref>Meier, 1990 (especially note 15)</ref>

The arguments surrounding the authenticity of the ''{{lang|la|Testimonium}}'' fall into two categories: internal arguments that rely on textual analysis and compare the passage with the rest of Josephus' work; and external arguments, that consider the wider cultural and historical context.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Paget |first1=J. C. |title=Some Observations on Josephus and Christianity |journal=The Journal of Theological Studies |volume=52 |issue=2 |year=2001 |pages=539–624 |issn=0022-5185 |doi=10.1093/jts/52.2.539}}</ref> Some of the external arguments are "arguments from silence" that question the authenticity of the entire passage not for what it says, but due to lack of references to it among other ancient sources.{{sfn|Van Voorst|2000|pp=91–92}}

The external analyses of the ''{{lang|la|Testimonium}}'' have even used computer-based methods, e.g. the matching of the text of the ''{{lang|la|Testimonium}}'' with the [[Gospel of Luke]] performed by Gary Goldberg in 1995.<ref name="Goldberg1995">Goldberg, G. J. 1995 "The Coincidences of the [[Emmaus]] Narrative of Luke and the Testimonium of Josephus" ''The Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha'' 13, pp. 59–77 [http://www.josephus.org/GoldbergJosephusLuke1995.pdf]</ref> Goldberg found some partial matches between the ''{{lang|la|Testimonium}}'' and Luke 24:19–21, 26–27 stating "the Emmaus narrative more closely resembles the ''{{lang|la|Testimonium}}'' in its phrase-by-phrase outline of content and order than any other known text of comparable age."<ref name="Goldberg1995" /> Goldberg's analyses suggested three possibilities: that the matches were random, that the ''{{lang|la|Testimonium}}'' was a Christian interpolation based on Luke, or that both the ''{{lang|la|Testimonium}}'' and Luke were based on the same sources.<ref name="Goldberg1995" /> In a later work, published in 2022, Goldberg investigated Josephus's paraphrase style and concluded only the last of these possibilities could explain why the Emmaus-''{{lang|la|Testimonium}} language relationships were end-to-end consistent with Josephus's methods of revision.<ref name="Goldberg2022" />